Just Like In NJ, Activists Give Department of Environmental Conservation A Pass
Just Like In NJ, The State Climate Law Is Effectively Toothless
(Caption: Fracktivists converge on the NY DEC Building in Albany, 8/27/12 – Bill Wolfe)
I’ve long written to compare NJ’s toothless aspirational Global Warming Response Act with what I thought was a far stronger New York State law, which had regulatory mandates and enforceable goals (e.g. see
Apparently I was very wrong.
In a damning Report: “FLOUTING THE LAW – Major State Agencies Are Ignoring New York’s Climate Mandates”, NY climate activists document the fact that NY State agencies are ignoring NY’s “historic” climate law.
The Report focuses on systemic failures by State agencies to comply with the climate law’s mandates:
… the state’s largest and most powerful agencies have entirely failed to comply with the Climate Act and have not yet issued policies or guidance on implementation of the law.
For example:
• The New York State Department of Transportation (“NYSDOT”) has pushed
forward at least 40 highway expansion projects without properly assessing
their impacts on DACs and the climate;• Empire State Development (“ESD”) has awarded at least $780 million in
clean energy funding without ensuring that 40% of the benefits go
to DACs;• The New York Education Department (“NYSED”) has approved at least
25,971 construction projects at public schools across the state without
properly assessing their climate and DAC impacts; and• The New York State Department of Health (“NYSDOH”) has approved at
least 223 construction projects for new and renovated healthcare facilities
without assessing or mitigating their climate impacts.These findings show a troubling lack of coordination, or at least a lack of
transparency, that hinders the effective implementation of an all-of-government
approach necessary to transforming our economy and environment. As global
temperatures, sea levels, and extreme weather events continue to track
worst-case scenarios for climate change,6 New York’s state government must
urgently prioritize Climate Act implementation, including conducting required
screens for all relevant regulatory and investment decisions and adhering to
rigorous internal guidance to ensure compliance with the law.
Wow.
But there are some major flaws with this Report.
The NY State DEC is the most important State agency with the clearest climate related organizational mission, legal powers, and regulatory tools to implement the climate law. The DEC has the most qualified professional scientific staff, institutional legitimacy, and public support to implement the climate law.
The DEC should be at the forefront, with a high profile public role in taking a leadership role across state government to implement the climate law.
Yet the Report fails to note that the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) issued permits to all those State agency projects that failed to comply with the law!
The Report fails to note that the NY DEC failed to enforce non-compliance with the climate law.
Even worse, the Report does not even review DEC’s efforts to implement the law – it gives DEC a total pass:
The state of these traditional environmental agencies’ compliance with the Climate Act is beyond the scope of this report. … We plan to analyze the nascent efforts of environmental regulators like the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (“DEC”), PSC, and NYSERDA in a future report.
Nascent efforts? Are you kidding me?
Once again, regulatory mandates are given short shrift and the State environmental agency is given a pass.
I assume that NY climate activists, like their cowardly colleagues in NJ, are politically timid and unwilling to defend regulatory mandates. They are more qualified and much more comfortable serving as political cheerleaders that spout slogans, instead of supporting regulatory mandates and doing the hard work of regulatory analysts.
I assume that they mistakenly believe that holding the “friendly” State DEC accountable and criticizing their total failure would undermine public and political support for DEC and the climate law. Maybe their friends at DEC might not invite them to meetings and press events and distribute grant funding.
And, again like their NJ colleagues, they not only fail to hold the environmental agency accountable, but they do nothing to challenge corporate power, and instead prefer to focus on the public sector.
And all of this is a formula for failure.
Political timidity is not how they got the law passed – street heat won the day.