The East Hampton Town Trustees have put out a call for applicants to assist in next year’s mosquito larval sampling program in the 190 acres of marshland surrounding Accabonac Harbor. It is to be the third year of a pilot project jointly conducted by the trustees with the Suffolk County Department of Public Works’ vector control division, the Nature Conservancy, and the town’s Natural Resources and Planning Departments.

The program will start in June and continue through August. Participants will be compensated. Those interested in applying have been asked to send a brief bio and résumé with their contact information to Susan McGraw Keber at [email protected].

Last summer, Ms. McGraw Keber and John Aldred of the trustees oversaw some 6,000 samples taken over the county’s 11-week spraying season. Samplers sent data to the Nature Conservancy, which consolidated the information and forwarded it to the vector control division. Tom Iwanejko, the director of vector control, and his staff reviewed it and issued directives to the county’s helicopter pilots to alter spray patterns accordingly.

The program identified “hot spots” of mosquito breeding at the upper end of the marsh. Consequently, application of methoprene, a mosquito larvicide, was reduced from a 195-acre spray area that went right to surface waters to a 95-acre area, and the county saved an estimated $18,000 from the reduced application. On four weeks during the 11-week season, no spraying at all took place. 

The volunteers and trustees also discovered physical characteristics of the wetlands, such as a sunken boat that was harboring breeding larvae. The trustees dismantled and removed it, eliminating one breeding hot spot.

The 2019 effort will serve to identify and confirm such breeding spots and the altered marsh conditions that foster them. The eventual goal is to work toward returning these altered marsh areas to a more natural state that discourages larval mosquito development and furthers elimination of the use of pesticides. 

Mosquitoes can carry West Nile virus, Eastern equine encephalitis, and other diseases. There were no reported cases of such diseases in East Hampton this year. 

On Dec. 19, the county’s commissioner of health services, Dr. James Tomarken, reported three additional cases of West Nile virus, bringing the total to 11 in 2018. Each of the three is a resident of the Town of Brookhaven and each is over 50 years old. One had become ill in September, and the other two in October. The other reported cases this year were also in Brookhaven as well as the Towns of Southold, Islip, Huntington, Smithtown, and Babylon.

The Suffolk County Water Authority and the Town of East Hampton announced on Friday the imminent completion of the installation of approximately 45,000 feet of water main in Wainscott, an effort to provide public water to the hamlet after numerous private wells were discovered to be contaminated with perfluorinated chemicals. 

The announcement closely followed word from the town board of its intention to commence litigation against more than a dozen manufacturers of firefighting foam and other products, suspected culprits in the chemical contamination, as well as East Hampton Village and the Bridgehampton Fire District, “to help offset the costs that we’ve incurred to remediate these chemical contaminations,” Councilman Jeff Bragman said at the town board’s meeting last Thursday. 

The final 1,000 feet of water main are to be installed during the first week of January, four months after installation began on Windsor Lane in the hamlet, in the largest water main project undertaken by the water authority in almost 20 years. 

Private service lines are being installed to connect the plumbing of participating residences and businesses to the new water main. To date, 124 properties have been hooked up to public water out of the approximately 520 in the project area, which encompasses much of the hamlet south of East Hampton Airport. 

Ductile iron water main, known for its durability, between 6 and 16 inches in diameter was installed. Copper and high-density polyethylene service lines connecting the water main to each impacted residence will continue to be installed in the coming weeks, along with meters and meter vaults, among other project elements. Existing private wells will be disconnected from the internal plumbing of houses within the project area to prevent the possibility of cross-contamination with the public water system. 

Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said earlier this month that the contamination represented a major challenge to the town board this year. “We responded very quickly to those concerns,” he said on Dec. 17. “In order to ensure public confidence in drinking water, we worked very closely with the Suffolk County Water Authority and the State and County Health Departments, put together a task force to work on this issue, and committed to bringing safe drinking water to Wainscott, first and foremost. That’s been a success.” 

