Last week was a depressing one in Albany: the all-too-familiar gridlock resulting from partisan differences, pettiness and legislative dysfunction.  And while some of the issues that are stuck in the legislative morass are important – such as tenants’ housing costs – some would, if enacted, have a limited impact on many people.

Yet, last week one issue moved front and center – global warming.  The push that moved the issue came from an unlikely source:  the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis.

The Pope publicly issued a policy paper that stated, “The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.”  Strong stuff.

His encyclical further argued, “The problem is aggravated by a model of development based on the intensive use of fossil fuels, which is at the heart of the worldwide energy system.”

His analysis is based on facts.  2014 was the hottest year in recorded history.  The world’s experts have stated that global warming is largely due to human activity—primarily the result of reliance on fossil fuels.  They argue that the only way to respond to this crisis is to dramatically slash the use of fossil fuels, like coal, oil and gas, which, when burned, emit the greenhouse gases warming the planet.

Over the past 150 years, the industrialized world has been able to use fossil fuels to power its societies.  Those nations, now joined by China and other emerging nations, are generating too much greenhouse gas emissions for the planet to absorb, thus leading to the greenhouse effect that is heating up the planet.

While global warming is a threat to civilization, given its wealth the most affluent nations should be able to mitigate some of the worst consequences.  Yet the poorest nations, those least responsible for generating greenhouse gases, are the ones who will suffer the most.

Not only will a hotter planet result in more droughts and thus famine, global warming can devastate in other ways.

For example, a severe drought, worsened by a warming climate, drove Syrian farmers to abandon their crops and flock to cities, helping trigger a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.  The drought was the most severe on record, and its severity matched trends expected to occur with rising temperatures.  The drought increased the risk that the country would unravel, and climate change was a factor in the drought.

Another example is the impact of rising sea levels.  Experts predict that global sea levels could rise more than three feet by 2100.  Bangladesh is one of the world’s poorest nations’ and much of its land is at or below sea level.  Experts predict that by 2050, rising sea levels will inundate some 17 percent of Bangladesh and displace about 18 million people.  But Bangladesh generates only a tiny fraction of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

In a rational political system, our nation would act.  Congress would hold hearings, introduce legislation and advance proposals to help curb the impact our nation has on the world’s climate.

But our national political system is anything but rational.  Many of the nation’s political elite simply don’t believe in the fact that the planet is heating up, and many more ignore the evidence that humans are primarily responsible.

Given that our national government is incapable of addressing this issue, it is up to the states to develop solutions.  New York could be among the leaders in tackling the issue.

New York is not only contemplating how to respond to the climate change menace, but it is also trying to move its energy system into the digital age.  Under the current utility structure, the power sector in New York is on track to spend an estimated $30 billion to replace and modernize the state’s aging energy infrastructure over the next decade.

In New York, the proposed solution is the state’s Reforming the Energy Vision (“REV”) plan.  REV is under active development before the state’s Public Service Commission.  REV has the potential to fundamentally reshape the production and distribution of electric power and significantly reduce the creation of heat-trapping carbon emissions through the use of energy use reductions, efficiency measures and the move to reliance on alternative energy sources, such as solar power.

The old saying is that the states are the laboratories of democracy.  New York’s REV offers a vision for how to modernize the energy grid while mitigating the impacts from global warming.  If it succeeds, it can offer a model for the nation and perhaps the world.

Lawmakers are set to wrap up the scheduled end of the 2015 legislative session.  Typically, this week is “show time” for lawmakers – hundreds of bills are likely to be approved, many more will fail.

For the second year in a row, an important bill that is under serious consideration is the “Toxic Chemicals in Children’s Products” Act.  If approved the bill would establish a framework for identifying potentially harmful chemicals in everyday children’s apparel, toys and other consumer products.  The type of chemicals would include those likely to be a carcinogen, severely toxic or cause significant health problems.

