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Conservation Update

EPF Funding Restored, Tax Freeze Axed, Bottle Bill Expanded

The state Senate approved the final environmental budget bill Friday afternoon (April 3), following the lead of the Assembly, which passed the budget earlier this week. Considering the state's grim fiscal circumstances, environmental programs fared well. The $132 billion spending plan restores funding to the Environmental Protection Fund (EPF), while expanding the Bottle Bill and striking a provision to cap property taxes paid on Forest Preserve and other state-owned land.

EPF

The budget sets the EPF level at $222 million for 2009-10, a $17 million increase from the Executive Budget. That is still far less than the $300 million authorized for fiscal 2009-10 in the EPF Enhancement Act of 2007. And it is less than $255 million that the Legislature approved last year for 2008-09, although that amount was reduced to $205 million in the Deficit Reduction Bill. But it certainly could have been worse.

The EPF includes $60 million for open space projects, which is critical when properties such as Follensby Pond and the former Finch, Pruyn lands in the Adirondacks and Hemlock and Canadice lakes in the Rochester area are available. The EPF also includes $7 million to help the Department of Environmental Conservation maintain the 4.5 million acres under its jurisdiction. This stewardship funding pays for ADK’s Professional Trails Crew contract and other projects to maintain backcountry trails. This funding also helps DEC update the unit management plans that are essential to recreational access to state land.

Perhaps the best news about EPF is that its funding stream remains intact. When lawmakers created EPF in 1993, they wanted to ensure a reliable funding source for environmental projects, a funding source that was available in good and bad economic times. They decided to support EPF primarily with proceeds from the Real Estate Transfer Tax (RETT). The Executive Budget would have replaced all but $80 million of the Transfer Tax funding with proceeds from an expanded Bottle Bill. The Division of the Budget estimated that expanding the Bottle Bill to include bottles of water and noncarbonated beverages would generate $118 million from unclaimed nickels. (Miscellaneous sources, such as sales of bluebird license plates, would have provided the remaining $7 million.)

ADK supported an expanded Bottle Bill, which will reduce litter in the Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserves, state parks and other natural areas, but it did not support using Bottle Bill proceeds to replace the RETT funding. If the funding stream was changed, and the Bigger Better Bottle Bill had not been approved, the EPF would have been left high and dry. A modified version of the Bottle Bill was approved by the Senate on Friday (see below), but there is no guarantee that it will generate the amount of revenue needed to maintain the EPF. Ironically, the more successful the expanded Bottle Bill is in reducing litter and encouraging recycling, the less revenue it will generate.

Bigger Better Bottle Bill

ADK has lobbied for an expansion of New York’s Bottle Bill for 20 years, and this year we got it. As of June 1, the 5 cent deposit on beer and soda bottles will also cover water bottles, including flavored waters and vitamin waters.

As of April 15, 80 percent of all unclaimed deposits, which have been going to the bottling industry, will go into the states General Fund. That’s expected to raise about $100 million a year.

While the new Bottle Bill doesn’t cover all beverage containers, it is a significant improvement. The original Bottle Bill, passed in 1982, has been a great success.

Over the past 20 years, the average recycling in New Yorkers has been 75 percent for these beverage containers.  Since the Bottle Bill was enacted, New York has seen a 70-80 percent reduction in beverage-container litter and a 30 percent reduction in overall litter.

Tax Cap Dead

New York will continue to pay its fair share of local taxes on the Forest Preserve and other state-owned lands.

Under the Executive Budget, state payments to local governments and school districts would have been frozen at 2008-09 levels, which would have caused double-digit property tax increases in some rural communities and hampered open-space protection statewide. The freeze would have had a significant fiscal impact on communities in the Adirondacks, Catskills and other parts of the state.

It would also have severely undermined local support for state land acquisition and crippled the states open-space program at a time when so many critical parcels are available. Fortunately, Governor Paterson and the Legislature agreed to strike the proposal from the budget.

You Did It

The 2009-10 state budget was a tough battle, but we did well. But all our lobbying efforts here in Albany would have amounted to nothing if lawmakers did not realize we represent constituents from their districts who care deeply about these issues. In the past few months, countless letters, e-mails and phone calls (as well as a number of face-to-face meetings) from ADK members to state legislators helped turn the tide. If you contacted your representatives on these issues, you can rest assured that you have made a significant, tangible and lasting contribution to the protection of the Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserves and other wild places in New York. Thank you for all your efforts.

Allison D. Beals
Director of Government Relations & Conservation
Adirondack Mountain Club
301 Hamilton Street
Albany, New York 12210
Phone: 518-449-3870
Fax: 518-449-3875