New York District 26: Representative Maurice Hinchey
New York to Utah, He's Rock Solid
Talk about your voice in the wilderness. As a minority member of Don Young's
development-crazed Resources Committee and the ranking Democrat on its forest
subcommittee (Helen Chenoweth, proprietor), Maurice Hinchey has been one of
environmentalists' most dependable friends in the House. He's earned a perfect
League of Conservation Voters rating each of the past four years-but
dependability is only half the story. Ask any wilderness activist: this is one
congressman willing to go way beyond the call of duty.
Hinchey, whose sprawling district in upstate New York takes in much of the lush
Hudson Valley, has been a powerful ally in the fight to clean up the Hudson
River. Besides voting consistently to defend federal water and air standards from
legislative attack, he's been a leader in beating back congressional efforts to
cripple the EPA, which 15 years ago conferred Superfund status on a large stretch
of the Hudson. Anti-environmental riders and budget cuts proposed in 1996 would
have prevented the agency from forcing the river's biggest polluter, General
Electric, to clean up the mess, or from doing the job itself. Hinchey helped
defeat those measures, and has been a staunch opponent of their cousins in this
Congress.
For all he's done for his own constituents, voters outside the Empire State also
have plenty of reason to hope Hinchey returns for a fourth term. He was a lead
House cosponsor of the Children's Environmental Protection and Right to Know Act,
which would give parents and consumers more information about toxic chemicals in
their communities, and has fought on behalf of endangered species and national
forests. But he's best known to conservationists as the principal author of H.R.
1500, America's Red Rock Wilderness Act, which would protect 5.7 million acres of
southern Utah's spectacularly rugged wilds from development. That alone is enough
to make him a prime target for the despoliation lobby.
The outcome of New York's primary was not known at presstime, but Hinchey's
potential Republican opponents included Operation Rescue's Randall Terry, who has
vowed to spend $1 million to unseat him. In 1994 the district went big for
Republican Governor George Pataki, and Hinchey survived by barely 1,200 votes. He
fared better in '96, winning with 55 percent of the total, but Pataki is back at
the top of the GOP ticket this November, which could help the Republican
challenger. Environmentalists' support for Hinchey will be crucial.
