Fresh Faces: Meet New York's New Environmental Officials

Former Assemblyman Robert Sweeney, who chaired the Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee, is enjoying retirement. His former state Senate counterpart, Mark Grisanti, was ousted from office last fall. And in New York City, the de Blasio team is still getting its feet wet. So who are the new environmental officials in the city and the state?

Nilda Mesa
Director, New York City Mayor’s Office of Sustainability

Raptors may find a nest in PlaNYC, a macro-policy on environmental initiatives, if New York City’s new Office of Sustainability director has anything to do with it.

Before joining the de Blasio administration, Nilda Mesa worked as assistant vice president of environmental stewardship at Columbia University. At the time, she told the green-focused website City Atlas her ideal vision for the city would include better strategies to reduce building emissions, startup financing for such efforts and more birds of prey.

“More trees, more plants, more—OK, in my big-picture thing, I would love to see more raptors in the city,” Mesa told City Atlas. “Big birds of prey—whether they are red-tailed hawks or peregrine falcons, I don’t care, I like them all. And peregrine falcons are native to the Hudson River, and so I would love to see habitat developed for peregrine falcons.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio tapped Mesa, a fellow Clinton administration alum, to work as director of the Mayor’s Office of Environmental Coordination in September. Four months in, her office merged with the Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, a move the administration said would elevate the agencies’ work. The new Office of Sustainability oversees the administration’s environmental initiatives, leads efforts to reduce 2005’s greenhouse emissions levels at least 80 percent by 2050 and guides the mayor’s green buildings plan.

De Blasio has committed to investing at least $1 billion in greening the city’s public buildings, in part to spur landlords into following suit. Mesa told The Associated Press she was optimistic landlords would voluntarily undertake sustainability upgrades after weathering Superstorm Sandy. However, she said, the city may mandate changes if necessary.

“There’s nothing like an extreme weather event to bring home to a lot of people the importance of trying to deal with climate change,” Mesa told The Associated Press.

Mesa is also the point person for PlaNYC, a policy designed to prepare the city to adapt to climate change and population growth. The administration intends to update the plan this week.

After a collation of unions and liberal activists urged the administration to consider social inequality in PlaNYC, Mesa vowed to robustly engage residents in drafting the revised document.

“The new 2015 PlaNYC will focus on access to opportunities and livability for all New Yorkers,” Mesa said, according to Crain’s. “From Community Boards to nonprofits, to businesses to online surveys, we’re going use every tool we have to make sure New Yorkers’ voices inform this process, both before it’s published as well as afterwards.

As associate director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Mesa worked with more than 30 agencies to help implement the National Environmental Policy Act. She also worked as the U.S. U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency’s counsel and led legal negotiations with Canada and Mexico.
Her prior environmental roles include working as assistant deputy for environment in the U.S. Air Force and enforcing toxic management and natural resources laws at the California attorney general’s office.

Steve Englebright
Chair, State Assembly Committee on Environmental Conservation

Q: What are your thoughts on the recently passed state budget from an environmental standpoint? Did you see any of your priorities included? Did it come up short anywhere?
SE: Well I had some concerns about how it ended up being structured. I was concerned that we didn’t have as much of an increase in the allocation for the environmental protection fund as we should have had, and that the money that was used to make the $15 million increase was taken from (the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative) account. That money really should be used for issues directly related to climate change, rather than as an alternative for beefing up the Environmental Protection Fund’s other needs.

I was pleased that we had some increases, nevertheless. I was pleased that we had money for the nitrate study in the coastal Long Island area, Nassau and Suffolk counties. We really do need to have a master plan so that that $5 million gets used wisely to help us get there. The plan in turn will help guide us in future years for additional investments into ways to manage the ill effects of excessive nitrogen in our coastal waters and surface waters, both fresh and salt.

I was pleased that we seemed to have an accord on the brownfields reauthorization. I think that’s important, and so overall we didn’t do badly in terms of the authorization for a spending plan to meet the needs of the environment for the next year, but I think we could have done better and I think we should be very cautious and try to avoid taking any additional funds out of the RGGI account so that it gets used to meet our greatest challenge, which is climate change.

Q: Do you have other environmental goals or priorities that you want to get done post-budget and before the end of the session?
SE: One of the priorities is progress on) the environmental issues that relte to children’s health and toxics in the environment. I’m carrying that bill and I hope we will move it on Earth Day and I hope in the Assembly we can get some cooperation to make this a priority in the Senate as well.

