January 22, 2007

Welcome to Environmental Advocates of New York’s online newsletter from the State Capital, your source for environmental news. We’ll update you every other week with tidbits and observations carefully gleaned from the halls of the Capitol.

Rumor Mill

While the buzz around Albany is about reform, there’s a different kind of legislative shake-up that’s received little or no speculation in the media—committee assignments!

They are not as dull as you might think. Lawmakers selected to chair these committees decide how bills get made and when and how they move. And rumors have been swirling around the Capitol since last session that more than a few lawmakers are shopping for a new assignment.

Three NYC Senate committee chairs were open due to the departures of Senators Nick Spano (who lost his campaign for re-election), Ray Meier (who lost his congressional bid for Rep. Sherwood Boehlert’s seat), and most recently, Michael Balboni’s decision to leave the Senate Majority and join the Spitzer Administration. Senator Carl Marcellino (R-Oyster Bay) will remain chair of the Environmental Conservation (EnCon) Committee.

In the Assembly, committee assignments likely won't be made until after the debate is settled regarding who will be New York State's next Comptroller.  We've heard that three of last session's committee chairs are vying for this job.

The Assembly EnCon Committee Chair, Tom DiNapoli (D-Great Neck), is oft-linked to a new assignment, either in Governor Spitzer’s Administration or the Assembly. Many consider Assemblyman DiNapoli one of the most effective members of the legislature, so if he does decide to leave the EnCon Committee, the environment’s loss will be someone else’s gain. If Assemblyman DiNapoli does move to a new post, we hope Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver can find an EnCon chair who will continue DiNapoli’s exceptional work.

Show Me the Money: Our Crystal Ball on the State Budget

There’s a lot of talk about what Governor Spitzer’s first budget proposal might bring on January 31^st. In the Governor’s inaugural State of the State address he noted the need to increase staff at the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), as well as to raise the Environmental Protection Fund (EPF).

An increase in the Fund is no great surprise, given the Governor’s past statements and his commitment to environmental issues; however, insiders expect that a bigger EPF will be tied to passing the Bigger Better Bottle Bill. This gives the new-and-improved Bottle Bill perhaps its best-ever chance of getting passed in the State Senate.

The reason for tying together the EPF and Bottle Bill is simple—unclaimed nickel deposits totaling more than $180 million would be deposited in the Fund instead of into bottlers’ pockets (i.e. Coke, Pepsi, Snapple), so guess who doesn’t like this bill?

One of the environmental community’s “Super Bills,” the Bigger Better Bottle Bill has passed the Assembly the past two years, but never made it to the Senate floor. We look forward to seeing how gubernatorial support for the bill impacts its chances in that house this year.

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