April 2, 2007

Welcome to Environmental Advocates of New York’s online newsletter from the State Capital, your source for environmental news. We’ll update you every other week with tidbits and observations carefully gleaned from the halls of the Capitol.

FREE PETE, REPEAT:
Grannis Confirmed as DEC Commissioner in Midst of Budget Backdoor Dealmaking

Starting today, there’s a new top-dog at the DEC, and his name is Alexander B. “Pete” Grannis. The agency had been without a Commissioner since January, and the nomination had been stuck in the Senate, possibly a victim of the partisan politics that Albany is so notorious for.  On March 20^th the Senate’s Environmental Conservation (EnCon) Committee finally took up the nomination, only to abruptly cancel it after only 90 minutes of deliberations.  Then the hearing was back on for March 27^th, where after an hour of rehashing a lot of the same questions from the previous week, Grannis’ nomination was moved.  Representatives of various organizations held up “FREE PETE” posters at the end of the hearing to urge the Senate to accelerate the confirmation process.

The Senate Finance Committee met to consider the nomination on Saturday afternoon with a packed room of environmental advocates and capitol watchers in attendance.  Most of the Senate majority’s questions again focused on Grannis’ positions on hunting and trapping, and the sale of high-VOC paint.  Not many questions about climate change, cleaning up contaminated industrial sites, clean water, or clean air programs.  And surprisingly, nobody in the Senate bothered to ask what the heck the B. stands for, or why he prefers to go by Pete when his name is Alexander. 

But Sen. Suzi Oppenheimer gets the award for the question that got the biggest laugh of the hearing.  Click here to read about it.

In the end, the full Senate did finally take a vote on the Grannis nomination, just hours before they started voting on budget bills. 

By our tally and that of the Senate gallery watchers keeping score, there were 18 votes against Grannis, almost exclusively from upstate Senators.  One Democrat, Sen. David Valesky, and two downstate Republicans, Sens. Vinnie Leibell and Serphin Maltese, voted against the nomination.  A large number of Senators from both parties spoke eloquently in favor of Grannis’ nomination including Sens. Bonacic, Morahan, Krueger, and Craig Johnson, with freshman Sen. Bill Perkins exclaiming, “FREE PETE!” at the end of his floor speech.

Thanks to all of you who took the time to weigh in on this.  You were heard!

Show Me the Money: Big Budget Passes...Starting Monday the Public and Legislators will get a Chance to See What's in it

What a way to spend a weekend!  The Senate and Assembly passed budget bills in rapid succession late into the night and early into the morning this past Saturday and Sunday.  What was in the budget you may ask?  Well, we won’t know until we read them, and  most legislators probably didn’t know either.

The budget bills were negotiated and written at a feverish pace culminating in the late night passage over the weekend.  As soon as the bills came out of the printing office, they were pretty much delivered to the chambers and voting began.  The governor waived the requisite three-day “aging” process that’s customarily used for the public and the legislators to actually read the bills.

But lucky for you Environmental Advocates has some crack staff that like to spend Sunday reading budget bills after they’ve been passed!  So here’s some of what the environment is getting with your taxpayer dollars: 

    *109 new staff at the DEC!  There’d been a lot of gamesmanship around the staffing of the agency, but in the end the agency got the staff it desperately needed. Among the new positions is a 13-person Office of Climate Change, 10 new engineers for the over-worked water pollution control division, 10 new dam safety engineers, and 7 new enforcement attorneys and staff.  Big thanks to Assemblyman Robert Sweeney for pushing to make this happen!

    *The Environmental Protection Fund (EPF) got increased from $225 million to $250 million.  For the third straight year, the EPF, which supports a variety of land acquisition, solid waste, clean water and other pro-environmental programs, got a boost.  It’s a one-time, one-year increase but we got another bump in the EPF!

    *NO BIGGER BETTER BOTTLE BILL!  This was the Bigger Better Budget Bummer of the year.  Optimism ran high in the environmental community that this could be the year for expanding the state’s bottle deposit law.  But on Friday afternoon, Governor Spitzer held a press conference to announce that it had fallen off the table.  On the plus side, the Senate agreed have real negotiations on the legislation during the course of the session, so hope springs eternal for improving the state’s recycling programs for beverage bottles. STAY TUNED!

     *And there are any number of other gems waiting to be uncovered in the state budget.

Bills in Play

Ain’t nothing in play for the next couple of weeks.  The legislature’s taking off the next two weeks and won’t be back until April 16^th.  That means our staff can stop wearing dress-up clothes, and can go back to wearing jeans for a few days.   

Act Now

Just because the legislature's out of town, doesn't mean we don't have things to tell them. You'll be getting a message from us very soon to help thank some key lawmakers that delivered. Keep an eye on your inbox!

Scene (& Heard) about Town

The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) lost a key staffer last week. Franz Litz has left the state’s environmental agency for prospects unknown. Franz has been instrumental in forging the country's first-ever regional climate pact. His efforts were invaluable in putting together the multi-state agreement, and here in New York he has been critical in the decision to make sure the program provides the maximum benefits to New Yorkers.

It’s too bad you’ve probably never heard Franz Litz’ name before today, as he’s been one of the principal architects of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the nation’s only mandatory program for reducing climate altering pollution. He’s sure to be missed at DEC, and we wish Franz well as he moves on.