New York – Former NY Congressman Maurice Hinchey Dead At 79

Saugerties, NY – A former New York Congressman known for pressing to protect the environment has died. Former Rep. Maurice Hinchey was 79.

His family says in a statement on his Facebook page that the Democrat died Wednesday at his home in Saugerties, in New York’s Hudson Valley. The family had announced in June that Hinchey had a rare, progressive neurological condition called frontotemporal degeneration or frontotemporal dementia.

Hinchey retired from Congress in 2013, after 20 years there. He’d spent nearly two decades in New York’s state Assembly, where he developed an expertise on environmental issues.

He was a vocal opponent of fracking, a natural-gas drilling technique that was banned in New York in 2014.

Hinchey also served in the Navy and was a New York Thruway toll collector.

The Congressman also inject himself into the Palestinian Israeli conflict.

In 2002 Hinchsey met with Yasser Arafat at the PLO leader’s headquarters, one of only three members of the House that met with Arafat there.

Hinchey also “voted against the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism act, designed to promote the development of democratic institutions in areas under the administrative control of the Palestinian Authority,” and refused to sign either the Poe-Peters or Hoyer-Cantor letters which supported Israel’s right to control access to Gaza to prevent armaments to flow into the Hamas-controlled territory.

Hinchey voted against tougher sanctions on Iran as well.