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We hope you already voted during the early voting period, but if you have not yet done so, please make a plan today for how and when you will vote tomorrow!

You can search for your polling location and preview your ballot at https://voterlookup.elections.ny.gov/. There are also 11 ballot measures this year in the City of Buffalo. Investigative Post has a review of those available here.

With Bread and Roses,

Bridge, Chris, Cindy, Ethan, and Milo

As we approach the end of 2026, we want to bring our members together to celebrate the work and wins, so we are throwing a Bills Game Watch Party on Sunday November 15 at 12pm at Trinity Church (371 Delaware Avenue in Buffalo) – tickets are live now!

Tickets are $20 and include pizza and pop. Kids 12 and under are free to attend, and any members who would like a solidarity ticket, just let one of the staff organizers know.

In addition to livestreaming the game, we will have basket raffles and a contest of the best vegan wings in the city, using Ranked Choice Voting to decide. Buy your tickets today, or buy a solidarity ticket to cover the cost for another member!

Clean Air continues to support the grassroots Save Our Backyards movement, bringing together residents concerned about environmental justice issues in Niagara Falls and Niagara County. Last week, Clean Air staff attended the SOB-led community meeting in a support role, and staff have been offering direct support with efforts like soil sampling and connecting SOB leaders with technical experts. If you are interested in supporting these efforts, please reach out to Chris.

Please take a moment to sign these two petitions, written by SOB’s leadership.

EPA MUST relocate the McKiernan family now

Love Canal families deserve protection, truth and justice

Check out this coverage in the New York Times, and this editorial by The Buffalo News on the ongoing constellation of issues that residents are organizing about.

The EPA , NYSDEC and NYSDOH will be holding their next drop-in session related to the radiological contamination on Tuesday, November 10, from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. at the Calvin K. Richards Community Center in Veteran’s Memorial Park, 7000 Joe Rotella Way.

Our Tonawanda Just Transition Team is hosting a drop-in community meeting on Thursday December 10 from 5-7pm at the Kenmore Branch Library to solicit feedback for the Town of Tonawanda’s comprehensive planning process, with a focus on transportation issues and the future uses of parcels along River Road the two main topics that will be covered. Please pencil in the date now, and keep an eye out on our social media this month.

On Thursday November 19 at 7pm, Bridge will be presenting for Public Power New York’s 101 webinar about how data centers are straining our energy system, and how Public Power is a solution. The registration link is being developed by PPNY and is not yet live, but once it is we will be sharing it on our social media, and will also post it to our homepage.

In the meantime, please take a moment to sign this petition in support of Public Power!

Speaking of data centers, our campaign in Erie and Niagara County, with a focus specifically on pivoting the planned use of the former Tonawanda Coke site away from data center operations, continues to grow and build momentum!

Last month we celebrated a big win when the Buffalo Common Council voted to send a draft 2-year moratorium resolution to Corporation Counsel (ie, the City’s lawyers), to finalize the resolution. We still await word on the finalized resolution, but once it is brought back for a hearing and a vote, we will be reaching out to members to urge turnout, and we will be advocating for seats on the working body that will be developing regulations during the moratorium period. Similarly, we are waiting on the Town of Tonawanda to hire a new Town Planner to begin work on regulations, but in the meantime continue to put pressure on the developer to change their plans – send a letter to them right now!

Bigger picture, two week ago we held the first in a series of Community-Labor roundtables modeled on our successful Huntley Phasedown Roundtable to find policies where there is consensus to move forward on – if you are a Clean Air member and interested in this effort, please reach out to Bridge. The next Roundtable will be in January. We are also planning to hold a series of People’s Assemblies in 2027 which will be for broader audiences.

Our hope is that these Assemblies and Roundtables will not only inform data center policies, but also serve as the springboard for larger scale united front organizing – check out this article from Labor Network For Sustainability on the “Polycrisis”.

Also related to our Data Center campaign, one of the potential future uses of the former Tonawanda Coke site that we’ve heard support for from our members and from nearby residents is as a Battery Energy Storage System. This is a relatively young technology, though, and, like all industrial uses, there are environmental concerns.

We wanted to dive into this topic more, so we hosted a webinar by the New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology Consortium (NY-BEST) last month to learn more about the benefits and importance of this technology for decarbonizing our grid, making it more resilient and affordable, and the realities about the technology’s safety record and the lesser degree of danger compared to our existing fossil fuel system – click here to watch the recording!

