Thanks to all who came out for this great discussion of Judith’s new book, “the Problem with Plastics,” with Adam Mahoney! Now let’s get the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act passed and signed into law.

Beyond Plastics@beyondplastics.bsky.social · 6mo ago

We're kicking off an exciting conversation between our president, Judith Enck and Ulster County Executive Jen Metzger at Upstate Films Orpheum Theatre in Saugerties. If you can't make it, stop by Inquiring Minds bookstore next door at 3pm for a book signing. @jenmetzgerny.bsky.social

Delaying climate action is unaffordable. My OpEd on why weakening New York’s climate law is a bad idea: www.dailyfreeman.com/2026/03/24/u...

Ulster Executive Jen Metzger guest column: Delaying climate action is unaffordable

By Jen Metzger, Ulster County Executive Backtracking on New York’s Climate Act will harm, not help, energy affordability. The high cost of our fossil fuel dependence couldn’t be clearer. The U.S. war...

dailyfreeman.com

We can improve hiring and retention in the public sector by fixing Tier 6 of the state retirement system and reducing the retirement age from 63 to 55 (like public employees in Tier 4). If you’ve worked 30 years in a job, you deserve to retire.

The Trump administration is seeking to deport two men who provided accounts of the Jan. 3 death of Geraldo Lunas Campos at a Texas detention camp that differed from the Department of Homeland Security’s description of the incident.

DHS seeking to deport two men who said fellow ICE detainee was killed

The two men’s eyewitness accounts of the Jan. 3 death of Geraldo Lunas Campos at a Texas detention camp differ from the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the incident.

washingtonpost.com

Nicolás Maduro Charged With Felony Oil Possession

Very happy to see this funding boost for Empower+, which I’ve been pushing hard for. The program helps low- and moderate-income households make energy efficiency improvements that permanently reduce energy bills, with benefits for the climate & public health.

Good for the climate and good for our wallets. Let’s get it into law.

New Yorkers for Clean Power@nyforcleanpower.org · 12mo ago

Recently, @sarahana.bsky.social, @jenmetzgerny.bsky.social, Mayor Noble, For the Many, and more joined @renewableheatnow.bsky.social at Energy Square in Kingston urging @governor.ny.gov to sign the 100FT Rule Repeal to end an outdated rule costing New Yorkers millions. Read More: bit.ly/47yQj3e

A great night.

No kings.

EPA to stop doing its job. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/12/c...

E.P.A. To Stop Collecting Emissions Data From Polluters

nytimes.com

Last week, I spoke at a virtual hearing of the U.S. EPA against rescinding the 2009 endangerment finding, which would be reckless, dangerous, and contrary to the agency’s mission. My full statement here: ulstercountyny.gov/news/executi...

Ulster County Executive Jen Metzger Calls U.S. EPA’s Proposed Repeal of Endangerment Finding ‘Reckless’ and ‘Dangerous’ at EPA Public Hearing this Morning | Ulster County

Kingston, NY - County Executive Jen Metzger appeared before a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) panel in a virtual public hearing this morning to oppose EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin's plan to...

ulstercountyny.gov

“This is the kind of thing you would only expect to see in a banana republic,” said Janet Yellen, former Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve Chair. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/b...

Trump Fired America’s Economic Data Collector. History Shows the Perils.

nytimes.com

Today I joined NYS Attorney-General Letitia James and other NY elected officials in demanding immediate and unfettered delivery of food, medicine, and other essential resources to address the staggering humanitarian crisis in Gaza. To allow such suffering and starvation is inhumane.

The recently signed federal budget law is potentially very harmful to Ulster County and our communities, but New York State has a path forward to reduce the harm, as I explain in an Op-ed published in the Albany Times Union today: www.timesunion.com/opinion/arti...

Commentary: Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' will hurt struggling New Yorkers. Here's how state lawmakers can fight back.