The Suffolk County Department of Health Services confirmed the presence of perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS, and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, in more than 150 private wells in the impacted area, with some showing amounts over the health advisory level of 70 parts per trillion, in October 2017. The chemicals have been linked to cancers, thyroid problems, and serious complications of pregnancy. 

Following the detection of the chemicals in Wainscott, the town board declared a state of emergency, and then established a water supply district, paving the way for the water main installation project. As interim measures, the town provided bottled water free of charge to property owners and offered rebates for the installation of point-of-entry water treatment systems to those whose wells were found to be contaminated.

Seeking to recoup the costs of treating tainted water in its wells, one year ago the water authority filed suit against companies that manufactured and sold products containing the contaminants. Separately, a Southampton lawyer took the town and several chemical manufacturers to court over the contamination. 

Last Thursday, Mr. Bragman, the town board’s liaison to the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee, announced new litigation against companies including the 3M Company, Tyco Fire Products, Chemguard, and more than a dozen others, in addition to East Hampton Village and the Bridgehampton Fire District. 

Mr. Bragman could not be reached yesterday. East Hampton Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. said that he was aware of the town’s action. “We use that firefighting foam in question during various drills,” he said. “We have yet to see the paperwork vis-à-vis a lawsuit, but are aware that it had been initiated. Once we receive it, we’ll digest it and act accordingly.”

East Hampton Town

Committee Opposes Wind Cable

The Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee has taken a formal stand against Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind’s plan to land a cable from its proposed South Fork Wind Farm at the ocean beach at the end of Beach Lane in that hamlet. 

In a Dec. 24 letter to the East Hampton Town Board, Barry Frankel and Susan Macy of the committee cite “grave concerns among residents and property owners,” such as changes in Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind’s plan allowing an increase from 90 to 130 megawatts of electricity to travel underground through the hamlet to the Long Island Power Authority’s East Hampton substation; the size of the transition vault to be buried at the Beach Lane road end, and a “lack of convincing scientifically-based studies easing concerns with regard to beach erosion, cable damage and/or exposure,” and the electromagnetic frequency emanating from it. Orsted U.S. has previously been known as Deepwater Wind in The Star.

More than 1,000 residents, property owners, business owners, and renters have signed a petition objecting to the Beach Lane landing, the letter notes. Members of the C.A.C. also feel that Orsted “has not been straightforward about the scale of the project and its impacts on Beach Lane and throughout the local community,” the letter says. 

In its application to the New York State Public Service Commission, Orsted listed Beach Lane as the transmission cable’s preferred landing site, but included state-owned land at Hither Hills State Park on Napeague as an alternative. The Wainscott C.A.C.’s letter urges the town board to insist on the latter site. 

Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind has offered a community benefits package worth more than $8 million to the town in exchange for whatever easement and lease the town board and trustees deem necessary to grant for the company’s plans at Beach Lane

A statewide initiative has begun to encourage the use of electric vehicles and increase charging hubs. The initiative includes additional public fast-charger networks across the state,  regulatory actions to lower residential charging rates, and rebates of up to $2,000 for the purchase or lease of a new electric car from a participating dealer. 

High speed charging hubs will be installed along major traffic corridors as well as the John F. Kennedy Airport taxi-hold lot. Two fast chargers also will be installed in Islip and Freeport. The chargers will give travelers between Montauk and New York City the ability to charge their cars in fewer than 20 minutes. Construction of the fast chargers is to begin in the spring. 

The Public Service Commission has also acted to allow residents options to charge  vehicles during off-peak times for standard rates. 

Through its Drive Clean Rebate, over 40 different electric car models are available under the rebate program with more than $15 million already approved in rebates for New Yorkers. 

 State Assemblyman Michael Cusick, the chairman of the Committee on Energy, said in a release, “Less than 2 percent of cars sold in the United States last year were electric. It’s important for government to lay the foundation for future success in this sector in an effort to reduce pollution and spur investment.” 

