Regular Session - March 19, 2003
1142
NEW YORK STATE SENATE
THE STENOGRAPHIC RECORD
ALBANY, NEW YORK
March 19, 2003
11:16 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION
LT. GOVERNOR MARY O. DONOHUE, President
STEVEN M. BOGGESS, Secretary
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P R O C E E D I N G S
THE PRESIDENT: The Senate will
please come to order.
I ask everyone present to please
rise and repeat with me the Pledge of
Allegiance.
(Whereupon, the assemblage recited
the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.)
THE PRESIDENT: With us once
again this morning is the Reverend Peter G.
Young, from Blessed Sacrament Church, in
Bolton Landing, of course to give the
invocation.
REVEREND YOUNG: Let us pray.
Dear Lord, we ask Your presence and
blessing on our time together today,
especially at this time when we know that our
country is in great turmoil and hope of being
patriotic and defending our resources and our
country and our people.
We express our concerns about the
welfare of our country and to learn from each
other, to grow in spirit and character, to
find Your will for our lives and our
neighbors.
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We thank You for the opportunity in
this country to assemble ourselves at any time
and at any place to discuss our concern as
citizens. We are mindful that many in our
world do not enjoy such freedom, and today we
talk about defending them.
Grant us the wisdom to carry our
decisions within Your will. Bless us as we
continue to conduct our business with dignity
and sensitivity in this Senate chamber.
Amen.
THE PRESIDENT: Reading of the
Journal.
THE SECRETARY: In Senate,
Tuesday, March 18, the Senate met pursuant to
adjournment. The Journal of Monday, March 17,
was read and approved. On motion, Senate
adjourned.
THE PRESIDENT: Without
objection, the Journal stands approved as
read.
Presentation of petitions.
Messages from the Assembly.
Messages from the Governor.
Reports of standing committees.
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Reports of select committees.
Communications and reports from
state officers.
Motions and resolutions.
Senator Kuhl.
SENATOR KUHL: Yes, Madam
President. I understand there's a
substitution at the desk. Could we take that
up now.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will read.
THE SECRETARY: On page 6,
Senator Spano moves to discharge, from the
Committee on Investigations and Government
Operations, Assembly Bill Number 2769 and
substitute it for the identical Senate Bill
Number 1211, First Report Calendar 245.
THE PRESIDENT: Substitutions
ordered.
Senator Kuhl.
SENATOR KUHL: Yes, Madam
President. May we now have the
noncontroversial reading of the calendar.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will read.
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THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
169, by Senator Meier, Senate Print 1827, an
act to amend Chapter 436 of the Laws of 1997.
THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
section.
THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
act shall take effect immediately.
THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 52.
THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
passed.
THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
179, by Senator Volker, Senate Print 306, an
act to amend the Executive Law, in relation to
extending provisions.
THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
section.
THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
act shall take effect immediately.
THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 52.
THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
passed.
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THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
180, by Member of the Assembly Sweeney,
Assembly Print Number 4417, an act in relation
to redistributing 2002 bond volume
allocations.
THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
section.
THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
act shall take effect immediately.
THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 52.
THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
passed.
THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
188, by Senator Meier, Senate Print 15A, an
act to amend the Highway Law, in relation to
designating a portion of the state highway
system in the County of Oneida as the
"Military Highway."
THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
section.
THE SECRETARY: Section 3. This
act shall take effect immediately.
THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
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(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 52.
THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
passed.
THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
189, by Senator Maziarz, Senate Print 836, an
act to amend the Highway Law, in relation to
designating a portion of the state highway
system as the "POW-MIA Memorial Highway."
THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
section.
THE SECRETARY: Section 3. This
act shall take effect immediately.
THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 53.
THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
passed.
THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
190, by Senator Leibell, Senate Print 1176, an
act to amend the Highway Law, in relation to
the designation of the "AMVETS Memorial
Bridge."
THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
section.
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THE SECRETARY: Section 3. This
act shall take effect immediately.
THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 53.
THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
passed.
THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
194, by Senator Nozzolio, Senate Print 439, an
act to amend the Correction Law, in relation
to requiring inmates --
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Lay it
aside.
THE PRESIDENT: The bill is laid
aside.
THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
199, by Senator Larkin, Senate Print 1994, an
act to amend the Public Authorities Law, in
relation to enabling the Dormitory Authority.
THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
section.
THE SECRETARY: Section 4. This
act shall take effect immediately.
THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
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THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 53.
THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
passed.
THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
220, by Senator Marcellino, Senate Print 2935,
an act --
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Lay it
aside.
THE PRESIDENT: The bill is laid
aside.
Senator Kuhl, that completes the
reading of the noncontroversial calendar.
SENATOR KUHL: Yes, Madam
President. May we now have the controversial
reading of the calendar, please.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will read.
THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
194, by Senator Nozzolio, Senate Print 439, an
act to amend the Correction Law, in relation
to requiring inmates to make medical
copayments.
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN:
Explanation.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Nozzolio,
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an explanation has been requested.
SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Thank you,
Madam President.
This measure has passed the Senate
each year since 1997. The purpose is to
require inmates in state correctional
facilities to make a $7 copayment for medical
treatment. It makes inmates partially
responsible for their care, something that
this house requires senior citizens to make
copayments when they have a state-funded
insurance policy.
No emergency treatment to inmates
would be denied under this legislation.
Chronic conditions would not be denied under
this legislation. And that it is a measure
now being carried in the Assembly by
Assemblyman Gunther, who is -- and it's
currently under review by the Corrections
Committee in that body.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator
Schneiderman.
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Thank you,
Madam President. Very briefly on the bill.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed.
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SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: This is
another bill whose anniversaries we celebrate
frequently here.
I hope that we can move ahead, as
we've said several times this session, towards
dealing with issues related to sentencing and
the treatment of inmates in our prison system.
This legislation is simply a
punitive measure designed to impose fees on
inmates. Seven dollars as copayment is an
enormous fee for an inmate. I mean, those of
us who grouse about paying a $10 copayment
fee, a $7 fee is a lot given the very, very
limited income that inmates have.
The problem with this legislation
fundamentally is that it will discourage
people who should receive medical care from
receiving medical care. And for those of
us -- and I guess there are not that many of
us here -- those of us who have worked in
prisons, there is nothing more terrifying than
the outbreak of some sort of a serious disease
that's running through a prison population.
I would hope that we would do
everything we can do to get inmates to seek
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medical care, not discourage them from doing
so.
Once again, this is a punitive
one-house measure that I hope we will abandon
at some point and come together with the other
house in an effort to actually address some of
the very serious issues relating to the
sentencing and treatment of inmates in our
state prison system.
I'll be voting no.
Thank you, Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Stavisky.
SENATOR STAVISKY: If the sponsor
would yield to just a question or two, Madam
President.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator, will you
yield for a question?
You may proceed.
SENATOR STAVISKY: Through you,
Madam President, I remember this bill from
last year and the extensive debate that
ensued. Is this version any different than
the one we debated for a lengthy period last
year?
SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Madam
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President, no.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Nozzolio.
SENATOR NOZZOLIO: No. The
answer is no.
SENATOR STAVISKY: The answer is
no. In other words, none of our questions
were addressed in this version.
One more question.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator, will you
yield for a question?
SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Yes, Madam
President.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you,
Senator Nozzolio.
You may proceed.
SENATOR STAVISKY: Last year I
asked the question of whether, if an inmate
had a headache, he would be charged a $7
copayment for two aspirin. Is this still the
case under your legislation?
SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Madam
President, to answer my colleague's question,
that this matter since last year has not
changed, Senator.
And what also has not changed is
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that the Federal Bureau of Prisons still has
this criteria.
What has not changed is the states
of California, Connecticut, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, and New Jersey still have this
procedure and this requirement, that those
states have continued this requirement since
we have last debated this statutory change,
Madam President. While New York decides to
continue to refrain from collecting these
funds, while inmates continue to use sick call
who may not be that sick.
But yes, Madam President, to answer
the Senator's question, if someone has a
headache in our correctional facilities that
is incarcerated and that someone, that inmate
goes to sick call and utilizes the
state-funded doctor, the state-funded nurses,
the state-funded pharmaceuticals, yes, Madam
President, that inmate who had the headache
and used the doctor, the nurse, the medicine,
would have to pay a $7 copay.
SENATOR STAVISKY: Thank you,
Senator.
I will be voting no.
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THE PRESIDENT: Senator Onorato.
SENATOR ONORATO: Madam
President, will the sponsor yield to a
question.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Nozzolio,
will you yield for a question?
SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Yes, Madam
President, I'd be happy to yield.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed,
Senator.
SENATOR ONORATO: Senator
Nozzolio, I can agree with part of the concept
of your legislation. But the thing that
really troubles me is that you claim that
there's a $7 copay for an inmate in prison.
We here in the Senate and Assembly
and anybody working for the state have the
facilities of the nurses at our disposal at
all times for no charge, and we're making a
pretty decent salary.
