The United States Senate has confirmed former Assemblywoman Jane Corwin along with Lance Yohe and Robert Sisson as commissioners of the International Joint Commission (IJC).
Ms. Corwin served as a member of the New York State Assembly from 2009 through 2016, where she was the Minority Leader Pro Tempore and the ranking member of the Corporations, Authorities and Commissions Committee. Additionally, she was a member of the Environmental Conservation, Education and Mental Health Committees. Corwin has also served as president of the Philip M. and Jane Lewis Corwin Foundation since 2005, and was the director of Gibraltar Industries out of Buffalo from 2014-2018. She succeeds former US Co-Chair Lana Pollack, who served from 2010 to 2019.
Mr. Sisson has been involved with the environmental organization ConservAmerica since 2006, where he has served as president since 2011, and more recently was appointed by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder to the state’s Environmental Justice Working Group in 2017. He succeeds former US Commissioner Dereth Glance, who served from 2011 to 2016.
Mr. Yohe has been previously involved in Canada-U.S. transboundary organizations centered in the Red River basin for over 25 years, serving as the executive director of the Red River Basin Commission in Fargo, North Dakota from its formation in 2002 until 2014. In 2014, Mr. Yohe formed Trans Boundary Solutions, a consulting firm working with regional clients on both sides of the boundary, including the Prairie Improvement Network and the Assiniboine River Basin Initiative. He succeeds former US Commissioner Rich Moy, who served from 2011 to 2019.
Assemblyman Steve Hawley (R,C,I-Batavia) said, “Now that a functioning IJC is in place we need to move forward and immediately develop a plan to regulate water levels as well as ensure that flood prevention and recovery efforts are in place in the event that water levels continue to rise precipitously.”
Hawley, who has a relationship with now Commissioner Corwin, plans to move ahead with remediating imminent flooding along Lake Ontario’s Southern Shoreline, which he witnessed firsthand on a self-guided tour from the towns of Yates to Kendall on May 12.
“I will be working with state leaders and my regional colleagues in both houses the last several weeks of session to see that a plan is in place and funding is set aside in the case that homeowners and businesses face the same devastation they endured in 2017,” Hawley said.
The International Joint Commission prevents and resolves disputes between the United States of America and Canada under the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty and pursues the common good of both countries as an independent and objective advisor to the two governments. US and Canadian Commissioners work together to play a binational oversight role, in matters involving water quality and quantity issues on the topics and in the basins where the governments have requested the IJC’s assistance.
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