Last year, Governor Cuomo and state lawmakers agreed on ambitious goals to show the nation how to attack the climate crisis here in our own backyard.  It is well-established that the burning of oil, coal and gas has triggered global warming that threatens our habitat.

Removing the atmospheric “blanket” created by fossil fuel emissions requires humankind to drastically reduce its reliance on oil, coal and gas for power.  Instead the world will have to rely on newer, non-carbon-based, sources of power – like solar and wind – and prioritize energy efficiency and conservation.

The nation is well aware of this necessary change, but the failures of the political leadership – most notably of late the negligence of the anti-science policies of the Trump Administration – has required American states to lead the way.

With much fanfare, last year New York set some of the most ambitious goals for tackling the looming climate catastrophe.  In 2019, the legislature passed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.  The legislation established an ambitious plan that mandates that, by the year 2040 100 percent of the state’s electricity be generated non-fossil fuel power, and that 70 percent of electricity be generated by renewable sources by 2030.

In addition, the new law requires that by 2050 the state must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 85 percent from 1990 levels and offset the remaining 15% by reforestation, carbon sequestration in soils and other actions. 

After the governor approved the legislation, New York joined Maine, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, New Mexico, California, and New Jersey, which have passed substantive clean energy policies in the past year or so.  (Hawaii has had its 100 percent renewables target in place since 2015.)

But the legislation offered little in the way of details on how the state would achieve these laudable goals.  Instead, the legislation established a panel, a 22-member Climate Action Council, to develop the roadmap for action.  The Council, composed of the heads of various state agencies, along with members appointed by the governor, the Senate, and the Assembly, will be holding its first meeting this week.

The first action the Council must take, and it should be done right away, is to develop a baseline of where the state is at currently in terms of renewable power and greenhouse gas emissions.  It is critically important that the Council set that benchmark and develop an easy-to-use, publicly accessible climate goal dashboard to ensure accountability of the progress the state is making.  If we don’t know where we are at now, we have no way to determine whether we’re making progress in meeting these ambitious — but absolutely necessary — goals.

The public must believe that progress is being made and the state must make progress.  Waiting until the last minute ensures that New York won’t meet its goals.

There is a history of the state’s environmental rhetoric not meeting the environmental reality.

In 2004, then-Governor Pataki promised that the state would achieve 25% renewable energy for electricity by 2013.  That goal was increased to 30% by 2015 under then-Governor Patterson.  In 2009, Governor Paterson amended the goal to obtain 45% of the state’s electricity by clean power and energy efficiency.  In 2015, the state did not meet those goals. 

In fact, since these goals were established, New York has added less than 5% of its power production from wind and solar sources.

In order to meet the new legislation’s goals, New York must cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2.7% each year to meet its 2030 goal, and 2.25% each year afterwards to meet the 2050 goal.  Emission reductions must be accelerated across all sectors, especially in transportation, which accounts for the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions in New York.

If New York is going to meet its renewable energy goals, solar and wind will need to increase by 6.5% annually until 2030, and 3% annually afterwards to meet the 2040 goal.

But unless there is widespread public support for these changes, the overhaul of the state’s energy sector will be much harder to achieve.  And the key to that success hinges on the Climate Action Council taking its first steps – immediate steps – to ensure accountability and transparency in tracking progress toward its important goals.  Failure to achieve those goals could result in a more devastating future for the people of the world.  Among its first tasks the Council should develop a dashboard so New Yorkers can monitor whether New York is meeting its mandate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition to renewable energy.  Everything is riding on a successful effort.

State lawmakers return from their Presidents’ Week “mini-break” and begin to seriously debate the next state budget.  New York’s fiscal year starts on April first, thus giving Albany 5 weeks to negotiate the proposed $178 billion state budget.

Contained in that budget are many important policies – from Medicaid spending to higher education to the environment to education financing.  Most of the budget’s “top line” items are publicly debated; sometime equally important items are not.  One under-debated issue is the rising threat from infections that are increasingly resistant to antibiotics, also known as “superbugs.”

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), antibiotic-resistant bacteria are most prevalent in environments associated with high antibiotic use: healthcare settings, the general community, and in livestock production.  Antibiotic resistance can spread from person to person, from animal to person, via the natural environment or contaminated food and from bacteria to bacteria.  Some bacteria have developed resistance to multiple antibiotics, making them especially difficult to treat, and thus very dangerous and sometimes deadly.  Common infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, blood poisoning, food poisoning, and gonorrhea have already become harder and sometimes impossible to treat due to multidrug-resistant bacteria.