At $7 a visit, what does it amount
to in the amount of time that a prisoner would
have to work to be able to accumulate $7?
SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Madam
President, the copay, I should add -- Senator
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Onorato had listed those other copayments --
that a copayment now, since this bill was
authored, the copayment for the state workers
in Senator Onorato's district, the senior
citizens in Senator Onorato's district, in all
of our districts across the state, the
copayment has been raised to $10 a visit or a
procedure under most insurance carrier
policies.
This is less. It remains at $7
that we have tried put forward. It originally
was tied to the same type of copay that other
insurance carriers and other policies
required.
That it depends, Senator Onorato,
on how, in terms of working, how much an
inmate is working, how much -- there is no
work requirement that an inmate be required to
work in this state to help pay for the cost or
part of their cost of incarceration. Those
inmates who do work do receive a payment. It
is anywhere from -- it's up to 65 cents an
hour that an inmate is paid.
But that does not go into any of
the costs of his incarceration or her
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incarceration. That the cost of meals, the
cost of commissaries, the allowances that they
have are basically paid for by the taxpayers.
So anyone who is working and does
have a revenue stream -- and I daresay there
are many in prison today that have their own
accounts and don't work.
There is a provision of this
legislation, Senator, that does not deny any
emergency care under this legislation to those
inmates who cannot make that copayment.
SENATOR ONORATO: Again, through
you, will the Senator continue to yield.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Nozzolio,
do you continue to yield for another question?
SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Yes, Madam
President.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed,
Senator.
SENATOR ONORATO: What I'm
getting at, Senator, is the amount of the
copay is not commensurate with what the
prisoner is earning.
You just mentioned the very, very
low figure of 65 cents. Where we're all
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making copays, it's very well within our means
to pay the copay. But when you're talking
about somebody making 65 cents an hour or 65
cents a day, it is no longer commensurate with
what they're earning to pay a $7 copay.
What I would like to see is at
least -- at that part of the bill is to at
least reduce the amount of copay so that the
prisoner can readily afford to make the copay.
SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Madam
President, I would certainly welcome Senator
Onorato or any other Senator's amendment to
this legislation that would change the dollar
amount of copay that is suggested.
I would hasten to add to Senator
Onorato, though, you're comparing apples with
watermelons, in the sense that each of the
inmates should also be considered the fact
that none of them, to my knowledge, pay for
their room, none of them pay for their board,
none of them pay for any of the services
provided to our inmates.
And I'm not suggesting any
draconian denial of benefits to inmates, that
certainly medical care should not be denied an
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inmate. But the fact of the matter is anyone
who visits a correctional facility and goes
into the sick-call area will find, on any
given day, some inmates who are very sick and
need that care; another number of inmates may
be trying to avoid other routines in prison by
going to sick call.
And in fact, whether or not you
have a headache or a taxpayer has a headache,
they don't go to the doctor every time they
have a headache. Some inmates end up using
sick call for a variety of maladies that could
certainly be held in question. Yet the
taxpayers are asked each and every time to pay
for that use of services.
This shares the burden.
SENATOR ONORATO: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other
member wish to be heard on this bill?
Senator Diaz.
SENATOR DIAZ: Thank you, Madam
President. On the bill.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed,
Senator Diaz, on the bill.
SENATOR DIAZ: I heard Senator
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Nozzolio mention two things that really
bothers me. First, he mentioned one over and
over about senior citizens being imposed an
increase on their coshare, copayment. And
that's an injustice done to senior citizens.
And it bothers me to hear, to see
that some of my colleagues are using an
injustice done to senior citizens as an
example to commit another injustice. It was
wrong to increase the copayment on senior
citizens, and it is wrong to increase the
copayment -- to impose a copayment on inmates.
The other thing that Senator
Nozzolio mentioned was federal prisoners. The
men and women that goes to federal prison
are -- most of them are rich, millionaires.
They should pay. Because they go to a hotel,
sometimes, in the federal detention
facilities, compared to the men and women that
comes to the state, that are property of the
state.
And also, Madam Chairlady, if an
inmate is paid 25 cents an hour in a New York
State detention center, it would take 28 hours
for an inmate to work to be able to pay the
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$7 copayment.
I think that this body here is once
and for all, that if this body has been
dealing with this for many years, I think that
this is enough. This is one bill that should
be taken out of the floor forever, and stop
trying to commit this injustice to the inmates
in New York State.
Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator
Montgomery.
SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Yes, Madam
President, I would ask if Senator Nozzolio
would yield for a question.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator, will you
yield for a question?
SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Yes, Madam
President, I'll be happy to yield.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed
with a question, Senator Montgomery.
SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Thank you.
Senator Nozzolio, I would like to
know -- it's my understanding that the state
and the Corrections Department has entered
into an arrangement with their telephone
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service people that -- whereby the state --
Corrections, specifically -- receives a
kickback which amounts to over $20 million.
And they initially -- it was my
understanding that the purpose of that fund
was to impart -- fund services, including
health services, to inmates. Are you familiar
with that program?
SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Yes, Madam
President, I am familiar with the program
Senator Montgomery outlined.
SENATOR MONTGOMERY: All right.
And, Senator Nozzolio, you realize that the
arrangement for the telephone services between
inmates and their families results in an
approximate amount of $3,000 a year, on the
average, for a family who receives the calls
from the inmate, based on this contract?
So that the family of the inmate
pays for every phone call, on the average of
$25 or more per call, per minute. So this
$20 million is generated based on, in part,
the payments that are made to the phone
company by the families for the phone calls.
SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Senator, I am
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familiar with the fact that those charges are
brought back into the correctional system,
which I think you and I both agree is a good
thing.
That those services provided by
that money are going in large part -- I can't
give you the specific dollar amount, but I
understand they go to inmate services, some of
which our taxpayers would rather see go into
the General Fund and pay for things like
educating -- not inmates, but educating our
schoolchildren.
That the fact of the matter is that
those payments do go to some of the costs of
incarceration, but they don't go to all of the
costs of incarceration, and in fact make only
a dent, a small dent, into the actual costs of
taking care of our inmates.
And it's also my understanding,
Senator, and you bring up a very good point,
that here is one example where the charges to
inmates are going to be utilized for services
to inmates. Like television, like other
reading materials and materials that are
utilized by the inmates.
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So there is a precedent for this,
and you indicate what that precedent is.
There's a precedent for, I believe, this type
of copayment based on this type of program you
had outlined.
SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Thank you,
Senator Nozzolio.
On the bill, Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed
on the bill, Senator.
SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Yes. This,
to me, is just an instance where, as my
colleague said before, this really is not to
in any way improve the delivery of healthcare,
it's just a means of -- or to even pay for
healthcare in the prison system, it's a means
to disincentive, to give disincentive for
inmates to use health services.
And let me just say, Madam
President, for the record, a very large
percent of our inmates suffer from mental
illness, for which we attempt to provide some
services.
Senior citizens, there are a number
of inmates who have -- are serving life
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sentences. They have become senior citizens.
Are we now going to -- and many of them are
not able to work, necessarily, to even earn
their 65 cents an hour. Sixty-five cents an
hour is on the high side. Most inmates don't
even earn that much. And senior citizens may
not be able to go out to work.
And there are a number -- the last
time that I visited a facility in our state,
there was a whole wing in that facility of
people who were wheelchair-bound, so that they
are not able to do any work.
So the issue of providing --
forcing inmates to have a copay to pay for
their service is really, I think, at this
point in time a thoughtless proposal, because
there are many aspects that we must consider
in relationship to healthcare in prisons.
And lastly, Madam President, I just
would like to caution Senator Nozzolio that we
have a large number of inmates who are
infected with hepatitis C as well as with the
HIV/AIDS virus. And those inmates are going
to be returning to communities across the
state, hopefully having had healthcare, having
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had treatments in the prisons.
If we are now going to require them
to pay $7 per visit, we're going to have a
number of people who will not access any
health service, any healthcare in prison. And
if they do, and they return with a -- owing
money to DOCS, they either may not be able to
come out of prison or we may end up with their
families, in addition to having to pay very
high costs just being able to communicate with
them, to be in touch with them, they may be
burdened with having to provide assistance to
inmates to repay DOCS based on having had
healthcare.
So this really is, I think, a very
unwise piece of legislation.
And I'm certainly reminded that in
the last -- when we debated this last year, a
number of us voted against it, including
Senators, Andrews, Duane, Hassell-Thompson,
Krueger, Montgomery, Onorato, Oppenheimer,
Paterson, Sampson, Santiago, Schneiderman, A.
Smith, Stavisky, Espada, and Senator Marchi.
So there are a number of us who obviously have
some great concerns about this legislation.
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And I will certainly be voting no
again this time.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Connor.
SENATOR CONNOR: Thank you, Madam
President.
As just noted by Senator
Montgomery, it appears that I voted for this
last year and the year before. In all
reality, let me confess something. I was then
the minority leader, and the counsel who sit
over there by the rules of this house voted
for me.
And as I looked over this bill
preparing for today's session, I thought --
whatever reason, my reaction was: Good Lord,
how did I get recorded voting in favor of this
bill?
