The New York Legislature Takes Action on a Number of Pieces of Legislation Related to Climate Change
One significant legislative initiative driven by Governor David Paterson was the adoption by the Senate and Assembly of an expanded net metering law to allow businesses, municipalities and non-profit utility customers to receive credit on their utility bill for excess energy produced through solar or wind technologies. Under current law only residential customers are allowed to sell power back to the utilities. While non-residential customers will be capped at the lesser of 2 mega watts or their peak load, the expansion of net-metering is expected to further spur the development of solar and wind projects in New York.
The Senate and Assembly also came together to pass legislation that provides a 4 year real property tax abatement for solar electric generating systems placed in service in New York City. The abatement ranges from 5 percent - 8 ¾ percent of the cost of the solar equipment depending on whether the equipment is placed in service. Again, this legislation (coupled with the net-metering expansion mentioned above) is expected to spur development of solar projects in New York City.
Another lesser know legislative effort relating to the environment and climate change was the passage of legislation by the Senate and the Assembly establishing the New York State Greenhouse Gases Management Research and Development Program. The legislation amends the Public Authorities Law to authorize the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (“NYSERDA”) to provide grants for research that promotes new technologies that will avoid, abate, mitigate, capture and/or sequester carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The legislation authorizes NYSERDA to make grants of up to $150,000 to research entities in New York, but is subject to funding being included in the State Budget. Research entities are defined as not-for-profit colleges, universities or other institutions that conduct an intensive ongoing program of research and study.
One piece of legislation passed in the waning days of the legislative session by both the Senate and the Assembly that is just now starting to attract some attention is the Plastic Bag Reduction, Reuse and Recycling Act. This bill requires operators of retail stores over 10,000 square feet, retail stores with five or more branches of 5,000 square feet or more, and retail stores over 50,000 square feet in an enclosed shopping mall, to establish an at-store recycling program to include:
- a visible and accessible collection bin;
- a prohibition on the placement of plastic bags in a solid waste facility by stores;
- a requirement that stores make reusable bags available for purchase;
- a requirement that compostable plastic bags indicate that they cannot be recycled; and
- a requirement that plastic bags include the phrase "please return to a participating store for recycling" or a similar recycling message approved by the Department of Environmental Conservation.
The legislation establishes fines of up to $500 in cases where a person knowingly or intentionally violates the recycling program requirements.
Notable legislative efforts that failed during the 2008 session included a “bigger better bottle bill” to require container deposits on plastic water bottles, expanded regulation of wetlands, a power plant siting law for projects of 80mw or greater (draft legislation contemplated an expedited review process for clean energy or renewable projects), electronic waste recycling, and a greenhouse gas cap. All of these failed initiatives are likely to come back with greater support from the Governor (who only took office in March) in 2009 and may stand a greater chance of passage depending on the outcome of the State legislative races this November.
