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.

Southampton Town

Sand Land Expansion Denied

The Sand Land industrial mine was denied its request to re-argue and renew its application to expand its mining operation on Middle Line Road in Noyac, another setback for the controversial plant that has been blamed for a wide range of pollutants in surface water and groundwater beneath the site.

The decision against Sand Land was rendered on Dec. 10 by the New York State Office of Hearings and Mediation Services, an independent office within the Department of Environmental Conservation. Sand Land unsuccessfully argued during the proceedings that its expansion request was permitted under Southampton Town code.

A study of water samples taken under court order at Sand Land by the Suffolk County Department of Health Services was released earlier this year. It confirmed for the first time the presence of contaminants in the water table there. The D.E.C. subsequently ruled that Sand Land must stop its mining and mulching operations and confine itself solely to remediation work at the 50-acre site. 

State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. issued a statement hailing last week’s mediation services ruling as “a win for the environment and public health.” But, he added, “The real victory will come when Sand Land is closed permanently.”

Sand Land’s attorney, Brian Matthews of Matthews, Kirst & Cooley in East Hampton, did not return a request for comment. J.H.

New York State

Thiele to Chair Committees

Carl Heastie, the speaker of the New York State Assembly, has appointed Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. chairman of the assembly’s standing committee on local governments, among others. 

According to Mr. Thiele’s office, the committee considers “legislative needs” of “counties, cities, towns, villages, school districts, fire districts, and other special districts and local agencies” with regard to open space, transportation, housing, local land-use, water quality improvement projects, and the Peconic Bay region septic replacement loan program, among other things.

“Local governments directly impact the daily lives of residents, from roadways and schools to public water, law enforcement, and fire protection,” Mr. Thiele said in a release. “It is the level of governance closest to the people, who have placed their trust in local officials to maintain the community’s well-being.” 

Mr. Thiele knows of what he speaks. Prior to his long and continuing tenure in the assembly, he was a Southampton Town attorney, Southampton Town supervisor, and Suffolk County legislator. More recently, he also was the Sag Harbor Village attorney.

Mr. Thiele has been chairman of the assembly small business and its libraries and educational technologies committees. He sits on its ways and means, environmental conservation, transportation, and oversight analysis and investigation committees.

 Recharging the Parrish

The Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill will benefit from an economic development and discount power program called ReCharge NY, according to an announcement from Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele. In exchange for low-cost clean energy, the museum leaders have committed to retaining 44 jobs at the museum and creating six new ones, while investing $125,000 in capital improvements.

The announcement is part of the latest round of the New York Power Authority’s ReCharge NY power allocations, which look to create more than 520 new jobs and result in capital investments of more than $400 million throughout the state, Mr. Thiele said.

“As a premier, year-round arts and cultural institution for the East End community, the Parrish runs extensive and costly programming in its 34,400-square-foot facility. The museum will greatly benefit from a reduction in energy costs,” Mr. Thiele said in a release. 

Terrie Sultan, the museum’s director, said she was “thrilled to be a part of this essential program that not only provides us with clean energy, but helps us keep our operating costs low and ensures that we can create and maintain employment opportunities for the many members of our community who work together to make Long Island a star in the firmament of New York State.”

A Peconic Bay Heritage Area

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has signed legislation designating the Peconic Bay region — which includes the Towns of East Hampton, Southampton, Shelter Island, Riverhead, and Southold — as a New York State Heritage Area.

The heritage area program is overseen by the state’s Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation and recognizes places “where unique qualities of geography, history, and culture create a distinctive identity,” according to a joint statement from Assemblyman Thiele and State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, who sponsored the Peconic Bay legislation. 

The Peconic Bay region will become one of 20 heritage areas in the state, each representing one or more important themes in New York’s history: labor and industry, immigration and migration, defense, the natural environment, and reform movements. “This allows the community itself to be the ‘park,’ dedicated to the preservation of its unique cultural heritage through programs such as ethnic festivals, waterfront walks, lively theater, provocative exhibits, and neighborhood walking tours,” according to the lawmakers. 

The state-local partnerships encouraged by the program give communities access to new state funding and grant opportunities “to promote the preservation, restoration, and enhancement of the resources that make each heritage area so unique and essential.”

