On Tuesday, a delegate of Grand Street Dems virtually attended a lobbying visit with Yuh-Line Niou. We joined organizers with NY Renews to urge Assemblymember Niou to allocate $15 billion in the state budget to fund the big & necessary climate initiatives that have already passed (as The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act) but aren’t yet paid for.
Assemblymember Niou understands the urgency and promises to work on her end to get this budget priority through. She also requested our help to make the case.
She urged that constituents send letters to her, our State Senator Brian Kavanagh, and Assembly Speaker Heastie explaining that funding climate legislation is important to us. The more letters they receive, the better; as they argue their budget priorities, elected officials can point to our letters as evidence of constituent support and concern.
Because budget discussions are happening now, letters should be sent before the end of day Friday 2/17 to have the greatest impact.
We have provided the legislators’ email addresses. To make it as simple as possible, If you click on each of their email address, it will guide you to a template for you to personalize and send right away. If you prefer, there is also the same template below that you can copy and paste and is marked where to personalize. Here is a one-page fact sheet from NY Renews that you can draw from if that’s of interest.
NY Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou: Niouy@nyassembly.gov
NY State Senator Brian Kavanagh: Kavanagh@nysenate.gov
NY Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie: Speaker@nyassembly.gov
Dear {Elected official},
New York became a climate leader with the passage of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) in 2019. But without significant funding, we risk our landmark climate justice law becoming an unfunded mandate.
I urge you to fight for $15 billion for climate in the state budget, as outlined in the Climate and Community Investment Act. Among many other initiatives, this will electrify bus fleets, support community solar, and help New Yorkers lower their energy costs. These projects and many more will get NY to our ambitious–and very necessary–climate targets.
[Personalize with your own experience/ reason for requesting climate action]To ensure a future that is safer for us and the generations that follow, I hope you will work with your colleagues in the Legislature to pass $15 billion in the state budget to fund climate initiatives.
Sincerely,
{Your name and address to prove you are a constituent]