Manufacturers would be required to report their intentional use of most harmful “priority chemicals” in children’s products within twelve months of such listing.  Eleven identified “priority chemicals”—such as lead, asbestos and benzene—would be banned for use in children’s products as of January 1, 2018.

This legislation represents a paradigm shift over current federal and state laws that fail to prevent toxic exposures.  It would oblige a response to the devastating health and environmental problems caused by toxic chemicals before injuries occur.

This intelligent legislation proposes a preventative, science-based approach—as already adopted by the European Union.  The bill is modeled after legislation in Maine and Washington State.  Three counties in New York – Albany, Suffolk and Westchester – have acted as well.

Federal law was supposed to protect public health and the environment by establishing a way to review the safety of chemicals and, if based upon that analysis a chemical was found to be toxic, ban its use in the U.S.  Yet, after 35 years, only 200 of the nearly 83,000 chemicals produced and used in commerce have been reviewed.  Only five have been banned.  Chemicals such as asbestos—proven to cause cancer and lung disease—have not be banned.

Toxic chemicals are suspected of playing a role in many of the most pressing health issues, including cancer, heart disease, obesity, and children’s developmental disorders.  Moreover, getting these toxic chemicals out of children’s products will protect workers from exposure, reduce overall toxics in the environment and diminish toxic chemicals sent to landfills, recycling programs and incinerators.

Clearly, there needs to be a better way to protect children and the environment.

More than fifty years ago, President Kennedy laid out the cornerstones of modern consumer protection.  President Kennedy’s 1962 Consumer Bill of Rights was hailed as opening a new era in consumer protection.  These principles continue to be relevant and vital in 2015.  Included among these were three key principles:

1. The right to meaningful information;
2. The right to choice; and
3. The right to safety.

These rights are so reasonable and so fundamental as to be beyond dispute.  They complement each other and ensure that the other rights are meaningful and realized.  If there is no choice, meaningful information becomes moot; if there is choice, but no meaningful information, consumer choice is illusory.  And if a product is unsafe, information and choice are of little benefit.

Parents and other caregivers cannot be expected to sample and laboratory test each product for toxic chemicals before a purchase.  And not every parent can afford or find products that are guaranteed to be “toxic free”—if such products exist at all.

Ensuring that children’s products are safe is not only an appropriate role for government; it is an essential role for government. 

The legislature has begun to act.  The Assembly has passed legislation that addresses this problem and there is significant support in the state Senate.  Of the 63 Senators, 42 of them are now sponsors of the bill; including a Republican lead sponsor.  Governor Cuomo has stated that he supports this legislation and that is a priority for him this session.  Yet, so far, the Senate leadership has blocked the bill from consideration.

Clearly, with such overwhelming support, this important public health measure could become law this week.  It is now up to the overwhelming number of Senators to make sure that this legislation gets approved and sent to the governor.

While New York’s political class has been focused on Albany as it heads down the homestretch for the 2015 legislative session, the US Supreme Court could have a huge impact on both the state’s policies and politics.

Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case brought by some voters in Texas that could define the meaning of the principle of “one person, one vote.”  The Court is expected to reach a decision next year.

We all know that in our representative democracy, it’s important that legislative districts contain more or less the same number of people; we all want equal representation.  That’s why the nation has had a census – it’s a way to count the number of people in the nation and then to allocate Congressional districts to reflect changes in the population.

The Constitution itself is quite clear:  the 14th Amendment states that all people in the United States are to be counted for distributing US representatives.

A 1964 Supreme Court decision ruled that voting districts must contain very close to the same number of people. But the court did not say which people count.

Federal appeals courts have uniformly ruled that counting everyone is permissible, and one court has indicated that it is required.  The census counts every person living in the nation, irrespective of their ages, whether they are immigrants – here legally or not.   And it is that census that provides the basis for the reapportionment of Congressional representatives and the drawing of new district lines every ten years.