Electric-vehicle charging stations will be installed in the Town of East Hampton, the town board was told this month, and five more electric vehicles will soon be added to the town’s fleet, but the number and type of charging stations that could be added will have to be negotiated.

Kim Shaw, the director of the town’s Natural Resources Department, told the board on Tuesday and on Dec. 11 that the town is a recipient of a $100,000 award from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s Clean Energy Communities program, with which it is purchasing five Nissan Leaf electric cars. “Our commitment back to the state was to install charging stations,” for which a site at the Town Hall campus has been earmarked, she said, “and also to install stations throughout the community.” Charging stations at Town Hall would be available to both the town’s fleet and to the public.

Along with six charging stations at Town Hall, the municipal parking lot north of Amagansett’s Main Street is a potential site for four others, Ms. Shaw said, while the parking lot on South Euclid Avenue in downtown Montauk and the town-owned portion of the parking lot at Amagansett’s Long Island Rail Road station could also see installations in the future.

East Hampton Village installed a public charging station in its long-term parking lot in October. That installation was funded by a $16,000 grant from the State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Zero Emission Vehicle program, Becky Molinaro Hansen, the village administrator, said yesterday.

Lauren Steinberg, an environmental analyst in the Natural Resources Department, accompanied Ms. Shaw to the Dec. 11 meeting. Multiple car manufacturers have or will soon introduce fully electric vehicles, she said, as the industry moves to phase out combustion engine-only cars. Charging stations accessible by the public will become increasingly important, she said.

On Tuesday, Linda James, chairwoman of the town’s energy sustainability and resiliency committee, read a list of manufacturers offering electric vehicles that “runs the alphabet” from Aston Martin to Volvo. The list was part of a larger statement supporting the town’s “consideration of creating public electric vehicle charging stations directly and through public-private partnership.”

That latter path to wider proliferation of charging stations was received with less enthusiasm by the board, however. Last summer, representatives of Tesla Motors, which, one official said, enjoyed more than 50-percent market share in the electric-vehicle category, made a pitch to the board for a charging station to be situated in the municipal lot at Kirk Park in Montauk. The board was interested, but with reservations.

The California company has again approached the town to propose multiple charging stations, Ms. Shaw said on Tuesday, most of which would be dedicated to Tesla models.

“I’m not supportive of dedicated spaces on town property,” Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said flatly.

Councilman Jeff Bragman, mindful of the branding and advertising that would be included on Tesla’s charging stations, said, “I don’t want to corporatize our landscape. These are mini-billboards. . . . We’ve got Chevys, all sorts of other [electric] cars ordinary people buy.” Tesla’s Model S starts at $78,000, but its newer Model 3 has a base price of $46,000. A federal tax credit of $7,500, which expires on Dec. 31, and other incentives lower an electric car’s cost, however.

Tesla has a “Supercharger” station at Cafe Crust on County Road 39 in Southampton, and the company’s website lists a “target opening in 2019” at an unspecified site in East Hampton.

Councilwoman Sylvia Overby had asked the Tesla representatives in July why the company sought to situate a charging station in the town’s easternmost hamlet. Primarily, it was because congestion is better avoided with a single large installation than with distributed smaller sites, was the reply. On Tuesday, she again questioned why Tesla’s charging stations would not be situated in a location more convenient to the entire community and “not have somebody have to go all the way through every hamlet we have” to Montauk.

The supervisor repeated that a Tesla-specific charging station “is going to be a nonstarter, for me, in a public space. I don’t have an objection to having a public-private partnership in this case, where they supply charging that the general public can use nonspecific to their brand.” The board wants to encourage the transition to electric cars, he said, which will require charging infrastructure throughout the town.

A last-minute change in the site plan for the proposed 17,000-square-foot expansion of T.J. Maxx, a chain store in Bridgehampton Commons, was unveiled at a Southampton Town Planning Board public hearing last Thursday. The board closed the hearing, but will hold the record open for 30 days for written comments.  

The site plan, from Kimco Realty, the owner of the shopping center, calls for extending the rear of T.J. Maxx, which is the easternmost building, to make room for Marshalls, another discount retail store owned by TJX Companies.

Although an additional 85 parking spaces would be required under the town code for such an expansion, the board had previously granted Kimco a parking waiver, allowing it to set aside land for future parking rather than develop spaces at once. 

