The CLCPA, the Draft Scoping Plan, and Public Hearing April 27
What – Rally and speak out for climate justice at the CLCPA Draft Scoping Plan Hearing in Buffalo!
When – Wednesday April 27, rally starts at 2:30pm, hearing starts at 3:30pm
Where – The Buffalo Central Library, 1 Lafayette Square, Buffalo NY
We recently covered what the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) is and how this groundbreaking legislation starts to put NY on the path of climate resiliency and towards a just transition. The CLCPA’s Draft Scoping Plan, which, when completed, will set the framework for implementation, is now available for public review and comment and NYSERDA (the NYS Energy Research and Development Authority) is holding multiple public hearings on the draft, including one here in Buffalo at the Central Library (1 Lafayette Square) on Wednesday April 27 starting at 3:30pm. Speakers at the hearing will have 2 minutes and do not need to pre-register, but are encouraged to do so.
We need you to join us! We’ll be meeting up with other environmental and climate justice organizations at 2:30pm prior to the hearing out front of the library for a rally before heading in for the hearing, and we will remain for the length of the hearing, which we expect will continue into the evening.
Can’t make it on the 27th? There will also be two online hearings on May 7 and May 11. We also encourage everyone to submit public comments between now and June 10 – our partners at NY Renews have a one-click tool you can use and you can also submit comments directly here.
NY Renews will also be holding two training sessions on Zoom on April 25 and May 9 to prepare for the public hearings – click here to register.
The following list is of resources that you may find helpful for preparing your remarks –
- General
- NY Renews
- Sierra Club
- Section-by-section breakdown of plan
We also held a training for our members with Sierra Club, which you can watch here –
We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday April 27 at 2:30pm at the Buffalo Central Library!
We are hiring a Just Transition Organizer!
We are so excited to announce that we are hiring a new Just Transition Orga
nizer!
Are you passionate about building grassroots power with poor and working class communities? Do you have a drive to push anti-racist policy in our climate just movement? Do you want to work on a team that values your leadership development and organizing skills? Then apply for our open Just Transition Organizer position by May 8th!
Check out our job description and send a resume, cover letter and work sample to jobs@cacwny.org!
We can’t wait for you to join our team!
Rebuttal to the Another Voice Column from Blockfusion Representative in The Buffalo News
In rebuttal to this column published in The Buffalo News on March 1 from Blockfusion, we submitted the following rebuttal to the Another Voice section, but it unfortunately was not accepted for print, so we are instead publishing it here to our blog.
The Clean Air Coalition of WNY disagrees strongly with the assertions made in the March 1 letter from Blockfusion representative Alex Martini-LoManto.
Blockfusion, like the vast majority of blockchain validation operations, relies on Proof-of-Work verification, which, in short, is a competitive process that uses computers to brute-force solve an equation in a winner-takes-all race against other Proof-of-Work blockchain operations.
This process is hugely energy intensive – the University at Cambridge estimates that the approximately 1 million blockchain validators worldwide “mining” for Bitcoin currently consume 130 TwH annually, which is more than entire nations, including Sweden, Kuwait or Argentina. To bring it closer to home, the US Energy Information Administration estimates that NY, in 2019 with 19.45 million residents and all our industries, consumed 145.6 TWh of electricity – this tiny industry with 1/19th our population size uses 89% as much!
Even more disturbingly, this rate of energy consumption is growing exponentially annually.
Not all operations rely on Proof-of-Work – some rely on Proof-of-Stake, which essentially shifts the blockchain “mining” from a competitive model to a cooperative one. Estimates by researchers at the Ethereum Foundation put the potential cut in energy consumption at 99.95%, making it ~2000x more energy-efficient than Proof-of-Work.
Blockfusion asserts that they do not rely on dirty energy, but this is not the full picture. Unlike other operations such as Digihost Technology located on the grounds of Foristar Gas Power Generation facility in North Tonawanda or the operators of Greenidge Gas Generation in nearby Dresden NY, Blockfusion will not be using existing gas-powered technologies – however, this does not mean their hands are clean.
The simple fact is that our state is constrained in our electricity generation capacity, particularly renewables. We can meet our energy needs and live comfortable lives with a renewable grid that mitigates the climate crisis, but we cannot meet these needs while also sustaining an unproven and completely unregulated industry built around endless exponential power consumption.
Ultimately, we feel that the public, especially communities historically harmed by environmental injustices, should not bear the cost of this industry’s experimentation to find the most efficient blockchain validation models, nor should local governments be forced to independently draft new legislation in an attempt to regulate this industry, and we are deeply concerned with the emerging pattern of environmental and climate injustices being perpetrated upon our communities as this industry seeks the cheapest energy available.
As such, we strongly support the passage of NY bill A07389/S06486, which would establish a statewide three-year moratorium on consolidated operations that use Proof-of-Work authentication methods to validate blockchain transactions and require a full generic environmental impact statement review of the practice to determine the overall impact that this industry would have on our state before any new or expanded operations.