Because I'm against this bill. And
I'm against this bill because it does not deal
with the reality of an inmate's life.
I grew up in a home where we used
to go down -- we had a wonderful family
doctor. Why we was he wonderful? He charged
2 bucks a visit. He was a great doctor. And
as my mother used to say, if you got a shot,
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it was $5. But we sure didn't run down there
every time we had a cut, bruise, bang, or
headache, because that $2 and that $5 meant
something.
What did you do if you had a
headache? My father had a headache, and I
guess we gave him plenty. And my mother had a
headache, and I'm sure we gave her even more.
You went to that big jar of aspirin that was
kept in the bathroom -- and why was it a big
jar? You got it somewhere on discount, cheap
as you could -- and you took a couple of
aspirin.
Today, and I've had a few headaches
over the past years, you take the Advil, the
bottle of Advil you have that you bought for a
couple of bucks. Maybe it was more than a
couple of bucks, $5 or $6. But you got a
whole year's worth of headaches in that jar
for 5 bucks.
You certainly don't run off to see
a doctor every time you have a cut, unless
it's bad enough for stitches. Or we're even
privileged up here; frankly, if I get a
headache here and I go to the nurses, it's not
1170
because I need to see a nurse for a headache.
It's because I need to get a couple of aspirin
or whatever.
Inmate life is quite different,
Madam President. I don't think inmates are
allowed to keep large jars of pills in their
cells. In fact, I know they're not. It would
be considered contraband. Whether it's
over-the-counter or prescription, whatever
kind of drugs, they don't have that access.
So to the extent that it's been
urged here by proponents of this bill that,
gee, we're just treating the inmates, the
state employees the way we're treated, if we
go to the doctor, we have a copay -- it's
deceptive. We don't have to go see the doctor
or the nurse every time we have a minor
ailment. You know?
If I've got a stiff shoulder, you
know, I get a tube of whatever out of the
medicine cabinet and I rub my shoulder and
hope it feels better the next day. If I'm an
inmate, I can't have that kind of drugs; I
have to go make a sick call and get some of
it.
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So that what you're faced with here
for everyday, common ailments -- when I get a
cold, I don't run to the doctor. I go buy
some cold syrup and I take it, or cough syrup,
or whatever. Cold medication. Inmates can't
do that.
So this becomes very punitive,
because they -- if I have a cold, I certainly
don't have to make my $10 copay to get some
cough syrup or to get some cold tablets. An
inmate, under this, would have to go for a
visit and be charged $7. And a chronically
ill inmate that needs a drug regimen every day
or every other day or whatever would soon find
their very small inmate account from their
labors exhausted.
Now -- and I'm not standing here to
be a bleeding heart for inmates. But let's be
reasonable here. You can't expect people to
do the impossible and to say, Well, too bad,
if you've been sick a few times, you now can't
go to the commissary and buy some personal
item that you're allowed to buy there, because
your account is empty because you had to go to
the doctor's three times this month. It's
1172
just not reasonable.
I would certainly support some
reasonable measure to ensure perhaps that
inmates make some contribution when they
really need to see a doctor. But we've set up
a system where they need to see a doctor or a
nurse for every tiny little thing that we in
our families wouldn't dream of bothering a
medical professional about.
So for that reason, Madam
President, I am very happy to clear the
record, I renounce the prior votes that were
cast for me, and I will be voting no.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other
member wish to be heard on this bill?
Senator Krueger.
SENATOR KRUEGER: Thank you,
Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: You're welcome.
SENATOR KRUEGER: I rise to speak
on the bill.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed
on the bill, Senator.
SENATOR KRUEGER: Thank you.
So many of my points have already
1173
been made, but I just want to highlight from
the discussion here today that in fact I
believe that this proposal is unconscionable.
And it is unconscionable both on
what the impact would be on people in our
prison system's lack of access to
healthcare -- and, as actually Senator Connor
just described, where they have no other
options but to turn to the healthcare system
for anything that goes wrong when they're in
our prison system -- but, second, to argue
that it is unconscionable from a public health
perspective, because in fact a
disproportionately large number of people in
the New York State prison system are the poor,
the elderly, the sick, for a variety of
reasons that may have related to their getting
there.
But we have an epidemic, as was
stated earlier by Senator Montgomery, of HIV
infection, of hepatitis C, of illnesses
associated with previous drug use and needle
use in life.
We have a disproportionately large
number of people with mental health problems
1174
in New York's prison system. In fact, in
New York City's prison system, based on a
recent lawsuit decision, there are an
estimated 30,000 people who get released out
of the New York City prison system a year with
mental health problems.
Although Senator Nozzolio's bill
talks about psychiatric treatment being
exempt, the vast majority of people even
getting mental health services or psychotropic
drugs while they're in the prison system are
not in fact going to a psychiatrist, they are
going to the prison health system.
And what we would be doing is
preventing people who are most in need of
healthcare from continuing to get it, creating
increased health costs for us as they get
sicker, increased health risks for the entire
population of people who they share prisons
with, and increased risk and health costs to
the greater population when and if they are
released back into our communities.
And so in fact the one item I found
of interest in the memo was that we are paying
just under $2,000 per inmate for healthcare
1175
services in the New York State prison system.
If you compare that to the healthcare costs
under almost any insurance program in the
state, private or public, one would actually
reasonably ask the question how could we be
doing this for so little money per person,
under $2,000 per person.
And in fact, it raises the question
to me of how are we failing to make sure that
we have adequate public health and individual
health services in our prison system. So I do
appreciate the highlight of that number.
But again, I believe that this bill
is not only poorly thought through, but it
would absolutely not be in the best fiscal --
would not lead to smart fiscal analysis for
the State of New York, and certainly wouldn't
lead to savings in our healthcare system.
Thank you, Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other
member wish to be heard on this bill?
Then the debate is closed.
Read the last section.
THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
act shall take effect on the 120th day.
1176
THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Nozzolio,
to explain your vote.
SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Madam
President, I rise again to explain my vote and
support this measure.
What our body is doing today is
making a choice. It's choosing to continue
having our state not provide the same type of
procedure that the states of California,
Connecticut, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and
New Jersey have made in making this copayment
a mandatory situation, as well as a mandatory
situation in our federal prisons.
And I ask each of my colleagues
voting against this measure, next time some of
the uninsured healthcare recipients in this
state need upwards of $10 million, you can
tell them that you provided prisoners this
type of security as opposed to the uninsured
in your districts.
Thank you, Madam President. I vote
aye.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Duane, to
1177
explain your vote.
SENATOR DUANE: Thank you, Madam
President. Thank you.
As many of you know, in past years
I've led the floor debate on this bill. But I
feel that for the most part my job has been
accomplished and that more and more of my
colleagues have voted in opposition to this
bill, and for that I'm very grateful. And I
think we've done very well, short of defeating
this particular measure.
The sponsor and I have had many
discussions on this, both on and off the
floor, and I think we've pretty much just
agreed to disagree on this particular piece of
legislation. But I just want to fill in and
reinforce a couple of things that my
colleagues have said or, in one case, that
they haven't said.
First is that I am afraid that
incarcerated people will not go and get the
treatment that they need for fear of incurring
a cost which they can't afford.
And I have been to many of our
correctional facilities, and I have to tell
1178
you that within the individual facilities,
it's not that pleasant to go to the sick bay.
In fact, it's really more -- better to stay in
your cell. They really are not nice places to
go. So there really isn't a big incentive to
go there.
And, finally, when I've talked to
superintendents and people from DOCS, they say
that the biggest flaw with this, aside from
the humanitarian issues, is that it would cost
more to administer this program than it would
be in what they would collect in fees. So
there really is no reason, both from a
humanitarian or from a financial point of
view, to put this law into effect.
So I'm grateful to my colleagues
for voting in the negative on it. And while
we probably will continue to disagree, I look
forward to more discussions with the sponsor
on this on how to improve conditions in our
correctional facilities for those who are
incarcerated.
I vote no, Madam President. Thank
you.
THE PRESIDENT: You will be
1179
recorded as voting in the negative.
Senator Nozzolio will be recorded
as voting in the affirmative.
The Secretary will announce the
results.
THE SECRETARY: Those recorded in
the negative on Calendar Number 194 are
Senators Andrews, Connor, Diaz, Dilán, Duane,
Hassell-Thompson, L. Krueger, Marchi,
Montgomery, Onorato, Oppenheimer, Parker,
Paterson, Sabini, Schneiderman, A. Smith, and
Stavisky. Ayes, 42. Nays, 17.
THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
passed.
THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
220, by Senator Marcellino, Senate Print 2935,
an act to amend the Environmental Conservation
Law and others.
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN:
Explanation.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator
Marcellino, an explanation has been requested.
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Thank you,
Madam President.
We're all familiar with the issue
1180
of brownfields. We've talked about it before,
we've debated them before, we've debated bills
before of a different type.
This particular bill is not just
another attempt to present one more
alternative in a long-running debate that has
stalled the process for many years. There is
no other bill like this in the nation.
