NEW YORK

Former U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, a veteran lawmaker known for pressing to protect the environment during a career that spanned from the era of the Love Canal toxic waste site to the recent debate over natural gas fracking, has died. He was 79.

Hinchey, a Democrat, died Wednesday at his home in Saugerties, in the Hudson Valley, his family said in a statement on his Facebook page. The family announced in June that he had a rare, progressive neurological condition called frontotemporal degeneration, or frontotemporal dementia, but his cause of death was not immediately available.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi called Hinchey a fierce defender of the environment, strong advocate for veterans and “tireless progressive champion for American families.”

“He leaves us with a legacy of leadership and a lifetime of public service that embody the best of America,” Pelosi said in a statement.

Hinchey retired from Congress in 2013, after 20 years there and 18 years in the state Assembly, where he developed an expertise on environmental issues.

As chair of the Assembly’s Environmental Conservation Committee, he led hearings into the disaster at Love Canal, a Niagara Falls neighborhood where it emerged in the 1970s that a chemical company had dumped 22,000 tons of toxic waste decades earlier.