We can patch up our safety net by making sure corporations and the wealthiest households pay their fair share of state taxes.

timesunion.com

NOAA announced Thursday that it is decommissioning several databases, including its widely reported annual compilation of billion-dollar weather and climate disasters. cbsn.ws/4iUkkyp

NOAA ending its "billion-dollar disasters" database

NOAA announced that it is decommissioning several databases, including its widely reported annual compilation of billion-dollar weather and climate disasters.

cbsn.ws

Ulster County turned out big in Gardiner and around the county yesterday. #50501

You may be fearing your 401k is no longer enough for you to retire. But with all the cuts to NIH and Medicare you also won't live as long. So the policies are integrated.

🏳️‍⚧️Today I issued an Executive Order reaffirming the County government's commitment to prevent discrimination based on gender identity or expression. #TransDayofVisibility Read the Executive Order at tinyurl.com/EO1-2025.

"A terrified young student, snatched off the street by a masked police force taken thousands of miles across the country without anyone knowing. It is as flatly authoritarian as anything we have ever seen in this country," says @chrislhayes.bsky.social on Tufts student Rumeysa Ozturk's detention.

“There was no right answer to the predicament in which we found ourselves,” says Karp. Cowardice.

Bill Kristol@billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 2y ago

This letter from Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp makes things worse. Basically offers rationale and justification for everyone else following in Paul Weiss’s footsteps and capitulating to Trump. BLUF: We capitulated and everyone else should as well. open.substack.com/pub/davidlat...

"The allegations come after two men at Krome died in custody on Jan. 23 and Feb. 20."

Dianne Solis@disolis.bsky.social · 2y ago

Immigrant women say they were held "like animals" in ICE detention, subjected to conditions so extreme they feared for their lives. Told by guards to urinate on the floor. Held "like sardines in a jar," as many as 27 women in a small holding cell. www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...

This is the 23-year-old gay hairdresser and makeup artist disappeared into a sadistic Salvadorian gulag because of his tattoos

Jenny Cohn@jennycohn.bsky.social · 2y ago

“One young man sobbed when a guard pushed him to the floor. He said, ‘I’m not a gang member. I’m gay. I’m a barber.’ I believed him. *** He “began to whimper,” as his head was roughly shaved, “folding his hands in prayer as his hair fell.” He “asked for his mother & cried as he was slapped again.”

“Todd Wolfson, the president of the American Association of University Professors, a nat’l faculty rights group, described the move as the greatest incursion into academic freedom & free speech since Sen Joseph R. McCarthy’s crusade against communism in the 1950s.” www.nytimes.com/2025/03/22/n...

Columbia University’s Concessions to Trump Seen as a Watershed

Threatened with losing $400 million in federal funding, the university agreed to overhaul its protest policies and security practices.

nytimes.com

Shameful USDA cuts to farm-to-school and farm-to-pantry grant programs. These grant programs do so much good, nourishing our kids and food insecure families and seniors while also helping our local farmers. (www.politico.com/news/2025/03...

USDA cancels $1B in local food purchasing for schools, food banks

States have been notified that they will not receive 2025 funding for schools to buy food from nearby farms.

politico.com

President Trump ordered federal employees to return to the office, repeatedly saying they couldn't be productive from home. But Trump has signed executive orders and a memorandum from his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Palm Beach, according to an NBC News tracker. In other words, he's worked from home.

Federal workers cast Trump's many Mar-a-Lago trips as working from home

“It’s about who’s making the rules,” one federal worker said of the president ordering employees back to the office even as he’s spent nearly every weekend in Florida.

nbcnews.to

72% of NYers & 66% of Americans support a 100% fossil fuel-free economy by 2050 (Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.) We’re working to do our part in Ulster Co but NYS needs to step it up to meet Climate Act requirements. And Trump & co need to keep their hands off the IRA and IIJA.

More keys to the federal government handed to the oil and gas industry

David Roberts@volts.wtf · 2y ago

The new No. 2 at EPA "made nearly $3.2 million in 2024 representing a range of corporate interests against pollution cases and enforcement actions. His clients included Chevron, Sunoco Pipeline, and Energy Transfer..." Cool cool cool.

Stalinesque removal from public memory.

The closest Social Security Office to our county has been closed. A heartless move by DOGE affecting the elderly, the disabled, wounded veterans, and surviving spouses and children.