In 1978, New York State created the
nation's first Superfund law. And since that
time, our Superfund program hasn't been
revisited. Other states have taken action to
address brownfields, while New York State
brownfields have been in limbo. Since March
of 2001, no new funds have been made available
for cleanups.
This bill will again place New York
State in the forefront of the brownfield
remediation and redevelopment. This bill will
mean that more sites will be cleaned up, at a
greater rate, without compromising public
health or the environment. This bill will
provide clarity and predictability to a
current process that is arduous and
time-consuming for municipalities and the
1181
public, deterring potential redevelopment.
This bill will provide for the highest cleanup
standards in the country.
The bill also provides incentives
to large and small brownfield sites throughout
the state with proposed job training and
water-treatment tax credits that have been
applied nowhere else in the country.
This legislation empowers
municipalities and community groups to
revitalize areas burdened with brownfields by
providing assistance for comprehensive
planning and site redevelopment.
Brownfields are cancers growing
within our inner cities, they're cancers
growing in our suburbs, in our rural
communities. They are creating pressure on
pristine and -- greenfields, as we call them,
because development goes where there is least
resistance. And it's on the greenfields that
I would stress.
This bill is environmental justice
to communities that have been burdened with
brownfields for many years and no cleanup in
sight. This bill will allow municipalities to
1182
get involved, and it incentivizes
municipalities to get involved in the
brownfields remediation program.
Right now, they don't want any part
of it. Banks will not lend money to
developers and volunteers who want to clean up
sites on brownfield issues because, under
current law, the banks are as liable as the
polluter.
We want to have the polluter pay
100 percent for the pollution they create, but
we don't want to wait until we track them down
and while the courts take their time. We want
the site and the insult to the environment and
to the communities removed.
This bill will do that. It will
allow for chasing the polluter to get the
money that is deserved by the state. It will
also allow volunteers to come into the program
and clean up those sites, restore our inner
cities and, as we say, take economic and
environmental pain and turn it into economic
and environmental gain.
This is a very good bill. I'm very
proud to have worked with many groups in
1183
support of this bill, groups such as
Environmental Advocates, which has given it
three trees, their highest rating. Groups
like Environmental Justice, the New York City
Environmental Justice Alliance, Scenic Hudson,
and the League of Conservation Voters all have
written memos in support or have indicated
verbally.
And by the way, I might add, the
New York Conference of Mayors have come up and
supported this particular bill. Those who
head municipalities understand the problem and
understand what our bill will do for the State
of New York.
And as I said before, there is no
other bill like this in the country. It sets
the highest cleanup standards in the nation.
I urge a yes vote on all our parts.
Thank you, Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator
Schneiderman.
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Yes, Madam
President, if the sponsor would yield for a
question.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator
1184
Marcellino, will you yield for a question?
SENATOR MARCELLINO: I'd be
pleased to.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed,
Senator Schneiderman, with a question.
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Through
you, Madam President, I would appreciate it if
the sponsor could explain the definition of a
noncontributing responsible party that is set
forth in the bill.
SENATOR MARCELLINO: I'm sorry,
the --
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN:
Noncontributing responsible party.
SENATOR MARCELLINO: My guess is
a person who is not responsible for the
pollution on the site.
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Through
you, Madam President, if the sponsor will
continue to yield.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator, will you
yield for a question?
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Sure.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed.
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Is that
1185
term defined anywhere in the legislation?
SENATOR MARCELLINO: On page 3,
line 7 -- I'm sorry, line 1, Number 7:
"Noncontributory responsible party means any
person who currently owns or operates a
brownfield site and is not a contributory
responsible party in regard to that site."
In other words, did not create the
pollution.
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: And
through you, Madam President, if the sponsor
would continue to yield.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator, do you
yield for a question?
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Yes, I do.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed,
Senator Schneiderman.
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: I'm
curious as to the reason that noncontributory
responsible parties will have their liability
to which they're subject changed through this
legislation. Could the sponsor explain that?
My understanding is that a
noncontributory responsible party, under the
current law, would have a higher level of
1186
responsibility than under the statute as
proposed.
SENATOR MARCELLINO: You're
saying that a person who had nothing to do
with the pollution should be held to a higher
standard than a person who did contribute to
the pollution. Is that what you just said?
Because that's what I heard.
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Through
you, Madam President. No, I'm actually just
asking for an explanation of the difference in
liability today, under the previously existing
statutory system, and under the statute as
proposed by Senator Marcellino.
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Okay, I
apologize. I misheard you.
The bill would say that if you're a
noncontributory party and you're a volunteer
and if you clean up to the standards that are
approved by the DEC and the agencies that are
involved in oversight in this process, you
would get liability relief.
In other words, you would not be
held responsible by the state for any further
problems that might occur. Assuming you did
1187
the job that had to be done. Assuming the
cleanup was done and there was no fraud
involved.
Right now, under current law,
there's no end to your liability. There is
never a sign-off. There is no point in time
when you could walk away and sell the property
and say: I'm finished with this, I've done
it, the property I've sold to somebody else.
If something comes up later on or
the government changes its mind and decides to
go to a different standard, you're back on the
hook again. Even though you may have done
absolutely nothing wrong and have done
everything that was required of you in the
initial cleanup.
We feel that person, if they
behaved honorably and have done the right
thing, deserves relief, a bottom line.
No volunteer in his right mind is
going to come into a program where they cannot
determine what the cost will be. No bank will
lend money to a developer, to a volunteer for
cleanup if they're on the hook. Right now,
under current law, if you lend money to a
1188
volunteer who cleans it up, the bank is on the
hook also for any costs that could be gotten
to clean up the site. So hence they don't
lend money to these sites. Hence the insult
to the environment continues.
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Thank you.
Through you, Madam President, if
the sponsor would continue to yield.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator, will you
yield for a question?
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Yes, Madam
President.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed,
Senator.
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: So am I
correct in my understanding that this term, as
defined in the bill, would be subject to an
exception -- and I'm reading now from Section
27-1401 -- exempting the party from liability
so long as the party "is complying in good
faith" with the statute?
SENATOR MARCELLINO: That's my
understanding.
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Thank you.
Through you, Madam President, if
1189
the sponsor will continue to yield.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator, do you
yield?
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed,
Senator Schneiderman.
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: The
remedial program transfer fund that would be
established through this legislation, is that
a fund that would merge the programs that
previously existed under the Oil Spill Fund
and under the State Superfund?
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Yes.
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Okay.
Thank you, Madam President. I'd like to thank
the sponsor for his answers.
On the bill.
THE PRESIDENT: On the bill,
Senator Schneiderman.
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: I think
that you know a piece of legislation is moving
the ball forward when even the memoranda in
opposition to the legislation have to go out
of their way to praise Senator Marcellino and
praise the effort.
1190
I do think we are moving closer to
where we need to be with this bill. I do not
think we have gotten there. The two issues
that I have raised really are at the heart of
my objections to this legislation.
First of all, the question when
we're dealing with issues of civil liability
is always the question of who benefits and who
is burdened.
And the theory of Superfund
legislation around the country has been that
if a party is owning a piece of property,
seeking to make money out of that piece of
property, that that person is in a better
position to bear the costs of pollution in
that property than an innocent party
downstream, someone who doesn't own the
property, doesn't benefit from the ownership,
and is just subject to pollution leeching out
or leaking out of the property.
The problem with this legislation
is it takes -- it creates a new definition of
a noncontributing responsible party, and it
creates essentially a good-faith exception.
Now, good-faith exceptions are always very,
1191
very difficult to deal with, because anyone
who in good faith attempts to look at a site
is really indistinguishable from someone who
just walks through.
There is a current common-law
standard for negligence, there is a current
common-law standard for what constitutes
responsibility. This bill would repeal that
for many, many people and shift the burden of
proof to the state. That, I think, is a
fundamental problem.
We need to provide incentives for
brownfields to be cleaned up. We need to
provide incentives for toxic waste sites to be
cleaned up. But we can't do it by removing
liability from parties who would seek to
benefit.
Under the current system, anyone
who wants to purchase such a site understands
that they have the obligation to undertake a
thorough examination because they may be
subject to responsibility. This bill limits
responsibility through the good-faith
exception and also, very importantly,
restricts responsibility to on-site
1192
contamination. So if you own a piece of
property next door and your site is
contaminated, you would not be able to seek
redress from that party.
More fundamentally -- and this is
really the one thing I think we do have to
overcome before we're going to come to
agreement with the Assembly and actually pass
a law and refinance these important programs.
More fundamentally, in the Superfund
legislation that was funded through the 1986
Environmental Quality Bond Act, industry paid
50 percent of the debt service for the pool
that would finance orphan sites, sites where
you couldn't catch the polluter and make them
pay. Industry paid 50 percent, the state paid
50 percent.
Under the Oil Spill Fund, industry
paid 100 percent. So industry was paying, if
you combined those two funds, well over 50
percent of the cost.
This proposal reduces the share
paid by industry. This proposal reduces the
share paid by polluters and increases the
share paid by the taxpayers.
