Trump won an election while yelping “Drill, Baby, Drill” at every opportunity and is now setting up a cabinet of climate denialists to match his doomsday promises. His EPA guy Lee Zeldin will be slashing every possible environmental regulation. His Energy pick, Chris Wright, heads a fracking company. Pete Hegseth is typical of the whole bunch when he describes “climate research as a vast left-wing conspiracy to impose government controls on American society.”
But even faced with the worst of the worst, we cannot afford to give up. Yesterday my companion and I joined New York City climate activists from Food and Water Watch, NYPIRG, Climate Defenders and other groups to rally with local elected officials at the South Street Seaport. Our demand was for New York Governor Kathy Hochul to sign a critically important bill already passed by the state assembly and senate and now languishing on her desk:
“The bill, dubbed the Climate Change Superfund Act, would establish a fund for climate resiliency infrastructure in New York, and require the large fossil fuel companies around the globe doing business in the state to contribute $3 billion annually for a total of $75 billion over 25 years for their role in creating “an immediate, grave threat to the state’s communities, environment, and economy,” according to the legislation.”
The sponsor of the bill, State Senator Liz Krueger, Assembly reps Jeff Dinowitz and Grace Lee, and City Comptroller Brad Lander spoke. Not one of the elected officials could understand why the governor seems prepared to let this bill expire without ever signing it into law.
And none of them had any illusions about the financial pressures climate change will put on state budgets. The taxpayers or the oil companies will have to pay the bills and if this law is not enacted, the costs will still be there, as Senator Krueger said. In the past few years we had assumed the changes would be in the form of flooding and storm surges but this year, the hottest on record, we are all experiencing new forms of climate change. Here in New York we are seeing wildfires in our parks due to the unprecedented 40-day drought, as Comptroller Lander, a mayoral candidate, pointed out.
Some climate activists with whom I spoke expressed the feeling that Governor Hochul has become overly cautious since November 5 but others argued that she has not been the strongest voice for climate issues even before that. She did have what she called a “lengthy” and “productive” congratulation call to Trump. Whatever her personal motivations for stalling, she needs to hear from us. Call her at 877-796-1949.
Tell her that this state (and every state) is clearly going to have to spend billions of taxpayer dollars every year from here on out to build up vulnerable coastal areas, provide cooling during deadly heat waves, repair bridges and highways damaged by flooding and storm surges, fight wildfires and the list goes on. To the big oil and gas companies, that’s only a drop in the bucket, compared to the untold damage their pushing of fossil fuels has done, and will do, to this planet.
So far, only Vermont has passed a similar Climate Superfund Act, but the feeling expressed by elected officials was that if we can get it passed in New York, that will inspire other states to step up. Over the next four years, states (as well as other nations) are going to have to take the lead if we are to overcome the schemes for national and planetary suicide now being dreamt up in Mar-a-Lago.
Your support is needed.
Call Governor Hochul Now at 877-796-1949
Tell her to sign the Climate Change Superfund Act into Law.
Youtube video of rally posted by Assemblyman Dinowitz
