ESFPA E-News

Legislative Session Concludes for Albany – We Think!

On Friday June 7^th the NYS Senate adjourned and the Assembly adjourned on Saturday at 7 a.m. New York state lawmakers ended their session over the weekend, leaving a number of issues on the table. Final negotiations on several major issues were derailed after Governor Kathy Hochul made a surprise decision to halt planned congestion pricing in Manhattan, less than a month before it was scheduled to begin.

Adjourned for the summer, Speaker Heastie’s has indicated that the Assembly could return in September. All Legislators are up for election this fall and many doubt they will return. Time and political pressure will tell.

We had some good defeats (e.g., EPR) but also some bad bills made it through and one bill on petroleum bulk storage and painting of above ground tanks did not pass both houses. We successfully bottled up EPR, the TEMP Act and Short-term Disability increases. A bad amendment to the Clean Fuel Standard passed the Senate but we succeeded in ensuring it would not pass the Assembly. We do need to work on Veto’s for the TREES Act and the Pesticides in Wetlands legislation. Also, in a last-minute surprise the Assembly adopted the Climate Superfund Bill to assess charges on large producers of fossil fuels to generate over $75 billion in revenues over the next 25 years to fund climate mitigation projects.  Surprise, most legislators feel that this will not be a cost passed on to consumers!

Overall, not totally bad results but we have our work cut out for us in the fall. For now, the Legislators are gone and hopefully not to return until 2025!

Here is a summary where we landed when they left town. Thanks to all our members for your support and guidance on many of these issues.  Without you we couldn’t make this kind of an impact!

Is New York Conserving Enough?

The state of New York recently allocated $3 million for 64 conservation projects, but some are concerned about the rate at which the state is protecting land.

In recent years, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation has been purchasing conservation properties at a rate of about 5,000 acres annually, down from 70,000 acres per year in the early 1990s. Let us remember, however, that in the 1990’s we had the Environmental Bond Act and Pataki Era Million Acre March.  Today we have an even bigger Bond Act that will really impact conservation over the next 5-10 years!

Click the link below to read more:

East and West Comparison of State Land Management

Researchers compared the experiences of two advisory groups involved in state land management initiatives: the High Peaks Strategic Planning Advisory Group in New York and the Elliot State Research Forest Advisory Committee in Oregon. The New York group was convened to address increased recreational pressures in the High Peaks region of the Adirondacks, while the Oregon Group was considering turning management of the Elliot State Forest--previously managed for timber production--over to Oregon State University for research purposes.

The findings underscored the significance of the advisory group's composition, especially the inclusion of indigenous and local perspectives.

Click the link below to read more:

Hollywood and the Climate Crisis

Researchers at Colby College developed a simple test to reveal how Hollywood is reflecting climate change in film.  Looking at 250 films produced over the past decade, they asked, "Does the film acknowledge that climate change exists?" and "Does a character know about climate change?" Only 9.6% of the films reviewed passed the "Climate Reality Check," but the trend appears to be improving over time.

Click the link below to read more:

See also: Hollywood movies rarely reflect climate change crisis. These researchers want to change that.

Survey: Tree Species for Reforestation in New York State

We are forwarding this survey from the Ecological Health Network and The Nature Conservancy in New York. Together, with input from numerous partners across New York, they are creating target tree species list for large-scale reforestation efforts in New York State.

One major challenge in implementing large-scale reforestation is the limited commercial availability of native woody species and seedling supplies. This list aims to encourage landowners, reforestation practitioners, and nursery professionals to prioritize a specific subset of tree species among the hundreds native to the region, thereby boosting seedling production, increasing the commercial availability of planting materials, and maximizing overall impact. The goal is to help New York State achieve its net-zero emissions goals by reforesting 1.7 million acres of abandoned post-agricultural lands by 2050.

The survey, which takes about 20 minutes to complete, aims to gather information about tree species selection and seed/sapling procurement from those who are professionally engaged in planning, designing, implementing, monitoring, and/or maintaining tree planting and other forest ecosystem restoration efforts in New York State. The survey should be completed by June 30th, 2024. Please feel free to share widely!

Click the link below to take the survey:

Funding Opportunity - GHG Reduction Fund

Our colleagues at the firm Quantified Ventures, with funding from the U.S. Endowment for Forests & Communities, is soliciting projects for funding with federal money from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.  This fund has $27 billion in funding available, and will be deployed on projects across the country.

Some of this money will go to solar, wind, energy efficiency and other clean energy technologies.  However, there are other opportunities for carbon emission reductions, many of them in the forest products industry.  This may be an opportunity for a project you are working on.

This funding will be in the form of below-market rate loans, so it’s not grant money, but may represent a source of debt financing for forest and forest industry projects that provide climate benefits.  This might include projects in land conservation, forest management, biochar, biofuels, mass timber, sustainable packaging, and other projects that provide carbon benefits through forestry or through displacement of carbon-intensive materials with forest-based materials.

In order to qualify, projects will need to meet 3 criteria:

1. Deliver significant greenhouse gas reductions;
2. Have a revenue stream that can pay back the debt; and
3. Will be ready to receive investment within the next 12 months

Of the funding, 40% will be spent on projects in low income / disadvantaged communities.  You can check if your project is in such a federally designated location here, but don’t let the lack of such a designation discourage you.

You can learn more about the opportunity by watching a recorded 1-hour webinar here.

If this is of interest, you need to complete a brief information form here, by June 16, 2024.  This will initiate a process, and not all applicants will receive funding.