Action Alert: NYSDEC Public Hearings on Brownfield Cleanup Program Regulations
Clean Air will be hosting an Action Hour on Tuesday, April 19th at 5pm to get our folks ready to submit public comments on the proposed changes to the Brownfield Cleanup Program regulations. We need you to join us in taking action so that all of our communities, especially poor and working class communities and communities of color, have something to gain from this key hazardous waste cleanup program.
Each year hundreds of toxic sites are cleaned up through the BCP program using tax payer dollars. And while there are many good projects that come form this program, we need to stand together to ensure that sites are cleaned up well, on time and with community partnership!
To join our action hour, please register online at this link or email Emily@cacwny.org
Can’t attend the action hour but still want to submit a comment? All comments are due by 8pm, April 21st to the NYSDEC. You can send a comment using our Action Network link here!
Save the date for our annual meeting!
It’s that time of year! We’ll be holding our annual meeting on Wednesday, March 30th at 6pm on Zoom. Join us to hear about our work in 2021, our plans for 2022 and, if you’re a member, vote for our annual board of directors!
Register online today at bit.ly/cleanair2022
Members can vote for board candidates at bit.ly/3BvXZTJ
Not a member? Need to renew? No problem!
Renew your membership or join us as a first time member today! Check out our membership handbook below!
POW! Meeting 2/17 at 5:30, Online – Register Today!
Have you heard of “cryptocurrency mining”, aka, Proof-of-Work Blockchain operations? Did you know that this industry consumes more power than it takes to run all the refrigerators in the United States? Did you know that Erie and Niagara County have a disproportionately large number of Proof-of-Work Blockchain operations?
Help us to Knock Out POW! Join us Thursday 2/17 at 5:30pm for an online meeting where we will review this topic, and take action in support of a statewide moratorium on Proof-of-Work Blockchain operations to allow for the state to study this industry and develop regulations.
Register for this meeting at bit.ly/3IYxHvK
Can’t make it? You can also learn more and take action independently by visiting bit.ly/takeactioncrypto
We found this video from Grist.org particularly useful in understanding this issue:
Brownfield Clean-up Program Reform
Are you a member of another organization or business? Sign our letter urging Gov. Hochul to amend her NYS Budget proposal to include environmental and worker justice!
What is the CLCPA?
Have you heard about the CLCPA, or Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act? This revolutionary legislation, passed and signed into law in July 2019, is already greatly changing the lives of each and every New York resident and has also influenced national legislation related to climate change.
The CLCPA sets goals of net-zero emissions by 2050 and 100% renewable electricity by 2040– that’s huge! It’s due in part to a mixture of the CLCPA, grassroots organizing, and market forces that NY no longer has any coal-powered electricity generation, a huge win not only for climate justice but also for environmental justice, as so many of these older inefficient facilities were located in the heart of marginalized communities.
The reverberations of the CLCPA are being felt all throughout NY governance, and currently there are a number of related public comment periods for supportive documents – for example, the DEC is accepting comments through February 7th on air permit processes and on how the CLCPA will be integrated into the day-to-day activities of the DEC. Even more notably, the full CLCPA Draft Scoping Plan is undergoing a 120 public review comment period right now, and there will be hearings in multiple locations throughout the state in April – we will be sure to let you know when one is planned for Buffalo!
We still have a long way to go, though, towards implementing the CLCPA – and we’ve already seen new industries like Proof-of-Work Blockchain Mining emerge that threaten to undermine efforts to reach the benchmarks of the CLCPA even before the initial legislation is fully funded. Organizations statewide are joining together in support of the passage of a slate of bills and legislative actions, called the “Climate Can’t Wait” platform, which will support the implementation and goals of the CLCPA.
We encourage our members to visit the Climate Can’t Wait website to read more about each and every one of these bills, and then take a moment to contact your Albany representatives to let them know you support the passage of this slate of legislation. As Buffalo and WNY residents, we especially encourage contacting Governor Hochul’s office by calling 518-474-8390 or visiting https://www.governor.ny.gov/content/governor-contact-form.
To find your state senator’s contact information, visit https://www.nysenate.gov/registration/nojs/form/start/find-my-senator. To find your assemblymember’s contact information, visit https://nyassembly.gov/mem/search/.
Learn more about the CLCPA by visiting these resources:
- https://www.nyrenews.org/
- https://climatecantwait.org/
- https://climate.ny.gov/
- https://climate.ny.gov/Climate-Resources
- https://nysclimateimpacts.org/
- https://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/99223.html
- Grist.org – “New York’s ambitious climate and environmental justice laws are in effect. Here’s what’s next.”
- Grist.org – “One year later, what has New York’s landmark climate law accomplished?”
