Jen Metzger, PhD, is Senior Policy Advisor to New Yorkers for Clean Power and a former NYS State Senator. She also serves on the five-member NYS Cannabis Control Board, where she works to build a cannabis industry on the principles of the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act: equity, restorative justice, public health, and sustainability.
In the State Senate, Jen was a leading voice for action to tackle climate change, move away from reliance on fossil fuels, and increase job-creating clean energy investments. She was an active member of the Senate’s workgroup on the nation-leading Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act and a strong advocate for its passage, and she led efforts in the State Legislature to create a permanent ban on fracking, passed as part of the budget in 2020.
Jen also introduced a number of bills to tackle climate change and encourage clean energy investments and practices, including the Freedom from Fossil Fuels Act (banning new fossil fuel infrastructure), a package of legislation to support and expand clean transportation, a bill creating a carbon-farming tax credit to promote healthy soils and sequester carbon, and bills to reduce single-use plastics.
Prior to her election to the State Senate, Jen served for over a decade in local government in the Town of Rosendale, where she led numerous town-level climate and environmental initiatives as well as the successful fight to stop the Pilgrim fracked crude oil pipeline. She also co-founded and directed Citizens for Local Power, an organization dedicated to fighting unfair utility practices and helping communities shift to an equitable, locally-based clean energy economy.
Jen has a PhD in political science from Rutgers University, and a BA with High Honors in government from Oberlin College. She lives in Rosendale, in Ulster County, and she and her husband, John have three sons, Gideon, Jasper, and Silas.
