The non-profit Long Island Environmental Voters Forum on Friday announced its endorsement of Democrat Adam Haber in his campaign against state Sen. Jack Martins (R-Mineola) for the 7th state Senate seat.
Forum President Richard Amper said in a news release he authored that the group supported Haber for his campaign promises to reduce water and air pollution and power plant emissions throughout the district.
“Adam Haber has promised to fight politics-as-usual by putting the needs of his constituents ahead of petty partisanship,” Amper said in a statement.
The forum, Amper said, has criticized Martins and other state senators for its handling of the Long Island Water Quality Control Act, legislation that would have created a commission to analyze water regulations across Long Island. The law was approved in the state Assembly in June but was not voted on by the Senate.
“Elected officials owe their allegiance to the people they represent, not to political leaders, beholden to developers and other special interests,” Amper said. “Haber told us he would have fought to get the bill to the floor because of the importance of clean water to the people of Long Island.”
In a statement, Haber said, “We must protect Long Island’s water supply and I would be willing to consider all reasonable steps to do so.”
Though several organizations across Long Island opposed the legislation – including the Nassau County Village Officials Association and the Port Washington-Manhasset chapter of the League of Women Voters – Amper said in an interview Tuesday that the Long Island Environmental Voters Forum would not support a candidate that did not favor the law.
“Our position was that Long Island’s water did not get any cleaner,” Amper said. “The state Senate said they were in favor of the bill at the time, they had to vote for it and they should have gone to the majority leader to insist that it be voted on or they should have put in amendments to fix it if they felt there was something wrong, but they didn’t. They made no progress in 2014 on water quality improvement and somebody’s to blame.”
The Long Island Environmental Voters Forum’s endorsement came two weeks after the New York League of Conservation Voters endorsed Martins.
In an Aug. 19 news release, New York League of Conservation Voters President Marcia Bystryn said, “We are particularly encouraged by his passionate advocacy to improve the quality of drinking water and our local waterways. We are proud to endorse Jack Martins and we encourage Nassau County residents who care about clean water and environmental progress to vote for Jack Martins for State Senate.”
In a statement Tuesday, Martins spokesman Chris Schneider said, “Senator Martins has worked harder than any other elected official in Nassau County to protect our drinking water, which is why he was endorsed by a leading statewide environmental organization, NYLCV. Adam Haber owns multiple oil and gas companies that hydrofrack. The records speak for themselves.”
Efforts to reach Haber’s campaign were unavailing.
