Alexander B. "Pete" Grannis (born January 6, 1942) is a former Commissioner of the

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (informally referred to as NYSDEC, DEC, EnCon or NYSENCON) is a department of New York state government. The department guides and regulates the conservation, improvement, and protection ...

(DEC). Before his tenure as Commissioner, he was a member of the

New York State Assembly The New York State Assembly is the lower house of the New York State Legislature, with the New York State Senate being the upper house. There are 150 seats in the Assembly. Assembly members serve two-year terms without term limits. The Assem ...

and represented District 65 as a member of the

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for the neighborhoods of the

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and

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. His firing by Governor

David Paterson David Alexander Paterson (born May 20, 1954) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 55th governor of New York, succeeding Eliot Spitzer and serving out nearly three years of Spitzer's term from March 2008 to December 2010. A ...

in October 2010 was controversial to many especially environmentalists.

Education and early career

Grannis is a graduate of

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

and the

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. His first job with New York state's government was as compliance counsel to the Department of Environmental Conservation.

New York State Assembly

He was a member of the

from 1975 to 2007, sitting in the 181st, 182nd, 183rd, 184th, 185th, 186th, 187th, 188th, 189th, 190th, 191st, 192nd, 193rd, 194th, 195th, 196th and

197th New York State Legislature The 197th New York State Legislature, consisting of the New York State Senate and the New York State Assembly, met from January 3, 2007, to December 31, 2008, during Eliot Spitzer's and the early part of David Paterson's governorship, in Albany ...

s. Grannis served as Chair of the Insurance Committee in the Assembly and was a member of several other standing committees. In his capacity as Chairman he authoring New York State's Community Rating/Open Enrollment Law, as well as the 1996 Managed Care Consumer Protection Act. As Insurance committee chairman, he co-sponsored New York's Stem Cell Research Bill. He promoted the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) in 1978. "Grannis work dfor passage of the 'Bottle Bill' and 'brownfields' clean-up legislation n1982." Other notable pieces of legislation Grannis wrote are New York State's Clean Indoor Air Act (1989), which severely restricted

cigarette A cigarette is a narrow cylinder containing a combustible material, typically tobacco, that is rolled into thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end, causing it to smolder; the resulting smoke is orally inhaled via the opp ...

smoking within public buildings, and the Adolescent Tobacco Use Prevention Act. He served for a decade as Chairman of the Assembly Housing Committee. He previously served as chairman of an Assembly Subcommittee on toxic waste issues. He served on the Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee his entire time in office.

Elections

Generally, Grannis was re-elected overwhelmingly in his progressive East Side district. In 1998, Grannis received 23,815 votes to Liberal-Republican Mark H. Snyder's 7,841 votes. He was re-elected in 2000 with 34,230 votes, to Peter McCoy (Republican) with 11,357, and Edward V. Price (Independent), with 580. Grannis had another three-way race in 2002, when he received 18,600 votes on the Democratic and Working Families Party lines, to 9,021 for David A. Friedman (on the Republican, Independence, and Liberal Party lines), and 377 for Ivana M. Edwards of the

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation ...

. In 2004, Grannis was re-elected by a vote of 37,917 to 11,710 for Patricia Leslie. He was last re-elected in 2006 with a vote of 25,334 to 5,499 over Republican Michael Fandal.

New York State Comptroller bid

In January 2007 he filed an application for consideration by the State Legislature for appointment as

New York State Comptroller The New York State Comptroller is an elected constitutional officer of the U.S. state of New York and head of the New York state government's Department of Audit and Control. The New York State Comptroller is the highest-paid state auditor or ...

, filling the vacancy caused by the resignation of Alan Hevesi. He was one of 19 candidates for Comptroller.

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called him "One of the most qualified of the legislators" to be Comptroller, but due to "the matter of political balance tis tough to imagine either Spitzer or Silver giving the job to another Manhattan politician." He interviewed with the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee and the search committee. He withdrew his application for Comptroller after being nominated as Environmental Conservation Commissioner.

Department of Environmental Conservation

Grannis was nominated by Governor

Eliot Spitzer Eliot Laurence Spitzer (born June 10, 1959) is an American politician and attorney. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he was the 54th governor of New York from 2007 until his resignation in 2008. Spitzer was b ...

as DEC Commissioner on January 25, 2007. He was

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on April 1, 2007 by the

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. As Commissioner, Grannis managed hundreds of employees and represented the state government's ecological efforts. He appointed Peter M. Iwanowicz, as director of a new

Climate Change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

Office, on May 10, 2007. He replaced some of the regional directors for DEC. As part of his duties, he inspected polluted sites, such as

Scajaquada Creek Scajaquada Creek ( ) is a stream in Erie County, New York, United States. The name is derived from Philip Kenjockety, a Native American described as the oldest resident of the region upon his death in 1808. The creek lends its name to the Scaj ...

in western New York. He had some

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duties, which included fining polluters; in July 2007, he assessed "Walter French $48,800 for floating camp at Cranberry L ke Grannis was also Chairman and ''

ex officio An ''ex officio'' member is a member of a body (notably a board, committee, council) who is part of it by virtue of holding another office. The term '' ex officio'' is Latin, meaning literally 'from the office', and the sense intended is 'by right ...

'' member of the board of the New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation (EFC), a public benefit corporation which funds "programs that help New York State municipalities, agencies and businesses undertake projects ... to be environmentally responsible."

Firing

On October 21, 2010, he was fired from that position by Spitzer's successor, Governor

. The firing came after a memo prepared by Grannis, detailing how the governor's proposed budget cuts would impair environmental protection in

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, was leaked to the press.

Reaction

Environmental activists unanimously reacted negatively to Grannis' firing. A

Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, who be ...

spokesman called his sacking "appalling". Rob Moore, director of Environmental Advocates, said "I think Gov. icPaterson has been dismantling the agency for two years and he’s finally cut off its head." Political commentator Alan Chartock opined that the governor "should have counted to 10 before firing Grannis" because of the deep respect that the public has for Grannis. Robin Dropkin, director of Parks & Trails New York, called his "firing ... deeply unfortunate. Mr. Grannis always has been a strong advocate for protecting New York's air, land and water." Henry Stern, former

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

parks commissioner, called the dismissal of Grannis "a new low" and "so ridiculous that it is difficult to comprehend."

References

External links

New York State Assembly Member WebsiteProject Vote Smart: Interest Group RatingsGotham Gazette's Eye On Albany: New York State Assembly: District 65
January - December 1992 No. 752 Campaign disclosure checklists {{DEFAULTSORT:Grannis, Pete 1940s births Living people State cabinet secretaries of New York (state) Democratic Party members of the New York State Assembly Rutgers University alumni University of Virginia School of Law alumni People from Manhattan Loomis Chaffee School alumni