1193
Now, at a time when the taxpayers
are subject to extraordinary burdens and those
burdens are only going to increase as the year
goes on, I don't think it sends a good message
to say we in the Senate of the State of
New York are going to try and reduce the
portion of the financing of the cleanup of
these toxic waste sites and of these
brownfields, reduce the portion of the payment
for industry and increase the portion paid by
the taxpayers.
That's what this legislation does,
by creating the remedial program transfer fund
that is a merger of two funds.
Let's not kid ourselves about this.
The fundamental difference between this
legislation and the legislation pending in the
Assembly is that the Assembly is attempting to
keep the portion of the cost paid by the
polluters, paid by industry at the same level.
This reduces that cost. And for that reason,
I feel that I must oppose this bill.
However, I must acknowledge that
there are some very innovative provisions
here. This is, as Senator Marcellino said,
1194
unlike anything we've seen before. And I
honestly do think it moves us closer to where
we need to be to pass a law. I don't think
we're there yet.
Thank you, Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Brown.
SENATOR BROWN: Thank you, Madam
President. Through you, if the sponsor would
yield for a few questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator
Marcellino, will you yield for a question?
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed
with a question, Senator Brown.
SENATOR BROWN: Senator, I've
tried to read through this piece of
legislation and really grasp it. It is an
important piece of legislation.
One of the concerns that I have,
that I'm grappling with, is if someone
purchases a brownfield site -- say, this site
was a former factory and they are going to use
the site for a factory again and they
remediate the site to that use, to factory
use. However, five years goes by and the
1195
owner decides: I don't want to keep this
property a factory anymore, I want to make the
property a housing development.
How would this legislation deal
with that circumstance?
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Senator, use
is not a key here. The site contamination
determines the level of cleanup required. We
don't use use as criteria here in any of the
levels.
In each of the three levels
established, one of the things that must done
is the source of contamination must be removed
in all three situations. So, one, we've taken
the source of the problem away, so it can't
get any worse than it was. And then we
require remediation to a clean standard.
Now, in some cases it would be to
absolute pristine or as pristine as we can
possibly get. That would leave unlimited use
to that person or that entity who is the
volunteer.
But if they can't, or if it's not
possible, another level, Level 2, would be set
up so that they could then negotiate and look
1196
at a list of prior cleanups that have been
done where this site might fit the criteria --
soil content, water type, you name it. Use,
prior use might come into effect as one of the
criteria there as to the source of
contamination.
And then they would say, okay, that
kind of cleanup, that level of cleanup which
would be frankly more stringent than what is
currently required, would be the site -- they
would sign a contract with the DEC and move on
with the process.
But in every site, the source --
and every level and every track we establish,
the source of the contamination must be taken
away, must be removed.
Now, if you purchased the site and
you're volunteering, you are responsible for
cleaning up only the site. If you're not the
original polluter, you didn't engage in the
pollution, you are only required under this
bill to clean up the pollution on-site. The
state is required to take care of off-site.
If you're the polluter, if you're
the polluter, you are responsible for cleaning
1197
on- and off-site. We don't allow the off-site
to go if you've created that. And under no
circumstances do we let off-site pollution
continue unabated. But since you have cleaned
up the site and taken away the source, you
have cut down on the amount of spread that
would be possible from that point on.
So use is not the determinant here,
it's the level of contamination tells the
system what kind of cleanup you will have to
perform.
SENATOR BROWN: Madam President,
through you, if Senator Marcellino would yield
for another question.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator, will you
yield for another question?
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Surely.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed,
Senator Brown.
SENATOR BROWN: I'm appreciative
of Senator Marcellino addressing the issue of
liability for off-site remediation.
And in the case of a -- in a case
of pollution that is off-site, and say the
polluter is no longer in business, in that
1198
case would the state be fully liable for the
remediation of off-site pollution?
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Yes. The
answer is simply yes to that. The state would
take on the responsibility of cleaning it up
if it's an orphan site. Or whatever
municipality might be -- might come into that.
Remember, if it's located in one of
the cities, under the current law
municipalities don't want to get involved
because they could be involved in that
bottomless pit and their tax dollars go down
the drain. So they stay away from taking on
these sites.
What we're saying is now you don't
have to take title, if you're a municipality,
to get involved in the cleanup. You can start
the cleanup process and get it moving. If you
then take it, the municipality can then engage
in selling that site once it's cleaned to the
proper standard and keep half the revenue.
Half of it goes back into the fund to
refinance Superfund and to keep the process
going.
But the municipalities now can keep
1199
half of the revenue to offset their costs and
to move ahead. So we've incentivized
municipalities to get involved where they have
not before.
The worst part of the '86 bond act,
the part that has been least successful of all
has been the municipal bond act's part,
because municipalities have no reason to get
involved. They step aside because they don't
want to get caught into the nightmare of pay
and pay and pay and pay and clean up that is
no end, and the lawsuits that ensue. We can't
give them relief.
But now we've given them a reason
to get involved and to take on. We've
increased the match from 75 percent to
90 percent. We've allowed them to use state
and federal funds to offset the other
10 percent, which they can't do under the
current program. So we think we've bettered
the system and we've enhanced the cleanup and
we've encouraged more cleanup in the process.
That's the key here. We want to
encourage more cleanup. We want to expedite,
streamline, and encourage cleanup. We want to
1200
encourage volunteers, be they municipalities
or private individuals, to get into the
system, go in it and clean up those sites. If
we don't, we have a situation that we have
now: the insult continues, the brownfields
continue, our inner cities rot from it.
The suburbs are under pressure.
Sprawl is everywhere. We want to control
that. We want to revitalize the inner cities,
we want to keep people there, put those
properties back on tax rolls, and get them
into productive use for the community. It's a
benefit to the environment. I believe it's
the biggest economic development program we
could ever devise in this state.
SENATOR BROWN: Through you,
Madam President, if Senator Marcellino would
yield for one final question.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator
Marcellino, will you yield for a final
question?
SENATOR MARCELLINO: It would be
my pleasure to yield to my colleague.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed,
Senator.
1201
SENATOR BROWN: My final question
is in the area of DEC oversight.
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Can I call
on an assistant if it's his final question?
SENATOR BROWN: Yes, it is,
Senator.
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Thank you.
I want to make sure.
SENATOR BROWN: My question is in
the area of DEC oversight.
And from what I'm reading, and
perhaps I'm not reading correctly, it seems in
some cases a company or a party could come to
the DEC after it has a plan in place already
for the cleanup, for DEC approval of its plan.
Rather than having DEC tell the company
initially, tell the company first: This is
what we would like to see you do.
And I'm concerned that perhaps that
creates a situation where some of these things
could be rubber-stamped through DEC.
And in a situation where DEC has
lost a number of employees over the years,
does it make it more difficult for DEC to have
the necessary oversight to look at these
1202
issues?
Maybe I'm not reading it right. I
just had an opportunity to read it thoroughly
today. Am I looking at that in the right way?
Does the DEC oversight, in some cases, is that
allowed to happen after the fact as opposed to
before the fact?
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Yes and no.
That's a good political answer, yes and no.
There is an allowability for
someone to start, to develop a process. The
volunteer can come in, they must pay a fee --
I believe it's $5,000 -- to get into the
program. That's used to offset DEC's costs
for staffing and personnel that are necessary
to oversight the process.
If the remediation and the
investigation is done by the volunteer --
because they all do. It must be done by
licensed engineers. It just can't be done by
their Aunt Tillie, it's got to be done --
although unless she's a licensed engineer. If
they establish a credible plan, a credible
program that identifies sources of pollution,
in good faith, committed no fraud, did not
1203
deceive -- all those situations come into
play -- we want them in the program. We want
to encourage them in.
A good many of these brownfield
sites, they don't rise to the level of a
Superfund site. They're the little gas
station sitting on the corner where there's
some oil spill that leaked or gasoline leaked
out of a tank. And nobody wants to clean that
mess up, because they don't know how long it
will go.
I know some gas stations that are
cleaning up right now, they've been cleaning
it up for six years. I know some people who
have the cost and still owe debts of over
$400,000, $500,000. It's outrageous.
We want people to come into the
site. And if they begin by removing the
contaminant, fine. That's the source of the
problem. That's the contamination source.
Get rid of it. We don't mind that. We want
them in, we want the process ongoing, and we
want the volunteers to come forward.
To do that, we have to make it
streamlined and incentivized. We're doing
1204
that. That's what this bill does. It does in
no way, in no way water down standards, no pun
intended. It does in no way weaken standards
or lessen standards. In fact, it sets the
highest cleanup standards in the nation for
cleanup of sites in this program. We want to
ensure that sites are cleaned up.
Under the current system, it simply
isn't working. It simply isn't working.
People are not coming forward -- for a whole
host of reasons, revenue being one of them.
But they're not coming forward. We want to
encourage them to come forward. This bill
does that, Senator. And I believe all of our
communities will benefit from it greatly.
SENATOR BROWN: Madam President,
on the bill.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed
on the bill, Senator.
SENATOR BROWN: Thank you.
I want to thank Senator Marcellino
for responding to my questions.
