Celebrating Four Bills Signed into New York State Law!

New York State Governor Kathy Hochul spent the final days of 2021 with pen in hand, signing four key bills into law. These are bills that WE ACT had been working to advance with our coalition partners, and all of them are designed to reduce potential exposure to toxics in our homes, schools, and communities:
 
The Family and Fire Fighter Protection Act will prohibit the use of the highly toxic chemicals found in many flame retardants used in furniture, mattresses, and electronic enclosures. Studies show that people of color – and children of color, in particular – are more likely to have higher levels of these flame retardant chemicals in their bodies, and therefore bear a greater burden of the adverse health impacts these toxic chemicals cause. We thank New York State Senator Todd Kaminsky and New York State Assemblyman Steve Englebright for their sponsorship of this legislation, Governor Hochul for signing it into law, and the JustGreen Partnership for leading the advocacy effort.
 
The Lead in School Drinking Water law updates the Safe School Drinking Water Act to reduce the lead action level to 5 parts per billion (PPB), which gets New York closer to the 1 PPB level recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics (though lead is such a highly toxic substance that there is really no safe level of exposure). The law will also increase the frequency of required tests of public school drinking water, cover the cost of remediation if lead is found, and ensure that the results of those tests are made available to the public. New York has the worst lead crisis in the nation, and Black children are the most likely to have elevated blood-lead levels. We thank New York State Senator Gustavo Rivera and New York State Assemblyman Richard Gottfried for their sponsorship of this legislation, Governor Hochul for signing it into law, and the Lead Free Kids New York coalition for leading the advocacy effort.
 
Another law prohibits the use of small plastic containers by hotels, reducing the tons of toxic plastics that end up in our landfills and waterways – much of which will take more than 5,000 years to degrade. And the fines collected for violating this new law will go directly to the Environmental Protection Fund, where they will be used to protect the environment and build healthy communities. We thank New York State Senator Kaminsky and New York State Assemblyman Englebright for sponsoring this bill, Governor Hochul for signing it into law, and the JustGreen Partnership for leading the advocacy effort.
 
The last piece of legislation signed into law requires the state to develop a list of emerging contaminants – chemicals potentially found in water that are currently unregulated by the United State Environmental Protection Agency yet are suspected to have negative health impacts for people. To protect future generations from these potentially toxic substances, which disproportionately impact people of color, it is critical to build and maintain a list of these emerging contaminants so that they can be tracked and eventually studied. We thank New York State Senator James Skoufis and New York State Assemblymember Gottfried for sponsoring this legislation, Governor Hochul for signing it into law, and the JustGreen Partnership for leading the advocacy effort.

Take Action: Call Governor Hochul to Support Public Power

Call New York State Governor Kathy Hochul at 877-235-6537 this week and ask her to support public power in the state budget. Scaling-up the New York Power Authority, the nation’s largest state-owned public utility, will help accelerate the production of renewable energy in New York State! Learn more about the importance of public power here.

This Saturday: January Membership Meeting

Join us at 10:00 AM on Saturday, January 8 for our first Membership Meeting of the year! Our focus will be on New York City policies and improvements we'd like to see from the new leadership. We’ll begin the meeting with breakout groups to discuss various policies and recommendations from the community and then we’ll have newly elected officials – representing Northern Manhattan as well as citywide offices – join us so that members and staff can ask them questions about how they will work to bring environmental justice to our city. RSVP Here

Read the Scope of Work for NYC's Environmental Justice for All Report

In case you missed it, the New York City Mayor's Office of Climate & Sustainability released a scope of work for the Environmental Justice for All Report in late December. This report, the City's first comprehensive study of environmental justice, is being developed by the Mayor's Office and the NYC Environmental Justice Advisory Board to identify Environmental Justice Areas, analyze environmental and climate issues, and identify which communities are being disproportionately impacted by environmental burdens and which are not seeing the benefits of green investments made by the City. Learn more about the study here. And download the scope of work here (PDF).