The  initiative will help reach Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s clean energy and climate goals and the state’s target of reducing carbon emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2030.

The Suffolk County Legislature voted on Dec. 18 to amend the Residential Septic Incentive Program, a grant assistance program for the installation of innovative and alternative wastewater treatment systems, to expand the pool of those eligible to participate in it. 

The five-year, $75-million program was established in 2017 to encourage property owners to replace conventional septic systems with new models in order to reduce nitrogen seepage into waterways. Excessive nitrogen contamination is a primary culprit in the harmful algal blooms that have fouled several waterways on the South Fork and across Long Island. 

“The overall goal is to broaden the range of eligible properties to make sure those dollars get out the door,” Legislator Bridget Fleming said. “It’s very, very important.”

The East Hampton Town Board signed a letter of support for the program’s expansion, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said last month. 

Accessory dwellings, whether part of a property’s primary residence or a detached structure, are now eligible, as are multifamily dwellings. Along with individuals, firms, partnerships, corporations, trusts, or other legal entities are also now eligible under the expansion. In addition to property owners, tenants are now eligible to take part. 

The maximum grant has also been increased. Applicants are now eligible for a grant of up to $15,000, up from $11,000, and up to $20,000 for applicants deemed low or moderate income, as determined by area median income according to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

The county received and allocated just over $10 million in state funding for grants to eligible property owners, out of the $15 million for the program’s first year, “which indicates what a strong program it is,” Ms. Fleming said on Monday. “Kudos to East Hampton Town and Supervisor Van Scoyoc for their leadership, because I think 55 percent of grants that have been awarded to date have gone to my district,” which comprises the Towns of Southampton, East Hampton, and Shelter Island, as well as parts of Brookhaven. “All of East Hampton’s support for environmental issues, and certainly clean water issues, has been huge.”

Separately, the Town of East Hampton offers rebates, through the community preservation fund’s water quality improvement fund, to property owners who upgrade to an approved low-nitrogen septic system. Those with an annual income less than $500,000 are eligible for a rebate of up to $10,000, up to $16,000 if the property is within the water protection district.

The federal government remains shut down, as Democrats and Republicans continue to disagree over a controversial budget proposal for improved border security. As both parties continue to deliberate, the shutdown has wrought havoc on a national level, with several major departments ceasing to function as millions of federal employees have been furloughed. The implications of the federal shutdown on a national level are pertinent, however, it appears to have had minimal effects on the East End of Long Island so far.

Federally funded and operated facilities appear to be functioning as normal through the shutdown. The Northport Veterans Medical Center has continued to run its normal hours, as the Department of Veteran Affairs secured its funding before the government shutdown. 

The National Wildlife Refuge System has released a notice stating, “where public access to refuge lands does not require the presence of a federal employee [. . .] activities on refuge lands will be allowed.” Residents and visitors can still enjoy the scenic coastal area. However, the National Wildlife Refuge System does emphasize “entry onto refuge system property during this period [. . .] is at the visitor’s sole risk.” 

For some, a far more imminent fear may have arisen surrounding the potential effects of the shutdown on Section 8 housing, which is a federally funded program. However, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has prepared for short-term shutdowns by creating a contingency plan that has allowed the department to calculate and pre-load funds onto its electronic system up until the end of February. While tech support for the electronic program is currently unavailable, there is nothing to suggest the pre-loaded funds will not arrive. Tom Ruhle, director of housing for the Town of East Hampton, used the words “unchartered water” when discussing the potential effects of a prolonged government shutdown. However, Mr. Ruhle suggested everything should continue to function as normal for now. 

In a letter last week, Mathew W. Sibley, rear admiral of the Coast Guard, wrote that “While all Coast Guard military members continue to report for duty in service of our country during this partial shutdown, they do so without pay until an appropriation is passed by Congress,” a situation that could have an impact on members of the Coast Guard stationed in Montauk, most specifically junior members, as many may be unable to cover their monthly financial obligations. There is also a Coast Guard station in Shinnecock. The Montauk station covers operations for Gardiner’s Bay, Napeague Bay, Block Island Sound, the South Shore of Long Island, and along coastal Connecticut. 

