CCE reps met with Gov. Spitzer today

I just got off the phone with Adrienne Esposito of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, who's on her way back to Long Island from Albany, where she met face to face today at noontime with Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

The meeting lasted 20 or 25 minutes, she said. It took place in the governor's office.

Ms. Esposito said the governor listened attentively to everything she and CCE staff members, Maureen Murphy, executive programs manager and Bill Cooke, legislative liaison, had to say.

"Our goal was to bring the voice of the public to the governor. We feel we accomplished that goal, bringing the collective concern and voice of the people to the governor," Ms. Esposito told me. I feel like we did the best we could.

"It really is in the governor's hands now. Either he has to find an alternative or side with Shell," she said.

"I told him New York needs him to be our Eli Manning," Ms. Esposito said. The governor responded that Manning had a very inconsistent year. As she recounted the conversation, Ms. Esposito laughed at the governor's apparently unintentional but accurate analogy.

Meanwhile, the debate between Esposito and Shell CEO John Hofmeiser was cancelled at the last minute, because something came up for Hofmeister that took him out of the country.

I think he was reluctant to get into a debate situation with the very feisty CCE director. Can't say I blame him.

News 12 Broadwater debate tonight is cancelled

Shell CEO John Hofmeister has begged off tonight's "LI Talks" debate on News 12 with Citizens Campaign for the Environment executive director Adrienne Esposito, according to Ms. Esposito.

She said News 12 called to tell her Mr. Hofmeister sent his regrets today in an e-mail to the cable news station, indicating he was called out of the country on business.