Julian Spector, Canary Media – As US grid batteries surge, risk of fires plummets

In recognition of the 50th Anniversary of the Niagara Gazette’s first coverage of the Love Canal disaster, last month we also hosted a panel of area watchdog journalists with environmental beats, including Rich Newberg who was one of the reporters who covered Love Canal as it unfolded – check out the recording here!

RECA is the Radioactive Exposure Compensation Act that gives financial compensation to people who are sick due to exposure to nuclear testing, uranium miners, and people who’ve been exposed to nuclear waste that was improperly dumped in waterways around the country.

Passing an expansion to RECA honors our military community and fulfills our moral obligation to those affected by our nation’s nuclear legacy. Click here to send a letter to your Congressional Representative and tell them to support H.R.10115 – Radiation Exposure Compensation Reauthorization Act of 2026.

Our friends at WNYCOSH will be holding their annual Working Lens photography exhibition on Friday November 13 from 6–9 PM at Market Arcade, 617 Main Street in Buffalo, and they will also be awarding the annual Roger Cook Badass award to Ann Converso of CWA Local 1186 and William Mayer of IUPAT District Council 4, Local 12 during the event.

The Greater Buffalo Niagara Regional Transportation Council (GBNRTC) recently kicked off it’s longterm regional transportation planning process – please take a moment to fill out this survey, and share widely! Survey respondents that provide their email at the end of the survey will be entered into a drawing for a $50 Visa gift card.

This year’s Anti-Displacement summit will be held at the Delavan-Grider Community Center (located at 877 East Delavan) on Saturday, December 5th, 9am-2pm – save the date!

We echo the outpouring of grief and shock at the sudden passing of Tia Brown, a Clean Air member, peer who worked extensively in area non-profits and a good friend. Click here to read a tribute from our friends at Little Sis, one of the organizations that Tia worked for. Her family is raising funds to bring relatives to Buffalo for her memorial services – click here to make a donation.

We also mourn the passing of Dolores Huerta, a movement leader who spent decades of her life committed to fighting for justice and equity for farmworkers and other vulnerable communities – click here to read a tribute from United Farm Workers President Teresa Romero.

Hamilton Nolan, In These Times – Against Efficiency

Luis Feliz Leon and Jane Slaughter, Labor Notes – UAW President Shawn Fain Wins Reelection Victory

Multiple Authors, Propublica Magazine – 519 U.S. Citizens Detained

Moms Clean Air Force – EPA Mocks Children’s Health Month, Claiming 100 “Wins” While Stripping Vital Protections Against Toxic Pollution

Data Center Headlines

• Jon Campbell, Gothamist – NY Gov. Hochul once resisted a data center pause. Now it’s central to her campaign.
• David Gibson, The Verge – The Gospel according to Peter (Thiel)
• Caroline Haskins, Wired Magazine – What Flock Actually Costs Cities Across the Country
• Meredith Fowlie, Energy Institute – Buying Time, Burning Gas Why AI companies are paying a premium to go off the grid (and what this costs the rest of us).
• Justine Calma, The Verge – Data centers could erase decades of air quality gains
• EarthJustice and the Better Data Centers Project – The AI Gas Rush:
  Risks and Implications of “Bring Your Own Power”

Energy Transition Headlines

• Ari Phillips, Oil and Gas Watch – As nearly 4,000 miles of new gas pipelines roll across Texas, Trump weakens pipeline safety rules and enforcement
• Sachi Kitajima Mulkey, Grist Magazine – Trump’s EPA is letting America’s leakiest oil and gas companies off the hook
• Matt Simon, Grist Magazine – California just showed how home batteries will radically remake the grid
• Matt Simon, Grist Magazine – A new report just busted another myth about heat pumps
• Jake Bittle, Grist Magazine – Trump vowed to stop an ‘energy emergency.’ Then he created a real one.
• Rebecca McCarthy, Inside Climate News – Pennsylvania Opens a New Loophole for Oil and Gas Wastewater Disposal
• Lauren Dalban, Inside Climate News – As Trump Backs a Gas Pipeline, New York’s Climate Priorities Face a Test
• Jeff St. John, Canary Media – How much are Trump’s pro-coal policies costing us?
• Jeff St. John, Canary Media – New York to build state’s first two utility-scale thermal networks
• Samuel King, New York Public News Network – NY moves ahead on thermal energy test projects
  • We urge paying attention to this story – the Utility Thermal Energy Network that National Fuel will be building has potential not only to decarbonize many downtown municipal buildings and affordable housing developments, but also could prove to be a case for Just Transition of gas pipefitter jobs into thermal energy projects, and could even shift NY’s politics around energy policy more in favor of decarbonization!