However, on Friday night, the official  blog for the Coast Guard work force published a post stating, “the administration, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Coast Guard have identified a way to pay our military workforce on December 31, 2018.” The one-time emergency paycheck means local guardsmen will not be affected in the short term by the government shutdown.

The East Hampton Town Trustees will hold a special informational session on a 10-year review of the Suffolk County Aquaculture Lease Program, which has proven controversial in East Hampton, on Wednesday at 6 p.m. The public has been invited to attend the meeting, which will be held at Town Hall, and offer comment. It will be televised on LTV. 

The aquaculture lease program provides access to marine space for private, commercial shellfish aquaculture. The county developed it for publicly owned underwater lands in Peconic Bay and Gardiner’s Bay. Participants lease 10-acre plots, for a period of 10 years, for cultivating shellfish. 

Wednesday’s meeting is to include a history of shellfish aquaculture in Peconic and Gardiner’s Bays; the development of the existing shellfish aquaculture lease program, its administration, and current status; lease program maps and online information available to the public; contemporary aquaculture practices in the bays, and an overview of the lease program review process. East Hampton residents have been encouraged to comment on the program as part of the 10-year review. 

The program was established after New York State ceded title to approximately 100,000 acres of bottomlands to the county in 2004 and authorized the implementation of an aquaculture lease program for the region. The program was adopted in 2009, and the 10-year review will assess legal and administrative requirements governing its operation and recommend changes. 

A 10-year advisory group was established to obtain public official and stakeholder interest group involvement. John Aldred, representing the trustees, is a member of that group, as is Barley Dunne, the director of the town’s shellfish hatchery, who represents the town. 

The changing seascape brought about by the appearance of oyster farms offshore irritated members of the Devon Yacht Club in Amagansett and residents who live along Gardiner’s Bay. Early last year, an attorney for the yacht club filed a lawsuit in State Supreme Court seeking to bar leaseholders situated near the club from undertaking or continuing any action related to oyster farming at lease sites granted by the Aquaculture Lease Board in July 2017, or engaging in any other activity that would interfere with sailing. The Aquaculture Lease Board, the county’s Planning Department and its director, the Amagansett Oyster Co., individual leaseholders, the town, and the State Department of Environmental Conservation, which regulates and issues permits for shellfish cultivation, were all named in the suit. 

One of the program’s lessees had informed the club that they were going to build out a lease site 1,000 feet from the end of the club’s pier. Lease sites approved in 2017 were concentrated and mostly contiguous, rendering a few hundred acres off limits to Devon’s more than 300 member families, an attorney for the club said. 

The dispute, and shorefront residents’ surprise at the changing seascape, prompted Mr. Aldred to call for an informational session to be held in East Hampton, so that stakeholders’ opinions and concerns would be addressed throughout the course of the review. 

In the meantime, the trustees will resume business with a brief organizational meeting at their Bluff Road, Amagansett, office on Monday at 6:30 p.m. Their next regular meeting will be on Jan. 28.

The last of five hearings for East Hampton Town’s hamlet studies, this one focusing on Montauk, drew a standing-room crowd to Town Hall last Thursday. 

The expected impacts of climate change loomed over the proceedings, as residents debated the long-range recommendation for a planned retreat from the Atlantic Ocean shoreline in Montauk’s downtown — where the beach along “motel row” is badly eroded by northeasters — and migration to what is at present lightly developed, higher ground inland. 

The consultants engaged by the town to conduct the hamlet studies have recommended a multiphase approach to a retreat from the ocean in Montauk, proposing acquisition by the town of flood-prone land between Fort Pond and the ocean, incentivizing motel and resorts’ relocation inland through purchase and transfer of development rights. They foresee a new resort and mixed-use corridor along Essex Street, gradually shifting the downtown’s center toward its intersection with Montauk Highway, which would be elevated between Fort Pond and the ocean. 