The company had planned to enter into a “cross-access” easement with Marders Nursery, its neighbor, which would allow part of the Marders property to be used for parking if the need arose. But on Thursday, Timothy McCulley, Kimco’s lawyer, said the site plan had been reworked by an engineer so that the 97 parking spaces would fit on Bridgehampton Commons.

Pamela Harwood, the chairwoman of the Bridgehampton Citizens Advisory Committee and the only member of the public to voice opposition to the site plan, said the revised parking sounded good in theory, but she wanted more time to study the changes.

She objected to the company’s plan to prevent right-hand turns at the exit from the parking lot onto Snake Hollow Road. Since the nearby intersection of Snake Hollow and Montauk Highway does not have a traffic signal, the board had encouraged Kimco to put up signs deterring left turns.

Describing the inability to make a right turn as “a great inconvenience to residents and bad for businesses,” Ms. Harwood said people liked to combine trips to the shopping center with stops at BNB Bank, English Country Antiques, and the gas station at the intersection, all of which are to the right of Bridgehampton Commons on Snake Hollow Road. 

Dennis Finnerty, the board chairman, agreed that preventing right turns at the exit would be problematic and said he was leaning toward keeping the hearing open so the public had time to examine the “significant changes” made on the site plan, but after hearing contrary opinions from board members, he agreed to close the hearing while leaving the comment period open until Jan. 13.

The East Hampton Town Board and Town Trustees have agreed to require residents to obtain new permit stickers for parking and driving on beaches. The new permits, which will be free to town residents, will be valid for five years. A public hearing will be scheduled for early in the new year before the board formally votes to change the town code. 

Current resident stickers issued for parking and driving on beaches never expire. Members of the town board and trustees, mindful that more than 30,000 such permits have been issued — a number that exceeds the population of the town — worried that many vehicles bearing current permits were subsequently sold to nonresidents, allowing “those who aren’t privileged and entitled to park in our parking lots and drive on our beaches to utilize them,” Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said at the town board’s Dec. 11 work session. “That’s been an ongoing problem.” 

“This makes sense to do,” Bill Taylor, a deputy clerk of the trustees, said at that body’s Dec. 10 meeting. “One new permit, it’s good for five years.”

“I think it’s good to have an accurate count of vehicles on the beach,” said Rick Drew, the trustees’ other deputy clerk. “To really understand usage on the beach is important, and to retire some of the old stickers so people that don’t have a valid sticker aren’t using resources of our residents without being properly documented.” 

Some previous trustees, and members of the advocacy group Citizens for Access Rights, had questioned the need for new permits. The trustees’ Dec. 10 vote to support the plan was unanimous, however.  

New, color-coded permits will become available sometime next year, become mandatory in 2020, and expire in 2025, Mr. Van Scoyoc said. Permits effective in 2025 would be available in 2024, he said. “That would alleviate some congestion in the clerk’s office,” from which the permits would be distributed. 

“We’re not talking about limiting them in any way,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said of new permits. “But it’s important that those using those stickers are in fact entitled to be driving on the beach.” The town will make an announcement when the new stickers are available, he said.

The East Hampton Town Board plans a vote tonight to authorize a bond resolution for the purchase of the building on Stephen Hand’s Path that housed the Child Development Center of the Hamptons. 

In a discussion at a meeting on Tuesday, board members and residents proposed a range of uses for the building, but the intention is for it to serve as a community center, with one or more nonprofit-organization tenants responsible for the building’s management. Such a move would align with the town’s policy to secure public-private partnerships with not-for-profit groups for unused buildings, in part to defray management and maintenance costs. 

“The building lends itself to broad ­uses,” Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said, suggesting as one possibility a day care center, given the existing playground and classrooms used by C.D.C.H. He also pointed to “a need for a community meeting space for education purposes, lectures, performances. This structure,” he said, “really lends itself quite well to meeting all of those various needs.” The modular structure can be assembled in various configurations, he said. There are a “number of community groups and organizations which could utilize the space. . . . I do agree it’s better to have an organization that could independently manage that building for the greatest public benefit.”

Councilman Jeff Bragman said that the town should not rule out operation of a portion of the building. He 

recalled remarks made by Mary Ella Moeller and David Gruber, during the public comment portion of the meeting, encouraging the inclusion of services for senior citizens and a place where they can integrate with the wider community. “Our 2016 engineering report said it was a perfect building for a senior center,” Mr. Bragman said. (Consideration had been given to move the town’s senior citizens center into the building from its location on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton, but the proposal was abandoned and the town is planning to construct a new senior citizens center at its current location.)

