MISSION:
Environmental Advocates of New York's mission is to protect our air, land, water and wildlife and the health of all New Yorkers. Based in Albany, we monitor state government, evaluate proposed laws, and champion policies and practices that will ensure the responsible stewardship of our shared environment. We work to support and strengthen the efforts of New York's environmental community and to make our state a national leader.

HISTORY:
In 1969, a small group of environmentalists in New York State launched a plan that led to groundbreaking environmental protections. As one of the nation's first state policy-focused environmental councils, we established a prototype for environmental advocacy that has been replicated in state capitals across the nation.

The founders of the Environmental Planning Lobby—Environmental Advocates of New York's predecessor—turned the state into a national showcase for innovative environmental policy. And for nearly 40 years, we've played a role in virtually every major environmental accomplishment in New York State.

Our efforts were instrumental in passing some of our most significant environmental laws, including:

• the state's original bottle deposit law
• the nation's first acid rain law
• the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA)
• the Wild, Scenic & Recreational River Systems Program
• the Environmental Protection Fund
• the Hudson River Estuary Management Act
• the Lead Poisoning Prevention Act
• the Clean Indoor Air Act
• the low emission vehicle program
• the 1996 Clean/Water/Clean Air Bond Act

We have now entered a new era defined by sophisticated and well-financed opposition to environmental protection, sometimes embracing "green" rhetoric. In the face of these pressures, New York is in peril of losing important, hard-won gains. This is a critical time to reinvigorate the state's heritage of environmental leadership.

Environmental Advocates of New York also reaches beyond our borders to advance multi-state and national initiatives that have an impact on the state. We are the New York State affiliate of the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and confer regularly with colleagues in across the country through our membership in the State Environmental Leadership Conference.