Ongoing erosion, and repeated exposure of the geotextile sandbags installed by the Army Corps of Engineers in 2015, a widely reviled emergency stabilization measure pending implementation of the corps’s long-awaited Fire Island to Montauk Point Reformulation Plan, led some frustrated residents of the hamlet to at once applaud the board for its foresight and criticize a perceived lack of specificity or timeline for action. 

A retreat plan “will be the next step,” Laura Tooman, president of Concerned Citizens of Montauk, told the board, but will take time and require code changes. “We need all players at the table starting today,” she said, “because it’s going to take a long time.” Along with retreat from the shoreline, “we need to simultaneously do additional things to ensure we protect water quality and our beach and dune system. C.C.O.M. is ready to help tackle this difficult endeavor.” 

Alison Branco, director of coastal programs for the Nature Conservancy, said that the town has been a leader on energy efficiency and other efforts to slow climate change. “Position yourself as a leader in adapting as well,” she urged. “There are many details to work out as we develop complicated financial and legal mechanisms” that would ensure that all stakeholders are treated equitably. The process will not be quick, she said, but “Montauk does not have the luxury of time. Planned retreat is the only solution.” 

The Montauk Beach Preservation Committee, which Ms. Tooman chairs, is studying the creation of an erosion control district for Montauk’s downtown, for which the board authorized a bond issue to fund a map, plan, and report on its feasibility. Responses to a request for proposals are due next Thursday, but some residents did not wait to criticize the idea. Representing the advocacy organization Defend H2O, Carl Irace said that beach renourishment is “an unsuitable solution” in the face of rising seas. “This is not fair to the public and not good fiscal policy, as sure as it is not good environmental policy,” he said. 

Andrew Brosnan, chairman of the Surfrider Foundation’s Eastern Long Island chapter, said that a managed retreat is one of the most encouraging recommendations among the hamlet study’s proposals, but added that the Army Corps’ emergency stabilization project had exacerbated erosion at the downtown beach. “Now we have beachfront motels that don’t have a beach six to eight months of the year. The beach is then trucked in, in the spring,” at taxpayer expense. “The idea of creating a special taxing district to address this has some merit,” he said, “although unless it is limited to those properties adjacent to the project, it unfairly burdens property owners in the downtown.” 

Thomas Muse agreed, likening an erosion control district to adding insult to injury, following installation of the geotextile sandbags on the downtown beach. “Take away half the beach by the Army Corps, then ask us to pay for it,” he said of those within such a district. “It seems amazing to me, to be looking to spread the liability the town and county have assumed . . . among a tax district that hasn’t been invented yet,” a plan he called meanspirited.

Retreating from the front row is the only way, Mr. Irace said. “There is no way to avoid the inevitable and the fact that this will only end one day,” the oceanfront buildings abandoned voluntarily, by people, or violently, by nature, the latter with attendant “disruption, loss of property, or worse.” 

Kevin McAllister, Defend H2O’s founder and president, urged the town to acquire oceanfront properties with the community preservation fund. Increasing density landward of the ocean “goes hand in glove with a sewer district” for downtown, he said, which “will be inevitable given coastal inundation.” 

“It may come down to tough love,” Mr. McAllister said, should oceanfront business owners balk at relocating. “I urge you to be prepared. Inevitably, we have to move back.”

But Alan Axelowitz, who is from Huntington but owns co-op units along motel row, said that the plan is unfair, that the beach preservation committee and the Army Corps should be given an opportunity to control erosion. 

Krae Van Sickle of Springs said that winter northeasters, coupled with the June-through-November hurricane season “make the region susceptible to storms pretty much all year round.” He suggested relocation of critical structures and services, like a transportation hub, a microgrid, and the I.G.A. supermarket, to vacant lands around the firehouse, the Montauk Playhouse Community Center, the Montauk Manor, and the Long Island Rail Road station. 