And as Senator Marcellino has
indicated, this is a major, major issue and a
major problem for many communities all across
1205
our state. In the community that I represent,
Buffalo and Niagara Falls, there are many
brownfields. And the present requirements
that we deal with make it difficult to get
those brownfields cleaned up and make it
difficult to reuse that plan.
And as Senator Marcellino has
indicated, from an economic development
perspective, there's land sitting there in
these communities that just can't be used that
is desperately needed to be developed.
However, as Senator Schneiderman
has said -- and while I certainly commend
Senator Marcellino for doing a tremendous
amount of work in advancing this legislation
and improving on this legislation, I am
concerned that perhaps it doesn't go far
enough.
I think a tremendous job has been
done here in looking at the problems, in
looking at the concerns of the environmental
community, in looking at the health concerns
in communities across the state and in trying
to fashion legislation that from a
common-sense and sound perspective moves the
1206
situation of remediating brownfields across
the state forward.
I still remain a little bit
concerned about DEC oversight. I'm a little
concerned about off-site contamination. In
fact, in an area of the community that is not
in my district, is actually in Senator
Stachowski's district, a community called
Hickory Woods, that is a community that has
been built on a contaminated site and the site
is primarily contaminated from the migration
of contaminants off-site.
And those people, those individuals
are dealing with a terrible situation -- all
kinds of health problems, the loss of their
property values.
And I would hate to see us not
fully address situations like that in the
future. I would hate to see people invest
life savings and invest their hopes and dreams
in properties only to find out later on that
we did not do enough to protect them against
off-site contamination. That while we did
what needed to be done to remediate a
brownfield and put a brownfield back on the
1207
tax rolls and make it usable for people, that
we didn't do enough to make sure there wasn't
off-site contamination.
So while I certainly commend
Senator Marcellino for the work -- clearly,
the considerable work that has been put into
this piece of legislation, I would like to see
us go a little further. So I am torn today.
And I probably will end up voting
in the negative on this piece of legislation,
but I do so with commendation to Senator
Marcellino and asking him to be open to moving
just a little further on this bill.
Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator
Oppenheimer.
SENATOR OPPENHEIMER: I agree
with everyone. I think all of us are very
conflicted on this issue.
SENATOR MARCELLINO: I have a
solution.
(Laughter.)
SENATOR OPPENHEIMER: What is it,
dear?
(Laughter.)
1208
SENATOR OPPENHEIMER: Well,
actually, Senator Marcellino, I am coming down
in support of the bill.
And I've been rather a purist in
the past. You know, every site has to be
clean to the extent that it was as pure and as
pristine as before any pollution happened.
But, you know, we've been talking
now for two years or more about the State
Superfund and refinancing it, and we're
getting nowhere. I mean, I think we have to
say something has to be done, and we're not
getting to square one. We haven't gotten to
square one on brownfields, we haven't gotten
to square one on Superfund.
We have to do something. We still
have a minimum of 800 seriously contaminated
sites. We know that. We've been bankrupt in
Superfund for two years. I mean, where do we
go? Do we still try for the ultimate, or do
we have to come down and say maybe we can't
have the ultimate? We're certainly in a
terrible fiscal crisis right now. I don't
know where we'd get the money. So we have to
do something here.
1209
This would provide $138 million
towards a Superfund program. That would be
money that is desperately, desperately needed.
We have thousands of brownfields.
And I actually have an interesting
story about a gas station that finally got
remediated. And it got remediated because it
happened to be in Westchester County where two
homes could be built on that site. And I've
told you on this floor what the cost of the
median house in Westchester County now is,
$535,000. So it finally made sense for the
developer to remediate.
But this situation does not exist,
I don't think, elsewhere in the state. And I
don't see that we're getting our thousands of
brownfields remediated. And the
municipalities have just been too fearful of
the liability costs. I know White Plains
wanted to do something, but . . .
So this is a new approach. It's
something that I think will be improved upon
when we hopefully can do a conference
committee with the Assembly. But this isn't
the best of all possible worlds, and I'm now
1210
making my peace with that. And so I will be
supporting this legislation.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Krueger.
SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: Thank you,
Madam President. If the sponsor would yield
to a question.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator, do you
yield?
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Yes, I will.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed,
Senator Krueger.
SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: Thank you,
Madam President.
I too am, I think, confused and
mixed about this bill. I admire the amount of
effort and work and dedication you've put into
this by attempting to do an omnibus act and
responding to concerns that have been raised
before on the floor. And I don't know whether
to be admiring of the fact that you took these
massive programs and blended them all into one
bill or to, frankly, be aggravated because
things that I can support in one section are
things that I'm concerned about in others and
my question is how do you draw the line
1211
between them.
So the question I have is we define
something as a brownfield site, and we accept
the standards for cleanup, and it's not on the
Superfund list at the time, it's on a
brownfield site. It's categorized as a
brownfield site. But then at some point
during the remediation or after the
remediation it is discovered that in fact that
site should have been a Superfund site or, in
fact, either because we were late in doing all
of the evaluations we should have or something
came to light during the process or something
came to light afterwards -- how do you deal
with the situation that you had one standard
of cleanup and liability when it was defined
as a brownfield, there's a different standard
if it was Superfund, and can you do anything
about it after the fact if in fact we discover
later on that it should have and appropriately
ought to be on a Superfund list for that level
of cleanup?
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Our program
right now for cleanup of these sites is based
on the past performance of cleanup of
1212
Superfund sites. So the remedial
methodologies, if you use Track 2, that would
be developed by the expert group would come
from sites that were cleaned up under
Superfund programs. So the remediation would
be to the highest level that you need.
If there's something discovered in
the process of cleaning up a site, well, it
gets a reopener and we look at it. We just
don't ignore it. There is provision in the
legislation to allow for a reopener and a
renegotiation. Something came up that was not
discovered in the remediation, but we see it,
we don't simply ignore it. That goes back
into the process and it gets factored in.
The off-site, if it's a site after
the fact, years and years down the road,
again, if there was fraud committed by the
initial person, well, you chase them as a
polluter, and we try to get them back.
But we want the site cleaned up.
We don't want it to sit there. I agree with
you, Senator, and I have the same frustrations
you show. There are too many sites. Senator
Oppenheimer said it before, there are too many
1213
sites just sitting there and sitting there and
sitting there and sitting there, go on and on
and on and never get addressed, until it gets
economically feasible to do it.
Well, in many communities we don't
have that luxury. The value of the land will
never get to the level of worth that would
allow the developer to come in there. So we
want those sites cleaned up. We need to
encourage that, we need to incentivize it.
This is what we are doing in this
program. We're trying to get bad things
eliminated from our neighborhoods. We want to
clean up these sites so that they don't
perpetuate the problems that exist there now.
And we're flexible on this, and the program is
flexible on this. And the volunteers know
what the requirements are. And there are
reopeners that get triggered if certain things
are discovered in the process.
SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: Madam
President, if, through you, the sponsor would
yield to another question.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator
Marcellino, will you yield?
1214
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Yes, Madam
President.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed,
Senator Krueger.
SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: Thank you,
Senator Marcellino, and thank you for your
previous answer.
And while you were talking to me,
one of my staff was highlighting that in fact
under the bill DEC has the option to reopen,
but actually not the mandate.
And so one of the concerns would be
if you're in process and you discover that in
fact the problems are worse than expected and
that this shouldn't perhaps fall under the
brownfield category but, rather, Superfund,
that would DEC have a motivation not to want
to revisit the issue? Because under
Superfund, it potentially becomes a liability
factor for the state and a liability cost for
the state. And how would we protect ourselves
in that situation?
Because I think that you and I both
agree what we want to happen and that we want
this land cleaned up and that we want more
1215
brownfields made available for important uses
in our communities. Certainly in my city, and
we already heard about Buffalo.
But I'm also concerned that the
liability trade-offs here would actually
motivate the state not to want to revisit
certain issues.
SENATOR MARCELLINO: To the
contrary, the liability to the state would
incentivize the state to force the cleanup
while the person is on-site, while we have the
volunteer in our grasp, if you will. Because
down the road, the state would be liable then.
We would not want to get involved.
Why would the state want to take
over a site or take on the responsibility of
cleaning up a site when we've got a volunteer
who's willing? And if they've got the
financial resources, we're going to get them.
We've got them there, we've given them a
program, we want to them to clean it up.
It is in the state's best
interests, financial or otherwise, to go in
there and make sure and assure that these
sites are cleaned up to the utmost while the
1216
volunteer is on the scene, while we still have
leverage. Otherwise, the state becomes liable
and it becomes the responsibility of the state
to clean that up, and the state would not want
that.
SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: Madam
President, if, through you, the sponsor would
continue to yield.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator
Marcellino, will you yield?
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Sure.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed.
SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: Thank you,
Madam President. Thank you, Senator.
So again, perhaps I'm confused, but
let's say I have decided to try to clean up a
brownfield, a piece of property under
brownfield. And in the course of my attempt
to clean up, I discover that in fact this is a
much more complex cleanup than I imagined, far
more costly, there is ground contamination
beyond what I originally was advised or
believed.