The problem of antibiotics-resistance is not just one found in the United States, it is a worldwide problem.  And worldwide problems demand global responses.

Antibiotic resistance happens when bacteria develop the ability to defeat the drugs designed to kill them.  Each year in the United States, more than 2.8 million infections from bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics occur and more than 35,000 people die as a direct result.  Many more die from complications from antibiotic-resistant infections.

A study commissioned by the U.K. government predicts that if action is not taken now to combat antibiotic resistance,by 2050 the annual death toll will have risen to 10 million globally.  

The situation is getting worse with the emergence of new bacterial strains resistant to several antibiotics at the same time (known as multidrug-resistant bacteria). Such bacteria may eventually become resistant to all existing antibiotics. Without antibiotics, the world could return to the “pre-antibiotic era”, when organ transplants, cancer chemotherapy, intensive care and other medical procedures would no longer be possible.  Bacterial diseases would spread and could no longer be treated, causing death.

There is hope.  Data from European agencies show that interventions can work.  Medical data shows that Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands have low rates of superbugs, but that there are higher rates in Southern Europe.  Countries with lower resistance rates have generally lower use of antibiotics, while countries with higher antibiotic resistance rates use more antibiotics.

Buried in the governor’s proposed health budget is an item to begin to address the rise of antibiotics resistant superbugs.  In his budget, the governor proposed that every general hospital and nursing home must establish an antibiotic stewardship program that meets or exceeds federal conditions of participation for antimicrobial stewardship programs in health care facilities. Additionally, such program shall incorporate an ongoing process to measure the impact of the program.  While vague, the governor’s program leaves the details up to the state’s Health Commissioner.

Yet, the governor’s plan leaves out an important area of antibiotics overuse and misuse: use on farms.  Nearly two-thirds of antibiotics that are important for human medicine are currently sold for use in livestock, not people. These drugs are routinely given as poor compensation for inappropriate diets and the stressful, crowded and unsanitary conditions on industrial feedlots. This practice hastens the spread of antibiotic resistance in bacteria and increases the risk of drug-resistant infections in people.

When antibiotics are given to food-producing animals, they kill most of the bacteria in them. The resistant bacteria, however, survive and can contaminate animal products during slaughtering and processing. They can also contaminate fruits and vegetables via contaminated soil or water, especially when animal manure is used as fertilizer. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria can contaminate food prepared on germ-filled surfaces and the environment via animal feces. According to the CDC, approximately 1 in 5 antibiotic-resistant infections are caused by germs from food and animals.

Thus, the governor’s plan ignores 20 percent of the problem – and in dealing with the growing menace of superbugs, comprehensive approaches are the only ones that will work. 

It is clear from the Scandinavian experiences that policies can significantly reduce the rise of “superbugs”: policies that focus on cleanliness in health care settings, a reliance on antibiotic use in humans only when medically necessary, and a drastic reduction in use on farm animals.  The most obvious way to reduce use among farm animals is for veterinarians to stop the use of antibiotics on healthy livestock.

This is a worldwide problem, unless the rise of “superbugs” can be stopped, the next generation will be faced with a world without effective antibiotics, one in which illnesses like urinary tract infections will be untreatable, leaving people to suffer and perhaps die, from infections easily treatable today.

Last week, Governor Cuomo made a push for environmental initiatives contained in his budget plan.  The governor advanced what he described as an “historic $33 billion, five-year commitment to fight climate change.”

The governor urged support for measures: to ban single-use styrofoam food containers and packing materials; to earmark $300 million for the state’s Environmental Protection Fund; to add $500 million to improve drinking water infrastructure; and to permanently ban hydrofracking. 

But the centerpiece of his environmental package was his plan to create a $3 billion environmental bond act that “will fund critical environmental restoration projects in every corner of the state to ensure New York is able to withstand the threat of more intense and frequent storms fueled by climate change.”  He dubbed this part of the plan, the “Restore Mother Earth” bond act. 

On the need for billions to address the costs of climate change, the governor’s right.  New York – like the rest of the planet – will have to spend billions to mitigate the enormous damage caused by climate change.  A “Restore Mother Earth” bond act offers a down payment for the costs that New York will undoubtedly have to pay.

The question is, who should pay back the costs of the bond act borrowing?

The governor’s plan proposes that the general public pay the back the costs of borrowing the bond monies; for most bond acts, the public usually pays. 

A bond act is a way for the state to borrow a large amount of money to meet pressing needs.  The borrowed money should be used for projects that are expected to last at least the lifetime of the borrowing – usually 30 years.  Thus, spending makes sense for state projects that would protect drinking and fresh water supplies. 