But the Supreme Court has never resolved whether voting districts should have the same number of people, or the same number of eligible voters. Counting all people amplifies the voting power of places with large numbers of residents who cannot vote legally, including immigrants who are here legally but are not citizens, illegal immigrants, children and prisoners.

And that issue – who counts when creating legislative districts – is at the heart of the case brought in Texas.

Most state and local governments draw districts based on total population. If people who were ineligible to vote were evenly distributed, the difference between counting all people or counting only eligible voters would not matter. But demographic patterns vary widely.

Not only is there the obvious issue of counting those under the age of 18 – clearly nonvoters – but there is the issue of immigrants living in the country.  For example, there are about 11.7 million illegal immigrants that lived in the United States in January 2010.  More than half of all unauthorized immigrants lived in California (2.9 million), Texas (1.6 million), Florida (1.0 million), and New York (705 thousand).

More broadly, more than four million immigrants live in New York and three million of them live in New York City.  Roughly the same proportion of illegal immigrants live in New York City, so more than 550,000 illegal immigrants live in the City.

The Texas case argues that the definition of “one person, one vote” means only voters.  The individuals bringing the case argue that their voting power had been diluted.  They argue that their representatives should have more of a say since they are from rural areas which tend to have higher numbers of older voters and with a smaller percentage of immigrants.

So, what are the arguments?  The current system ensures representational equality, with elected officials tending to the interests of the same number of people, whether they are voters or not. Counting only eligible voters, on the other hand, is based on the principle that voters hold the ultimate political power in our democracy.

If the challenge succeeds, it is likely to hurt urban areas – with its larger immigrant populations and with a younger average age – and benefit rural areas.

But more problems could result: The change would likely mean new districts would have to be developed, but that would require a new census, since the current one includes all people, of all ages.

And redoing legislative districts and then holding new elections could make Albany even more chaotic than it is now.  New York’s political future is in the Court’s hands.

Ethics controversies continue to dominate the news in New York.  The former Senate Majority Leader and his son were formally indicted, there were reports of the Nassau County District Attorney investigating a powerful Long Island-based Senator’s misuse of public funds, and the FBI raided the residence of a long-time political operative in Buffalo and two others.

All in one week.  Unbelievable.

These latest actions come after the indictment of the former Speaker of the Assembly and the guilty plea of a legislator.  And of course, these actions occur in a context of ongoing ethics scandals that have plagued Albany for years.

In a normally functioning democracy, lawmakers would react: hearings would be held, legislation would be introduced, and news conferences would be held.

But in Albany, not much more than a peep.

To his credit, last week the state’s Attorney General unveiled his ethics reform package, but Governor Cuomo quickly shot it down claiming that there is too little time left in the session for a meaningful debate over his proposal.  What did the governor think should be done?  Not a word.

Why would the governor sweep the ethics issue under the rug?  The most charitable interpretation is that the governor’s political calculus has determined the Senate’s and Assembly’s new leadership simply cannot handle negotiating additional significant legislation, much less sweeping ethics changes.

The most pessimistic interpretation is that the governor has given up, and would rather not be associated with Albany or talking about its ongoing scandals.

Ethics reform is a tough sell even under the best of circumstances.  While there is no doubt that legal changes are needed, what is really needed is the creation of an independent enforcement agency that regulates state ethics requirements without fear or favor.

And the creation of such an entity is something that Albany does not want to do.  There is too much fear that an independent agency could end up a runaway enforcer, criminalizing the log-rolling practices found in the normal legislative process.  An additional fear is that the enforcer could end up being taken over by partisans who would use ethics laws to unfairly target political opponents.

Yet, New Yorkers have been promised independent ethics enforcement.  In 2010, then Attorney General Andrew Cuomo promised to reform New York’s ethics law.  He pledged:

To restore public confidence and address this potential and actual conflict of interest, [to] … establish an independent State ethics commission with robust enforcement powers to investigate and punish violations of law by members of both the executive and legislative branches.”