Again, in your explanation, DEC
might reopen the whole issue themselves. But
1217
if DEC did, it might then -- I might walk
away. And DEC would not want me to walk away
and might be willing to, for financial reasons
for the state -- again, I'm not accusing DEC,
I'm playing --
SENATOR MARCELLINO: No, but you
are. You --
SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: -- out
hypotheticals that I think we should be
concerned about.
SENATOR MARCELLINO: But,
Senator, you are. You're laying on a
department the worst of possible intentions,
where the department would simply allow a
contamination to exist and look the other way.
I don't think anybody honorably would do that.
The volunteer, if they
discovered -- and if they did, they belong in
jail, quite frankly. And Senator Schneiderman
would probably go back into prosecution, and
we would lead the charge and put this person
away forever, under the highest possible
standards.
Am I right, Senator? Never mind.
Don't --
1218
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: I was a
defense lawyer. But I'd take that case.
SENATOR MARCELLINO: He'd take
that case. You see that?
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Krueger,
are you finished with your question?
SENATOR MARCELLINO: I digress,
Madam President. If I might --
SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: Madam
President, if I could ask the sponsor to
continue to yield.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, you may.
SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: Thank you,
Madam President.
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Sure, I
continue to yield.
SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: Thank you,
Senator Marcellino.
Actually, to shift gears on this,
I'm also particularly interested in the
financing structure for this. And you have a
series of descriptions about various credits
and tax credits that would be used.
And I actually think from my own
experience that tax credits to motivate people
1219
to build in less desirable areas or, say,
affordable housing, for example, affordable
housing in brownfields, is a dual important
issue for me in my city and I think in many
other areas in the state.
Under the tax credit proposals that
are laid out in your bill, is there any reason
for us to be concerned that under the -- I'll
try to say this correctly. Under the
president's new plan for tax cuts, there is
serious concern that there will be an end of a
motivation to use these types of tax credits
for investment, either in housing -- which was
actually an example story in the New York
Times today -- or I would argue potentially
for brownfields.
And so I wonder whether anyone has
done any evaluation of what the potential harm
to your proposal -- and again, on the
brownfields side of this and the financing
side of this, I believe I am a supporter of
your bill -- any analysis of what harm would
be done through federal tax code proposals in
basically negating the financial advantages of
these kinds of credits for brownfields.
1220
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Frankly, I'm
not aware of anything we've done on that level
that would look at the negative.
But I frankly don't see it as a
negative, since we're allowing these
deductions off the state income tax, not the
property tax. So these polluters or these
volunteers who clean up these sites would
still be paying property taxes to the
municipalities in which they exist.
Which, frankly, these sites aren't
paying anything right now. There is no taxes
being paid. That's the problem with most of
them, they're just lying there and not being
done.
So these incentives would accrue to
the income tax level, but they also increase
with the level of cleanup. The highest
standard of cleanup gets the highest level of
incentive. So we're trying to get people to
move up the ladder to do more, not less.
That goes back to your earlier
question of the person where they find more
into it. Well, if they do, and it's a
good-faith thing, and they bring it to our
1221
attention or we discover it, as the case may
be, through the DEC or its agents, then they
are then qualified for an even higher
incentive.
So we want them to come in, and I
think there's that incentive to move ahead and
clean it up.
SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: Thank you,
Senator Marcellino.
Thank you, Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Volker.
SENATOR VOLKER: Madam President,
very quickly.
I guess I was the only major leader
from upstate that supported the bond act some
years ago. And I took quite a bit of heat and
quite a bit of criticism because, as was
pointed out to me, the city that is most
affected by brownfields in the state of
New York is Buffalo.
Something in the area of 45 percent
of Buffalo's area is not developable because
of potential environmental problems.
The waterfront that we hear people
always complaining, Oh, you won't develop the
1222
waterfront and all that, a big part of that
reason is because we had so much industry on
the waterfront for so long that there are
places that are suspect. And we don't know
for sure how heavy it is in some places.
There's chemicals.
I think the problem here is that we
have a lot of our environmental friends who
want to do so much so fast. They're the real
reason we haven't been able to pass the
Superfund legislation, because they wanted to
put rules and regulations in there that would
make it so expensive and so difficult to do
that we couldn't get it done.
And if you look at the situation
and you talk with the people that are doing
this, they say, Look, there's some simple
things that you can do. And Senator
Marcellino, I think his bill does those
things.
I'm not saying it's perfect. If we
could find a perfect bill, we'll then knight
Senator Marcellino and we will make him a --
whatever we can make him.
But I think the key here is that we
1223
need good solid legislation on brownfields.
And Buffalo needs it, Rochester needs it, the
upstate cities need it. And I think that what
Senator Marcellino has done here is a huge
step in the right direction.
And I think what you'll find is
that the Assembly will be much more inclined,
now that the election is over -- and I think
even the environmentalists that have been the
main block in this thing for so many years
hopefully will begin to realize that you have
to walk before you jump.
I mean, the money that we have
invested in certain places is huge. Some of
those have been questionable, because people
think that we can do things that we are not
capable of doing.
And I would remind everyone here, I
get tired listening to other countries try to
dictate to us about environment. This country
has done more to clean up the environment than
any country in the world has ever done.
Nobody is even close to it. And this state,
by the way, has done more than any state in
the union has ever done. But it's been
1224
expensive, it's been difficult -- not just for
the state, but for the localities.
I mean, Lake Erie is an
environmental miracle that the local paper
conveniently forgot to say when they did a
story on the Great Lakes. And I heard that,
by the way, from some friends of mine from
Europe and Russia. And they said, "You've got
this Lake Erie, which is an environmental
miracle."
It was the first lake in the world
that was essentially dead; that is, some fish
and wildlife couldn't live there. And now
anything can live there. And that wasn't done
by the State of New York and the federal
government, by the way. That was done
primarily by Canada and by our local area,
Buffalo people and Rochester people and so
forth.
So we have done a lot. We still
have a long way to go. And Senator
Marcellino's bill I think is a bill that goes
a long way toward helping -- particularly, I'm
going to say, Buffalo, because I represent the
area around Buffalo, but I'm talking about the
1225
whole state.
So I really think it's something we
should do and get the Assembly to move
quickly.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Sabini.
SENATOR SABINI: Thank you, Madam
President. On the bill.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed
on the bill.
SENATOR SABINI: I wanted to say
that the issue we're dealing with is one
that's evolved over the years. And the terms
used in dealing with this issue, we sort of
throw them around, but their meanings have
changed.
Superfund came about through the
federal government efforts, through RCRA and
work that Congressman Florio did in Congress
when I worked there. And it was to deal with
issues like Love Canal, which was a disaster
in this state, issues of very toxic problems
on our land that essentially left that land
not only useless but in effect uninhabitable
and dangerous for people to be on just even
passing through.
1226
We had a situation in Senator
Onorato's district, which at the time was the
largest, most expensive cleanup under
Superfund, the Radiac plant in Woodside.
But the term of art that we use
now, brownfields, are a little different.
Brownfields are basically places that, because
of past policies of neglect, are now
dangerously polluted to the extent that
liability becomes an issue for people.
And we have about 10,000
brownfields in the state. Those are sites
that are accessible by transportation, by
roads, by railroads. They're in cities and
suburbs. They're the land that we really need
to continue to make investments in in order
for the state's economy to thrive. It's a
measurable percentage of some of our urban
areas. We heard about Buffalo.
Essentially a large part of the
Greenpoint section of Brooklyn is a brownfield
because it has the world's largest oil spill
underneath, from Mobil Oil. And people are
living on that land right now, but it is in
effect a brownfield.
1227
If we don't do something and let
this continue to -- this issue continue to
fester, we are really guaranteeing large
sections of the state being sort of an
economic calvinism. They're never going to
come back if we don't do something.
And so I commend Senator Marcellino
for his work on the bill. There are problems
I have with the legislation. I'd like to see
some of the liability issues tinkered with.
I'd like to see stronger DEC enforcement in
the bill. But I've learned over the years
that the perfect shouldn't be the enemy of the
good and that doing something is better than
doing nothing. And funding Superfund is
better than not funding Superfund in the
state. And so I support the bill.
And I would hope that based on his
past work on issues regarding the environment,
that Senator Marcellino, if there were
problems that needed to be tinkered with in
the future, that the committee would take up
those problems if this bill doesn't address
all that it hopes to address.
So I'm going to support the bill,
1228
but I also want to editorialize just a wee bit
on some discussion we had a couple of weeks
ago in this chamber, and I know in his final
day here Senator Hevesi brought up, and that
is sort of the process here.
This is a 70-some-odd-page bill, a
77-page bill, single-typed, and there's a lot
of thought that went into this. But it could
have been better had we had more people in to
talk about it, had we had more member
participation in the crafting of the
legislation, that we drew upon some of the
experiences that some people have both inside
this chamber and in the outside world.
And I think something this large,
this type of an omnibus bill really
requires -- I'm sure a lot of thought went
into it, but maybe more open thought. And
maybe more experts brought in. And maybe more
open discussions with members of both parties
so that we can make these things better.
