Brooklyn
– State Senator Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn) was bestowed with the
dubious Oil Slick Award by EPL/Environmental Advocates for championing a
bill that would have
blocked communities statewide from taking action to reduce needless plastic bag waste,
which is costing local taxpayers as it damages wastewater systems, pollutes waterways, and gets landfilled.
Peter
Iwanowicz, executive director of EPL/Environmental Advocates said,
“Senator Felder consistently achieves very poor green scores in the
Senate. The Senator earned this year’s Oil Slick Award
for a number of reasons, most obviously for legislation that came in
response to New York City’s plan to reduce plastic bag waste, but which
overreached and would have prevented communities statewide from taking
action, essentially transferring the Senate’s
dysfunction on to local governments. The measure was rejected by
colleagues from both sides of the aisle and stalled out as other
legislators partnered in good faith to find solutions to their
concerns.”
Senate
Felder, who has failed the
Environmental Scorecard
three out of the four years he has held office, earned just 57 points
out of a possible
100 this year, ranking him near the bottom of all his colleagues. By
comparison, several of his Senate colleagues from New York City tied for
the high score of 92 points, including: Leroy Comrie (D-Queens), Martin Malave Dilan (D-Brooklyn), Ruth Hassell-Thompson (D-Bronx), Brad Hoylman (D-Manhattan), Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan), Velmanette Montgomery (D-Brooklyn), Bill Perkins (D-Manhattan), J. Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx), Jose Serrano (D-Manhattan/Bronx) and Daniel Squadron (D-Manhattan/Brooklyn).
Freshman Senator Roxanne Persaud (D-Brooklyn) earned 82 points on her first
Scorecard. Meanwhile, Republican Senators Marty Golden
(R-Brooklyn) and Andrew Lanza (R-Staten Island) both failed with 61 and
57 points, respectively, due to their support for bad legislation, such
as an extreme bill that would effectively end New York’s
participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the
state’s premier carbon abatement program.
Assembly
11 Assemblymembers from New York City tied for the
high score in their house, due to their support for passage of the most
aggressive climate action legislation in the country (which is now
supported by a bipartisan majority of all state
senators), including: Edward Braunstein (D-Bayside), William Colton (D-Brooklyn), Vivian Cooke (D-Jamaica), Jeffrey Dinowitz (D-Bronx), Richard Gottfried (D-Manhattan),
Brian Kavanagh (D-Manhattan), Rebecca Seawright (D-Manhattan), Jo Anne Simon (D-Brooklyn), Walter Mosely (D-Brooklyn), Daniel O’Donnell (D-Manhattan) and Linda Rosenthal (D-Manhattan).
Parts of Staten Island are represented by the only Assemblymember in the entire city to fail the
Scorecard, Ronald Castorina, who despite being elected to serve a district that has been devastated by climate change,
voted against climate action legislation.
The EPL/Environmental Advocates 2016
Environmental Scorecard is the first and only record of New York
State lawmakers’ votes on legislation that will affect the environment.
The guide has been produced and distributed statewide for more than 40
years. For the complete
Scorecard, visit www.eplscorecard.org.
Source: Environmental Advocates of New York
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