Mid-Session Meeting 3-10

All around, it has been agreed that the mid-session meeting between our peer environmental organizations and Senators Meyer and McKinney and Representative Roy was a success. Attendance was high. Issues that received attention from the legislators included the Bottle Bill, the creation of a Department of Energy, energy efficiency, DEP authority, toxins, riparian buffers, and highlands protection. Several environmental advocates presented bills their organizations strongly support (sustainable forestry, green cleaning products in schools, regionalism, solar power, maintaining farmland) or oppose (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative Ratepayer relief and categorizing biosludge as Class I renewable energy). An in-depth discussion of the idling bill in a way became the climax of the meeting. One point that came out of this was that we the environmentalists cannot allow the fact that there will not be very much funding available for new programs lead us into only advocating for bills which are not of the same caliber as legislation addressing the current economic downturn. We must do our best to maintain our focus on the issues we believe are most important.