After nearly 20 members of the public had spoken, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc summarized the hamlet study process. “I see a broad, diverse group of people concerned about their community,” he said. “Having your input is crucial for us as decision makers to decide how to move forward.” Montauk’s hamlet study is “an outline and vision statement” that will inform the comprehensive plan once it is adopted and incorporated into it. “There is a great deal of work and planning that still has to take place to discuss every one of the topics.”

He said that the hearing should be closed so that the board could move to the planning phase as soon as possible. Councilwoman Sylvia Overby agreed, but Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez and Councilmen David Lys and Jeff Bragman all said that the record should be held open for 30 days to allow additional public comment on each of the studies. 

The hamlet study process began almost three years ago with a series of walking tours and public sessions, called charettes. The consultants, Peter Flinker of Dodson and Flinker, a Massachusetts consulting firm, and Lisa Liquori of Fine Arts and Sciences, a former town planning director, held a series of presentations, soliciting and incorporating comments made in response to their findings. Their reports were revised and presented again, and public hearings for Wainscott, East Hampton, Amagansett, Springs, and Montauk were held at separate meetings of the board. 

A review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act will follow, and the plan will be sent to the Suffolk County Planning Commission for review before adoption and incorporation into the town’s comprehensive plan.

Amid increasingly ominous warnings about catastrophic climate change, President Trump’s dismissal of his own government’s conclusions, and his administration’s moves to expand the extraction and use of fossil fuels, a bipartisan group of congressmen has introduced legislation that would apply a nationwide price on carbon emissions and return the revenue to households each month. 

The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act offers “a monumental leap forward in the way America responds to the real threat of climate change,” according to its lead sponsor, Representative Ted Deutch of Florida’s 22nd District, and is intended to lower carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent below 2015 levels in the first 12 years and by 90 percent by 2050. It would assess a fee on all oil, gas, and coal used in the United States based on the greenhouse gas emissions they produce, boosting alternative energy sources such as solar, wind, and nuclear energy. The fee would start at $15 per ton of carbon dioxide, or CO2, and increase at $10 per ton annually. 

Money raised by the fee would be allocated equally and returned to people as a monthly “carbon dividend.” Proponents say such an approach would create more than two million new jobs, lower health care costs, spur energy innovation, and encourage consumer spending. Economists and climate scientists alike advocate this approach to climate change, according to Citizens Climate Lobby, a nonpartisan advocacy group that for several years has pushed the federal government to enact such a plan. 

The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act was introduced against the backdrop of the Fourth National Climate Assessment, the impact of which the Trump administration sought to minimize, releasing it in the afternoon on the day after Thanksgiving, or Black Friday. Its conclusions are grim: more frequent and intense extreme weather events including drought and heavy downpours, declines in surface water quality, stress on water supplies, health risks from wildfire and ground-level ozone pollution, increased exposure to water and food-borne diseases, more heat-related deaths, increased severity of allergic illnesses, an altered geographic range and distribution of disease-carrying insects and pests including ticks and mosquitoes, declining crop yields, and growing losses to infrastructure and property. 

Of particular relevance to the South Fork are rising ocean temperatures and ocean acidification and their impact on fisheries, sea level rise, coastal erosion, and higher storm surge. 

The act also comes on the heels of Hurricane Florence, which left an estimated $22 billion in damage in the Carolinas in September, and California’s worst-ever wildfire season. Worse, global carbon emissions are expected to reach an all-time high in 2018, rising around 2.7 percent over 2017, which itself saw a 1.6-percent increase over the previous year. 

In introducing the legislation, Mr. Deutch, whose district spans from Boca Raton to Fort Lauderdale on his state’s Atlantic coastline, was joined by Representatives Francis Rooney and Charlie Crist, also of Florida, Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Representative John Delaney of Maryland. Representative Dave Trott of Michigan later joined as a co-sponsor. 