- Grist.org – “2 years after passing a landmark climate law, New York has no plan to fund it”
- https://www.thejustice40.com/
- Bloomberg Law – “The Impact of New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act”
- Environmental Advocates of NY CLCPA One-pager
- NY Renews CLCPA One-pager
- NY Renews CLCPA and CAC Implementation Toolkit
DECinfo Locator Tutorial
Did you know that the Department of Environmental Conservation posts reports related to each and every Brownfield and Superfund clean up in NY on their website? As fantastic as this resource is, it can take a bit of practice to know how to use it – in this short guide, we’ll walk you through the process for finding the documents.
Step one – navigate to the DECinfo Locator website at https://gisservices.dec.ny.gov/gis/dil/.
- If you lose this link, you can also find it by using a search engine like Google and searching for the term “DECinfo Locator”, or by navigating to the DEC’s main website, https://www.dec.ny.gov/, and searching from there.
- The DECinfo Locator page on the main DEC site also has navigation resources, including a YouTube video.
Step two – in the panel on the right, select the “Environmental Cleanup” window. Notice that these two layers are not yet active.
Step three – zoom in on the location of the Brownfield or Superfund site you are looking for documents on. You will need to zoom in before these layers will become visible. In our example, we are searching for the documents on the Tonawanda Coke Brownfield and Superfund areas.
Step four – in the panel on the right, click on the boxes next to the remediation parcels and sites layers. (or just one or the other, if only one is applicable to what you are searching for.)
Step five – Zoom in closer, if needed. Click on the parcel of the site you are searching for, then read the pop-up.
- In this example, the Superfund areas have a link to a “site record”, which gives a general overview of the history and status of the superfund area.
Step six – to find the full list of public records related to the site, click on the site icon instead, and then click on “document folder.”
- Clicking on “online database” in the pop-up will bring you back to the same “site record” site linked before.
Step seven – look through the documents linked. It helps to look at the file name for dates and for keywords. Before downloading any, be sure check the size, as some are quite large – in this list, for example, one is 97mb!
Note that in this example, as with many of our campaign sites, there is both a brownfield and a superfund site clean-up ongoing. You will need to repeat the above steps with the other icons on the site to find the brownfield documents.
Not all sites have a document folder linked, especially for complicated sites like the area around Tonawanda Coke – this is because these documents should be consolidated in the main folder.
Sometimes a site will have several pages of site records that you can find by clicking on the arrow at the top of the pop-up – but some of the site records linked will be the same as in prior pop-ups. For example, the site record in this first bubble links here, the second here, the third here, the fourth here, and the fifth here – the first, second and fifth are linked to the same page, but the third and fourth link to different pages.
Try out the site yourself, and let us know if you have any issues navigating! We find it easiest to bookmark the document folder after we find it through DECinfo Locator. For example, here’s the direct link to the documents for the Brownfield areas of Tonawanda Coke, and here’s the direct link to the documents for the Superfund areas.
NYS 2022 Budget Memo
On January 18th, Governor Hochul released her first State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2022-2023 Executive Budget Proposal: A New Era for New York. The proposal includes many long needed investments in New York State’s environmental protections, green jobs training and climate resiliency. New York has long been a leader in the global fight against climate change, and we are hopeful that under Governor Hochul’s leadership we can continue to pave the way for a just transition for all of our communities.
While we are largely pleased with the Governor’s budget proposal, we are very concerned about her administration’s lack of community voice in her proposal to extend the New York State Brownfield Remediation Tax Credit program. While we support the Governor for proposing to add environmental justice, job growth and climate resilience into the goals of this program, the proposed language needs to go further. Without including real mechanisms to obtain these goals, the program will continue to miss the mark.
Governor Hochul’s budget proposal does not go far enough to protect environmental justice communities and our brothers, sisters and siblings in organized labor in the proposed extension of the Brownfield Cleanup Program. Investments that assure a fair and equitable transition need to be baked into our state budget. If done right, the Brownfields Cleanup Program is an incredible opportunity to do this. Despite previous reforms of the program, sites often still sit in limbo for years, while community health is put at risk. The program currently also allows an escape for polluters to avoid clean up liability. Furthermore, though this program is funded by the public, it does not require developers to pay family sustaining wages because it is currently not considered under the definition of “public work”.
We also join the call shared with other organizations statewide for the inclusion of $15 billion for the implementation of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, or the CLCPA, including a requirement that 40% of funds be directly invested in disadvantaged communities – the CLCPA puts NY as the leader of the nation in climate legislation, but we have failed to fund this just transition, which utterly undermines any legislative actions.
In order for our communities to bear the oncoming storms of climate change, more must be done to support communities of color and poor and working class communities across the state who have already had to endure decades of abuse, neglect and indifference by New York State’s prime polluters, big and small. If we are to weather this storm together, we have to do all that is necessary to invest in the health, wellness and wealth of our communities by cleaning up the hazardous waste left behind by industries in our backyards.
Clean Air members, supporters, allies and friends, we urge you to help us in reminding Governor Hochul where she comes from. Clean Air will be honored to support New York’s commitment to environmental justice and climate resiliency, but unless and until the reality of our communities is honored, we will remain opposed to the current budget proposal.