The governor’s diagnosis was correct: the key to real reform – and success in ending Albany’s ethical weaknesses – was, and is, the establishment of an independent ethics enforcement agency that would enforce New York law without fear or favor.

Since he became governor, Albany has regularly passed ethics bills with lots of fanfare, but with little impact.  Instead of creating a system of ethics regulated by an independent enforcer, they instead approve limited measures that usually require more disclosures.

And now, after what may turn out to have been the lowest ethical point in New York State history, the governor and the legislative leaders are choosing to ignore the issue and kick the can down the road.

New York deserves better.  We elect our representatives to solve problems, not ignore them.

Last week, the Cuomo Administration held a cancer summit, the “New York State Cancer Prevention Summit: Transforming the Cancer Agenda for the Next Generation.”  The stated goal of this summit was to “focus on cancer prevention.”

Like all New Yorkers, I like the idea that the state government is examining the diseases caused by the “c-word” and it is an issue that deserves a summit.

Here are some of the cancer statistics for New York State.  According to the American Cancer Society, it is estimated that there will be nearly 108,000 cancer cases diagnosed in New York this year.  In addition, nearly 35,000 New Yorkers will die from various cancers.  Four cancers account for nearly half of all of these diagnoses and deaths:  breast, colon, prostate, and lung cancers.

In New York, lung cancer is the number one cancer killer resulting in over 8,000 cancer deaths, or roughly one quarter of all cancer deaths.  As we all know, the vast majority of lung cancers are the result of tobacco use.

The American Cancer Society’s statistics only include one form of skin cancer, melanoma.  The other major forms of skin cancer, basal and squamous skin cancers, are usually not life threatening and so are not part of their statistics.  Melanoma is responsible for over three quarters of all skin cancer deaths.

But skin cancer is far and away the most frequently diagnosed cancer, with an estimated 100,000 cases in New York each year.

You would expect that the cancer “summit” would focus on these major cancers as well as examining emerging causes of cancers – those caused by obesity and a sedentary lifestyle for example.

But there was little examination of the state’s policies for fighting cancer.  Since about one half of all cancers are the result of lifestyle choices, and one quarter of all deaths result from tobacco use, how well the state was attacking those problems should have been featured in this summit.

But a thorough review would have found that the cancer-fighting policies of the Cuomo Administration were failing.

As mentioned earlier, the single biggest cancer killer is lung cancer, which is almost entirely due to tobacco use.  Yet, the Cuomo Administration has consistently cut funding for the state’s effort to help smokers to quit and keep kids from starting. The program is modeled on the best practices developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and has demonstrated success, but the state spends less than half of what it did a few years ago.

When it comes to skin cancer, other than educating the public on the dangers of excessive sun exposure, there isn’t a lot that the state can do.  However, when it comes to indoor tanning, the state is doing the minimum.  A few years ago, legislation was passed banning kids under the age of 17 from using indoor tanning salons and requiring that 17 year olds get their parents’ permission to use them.  Why did that law pass?  Because of the growing evidence that indoor tanning was causing a rise in skin cancers and melanoma, particularly among young people.

New York law allows the Health Department to post warnings to alert the public to the dangers of indoor tanning.  Yet, inexplicably, New York has chosen not to use the “c-word” in its warnings – even though they were asked to do so!

Why would they fail to require a warning about skin cancer for indoor tanning?  The only opposition was from the industry itself.  As a result, tanning consumers are deprived of a critically important health warning.

All New Yorkers would likely agree that a top policy effort by all levels of government should be to do what they can to reduce cancer prevalence, help identify cancers early on, and help cancer patients deal with the financial, physical and emotion toll of the treatments.

But doing it is far better than talking about it.  New Yorkers deserve a state government that implements the best practices in its cancer fighting efforts, not annual budgets that seek to slash funding for those programs, or soften warnings due to industry opposition.

Hopefully, the summit will change the Administration’s behavior in attacking cancer.  Lives depend on it.