We are in a climate crisis – unpredictable weather and precipitation patterns, rising sea levels, destabilizing ecosystems, and a sixth mass extinction. Here in Tompkins and Cortland counties, we have experienced alternating years of severe drought followed by years of high precipitation with flooding that has caused road, bridge, and crop damage. In 2019, New York State passed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) to drastically reduce our state’s impact on climate change. This policy outlines ambitious climate and clean energy goals and places equity at the center of these policies. Since then, however, too-slow progress in phasing out our use of dangerous, traditional fossil fuel sources has started to put our emission reduction goals out of reach. 

Environmental protection and advocacy has been, for Anna, a lifelong endeavor and mission. As a student, she earned a dual bachelor’s degree in Biology and Environmental Studies. She then spent four years in Ecuador, working with marginalized populations to promote environmentally sound practices, as an ecological guide in the Amazon Basin, and as a high-school biology teacher. In District, Anna has spent years championing environmental policy and community development as a Director for the Green Resource Hub, a non-profit that helped(?) area businesses become more eco-friendly, and as a member of the Tompkins County Legislature, where she served as chair to the Committee on Planning, Development, and Environmental Quality. A doctor in Nutritional Epidemiology and scientist through and through, Anna believes that good environmental policy is crafted compassionately and thoroughly data-driven.

In Albany, Anna will continue to push for legislation that promotes responsible stewardship of our ecosystems:

Protection of Species Diversity

• Requiring that state owned or leased buildings in New York incorporate methods, such as window decals, films, or UV patterns, to reduce unnecessary bird mortality resulting from collisions with buildings, which accounts for an estimated 230,000 deaths in NYC alone per year (A7808, Kelles) 

• Conserving, promoting, and enhancing the native ecology of New York State by encouraging the use of native plants and ecologically friendly methods and materials on state and local land (A8153, Kelles), and establishing a New York native plant seed supply, development, and enhancement program (A9043, Kelles)

• Encouraging the State government to establish pollinator-friendly habitats and introduce pollinator-friendly practices across all levels of government, including the use of native plants in landscaping, reduced use of pesticides, and providing healthy habitats, nesting sites, and protection from pesticides (A8204, Kelles)

• Establishing an approach to pest management that relies on a combination of biological, chemical, cultural and mechanical practices to manage populations by the State, to mitigate the harmful environmental and health effects of pesticides (A6612, Kelles)

Water Safety and Quality

• Requiring an environmental impact statement for mines located underneath lakes, such as the Cayuga Salt Mine in Lansing, New York, to fully evaluate the risks they pose to the watershed’s residents, critical fresh water source, and tourism driven economy (A8250, Kelles)

• Restricting the use of polystyrene, a non-biodegradable material that can take hundreds of years to decompose, in docks, to protect the health of our waterways for drinking, recreation, and tourism (A8142, Kelles)

• Designating the Department of Health as the lead agency in governing the watersheds of the eleven Finger Lakes, to protect the region’s unique natural heritage and critical sources of drinking water, tourism, and agriculture for New Yorkers (A8073, Kelles)

• Making better public water data more widely available by asking water-related agencies to come together to create a common set of water data standards for the state and a public-facing interface where such data can be shared, viewed, and used by interested parties (A3299, Kelles)

• Creation of an annual testing and reporting protocol for the discharge of PFAS, a class of persistent and toxic chemicals known to disrupt fertility, child development, immune systems and hormonal activity, to our water (A3296, Kelles)

• Requiring DEC to notify property owners and tenants of any nearby petroleum discharges, protecting their drinking water supply and safety (A4872, Kelles)

• Establishing a coordinated intervention to monitor, identify, and combat the rising presence of Harmful Algal Blooms in our state waterways, which produce dangerous toxins that threaten drinking water and food sources, as well as critical drivers of local economies (A8867, Kelles) 

Farmland Protection and Sustainability

• Banning the use of nutrient rich biosolids from wastewater treatment facilities on agricultural, residential, or commercials lands unless they are treated to remove harmful pollutants (A8317, Kelles)   

Environment and Energy

• Expanding tax credits to include community solar arrays owned and used by a primary residence, but installed at another location (A1013, Kelles)

• Requiring that the New York State Teachers' Retirement System divest from fossil fuels, so that the value created by New York State's teachers funds for retirement is not used to make investments that threaten the future they are working to build (A1101, Kelles)

• Establishing the natural carbon sequestration research program, researching natural climate solutions in working lands such as sequestering carbon in trees, wood products, and soil (A4224, Kelles)

• Requiring a study to provide a blueprint to guide the responsible replacement and redevelopment of New York State's fossil fuel facilities and their sites by 2030, especially in locations where the health benefits to historically disadvantaged communities can be maximized, and where the phasing-out of such facilities can be done while helping to ensure a just transition for the existing workforce (A4866, Kelles)

• Streamlining the process of building sustainable housing in already developed areas of the State, while protecting environmental concerns like drinking water and wetlands, as well as requiring higher standards of building quality using environmental certification programs (A4933, Kelles)

• Requiring that certain state-owned and operated parking garages install charging stations for electric vehicles, to make emissions reduction more feasible (A4871, Kelles)

• Establishing an economy-wide cap and invest program to support the goals of the CLCPA with greenhouse gas emissions reductions in the State, the creation of clean energy jobs, and reduction of energy bills for households and businesses (A8469, Kelles) 

• Requiring fashion sellers to be accountable to standardized environmental and social policies in sourcing their labor and products, by setting targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improving chemical management and disposal, and establishing responsible practices to improve labor outcomes (A4333, Kelles)

• Holding textile manufacturers and producers accountable for the life cycle of their products by making them responsible for their collection and disposal, and by incentivizing the design of products that are easier to reuse, recycle, or dispose of safely (A8078, Kelles)

• Prohibiting well permits from being issued for fracking in New York by use of carbon dioxide injection. This method of fracking carries all of the same risks as water-based fracking as well as new ones, including the release of asphyxiating gasses, leakage that can result in acidic compounds, and leaching of heavy metals into underground aquifers (A8866, Kelles)

• Providing direct aid to municipalities to support efforts to clean up contaminated sites in their communities that may have an impact on local water supply (A9366, Kelles)

• Allowing and setting standards for the re-use of salvaged wood from deconstructed buildings in new construction (A9290, Kelles)

• Assisting owners and tenants in fixing structural and building code issues that make their properties ineligible for climate change adaptation and resiliency project grants (A9170, Kelles)

• Requiring SUNY and CUNY campuses to have on staff employees dedicated to energy and materials management, as well as sustainability education (A6536, Kelles)