Senate Bill S8447

                                
 
BILL NUMBER: S8447

SPONSOR: MAY
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act in relation to authorizing and directing the department of health
to update the report entitled "New York State Department of Health
Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE) in New York State"

 
PURPOSE:

The purpose of this bill is to incorporate the public health lessons
learned from the COVID-19 pandemic into the existing Climate and Health
Profile document first created by the DOH in 2015 so that the state may
be better prepared to anticipate and respond to future challenges of an
epidemiological nature.

 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

This act directs the Department of Health to update the climate and
health profile produced in the 2015 report entitled "New York State
              

Department of Health Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE)
in New York State".

The update will include the following climate-related public health
issues:

   a. Health vulnerability indicators;

   b. Disease burden projection tools;

   c. An expansion of vector borne disease vulnerability, including, but
not limited to, vulnerability to COVID-19 or similar viruses; and

   d. Any other climate-related public health issue the department deems
appropriate in the updated report.

A draft copy of the updated report shall be circulated to state agencies
for comment and recommendations and to the climate action council estab-
lished pursuant to the CLCPA, section 75-0103 of the environmental
conservation law.

The final updated BRACE report would be submitted to the governor, the
legislature, the climate action council, and agencies throughout the
state no later than 2 years after the effective date of the act.

The updated report would also be made available on the department's
website.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first promoted the
creation of a framework of strategies that states' health officials
could use to help communities prepare for the health effects of climate
change in 2010. New York received a grant to conduct and complete its
own climate and health profile not long after and produced its report in
2015. The report contains short and long range projections included
epidemiological analyses, along with atmospheric data, to help the state
more effectively anticipate, prepare for, and respond to a range of
climate sensitive health impacts. The impacts of climate change have so
dramatically increased in just the past five years that the 2015 BRACE
report is desperately in need of update.

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has presented a public health challenge like
none other to this state since the 1917-18 Spanish Flu. We must waste no
time incorporating and building upon the lessons this novel coronavirus
has taught us so that we can successfully prepare for future challenges
of this type. The updated BRACE report will serve as an excellent and
evolving guidebook, consisting of the evolving body of climate science
and its intersection with public health. New York must not only record
the lessons from the COVID-19 experience, it must use them to strengthen
its resources for combatting future public health crises. Doing this
will save lives, reduce the financial burden of emergency response, and
help government resume the job of promoting quality of life for all New
Yorkers.

 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

New bill

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
Immediately