here's what's up with A04326
Erin Johnson
environmental conservation committe and multi-sponsor (that's the mlt)
of A04326) returned my call this morning (at 8:47am... how nice it is
being home and a time zone behind new york).
Here's what he said:
-The bill still needs a lot of work and he doesn't know that it'll
ever be done
-There are a bunch of other environmental bills out there too
-Give it 60 days (I guess that's when all finalized bills go to out or
something).... which brings us right up to February 12th
Where we go from here:
Option 1- Look for the other bills that are perhaps closer to complete
and see if they've got stuff about reductions in emissions.
Option 2-Wait till February and see what happens.
Option 3- Any suggestions?
I'm willing to search for other bills (if they've got what we want in
them) that are more likely to come out of committee. I just don't
know where to begin. Regardless, we probably won't know anything
until February. We're kind of stuck until then. It's a good thing
we've decided on a press conference. So we'll make the most of it
while we're there in February, possibly ask about any bills that have
come out of committee and start getting ready for May.
William James Eden
So, I got a call this morning from Jackson Morris from the Environmental
Advocates of New York. He said he thinks it's unlikely the bill would be
out of committee in time, but said he'd be willing to help us find
alternative bills to support.
So here's what I'm thinking:
1) We make sure we meet with every memeber of the environmental committee
and urge them to get 80 by 50 legislation as soon as possible.
2) We meet with other reps, explain to them the importance of 80 by 50
and the need for them to support an 80 by 50 bill eventually, but also
talk to them about other bills they should support in the mean time.
Erin, would you be willing to be our point person on finding some possible
bills to support? You wouldn't need to research them all thoroughly, but
just find out the name of some and we'll see if we want to support them.
Jackson from the EANY might be a good person to contact to start. I'll
give you his contact if you'd be wiling to take this on.
OK, talk to you all on the 22nd.
Peace,
Fil
rj...@cornell.edu
website (www.eany.org). They list and rate all of the bills that have
come out of committee that would have an effect on the environment.
After a quick check, it seems most of the things that have an effect
on climate change are related to energy policy. There's some good
stuff out there, but not anything as concrete or as big as A4326. I
also found something really awesome which I had overlooked the first
time I looked at the site. It's a voter's guide developed by EPL, a
sister organization of EANY. It rates each person in the state senate
and assembly based on how they've voted on previous bills! I'll post
that right now. I'm not sure about things that are still in
committee, but maybe if we contact EANY they can help us with that
too.
rj...@cornell.edu
I think my first reply to this was eaten. Fil covered most of what I
was going to say anyway. I just found something really helpful on the
EANY website. Somehow I missed it the first time I visited. I knew
that it had ratings for bills affecting the environment, but they also
have a voters guide which scores each person in state senate and
assembly on how they voted for these bills! It's at
http://www.eany.org/capitolwatch/votersguide/2007VotersGuide.pdf
Carlos Rymer
international/national climate on this issue is HOT. Voters are increasingly
taking this issue as something legislators must address. Although it seems
that the bill will not come out of committee, we can make it come out with
strategic actions that put the people in certain committees on the spot. So,
it will be us who will get that bill moving along. We need to partner with
someone in Albany who can work full-time on this campaign. That's what got
us going on the NJ bill when we worked on it. I don't think Jack can get
someone to do that, but if we can go to the finance comm and ask them to get
some funds from a foundation or something to cover a full-time person to
work on this bill, it would go a long way.
Just something to keep in mind. The bill can move quickly if pressure builds
quickly.
Carlos
Carlos Rymer
New York State Coordinator, Sierra Student Coalition
President, Sustainability Hub
Vice President, KyotoNOW!
Renewable Energy Director, Romana Sostenible
E-mail: carlos...@gmail.com
Cellphone: 551-556-0189
www.itsgettinghotinhere.org
www.sustainithaca.org
www.medioambienterd.org
www.romanasostenible.org
www.newyorkssc.org
William James Eden
all the ones I thought would be of interest below. There's a lot here, so
even if A04326 isn't out of assembly, there's no shortage of bills to
lobby for. That said, I agree with Carlos that 80 by 50 is our goal and
we should push hard for it. Read these over, see what you think.
A.8641b (Sweeney, et al.) and S.6124 (Marcellino)(not currently a same as)
would require light bulb manufacturers to adopt a certain efficiency
standard, while requiering the proper disposal of CFL's
A.5494 (Weprin) would provide subsidies or low interest loans to small
businesses to do an energy audit and increase efficiency. This could be
important from a "just transition" perspective.
A.2005a (Lupardo, et al) /S.5442a (Marcellino) require all new state
buildings are built with certain energy efficiency and resource use
standards.
A.3318 (Colton et al.) requiers that certain materials, which can now be
legally thrown away or incinerated, are recycled. This mandatory
recycling is currently done only for materials that the plants can sell.
A.7266b (Sweeney, et al.)/S.4324b (Maziarz, et al.) would include NY in a
group of states negotiating an agreement on great lakes water use. This
relates to us because currently 15% of the states electricity comes from
hydropower, and if we want to keep this renewable source of energy
renewable, we need to ensure there isn't a 'tragedy of the commons' type
situation.