In a conference call with journalists last Thursday, Mr. Deutch said that the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act “offers the perfect response” to rising emissions by putting a price on them. “If we don’t act now, we are nearing a point of no return with the environment, health, the economy,” he said. Climate change is a complex and difficult challenge, he said, “but we cannot be the generation that allows climate change to simply become a runaway train that we refuse to do anything about. We’ve got to put on the brakes. That’s what this legislation will start to do.” 

The legislation was introduced at the end of the 115th Congress, Mr. Deutch said, “to show going into what will be a newly bipartisan Congress with a Democratic House and Republican Senate . . . that this is the direction we need to go. . . . The reason we wanted to do this now, as this Congress wraps, was to show that even in a highly partisan Congress, there is bipartisan support, and we intend to build on that in the new Congress.” He said he had spoken with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, about building support in that chamber. 

Investments in alternative energy should happen concurrent with a fee on carbon emissions, Mr. Deutch said. “These are all really important and need to be part of a broader approach.” 

A spokeswoman for Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District said in an email on Monday that the congressman is reviewing the legislation, its specific effect on the district, and the input of relevant stakeholders. “In the past, the congressman has supported the extensions of both the renewable energy production tax credit and investment tax credit, both of which promote the development of solar and wind energy on Long Island and nationwide,” she said. Mr. Zeldin, a member of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, has voted to extend the renewable energy production tax credit through the end of 2019, and the investment tax credit through 2019 for qualifying solar projects, she said. 

Mr. Deutch said the bill could succeed despite voters’ recent rejection, for the second time, of similar legislation in Washington State. “My understanding from conversations I’ve had with colleagues from Washington is that there was growing support for that until the last days before the election, when some of the largest polluters spent massive amounts of money to convince people to oppose it,” he told The Star. “One of the reasons it’s so important to have bipartisan support, and support around the country, is to push back against false ads, the lies that we fully expect to come from those who wish to continue polluting as they have done.” 

In fact, he said, large segments of the business community support a fee on CO2 emissions. “I know from my South Florida experience, where sea level rise is such a critical concern, the business community understands this is an issue we have to tackle, and we have to do it together.”

Multiple environmental groups have filed a lawsuit against the federal government following news that the Trump administration has allowed five companies to conduct seismic surveys for oil and gas deposits under the Atlantic Ocean floor.

The lawsuit, filed in South Carolina on Tuesday, claims that the National Marine Fisheries Service violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act when it issued Incidental Harassment Authorizations in late November, which would allow the companies to harm or harass marine mammals, including the critically endangered right whale, while conducting seismic air gun blasting in an area stretching from Cape May, N.J., to Cape Canaveral, Fla. 

Seismic surveying is the first step toward offshore drilling for oil and gas. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management must grant permits to the companies before they can conduct such surveys. 

The Surfrider Foundation, Oceana, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Southern Environmental Law Center, Earthjustice, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Coastal Conservation League, and the Sierra Club are among the groups suing the federal government. 

Seismic air guns emit loud blasts on a recurring basis, 10 seconds apart for 24 hours a day, often for weeks at a time, according to the environmental group Greenpeace. The sonic blasts penetrate through the ocean and miles into the seafloor and can harm whales, dolphins, sea turtles, and fish. They can result in temporary and permanent hearing loss, habitat abandonment, disruption of mating and feeding, beachings, and death, according to Greenpeace. 

Opposition to the plan has come from the governors of New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware; more than 240 state municipalities on the East Coast; an alliance representing more than 42,000 businesses and 500,000 fishing families; all three East Coast fishery management councils, and commercial and recreational fishing interests including the Southeastern Fisheries Association, the Snook and Gamefish Foundation, the Fisheries Survival Fund, the Southern Shrimp Alliance, the Billfish Foundation, and the International Game Fish Association.