Mr. Bragman also echoed a suggestion by Councilman David Lys that the board look to the Montauk Playhouse Community Center as a model for the former C.D.C.H. site. Mr. Lys also suggested allocation of space to serve as an incubator for resident-established small businesses, and wondered aloud if the board should examine the building’s use as a shelter during emergencies.  

In the New Year, the town could issue requests for proposals, Michael Sendlenski, the town attorney, told the board, with one for use of the space and another for its management, if the board chooses.

Last month, Mr. Sendlenski explained to the board that the town could reach an agreement to cancel the lease it signed with the C.D.C.H., initially set for 30 years and scheduled to expire in 2032, and purchase the building for $800,000, less than a third of a recent $2.6 million appraisal. 

On Tuesday, Len Bernard, the town’s budget officer, said that the bonds would likely have to be taxable, which will slightly increase the yearly debt service, from $45,000 for nontaxable bonds to $48,000. The board would vote to authorize the bond issue now but not actually borrow the money until August. The money to acquire the building would be advanced from the general fund, he said, and would likely be available around the end of January. 

The 22,000-square-foot structure is deemed a Class B building, Mr. Bernard said, meaning it is of lesser value than the highest quality Class A designation given a new structure in a desirable location but greater than the Class C label given an old building in a less desirable area. 

The metal structure is around 17 years old, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, and a report prepared by Drew Bennett, a consulting engineer, identified more than $400,000 in potential future repairs. 

The C.D.C.H. opened as a charter school in 2001. It provided regular and special education programs, drawing students from local school districts, which paid tuition until it closed in 2016.

With the resignation and subsequent arraignment of Amos Goodman, the now-former chairman of the East Hampton Town Republican Committee, the party must seek a new leader. 

Kyle Ballou, the committee’s secretary, said last month that he and other committee officials had sent a letter to Mr. Goodman asking for his resignation after learning of an investigation by the Public Integrity Bureau of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office. That investigation burst into public view on Tuesday night when the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office announced fraud-related charges against Mr. Goodman and Pat Mansir related to signatures gathered on nominating petitions ahead of last month’s election. A separate story appears on the front page of today’s paper.

The committee’s vice chairman, Michael Jordan, is now its acting chairman. Mr. Jordan said on Tuesday, before the district attorney’s announcement, that the committee will move to elect a new leader in the new year, but he will not seek the position. 

“What you need is someone that will be very active on the committee,” he said. “We need younger people. Frankly, both parties here have a lot of elderly people in them. I’m not inclined to devote the amount of time that would be needed for someone who’s going to be actively running the party — preferably, someone who’s not as long in the tooth as I am,” said Mr. Jordan, who is 70 and retired. 

In a town in which Republicans are greatly outnumbered by Democrats — there are 3,739 registered Republicans in East Hampton versus 8,122 registered Democrats, according to the Suffolk County Board of Elections — a Republican candidate’s path to electoral victory is narrow. A 5-to-0 Democratic supermajority sits on the town board, although David Lys, who was appointed to the board and won election last month, changed his party affiliation from Republican to Democratic shortly before his appointment. In 2017, the Republicans’ candidates for supervisor and councilman — Manny Vilar, Paul Giardina, and Jerry Larsen — were defeated by substantial margins, and just two of nine Republican candidates were elected to the town trustees. 

“In terms of registration, our party is very much outgunned,” Carole Campolo, the committee’s former vice chairwoman, said on Monday. “Whoever’s going to run the party needs to decide how to proceed, given all the challenges it faces. That doesn’t mean the party should give up; the party has a really good message and needs to get it out there. The people that will run will have to make choices as to how to do that.” 

The message, said Ms. Campolo, a former deputy executive director of the New York City Campaign Finance Board, is “We stand for the taxpayers, for lower taxes, and for efficient government.” None of these, she said, are evident at the local level. “As a former Democrat, I think that Democratic policies are so contradictory to what is good for the middle class, it’s astounding to me that they get as many votes as they do. I think the Republicans stand for the working man in this town.” 