Usually, bond acts are paid back through general revenues – we all pay them back.  But not always.  In the Environmental Bond Act of 1986, for example, which was designed to finance the clean-up of hazardous waste sites, the bond monies raised were to be offset by the state charging polluters responsible for the messes.  That formulation was so successful that the 1986 Bond Act was overwhelmingly approved by voters. 

It’s a formulation that makes sense now. 

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposed bond act is – as he has stated – to finance projects to help the state “withstand the threat of more intense and frequent storms fueled by climate change.”  But who’s responsible for climate change?

The responsible parties for the climate crisis are the oil, gas and coal industries.  It is those industries that should pay the borrowing back. 

It was those industries that knew for decades the dangers of global warming from the burning of fossil fuels.  It was those industries that spent money – on lobbyists, public relations and campaign contributions – on a disinformation campaign to combat measures to curb greenhouses gas emissions that form the “blanket” contributing to the heating up of the earth.

The oil, coal and gas industries should pay for the costs resulting from their actions, not the general public.  If your neighbor dumped poison on your lawn and it had to be cleaned up, should you pay or the neighbor?  The neighbor should.

While that is a hypothetical scenario, effectively that’s what happened with climate change.  The fossil fuel industries used their political know-how to undermine the science—including their science—that warned the public about climate change and used their deep-pockets to block policy reforms designed to protect the public and the environment.

But like that fictional neighbor, it is their fault.  They made the mess, they should clean it up.  A responsibility lesson that every child learns, they’ve been able to dodge through political muscle and their fat checkbooks.

Governor Cuomo and state lawmakers should ensure that the oil, gas, and coal industries are on the financial hook, not taxpayers, for the looming climate catastrophe.  The “Restore Mother Nature” bond act is needed, but those responsible should pay.

Last week, as the state budget hearings continued, lawmakers heard pleas from academics, faculty and students that higher educational institutions are struggling, and that New York’s public policies make things worse.

One consistent refrain was the need for the Legislature to change the governor’s proposed budget by closing the so-called “TAP gap.”  What’s a TAP gap?  First, some background.

When Governor Cuomo came into office in 2011, one of the initiatives he advanced was a plan to annually increase tuition at public colleges and universities.  The appeal of predictable increases, according to the governor, is that students and their families would know the annual cost of tuition.  Under his plan, tuition would go up annually, but be capped at a certain amount.  In the early years, that cap was set at $300 annual increase.

But what was not fully discussed was the impact it would have on the state’s biggest college financial program – the Tuition Assistance Program, or TAP.  TAP is an almost fifty year old program that awards state financial aid to college students – both at public and independent colleges – based on income.  The poorer the student, the larger the award.

Until Governor Cuomo, the maximum TAP award matched the cost of tuition at public colleges.

When the governor first advanced his plan, that relationship was severed.  Instead the maximum TAP award was frozen at $5,000 annually (it was bumped up a few years later to $5,165) while tuition costs annually went up.  Tuition at the State University of New York today hovers around $7,000.  Under the new system, the local college must make up the $2,000 difference per needy student out of their own local budget.

The difference between public college tuition and the maximum TAP award is known as the “TAP gap.”  That “gap” is increasingly putting strains on the community colleges and four-year public colleges, since they now must pony up a million dollars or so to help needy students – assistance that used to be provided by the state.

Independent (private) colleges are facing the financial pressure too, since TAP offers less and less assistance for low-income students that often needs to be made up by those institutions.

In addition, there are substantial demographic changes in New York.  The upstate population is shrinking, particularly among the college-aged.  SUNY community colleges have taken a dramatic hit, with tens of thousands of fewer students than a decade ago.

As a result of these pressures, SUNY 4-year colleges have had to raise tuition and administrative fees to cover costs.  Many SUNY community colleges are teetering on the brink as they grapple with cratering student enrollments and tight state assistance.  Community college tuition – already among the highest in the nation – has had to jump.  With fewer students, but the same costs, tuition hikes have to cover the difference.  Higher tuition results in fewer students and things keep getting worse.

Independent colleges and universities are taking a hit too and their share of the TAP awards has dropped substantially. 

What is to be done?

In the short-term, the state needs to cover the difference of the “TAP gap.”  Doing so will immediately bring relief to struggling campuses.  The help to community colleges will need to be even more robust, as some of them are in dire financial straits.  Also, the state must boost aid to independent colleges to help them make ends meet. 

A longer-term solution is to modernize the state’s TAP program.  Peg the maximum award to the cost of public college tuition – which helps all colleges – and modernize it.  Ten years ago, the state stopped awarding TAP to graduate students.  In the modern age that doesn’t make sense.  Part-timers – students typically juggling job and family responsibilities – should get aid, too.