Q: What are your longer-term environmental goals?

SE: I think we need to implement a strategy that the $5 million that I mentioned for the nitrate study, we need to implement what those plans call for and have enough money to do that. We also need to make use of the RGGI money on initiatives it should be used for, which is to deal with regional greenhouse gas-related issues. Air quality in climate preparedness for climate change. There are no parts of the state that aren’t going to be affected—border to border, north to south, east to west.

Q: Why did you want to be chair of the Committee on Environmental Conservation and what in your background will inform your work there?

SE: I’m a scientist by training and I’m an earth scientist by training. So the issues that relate to this committee have been of great interest to me since I was a teenager and that’s why I majored in biology and geology in college and pursued advanced degrees and studies in hope that I could make a positive difference and help contribute toward this mounting issue by working with my colleagues in elected office.

Thomas O’Mara
Chair, State Senate Committee on Environmental Conservation

Q: What are your thoughts on the recently passed state budget from an environmental standpoint? Did you see any of your priorities included? Did it come up short anywhere?

TO: From an environmental conservation standpoint, this budget takes some important steps. First and foremost, it strengthens the Environmental Protection Fund and keeps us moving toward fully restoring the EPF. It makes great environmental and economic sense in my view, because it focuses on so many common problems and it speaks directly to the common good. If we are ultimately successful in this ongoing effort to fully restore the EPF, it will be an enduring achievement that we all can be proud of as a leading effort to address critical environmental initiatives, short and long term, including clean air and water projects, flood control and restoration, and open space preservation. The budget also begins a new Water Quality Infrastructure Improvement fund, which the Senate fought hard for as a priority, that I believe is going to prove successful in helping localities undertake critical water infrastructure improvement projects, including sewer and pipeline repairs. I’m also pleased that we’ve extended the state’s Brownfield Cleanup Program for 10 years and, importantly, refocused it on polluted properties upstate.

Q: Do you have other environmental goals or priorities that you want to get done post-budget and before the end of the session?

TO: One of the top priorities will be to reach agreement on a sensible phaseout of the use of synthetic plastic microbeads as an abrasive in personal care products. Water quality across the Finger Lakes region, the Great Lakes region and statewide is an environmental conservation and protection priority, and so I’m hopeful that we can finally reach an agreement on a phaseout timetable that affords manufacturers time to adapt and takes into account the potential for biodegradable substitutes. A reasonable action by New York State would send a strong message to the federal government, continue to encourage more and more manufacturers to fully phase out their use of microbeads, and enhance consumer awareness.

As chairman, I look forward to continuing the committee’s focus on soil and water conservation and quality; energy-related demands including the development and promotion of cleaner sources of energy; open-space and preservation initiatives impacting farmland, forests and other state resources; solid and hazardous waste management; invasive and endangered species; and fish and wildlife.

Q: What are your longer-term environmental goals?

TO: I truly believe that there’s a critical piece of common ground that we all share when it comes to environmental conservation and protection. So I’ll be doing my best to work with my legislative colleagues and the governor to strike a reasonable, sensible balance between environmental conservation and protection, and the need to spark and strengthen economic growth and private-sector job creation regionally and statewide.

Q: Why did you want to be chair of the Committee on Environmental Conservation and what in your background will inform your work?

TO: For all of the same reasons above, but also because I was born and raised in the region where I’m raising my own family today. Since 2004, I’ve represented a district encompassing the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes. I’ve taken a personal interest in and championed many of these issues as a legislator, including farmland preservation and protection; wildlife conservation; air and water quality; invasive species; and clean energy. Because of all of this—as well as being an avid fisherman myself—I have a great appreciation and respect for our natural resources as cultural, economic and environmental mainstays of our communities, our traditions and our values. Industries like agriculture, including the hub of the state’s wine-and-grape industry in the Finger Lakes, and tourism are economic foundations throughout the region. Equally important, they’re heavily dependent upon the quality of the conservation and environmental protection decisions and actions coming out of the Capitol.

We have a responsibility to stewardship and conservation. We have a responsibility to work through these challenges in a balanced, deliberate, fair, serious and sensible way—and I’ll be doing my best to ensure that we will.