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Spitzer stumps on green issue

BY JENNIFER SMITH | NEWSDAY ALBANY BUREAU

March 30, 2006

New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is seen after a fundraiser at the Glen Oaks Country Club in Old Westbury. (Newsday / Karen Wiles Stabile / February 15, 2006)

ALBANY - In the first major speech on environmental policy of the gubernatorial campaign, State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer denounced President George Bush's "systematic assault on the environment" and called for the closing of the Indian Point nuclear power plant.

"We need to stand up to protect New York against those who would harm its environment," Spitzer said in a speech broadcast live on Albany's WAMC radio yesterday.

While he praised the environmental stewardship of Republicans such as former EPA administrator Christie Todd Whitman, Spitzer blasted Bush for what he called a "legacy of environmental degradation that will take decades to repair" and pointed to his own record of legal chal- lenges to those policies.

The speech made few detailed policy recommendations but was received warmly by environmental advocates. "It hit all the right notes," said Kevin McDonald of the Nature Conservancy on Long Island.

Spitzer also played to liberal downstate voters by advocating for redevelopment of brownfields - old industrial or commercial properties that may contain some environmental contamination - and so-called "smart growth" development policies that limit suburban sprawl. "That's a message that should resonate very strongly on Long Island," McDonald said.

Discussing water quality, Spitzer called for safeguarding Long Island Sound. He also stressed the need to protect upstate watersheds that surround the sources of New York City's drinking water and called the presence of the gasoline additive MTBE in state groundwater "a particularly serious problem on Long Island, where groundwater is the only source of drinking water."