The state’s Excelsior Scholarship – which offers some help – benefits only a very small portion of students.  Last year, of the total 452,000 full-time undergraduate public college students (287,000 at SUNY and 165,000 at CUNY), only 25,000 received an Excelsior award.

One hundred years ago, reformers pushed to make public school free.  They argued that a better educated populace benefited the nation’s economy and strengthened democracy. 

In the 21^st Century, education beyond high school is as critical now as universal education was at the turn of the 20^th Century.  Public policies today should seek to make it more affordable and accessible, not less.  One place to start is by closing the “Tap gap.”

On January 11, 1964, the U.S. Surgeon General issued his first report on the dangers of smoking.  Based on more than 7,000 articles relating to smoking and disease then available in the medical literature, the Surgeon General’s report concluded that cigarette smoking is a cause of lung cancer. 

The result was relatively mild; in 1966 the federal government required a health warning on cigarette packages and in 1970 it banned cigarette advertising in the broadcasting media.  The industry figured out how to circumvent these obstacles.  They started using cartoon characters, they offered candy-flavored tobacco products, they placed their products in popular movies, and advertised in magazines aimed at women, African Americans, and sports fans.  All with the goal of making cigarette smoking glamorous and to appeal to kids.  They knew that virtually all smokers started in their early teens; getting kids hooked was key to replacing the customers that were dying from tobacco diseases.

As the evidence began to pile up that exposure to tobacco smoke by non-smokers caused disease, public health advocates pushed for action to curb environmental tobacco smoke exposure.  In the late 1980s, New York State – considered a progressive state – enacted the first limited steps to ban smoking in certain work and public places.  Two decades later – and nearly 40 years after the first Surgeon General report – a more expansive workplace and public space tobacco use ban was enacted.

Why did it take so long for public policy to catch up to the science?  The political power of the tobacco lobby.  In New York for years the tobacco lobby hired lobbyists with close connections to governors and state lawmakers, funneled massive donations to friendly charities, showered public officials with gifts such as freebies to the U.S. Open, hard-to-get theater tickets, lots of free meals, and made big campaign contributions. 

The science was never the problem, the corruption of New York’s political system was.

It wasn’t until the politics changed that New York acted.  In a series of media investigations – led by the NY Times, it became clear that the tobacco industry had illegally – and legally – influenced Albany’s decision making.  Nearly all elected officials in New York were implicated.  It became an important act of political survival for elected officials to distance themselves from Big Tobacco.  Soon after the scandal was revealed they passed laws like banning smoking in public places and all workplaces – including bars.  They raised the cigarette tax to the highest in the nation.  They approved the first-in-the-nation requirement that cigarettes had to meet rigorous fire safety standards.

The state Democratic Party even swore to not accept campaign contributions from the tobacco industry.

And for a while it worked.  The tobacco industry’s power was dramatically weakened, and lives were saved.  According to the New York State Health Department, tens of thousands of New Yorkers were spared from tobacco-related diseases due to the pro-health actions taken.

But now, Big Tobacco is back.

While tobacco use dwindled, the industry identified a new way to sell their addictive products – electronic cigarettes.  The industry spent money to invest in the new nicotine delivery devices and we are now seeing the pay-offs – about one third of all high school students have illegally used an e-cig.  Use is growing dramatically, and so is the body count.

Governor Cuomo called for action to curtail the sale of flavored e-cigs.  One of the devilish ways the industry replaces the smokers who quit or die is to target young people.  In New York, the average age for beginning smokers is 13, despite laws banning sales to minors.  The e-cig industry took a page from Big Tobacco’s past and started selling vapes with candy flavors.  And it worked.

Governor Cuomo has advanced legislation that bans the sale of flavored e-cigs, but leaves in place the sale of flavored conventional tobacco products.  And opposition to even this approach is fierce in the Legislature.  The state Capitol has been flooded with tobacco and e-cig lobbyists all with the goal of protecting the Merchants of Death.

How these individuals sleep at night is beyond me.  These products serve no public purpose, they are designed to addict, harm health, cause early, painful deaths for many users and target children.

How our elected officials listen to the pleas of these death merchants and their paid mouthpieces is something that voters should know about.  Because voter anger at putting the wealth of Big Tobacco ahead of the health of children is not only despicable, but politically dangerous.

This is an election year.  Let’s see if New York – the supposed progressive capital of the nation – protects kids and bans flavored vapes and tobacco.  It’s time to put Count Dracula back in his grave.