A.7335 (Hoyt, et al.)/S.4369 (LaValle)require state agencies comply with
certain 'smart growth' criteria when designing the expansion and
development of their towns, helpping to reduce sprawl, which is a cruial
long term need of our movement.
A.7366 (Gianaris, Sweeney)/S.5347 (Marcellino)and A.7365 (Sweeney, et
al.)/S.5371 (Marcellino) would create a fund for investing in renewable
energy and energy efficiency. The money for the fund would come from the
auctioning of CO2 credits (as outligned by RGGI, RGGI legislates a 10%
reduction of CO2 by 2020 through carbon auctions)
A.7367 (Sweeney, et al.)/S.5427 (Marcellino)would set up a task force to
look at the issue of climate change and propose action to legislatures.
A.2162 (Galef, et al.) and S.3855 (Marcellino, et al.) (not currently same
as) I don't quite understand this one, but it somehow makes it easier for
municipal governments to buy wind and solar energy.
S.1634 (Fuschillo, et al.)/A.824-A (Englebright, et al.) will provide tax
credits to help offset the cost of installing wind and solar power.
A.7451 (Farrell)/S.4482 (Skelos) sets up tax credits for solar power, but
expands the elidgibility from 10kw to 50kw, so people need to install more
solar pannels to be elidgible.
We might want to oppose S.5011 (Alesi), which gives tax-exemption on the
sale of heating oil to households and some businesses
A.7909 (Sweeney, et al.)/S.5451 (Marcellino)provides tax credits for
renewable energy home heating systems and cleaner fuels for boilers.
A.8304 (Englebright) would help renewable energy use on Long Island by
prohibiting power companies from charging households who voluntarily go
off the grid.
A.7438 (Rosenthal, et al.)/ S.4364 (Marcellino, et al.)establishes
efficiency standards for outdoor lights owned by the state (like on
highways and outside state owned buildings)
A.1695 (Tonko, et al.)/ S.1988 (Parker, et al.)mandate that every 120
miles of highway has a refueling station that provides cleaner fuels.
These fuels have yet to be determined, but could include ethanol,
methanol, natural gas, propane, electricity, and hydrogen.
A.8690 (Englebright, Millman & Tonko) would expand current law so that
businesses could sell electricity generated by wind and solar back to the
grid. Right now, individual households can, but businesses cannot.
Article X of the Public Service law is responsible for legislating
electric power stations. Right now, the article is up for renewal and
there are bills in the assembly and senate to renew it. The one in the
Senate, S.5908 (Wright), does not go far enough (according to EANY) and
we might want to oppose it. The one in the house A.8697 (Tonko & Silver)
goes further, requiring significant regulation of power plant construction
and existing power plants. We might want to oppose the senate one and
support the assembly one.
A.7494 (Sweeney, et al.)/ S.4360 (Marcellino, et al.)would make it state
policy to take precautionary measures to protect public health and the
environment. It further makes it state policy that, where threats of harm
to human health or the environment exist, a lack of full scientific
certainty about cause and effect is not sufficient to postpone state or
local governments from taking the necessary precautionary actions. I like
this one alot.
A.7271a (Hoyt)/S.4338a (LaValle) provides low interst loans to towns and
municipalities who adhere to "smart growth" criteria of development. This
is intended to combat suburban sprawl by empowering local government to
deny permits to businesses who want to develop unsubstainably.
We may want to oppose A.871 (Destito)/S.1483 (Skelos), which provides
subsidies to businesses that develop in undeveloped areas, contributing to
sprawl.
A.7483a (Sweeney, et al.) would require state agencies to adhere to
certain environmental standards, including purchasing recycled materials,
waste reduction, energy efficiency, and green building practices.
A.3414a (Magnarelli, et al.)/S.6276 (Wright) would create a greenhouse
gas management research and development program to provide grants to
research institutions for the development of "technologies or processes
to avoid, abate, mitigate and capture carbon dioxide and other greenhouse
gasses."
A.5449 (Dinowitz)/S.4362 (Marcellino) would provide up to $5,000 in tax
credits for the instalation of green roofs.
A.9003 (Sweeney, et al.)would provide rebates for vehicles who pollute
less than a certain standard.
A.7570a (Magnarelli, et al.)/S.5390 (Wright) would provide subsidies of
25cents/gallon on the development of cellulosic ethanol
A.8940 (Tonko, Silver, Gianaris, et al.) is the Assembly energy plan. It
does a lot of what these bills above do, combining energy efficiency
standards and green building stnadards with the creation of a climate
change task force, and greater supervision of power companies. If we're
going to support only 1 other bill, maybe this should be it.
A.9199 (Sweeney) would require the NY Department of Environmental
Conservation to include on their website tips for reducing our individual
carbon footprint.
A.9169 (Sweeney) would require state agencies to report their total
annual greenhouse gas emissions and recomend steps to reduce them.
A.5177 (Perry, et al.)/S.4531 (Golden) would authorize power companies to
buy more energy efficient refrigerators for client, then take out the
cost of the refrigerator in the savings on the electricity bill.
So, we have a lot to talk about. Can anyone not make the conference call
this Saturday the 22nd at 9pm?
Peace,
Fil
John
i should be able to do the call coming up :)
-john