All in all, I think it's a good
bill. I commend Chairman Marcellino on his
work. And I intend to vote in the positive.
Thank you.
1229
THE PRESIDENT: Senator
Hassell-Thompson.
SENATOR HASSELL-THOMPSON: Thank
you, Madam President.
Prior to coming to the State
Senate, I served on the city council in the
city of Mount Vernon. And at the beginning of
that period in 1993, as in most cities in the
Northeast, so many of our industrial
businesses moved away and left us with
buildings that were uninhabitable. And part
of that was because of brownfields.
Over the last 7½ years, Mount
Vernon has done an astronomical job in trying
to get those properties back on the tax rolls.
And we have been successful to the percentage
of about 92 percent.
And that remaining 8 percent, and
some other sites that we've identified, we
cannot, we cannot afford to do this by
ourselves. And the owners of some of those
properties have abandoned them, have walked
away.
What does that mean, to not just
the economic development of our community but
1230
the residential community as well? It abuts
it and it continues to cause it to grow and to
be extended.
I feel an obligation, even though
as a person who's newly appointed to the
Environmental Committee and one who thinks
that, yes, this bill could be a great deal
better -- but I am very appreciative that
members of this Senate apparently listened
when we talked about the standards in the
Governor's bill last year and have gone a long
way toward making it a better bill.
And so therefore, based upon our
personal needs within our communities, I have
to vote for this bill. I have to support it.
And I've got to talk with my Assembly
colleagues to make sure that they understand
the necessity of this bill in direct
relationship to our inability to create
economic development.
We cannot afford to go backward.
Everything that we do to increase the ability
of our communities to raise our own efforts of
economic development will go a long way to
securing our tax base. Our communities have
1231
to do that. Small communities, small cities
don't have the advantage that New York City
has. And so therefore, from that perspective,
I have to support the bill.
And, Senator Marcellino, I think
that you and the committee have gone a long
way toward making this a much better bill than
that which we spoke on last year.
Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other
Senator wish to be heard on this bill?
Senator Krueger, why do you rise?
SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: I rise to
speak on the bill, Madam President, briefly.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed.
SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: I
appreciated the entire debate and discussion
today.
And while I also do think this bill
could be made better, and I am going to urge
that through conference committees with the
Assembly that we continue to move to address
concerns that I have in this bill, both on
liability issues overall and specifically the
funding and liability categories of Superfund
1232
and the Oil Spill Fund sections of this bill,
I too find myself congratulating Senator
Marcellino on the work he has done to get us
this far.
And that I will be voting for this
bill, because I think it is so critical for us
and the Assembly and the Governor to insist
that we move forward both with brownfields
legislation and with addressing the other,
larger concerns around Superfund and liability
this year in the state.
So thank you very much, Senator. I
will be voting yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Stavisky.
SENATOR STAVISKY: I too want to
echo what has been said. And I will certainly
not repeat it.
However, this has great impact for
Queens County. We have brownfield areas near
Shea Stadium in what is known as the Iron
Triangle, a large area where oil from the
junkyards, the auto junkyards, the oil has
seeped into the ground, creating brownfields.
And hopefully this legislation will enable us
to encourage potential economic development,
1233
particularly from the private sector.
I think that there's a long way to
go, and I do have things on my wish list to be
added, but I certainly intend to support this.
Thank you. And thank you, Senator
Marcellino.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other
member wish to be heard on this bill?
Senator Schneiderman, to close for
the minority.
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Thank you,
Madam President.
Very briefly, I think that this has
been a good debate. Obviously, we have some
more work to do. The Superfund has been
bankrupt for some time in my district and in
many other districts. There are waste sites
where investigations have stopped, where
cleanup is not even in anyone's mind at this
point. And we clearly have to act.
I would urge all of my colleagues,
though, on both sides of the aisle that the
Assembly does have legislation that is good
legislation that would enable us to start this
process again, that would enable the cleanups
1234
to start.
And people keep saying: We have to
do something. We do have to do something.
But this is not the only answer to the
problem. We could easily just pass the
Assembly's bills, and then we would start the
process overnight.
This is a step forward in a
tortuous process by which we're trying to come
to some agreement with the Assembly so that we
can pass a law, not just another series of
one-house bills. Because we've passed
one-house bills on this issue in the last few
years, and the Assembly has passed one-house
bills. That doesn't clean up any toxic waste
sites.
The provisions of this bill are a
step forward towards the Assembly's bill and
towards a bill that is in the Senate, Senate
876, by Malcolm Smith, which would refinance
the Superfund program and keep it more in line
with the current standards of requiring the
polluters and industry to pay a larger share
than this proposed legislation we're
addressing today would.
1235
But I would urge my colleagues that
we still have a ways to go. We're not going
to get a law out of this bill. This is going
to have to come back to us. And I hope that
the sponsor is willing to take more steps
towards the Assembly's position, as I believe
they are willing to take steps, and I think
their position has softened over the last year
or two.
There are provisions in this bill
that I think raise serious questions. We
haven't really even gotten to the question of
the blanket immunity that it would provide to
the state, essentially repealing the common
law of negligence in many situations, and the
waivers of liability for many private parties
that would be provided for under this bill.
There are serious questions here.
We have to do something. But a vote against
this bill does not mean a vote against doing
something. It simply means a vote for
something a little bit better for the people
of the State of New York, a little bit harder
on polluters, and something that we believe
will pass the Assembly, which is the ultimate
1236
goal so we can have a law and not end this
session once again with us saying "We passed
our bill" and the Assembly saying they passed
their bill and the pollution resting in the
ground and not facing any possibility of
cleanup.
I'm going to be voting no, Madam
President. I understand everyone's conflicts
over this. I share them to some extent. But
I think we do have further ways to go to get
this bill to the point that we can actually
have a law.
THE PRESIDENT: To close debate,
Senator Marcellino.
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Thank you,
Madam President.
I thank my colleagues for a very
interesting and informative debate.
I've been working on this
legislation for over six years now, and it's
been before the house in various forms and
methodologies. This I believe is the best one
that I have ever seen.
I thank my colleagues who
participated in the negotiations and in the
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doing of this bill, and part of that goes back
to Assemblyman DiNapoli's staff when we
started this process last year very late in
the session. But his staff, my staff, and
members of Senator Bruno's staff were working
together way back then to do the forerunner of
this bill.
There are 450,000 brownfield sites
in this country. There are between 14,000 and
15,000 in the state of New York alone. There
are 7,000 on Long Island. What was said
before by Senator Oppenheimer and others,
we've got to move, we've got to get this
process to closure, because the insult to the
environment and the insult to our citizens
continues. We've got to stop that insult.
Passing good brownfields legislation such as
this bill will go a long way.
I urge a yes vote to send the right
message to everybody that this bill is the
step to take.
Thank you, Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
section.
THE SECRETARY: Section 49. This
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act shall take effect immediately.
THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Brown.
SENATOR BROWN: To explain my
vote, Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: To explain your
vote.
SENATOR BROWN: Again, I want to
commend Senator Marcellino for moving the
issue of brownfields in the State of New York
forward. This is an important issue and an
issue that we have to get some movement on.
I listened very carefully to the
debate. And as I said during my debate, I am
a little bit torn on this legislation. I'd
like to see us go a little further. I think
that Senator Marcellino, based on his six
years of work on this issue, is certainly
committed to doing that.
Based on that, I am going to vote
in the affirmative on this piece of
legislation.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Brown,
you will be so recorded as voting in the
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affirmative.
The Secretary will announce the
results.
THE SECRETARY: Those recorded in
the negative on Calendar Number 220 are
Senators Andrews, Breslin, Duane, Paterson,
Sampson, and Schneiderman. Ayes, 54. Nays,
6.
THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
passed.
Senator Lachman.
SENATOR LACHMAN: Yes, Madam
President. I'd like to have unanimous consent
to be recorded in the negative on Calendar
Number 194, Senate Bill 439.
THE PRESIDENT: Hearing no
objection, you will be so recorded as voting
in the negative.
SENATOR LACHMAN: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Kuhl.
SENATOR KUHL: Yes, Madam
President. May we return to the order of
motions and resolutions.
I understand there's a privileged
resolution at the desk by Senator Bruno. I'd
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like the title of it read only and move for
its immediate adoption.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will read.
THE SECRETARY: By Senator Bruno,
Legislative Resolution Number 805,
commemorating Good Joes Day 2003.
THE PRESIDENT: All in favor of
the resolution signify by saying aye.
(Response of "Aye.")
THE PRESIDENT: Opposed, nay.
(No response.)
THE PRESIDENT: The resolution is
adopted.
Senator Kuhl.
SENATOR KUHL: Madam President,
is there any housekeeping at the desk?
THE PRESIDENT: No, there isn't,
Senator.
SENATOR KUHL: There being no
further business to come before the Senate,
Madam President, I move we stand adjourned
until Monday, March 24th, at 3:00 p.m.,
intervening days to be legislative days.
THE PRESIDENT: The Senate stands
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adjourned until Monday, March 24th, 3:00 p.m.,
intervening days being legislative days.
(Whereupon, at 1:00 p.m., the
Senate adjourned.)