|
A representative of New York's biggest utilities on Thursday said Albany's political gridlock is partly to blame for the state's looming energy problems.
Howard Shapiro, president and chief executive officer of the Energy Association of New York State, said Albany's contentious politics appear "stupid" and "silly" when viewed from outside the capital. He contended that the atmosphere keeps Wall Street from investing in private-sector projects to improve the energy system and meet growing demand.
Democratic state Assemblyman Paul Tonko responded by criticizing Shapiro's group for its "secret" meeting with the Pataki administration to develop an energy-related bill for the Republican-led state Senate, while leaving the Assembly out.
"If the leaders, like yourself and others, stand up and say, `We're going to put all the politics and ideology aside,' I think it will be relatively easy for Wall Street and others to get the message that New York state is serious about building more infrastructure," Shapiro said.
"A sense of harmony will relieve the financial woes and skepticism?" Tonko asked at his Assembly Energy Committee hearing into the August 14 blackout in New York and throughout much of the Northeast.
"No, the word I would use would be leadership," Shapiro said.
Tonko criticized the July meeting between Shapiro's group and officials in the Republican Pataki administration that resulted in a Senate energy bill passed Sept. 16. Tonko said the Assembly's Democratic leaders weren't invited and couldn't get any information on the bill before it was passed.
The Assembly has not taken up the bill.
"The spirit you're verbalizing here of getting together didn't exist," Tonko said of that meeting. "We're just saying, let's discuss these issues publicly."
"I don't think there was an intention to dis the Assembly," Shapiro said. "We will meet with everybody and anybody who will listen to us to get something done."
The bill approved by the Senate a month after the blackout would speed the approval process for power lines as long as they were "predominantly" along existing rights of way. The process would be hastened because environmental groups and the public, especially those living along the route of the lines, wouldn't have as much power to fight a power plant or transmission line proposal because the right of way was already established.
Shapiro criticized the Assembly for continuing to insist on protecting the lengthy public comment provision, often derided as NIMBY, or "Not In My Backyard." He said the opposition is more ardent today: BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere, Not Anything) and NOPE (Not on Planet Earth).
Tonko said the Senate's version of the energy bill has no chance of passing the Democrat-dominated Assembly because it's too vague and fails to protect the environment or citizens' rights to oppose projects. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said the bill was an inadequate, piecemeal approach.
Shapiro also said New York politics allowed an important law, called article 10, to lapse. The law provides a speedier process to approve power plants. He said that lapse leads business interests to say, "`Don't come to New York. They were stupid. They let their article 10 law expire.' ... We were viewed as silly to let that law expire."
|