Fewer regulations and environmentalism are not mutually exclusive, Ms. Campolo said. “You can be for the environment, very much so, without some of the extraordinary things homeowners are asked to do — spending money on surveys, lawyers, an architect, just to get a piece of a deck put on.” East Hampton Republicans, she said, are “trying to mitigate hardships on homeowners while maintaining high environmental standards.” 

Finding and fielding candidates who can win elections in East Hampton will top next year’s agenda, Mr. Jordan said, once the committee’s new leader has been chosen. “Certainly, the Republican committee has its challenges in East Hampton, with demographics. It will be a challenge, and one reason we need someone younger who will devote time, effort, and energy. Hopefully that’s what we’ll do. . . . Once we have the committee lineup, we’ll go forward and discuss what our plan for the future will be.”

A recent move by the Trump administration could lead the way to oil and gas exploration and extraction off the Atlantic coast. 

The Washington Post reported on Friday that the National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has approved five requests that will allow companies to conduct seismic surveys. The “incidental take” authorizations allow companies conducting such surveys — geophysical companies working on behalf of oil and gas corporations, The Post reported — to harm marine life as long as it is unintentional. 

Such surveys would be conducted using seismic air guns, which 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, or “pings,” 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. 

On Tuesday, Representative Lee Zeldin, who is generally supportive of the administration, and dozens of his colleagues in the House of Representatives wrote to Ryan Zinke, the secretary of the Interior Department, and Wilbur Ross, the Commerce Department secretary, to “strongly oppose” the incidental-take permits and exploration off the Atlantic shoreline. 

Seismic air guns “can disturb, harm, and potentially kill not only marine mammals but also a wide range of marine life that support coastal economies from Florida to Maine,” the letter said. “Offshore oil and gas exploration and development, the first step of which is seismic air gun testing, puts at risk coastal economies based on fishing, tourism, and recreation. Numerous studies show the detrimental impacts seismic air gun blasting has on fisheries and marine mammals, thereby affecting the catch anglers bring dockside and the revenue generated by related businesses.”

The letter cites a 2014 study of North Carolina’s coast by NOAA, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Duke University that found that the abundance of reef fish declined by 78 percent during evening hours, when fish were most plentiful on the three previous days when seismic surveys did not take place. “The tertiary effects of this trickle down to fishing businesses, restaurants, and the visitors that flock to our coastal communities,” the letter said.

The members of Congress said that constituents, including business owners, elected officials, and coastal residents, have contacted them to register their opposition to oil and gas exploration and drilling in the Atlantic or eastern Gulf of Mexico. “Local chambers of commerce, tourism and restaurant associations, and an alliance representing over 43,000 businesses and 500,000 commercial fishing families strongly oppose offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling,” they wrote. 

The letter further complained that coastal communities impacted by drilling would not have access to data obtained from seismic surveys, as they are proprietary to the oil and gas industry. Even members of Congress would not have access, according to the letter. 

In December 2016, weeks before he left office, President Barack Obama announced a permanent ban on offshore oil and gas drilling from Virginia to Maine, and along much of Alaska’s coast. The East Hampton Town Board passed a memorializing resolution in August in support of a continued ban. 

“As I understand it, testing at this point is going to be taking place around Delaware [and southward],” said Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc, “but I think that given the deleterious effects of that on sea life, in addition to the fact that we need to be exploring alternatives to fossil fuels rather than further development of that industry, it’s a double insult.” 

The Trump administration’s move to promote oil and gas extraction, and to revive the coal industry, coincides with the declining costs of clean energy generation, primarily solar and wind power. Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind, formerly Deepwater Wind, plans a 15-turbine South Fork Wind Farm for a site approximately 35 miles off Montauk, and has several other offshore installations planned. 

Mr. Zeldin “is an advocate for clean and green energy,” Katie Vincentz, a spokeswoman for the congressman, said in an email on Monday, “and understands that there is a lot to take into account with any project on Long Island, including the possible adverse impact on our local fisheries. Any green energy proposal will not be viable if it devastates the waterways which have been the hallmark of our community for generations.”

Commercial fishermen are almost uniformly against the South Fork Wind Farm, fearing a detrimental impact on their livelihood. But Gary Cobb, an opponent of the wind farm who has publicly represented East Hampton’s baymen throughout Deepwater Wind/Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind’s proceedings as it seeks approvals from federal, state, and local regulators, said in an email yesterday that “there is absolutely zero difference between pinging the [ocean] bottom for offshore oil/gas and pinging the bottom for offshore wind.” 

Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Immediate steps should be taken and community preservation fund money allocated to alleviate runoff of contaminated water into Lake Montauk and the Atlantic Ocean in Montauk’s downtown, the East Hampton Town Board was told at its work session on Tuesday. 

Christopher Clapp of the town’s water quality technical advisory committee told the board that the committee recommends six high-priority actions deemed most feasible to achieve measurable improvements in Lake Montauk, where the Surfrider Foundation’s Eastern Long Island Chapter and Concerned Citizens of Montauk routinely measure dangerously high levels of bacteria. 

Three proposed projects would be at the southernmost part of the lake, at the road end of South Lake Drive, which was once a bathing beach and the site of children’s swimming lessons. There, “we know we have bacterial contamination of some sort,” Mr. Clapp said, “suspected from septic systems but probably due to stormwater runoff as well.” 

Mr. Clapp recommended construction of a wetland on the north side of Montauk Highway opposite Caswell Road to catch and filter stormwater before it flows into the lake. “The idea is to slow it down, let the plants and soils treat the water before it continues on,” he told the board. 

Permeable pavement at the parking area there, and a regraded pavement, would pitch stormwater runoff into a pervious bioswale in the lot’s center to catch sediment and bacterial contamination before it enters the lake at the road end. A permeable reactive barrier, a device comprising trench boxes filled with ground woodchips or another reactive substance that intercepts groundwater as it seeps into a water body, was also recommended at the southernmost part of the lake to alleviate stresses from failing septic systems. A permeable reactive barrier has demonstrated an 85-percent reduction in nitrogen seepage at Pussy’s Pond in Springs. 

“We’ll be looking at some engineering and porewater investigation of this south end . . . to try and find where the hot spot of groundwater contamination might be so that we can intercept that and begin to treat some of that water before it enters the saline waters and surface waters of South Lake,” Mr. Clapp said. “We think this may be a good opportunity to intercept a lot of the flow that’s coming from the Ditch Plains area by way of groundwater.” 

Similar projects are recommended along West Lake Drive and on Star Island. Permeable pavement is recommended at the boat launch at both places to reduce runoff from their respective parking lots. Bioswales and rain gardens were recommended at the intersection of West Lake Drive and Flamingo Road and the triangles formed by West Lake Drive, Star Island Road, and North Fernwood Drive, “where we’ll be relying upon those swales, the soils, and the plants to strip a lot of the nutrients, bacterial contamination out of the water before it enters either the groundwater or the surface waters,” Mr. Clapp said. A permeable reactive barrier was also recommended at the end of Duryea Avenue. 

Both areas of Lake Montauk, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc noted, “are adjacent to extremely densely developed areas, with the idea that septics are contributing” to water contamination. 

A permeable reactive barrier “isn’t worth the effort in a lightly populated area,” Mr. Clapp said. “In order to make a permeable reactive barrier worth the effort, you want to identify where the highest-strength plume of contaminated groundwater is and at what depth it sits so you can engineer the product to fit the right spot. . . . This is the first step in engineering of the project.” 

Additionally, the water quality committee recommends an engineering study to map the drainage area around the pipe that collects stormwater runoff from an upland subdivision near Surfside Place at the eastern edge of Montauk’s downtown. C.C.O.M. and the Surfrider Foundation have measured high bacteria counts at the pipe’s outlet on the beach. 

Antimicrobial-coated stormwater filters in catch basins upgradient of the outlet pipe “should, in the short term, be able to drastically cut down the amount of bacterial contamination that’s coming out at the end of the pipe,” Mr. Clapp said. “It’s not to say it can strip everything, but the data that the company that makes these things has shown the committee have shown a drastic decrease in microbial as well as viral contamination in the water that passes through them.” 

Before Mr. Clapp’s presentation, Laura Tooman, president of C.C.O.M., told the board that the group is supportive of the water quality committee’s recommendations. C.C.O.M.’s water quality data at South Lake Drive, which consistently exceed the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s standards for public health, demonstrate the need for action, she said. “I wanted to provide scientific data you need to show that there is a problem and something needs to be done. This is an instance where we know we have a problem, we have the resources to fix the problem, and, hopefully, we have the political will to fix the problem.”