Candidate Statement of Laura Burkhardt

I have been active with Sierra Club Lower Hudson Group since I moved to Rockland County five years ago, attending monthly meetings and serving as Election Coordinator for three years, as Secretary for two years, and now also as a member of the Lower Hudson Group Executive Committee and Alternate Delegate to the Atlantic Chapter Executive Committee. I am also currently serving as Secretary of the Atlantic Chapter. 

My special interest is learning about the NY electric grid and writing articles to help our members better understand how it works. I view climate change as the most important issue of our time and have participated in efforts to stop new fossil fuel projects in the lower Hudson Valley, including the proposed but now dormant Pilgrim Pipeline project and the proposed new Danskammer fracked gas power plant. As part of the effort to oppose these and other anti-environmental projects and to support the development of renewable energy, I work with the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign media team to write and publish letters to the editors of local publications. 

I am also working independently on a study to estimate the potential capacity and generation of solar carports in the Lower Hudson Valley Capacity Zone, both as a way to help the state meet its 2030 goal of a 70% renewable energy electric grid and as a way to defeat new fossil fuel plants by making them unnecessary. Solar carports are especially suited to Lower Hudson Valley because we don’t have vast areas of unused farmland for large scale ground-mount systems but we do have lots of parking lots! 

I would appreciate your vote as I continue this work.