September 17, 2003

Senate Approves Plan to Clean Polluted Sites, Ending 10-Year Impasse

By AL BAKER

ALBANY, Sept. 16 — The Republican-controlled Senate approved landmark environmental legislation today that proponents say will result in the rehabilitation of thousands of scarred industrial wastelands across New York, many in urban areas.

The vote ended a decade of legislative gridlock over the issue. In June, after an evening of political power plays in the Capitol, the State Assembly passed the 107-page measure, but only after the Senate recessed.

Many environmentalists expressed relief that a compromise to reclaim the state's most blighted areas had finally been adopted in Albany. They said it included some of the strongest public health protections in the nation and was the most important environmental legislation in the state in a decade.

New York remained one of the few industrialized states in the nation with no law to regulate the cleanup of privately owned brownfields, abandoned industrial sites that are contaminated with chemicals, fuels or other pollutants. The issue had become linked with the state Superfund program, which provides money to the worst toxic sites. Albany's political leaders allowed money for the Superfund program to run out in March 2001, with hundreds of tainted sites awaiting cleanup.

The environmental bill, which passed the Senate 51 to 9, pumps money into the Superfund program, sets standards for brownfield rehabilitation and encourages the cleanup of soil under old gas stations, foundries and factories. It will now be sent to Gov. George E. Pataki, who signaled his support for the measure in June. An aide said he intends to sign it into law.

"This historic legislation represents a victory for all New Yorkers," Mr. Pataki said today. "By taking steps to protect our environment, this legislation will generate new opportunities for economic growth, bringing new jobs into communities around the state, while protecting the health of all New Yorkers."

While the brownfields bill was the primary reason for the Senate's special one-day session, a handful of other bills were passed and more than two dozen of the governor's nominees were confirmed, including Wayne E. Bennett as the superintendent of the State Police and Andrew S. Eristoff as taxation and finance commissioner.

The governor and legislative leaders also made a deal today to make technical corrections in the state budget. The agreement clears the way for the release of half of $200 million worth of so-called member item appropriations, a euphemism for the money legislators and the governor get to spread around the state. Mr. Pataki would also receive about $70 million for economic development programs he controls.

Included in the so-called budget cleanup bill is a requirement that the state comptroller be given monthly reports on the revenues and expenses in a series of cash pools that finance the state's health care system. The bill, at the governor's request, does not address a deal to allow for the refinancing of New York City debt left over from the 1970's fiscal crisis, a plan that saves the city $500 million this year. The governor has challenged the refinancing plan in court, where the matter is pending.

Today's special session was called by Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate's Republican majority leader. Sheldon Silver, the Democratic Assembly speaker, refused to reconvene his house to address the many pieces of legislation that faltered in June, saying he preferred to work out differences first in conference committees. Today, however, he said the Assembly would meet, most likely in October, to pass the budget cleanup bill, as well as a measure to help Nassau County out of its fiscal troubles, and possibly other initiatives.

Lawmakers, lobbyists and others held their breath until the brownfields bill passed, having seen deals unravel many times before. The issue became one of the most blatant examples of Albany dysfunction.

Over the next decade, it is estimated, the measure will pump $120 million a year into the state's Superfund program, from industry fees and state tax dollars, to clean up 800 abandoned industrial sites in the state, including 102 in New York City. The legislation expands what is covered under the Superfund program to include sites with hazardous substances, not just toxic waste.

Lawmakers were paralyzed for years over how to clean the Superfund sites and the less polluted brownfields, of which there are more than 10,000 in the state, by some estimates, most in cities and older suburbs. Environmentalists say failure to clean them contributes to sprawl, as developers instead turn to open fields like farmlands.

Mr. Pataki and Senate Republicans wanted less stringent cleanup standards for sites that are to be used for commercial and industrial projects, rather than residential development, to encourage development. Democratic Assembly leaders, supported by environmentalists, had pushed for rigorous and costly cleanups of all sites.

The two issues — Superfund money and cleanup standards — became linked over the years, and neither could be resolved without the other.

The compromise set a target for the level of pollutants like lead or cadmium that could be left in the soil; the levels should not exceed a risk of cancer in one person in a million who are exposed to the contaminants, the highest standard nationally.

"Although the bill reflects compromises, it incorporates among the strongest public health provisions of any state brownfields law," said Mark Izeman, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The brownfields portion of the bill provides for $135 million in tax credits for developers that voluntarily clean up a site for residential, industrial or commercial use, and $15 million in grants for community groups to identify and plan options for use.

"If we can energize Rochester, Troy, Syracuse, Buffalo, Albany, New York City, all of the cities with brownfields in the inner cities, and get those inner cores of these cities back working, this will be huge," said Senator Carl L. Marcellino, the chairman of the environmental committee in the Senate.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation must still issue rules to enforce the statute.

The Business Council of New York State and other business groups, particularly in western New York, where many brownfields are located, have criticized the bill, saying it imposes onerous fees on businesses and does not mandate schedules for completing project review and approval. Many senators in the western conference voted against it.

Mr. Bruno said that he was sensitive to the concerns, but that "I am also mindful of the fact that one of the biggest economic development deterrents in this state are the brownfields."

The Senate, at the governor's request, also passed a bill today that is intended to speed up the process for reviewing and approving proposals to upgrade electric transmission facilities and to give electric generating and transmission facilities access to financing through the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

But it is likely to be a one-house bill; Mr. Silver said it raised more questions than it answered at a time when public authorities under the Pataki administration are facing a "firestorm of controversy."

"Once again, the governor is repeating his previous energy policy of deregulation without public input, without legislative input, by dropping this bill in the middle of the night without anybody but a few select energy company officials having input into the concept," Mr. Silver said.

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