{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Radio Chatskill","title":"Scenic Hudson's Pete Lopez Discusses Environmental Legislation in New York state budget","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":677,"description":"New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a $254 billion state budget last week.As reaction from advocacy organizations pours in, from the New York Public News Network, WAMC’s Lucas Willard spoke with Pete Lopez, Executive Director of Policy, Advocacy and Science at Scenic Hudson, about some of the environmental policy that was included — and omitted — from the final budget deal. We're thankful for the governor's attention for, the attention of the legislature to protecting and stewarding our natural resources and ensuring that we have clean air, clean water. We're moving in a direction of sustainability. And again, we have confidence that this is a conscious effort, not just from the environmental leadership in the legislature, but from the legislature as a whole to protect and steward those important elements that we feel our need to protect public health and safety and quality of life from an environmental public health standpoint,One of the major environmental items in the budget is the continued support for the Clean Water Infrastructure Act. That's $500 million, that's a maintaining of funding. What can you tell me about the importance of this program and this investment that we're seeing, a total of $500 million for the fiscal year 2026 budget?So, I can wear a cuts and hat, but I can also wear my former local official and former Assembly and EPA hat. So ultimately, to meet clean water standards for surface water, for drinking water for discharge requires investment, and so local officials who are involved with water and sewer point discharge, combined sewer overflows, drinking water systems, do their best, and they work under the guidance of DEC, Department of Environmental Conservation, and Department of Health to meet these standards, but ultimately, support is needed. State, federal funds are needed to try to make these systems meet these requirements and build new capacity where there are known threats to public health and safety. So, these investments are...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/q7XXsnSXT_u4mZLCn3chUorwDmUD_kWiB272D6emB18/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS80N2Uy/OGY5MWUwZThkYTEw/NDVkZGM2ZGZkZDIw/ZjliOS5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}