Last night, MYD had the pleasure of hosting a discussion with Robert Moore, the Executive Director of Environmental Advocates of New York, an environmental watchdog group in our lovely state capitol of Albany.
Now, you might wonder why you should pay attention to state-level environmental policy. Most of the news headlines in this space are national stories–but the truth of the matter is, federal-level agencies like the EPA and laws passed by Congress are usually only “guidelines” (to quote a pirate), and the actual implementation falls to the states. And implementation is where the rubber meets the road.
Robert’s fun, engaging talk was very educational, starting from the big picture of how Albany operates (read: most of the time, not in the interest of the people of NY) and the wider environmental law landscape (the Bush years were marked by a leadership vacuum in this space that lead many state and regional bodies to take the lead, especially on climate change) to a drill-down of the priority bills EANY is lobbying for as the legislative session draws to a close on June 23rd.
Most of the materials are available online on their website. Most helpful at this juncture is their list of legislative priorites, including the top five “Super Bills” and an assessment of their environmental impact. With only a handful of session days left, now is the time to make your voice heard with your representatives about how to vote on these critical pieces of legislation.
The “Super Bills” identified by EANY are:
- Wetlands Protection
- Greenhouse Gas Control Act
- Electronic Waste Recycling
- Environmental Access to Justice
- The Bigger Better Bottle Bill (passed but “on hold” due to the misguided decision of a federal judge)
All of these are vital legislation, but perhaps the most impactful isthe Greenhouse Gas Control Act. The background here is that a massive, gargantuan climate change bill is currently winding its way through the U.S. House of Representatives. Robert spoke at length about this bill, describing it as a “Christmas Tree on which too many people have hung their ornaments and is now at risk of toppling over”–it was originally slated as a cap-and-trade system but has been gutted so that over half of the carbon credits are given away for free! A bit more digging shows just how toothless this thing really is:
At the federal level, the Waxman-Markey bill so far calls for reductions of only 3.26 percent compared to 1990 levels — less than half the cuts the U.S. CAP has endorsed and only about 10 percent of the cuts advocated by China and the EU.
So why is this important? Because as Robert pointed out, now is the time when a strong climate change bill in a politically powerful state like NY can really make a statement. The Greenhouse Gas Control Act would require an 80% reduction in global warming pollution from 1990 levels by 2050–and importantly, it would leave it up to experts at state agencies to figure out how to get us there. (Yeah, politicians–not such great climatologist.) This is a critical message to send nationally that we aren’t going to take wishy-washy, industry-catering climate change bills and the federal government needs to step up to the plate and take real action.
MYD has a standing invitation from Robert to visit Albany and assistance getting our representatives’ attention, so feel free to email Lin Gordon, the Chair of our Environmental Issues Committee, if you want to get in touch with our friends at EANY: green [at] goMYD [dot] com.
Thank you again to Robert for coming down and taking the time to share his expertise with us!
It was a great talk. Robert is as witty as he is informed. Looking forward to inviting him to speak again and getting involved on these important issues.