D'Amato's environmental makeover.

It was an unusual crowd that gathered in the freezing cold on January 11, 1997 outside the Long Beach, Long Island, New York, incinerator for a celebratory photo marking the trash-burning facility's upcoming closure. The Democratic State Assembly member was there. Also present was the man who is more responsible than anyone else for the shuttering of the behemoth, Republican Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato. In 1996 the Senator had voted for cutbacks in federal funds for the Environmental Protection Agency, and to continue a moratorium on listing endangered species. D'Amato had an environmental rating of zero in 1996, and then came the Long Beach incinerator, like a lifesaver thrown to a drowning man.