100% Renewables Now NYS
Update – Jan. 26, 2016
www.gelfny.org
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Climate Change Lobbying in Districts Feb. 16- 19
Joint Legislative Hearing on Enviro State Budget Thursday Jan. 28
State Legislative Forum on Divestment Re-scheduled for Mon. Feb. 29
NYC Teacher’s Pension Fund Lost $135 Million in Fossil Fuel Investments Last Year
2016 NY Energy Democracy Symposium Fri Feb. 5 NYC
An Overview of the Shortcomings on the Green Job Green NY program
Call Cuomo to Stop the AIM Pipeline
Join the Clean Energy Revolution – July 24, Philadelphia
Lobby Your State Legislators on Climate Change and 100% Renewables during Presidents Week (Feb. 16 – 19)
We are encouraging climate change activists to set up meetings with your state legislators when they are back in their district offices during Presidents’ Week. Urge them to co-sponsor the push for 100% renewable energy by 2030 (S5527 / A7497), including the development of offshore wind, and the divestment of the state pension fund from fossil fuels. (A8011 /S5873). If they are already co-sponsors, urge them to help bring up the bill in committee for a vote. (See also info on budget testimony below as well as GELF’s agenda for the Assembly Climate Change Task Force)
We need to tell legislators no more fossil fuels / natural gas – including infrastructure, pipelines, oil bomb trains, storage facilities, power plants, compressor stations, etc.
Background information on these issues are on our website. You can also contact dunleamark@aol.com to get memos and other info sent to you.
Feel free to raise whatever other climate change issues you want. Some of us will be in Albany on Feb. 2 to talk legislators about a carbon tax (A3762 /S6037).
Joint Legislative Hearing on Enviro State Budget Thursday Jan. 28
The Joint Legislative Hearing on the State Budget on Environmental Conservation is this Thursday at 9:30 PM in Hearing Room B in the Legislative Office Building. You can watch on the legislative website or on the legislative channel on local cable stations.
GELF’s testimony is here. Feel free to use it for your own testimony. You can submit the comments in the new few weeks in writing. They want 10 copies. The Senate is the one scheduling the DEC hearing. Comments can be sent to Senator Catherine Young, 428 Capitol, Albany NY 12247.
State Legislative Forum on Divestment Re-scheduled for Mon. Feb. 29
Monday, February 29th, 2016, 11:00 a.m., Legislative Office Building, Rm. 944A. Testify by invitation only.
We will probably schedule legislative visits that day on divestment.
Senator Liz Krueger and Assembly Assistant Speaker Felix W. Ortiz have introduced S.5873/A.8011-A, the “Fossil Fuel Divestment Act.” This legislation would require the State Comptroller to divest the New York State Common Retirement Fund from all holdings in the 200 largest publicly traded fossil fuel companies, as defined by carbon content in the companies’ proven oil, gas, and coal reserves (the CU 200). Divestment from coal companies would be completed within one year; divestment from all other fossil fuel companies would be completed by January 1, 2020. The forum will be an opportunity to discuss the need for this legislation from a variety of perspectives, financial, environmental, moral, etc., as well as how New York State can play a part in the global fossil fuel divestment movement.
NYC Teacher’s Pension Fund Lost $135 Million in Fossil Fuel Investments Last Year
A new report from Advisor Partners revealed that in one year alone, New York City’s largest pension fund lost around $135 million from their holdings in the top 100 oil and gas companies. The Teacher’s Retirement System of the City of New York. See story
Meanwhile in a separate report, the NYC pension program appears on the point of operational collapse due to mismanagement, with excessively high costs. The report found that the city’s retirement system, the fourth largest in the country, needs additional resources, is understaffed and lacks many basic tools required to gain insight into the complicated risk embedded in its investments.
2016 NY ENERGY DEMOCRACY SYMPOSIUM Fri Feb. 5
Energy Democracy Alliance, Friday, February 5, 2016 8:30 AM – 3:00 PM; The New School: Theresa Lang Student Center, New York City
We have an unprecedented opportunity to make New York’s energy system renewable, equitable, accountable, and local. A movement is rising to address climate change and revitalize our communities through clean, affordable energy. The NY Energy Democracy Alliance invites you to join us as we set the stage for 2016. Come learn about efforts across the state to build locally owned renewable energy projects, to make homes warmer and healthier, to demand economically and racially just energy policy, to challenge the power of utility companies, to develop resilient community microgrids, and find a just transition away from fossil fuels and nuclear power. This event is free and open to the public.
Register here.
An Overview of the Shortcomings on the Green Job Green NY program
In 2009, New York State officials said the Green Jobs/Green New York program would retrofit a million houses and create 14,000 jobs. The results fell well short. Are there lessons to be learned for Gov. Cuomo’s new wave of energy innovation? City Limits and the CUNY School of Journalism does a series of stories.
Call Cuomo to Stop the AIM Pipeline
Emergency Call to Action! Please keep calling Governor Cuomo and tell him to demand action to STOP the AIM pipeline now! Call now at 518-474-8390
Governor Cuomo is actively exerting every possible legal and regulatory measure to close down the troubled Indian Point nuclear power facility, but continues to remain silent about the dangerous high pressure AIM gas pipeline under construction only 105 feet from critical structures at the nuclear plant posing an unacceptable risk to millions of people even if the nuclear plant is closed. Safety experts urgently warn that a pipeline rupture at Indian Point poses a serious threat to more than 20 million residents within a 50 mile radius in the NY tri-state region.
Script when calling Governor Cuomo:
*Use the power of your office to STOP construction of the dangerous Spectra AIM pipeline just as you are doing to push to close the Indian Point nuclear power plant. The AIM pipeline poses an unacceptable risk even if the nuclear plant is closed with 40 years of radioactive spent fuel remaining on site. Your primary responsibility is to protect more than 20 million residents within a 50 mile radius in the New York tri-state region from these multiple hazards.
*Be a real climate leader and STOP granting state permits for gas power plants or any other hazardous, polluting and climate killing fossil fuel infrastructure. Rapidly commit New York to transition to 100% renewable energy!
For more information, please visit www.sape2016.org
Join the Clean Energy Revolution – July 24, Philadelphia
On July 24, 2016, as the national spotlight shines on Philadelphia, PA, on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, thousands of Americans will gather to demand bold action to end fracking, keep dirty fossil fuels in the ground and immediately transition toward a truly clean, renewable energy future. Will you be there too? (Facebook) GELF has endorsed, Food and Water Watch helping to organize.
Together, we will march through downtown Philadelphia to call for:
* A ban on fracking and other unconventional extreme fossil fuel extraction methods – we must keep fossil fuels in the ground!
* A halt to the rapid and reckless expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure including gas and oil pipelines, frac sand mining, wastewater injection wells, gas storage facilities, fossil fuel power plants, bomb trains, and other dirty infrastructure across the United States.
* A ban on the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG), a halt to the approval of export facilities, and a continuation of the ban on crude oil exports.
* Swift action to invest in solar, wind and other clean energy power sources and energy efficiency measures across the United States so that we can transition quickly to a 100% renewable energy economy.