Summary
This bill requires certain actions to occur before state permits can be issued for the siting of new environmental facilities in low-income or minority neighborhoods. The measure requires that, under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), an applicant must delineate whether the permit at issue would result in a disproportionate or inequitable burden on the community where the facility is proposed.

Explanation

This bill seeks to address a recurring pattern of hazardous polluting facilities getting sited in low-income and/or minority neighborhoods. Years of experience have shown a demonstrable proclivity on the part of certain industries and municipalities to site noxious or dangerous facilities in communities with the least political power. This practice has resulted in minority and low-income populations being subject to the worst environmental health risks. Across New York, incinerators, hazardous and solid waste dumps, sewage treatment plants and general industrial development located in these neighborhoods are believed to have resulted in increased asthma and other respiratory problems, cancer, birth defects and other environmentally triggered maladies. These siting practices have also enabled many within society who benefit from a facility’s operation to ignore severe environmental health impacts as someone else’s problem.

All citizens of the state must equally accept the burdens created by environmentally polluting facilities. Faced with this prospect, more influential New Yorkers will find ways to reduce the necessity for such facilities in the first place and pollution prevention would take on a new importance. The Environmental Justice and Permitting Policy issued by the Department of Environmental Conservation incorporates the provisions of this bill into agency policy. Passage of the bill would reinforce the importance of the initiative and assure its continuation into the future.

Environmental Advocates of New York supports this bill.