Editorial: A fight worth having
As we have stated in this space before — and it is essential to repeat — the present administration in Washington is doing everything it can to bury action to slow a rapidly heating planet that will imperil generations to come.
Recently, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum proclaimed that the administration will pony up about $1 billion in taxpayer funds — your money — to pay a developer to cancel leases on two wind farms off the East Coast. President Trump has called clean energy “a scam,” and advocates for something called “clean coal.” In February, he was touted as a “champion” of “clean coal” by the Washington Coal Club, a lobbyist financially tied to the coal companies. They even gave him a bronze trophy.
One of the top corporate backers of Republicans is the oil and coal industry. No surprise then that the administration does all it can to stop wind-powered electricity. Former East End congressman and now Environmental Protection Agency chief Lee Zeldin said, “We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.”
Religion? Scam? Or denial? Mr. Zeldin, when he represented the East End was, in the main, a moderate. Now he’s had a road to Damascus conversion to an extreme, fact-free point of view. As The New York Times reported: “Mr. Zeldin has withheld billions of dollars in climate funds approved by Congress … recommended the elimination of EPA scientists, and started trying to repeal dozens of environmental regulations … He has filled the leadership ranks at the agency with lobbyists and lawyers from industries that have fought environmental regulations.” An international group of nonprofits under the banner of Climate Trace, which tracks greenhouse gas around the world, has found that there are five “super emitters” on Long Island, which put into our air “particulate matter” that comes through the burning of fossil fuels. Researchers at Stony Brook University say this form of pollution causes 100,000 U.S. deaths a year.
Climate Trace says the super emitters on Long Island are power plants in Holtsville, Shoreham/Wading River, Northport, and the two harbors of Port Jefferson and Greenport.
This headlong rush to keep pumping toxic emissions into our air can be stopped and slowed, not just by scientists publishing facts and advocates raising voices, but by courts that rule on laws being broken. In January, a federal judge ruled that construction of a $5 billion wind farm off Long Island could resume. That’s just one of five projects that courts have ruled must continue, overruling administration stop-work orders. Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) has said, “I am sick and tired of having to go to court time and time and time again to stop these decisions … They’re designed to do nothing other than hurt workers, hurt our economy and hurt our energy future.”
Well said, but how does the governor square her commitment to clean air with proposing to move back deadlines on clean-air mandates? This is a cause that must engage everyone. Elected officials, courts and citizens should know what’s right and that it’s worth fighting for.
