What's happening
This bill increases public notice, access, and participation requirements for environmental permit applications, including multilingual and localized notifications.
Why it matters
Expands transparency and public oversight. By requiring that all permit applications be listed in the environmental notice bulletin upon submission (not just after completion), the bill enables earlier public awareness and scrutiny of proposed projects that may impact the environment.
Strengthens community access to information. The bill mandates broader and more localized notification, including publication in neighborhood-specific outlets and in languages spoken by significant local populations, ensuring that non-English speakers and specific communities are not left out of the process.
Enhances public participation opportunities. By guaranteeing access to most communications between permit applicants and the Department of Environmental Conservation (with exceptions for trade secrets), and allowing interested members of the public to attend pre-application meetings, the bill gives communities more tools to monitor and influence environmental decisions that affect them.
Lengthens and safeguards public comment periods. The bill sets minimum comment periods (20 days, or 45 days if a hearing is scheduled), and provides for automatic extensions if a hearing is requested, preventing agencies or applicants from rushing projects through without sufficient public input.
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Who cares
Headline styles
Expand Public Notice Rules
Plain English, a few words. Used as the page title.
Sponsors
3 Multi-sponsors
History
- Ordered to third reading cal.132
- Advanced to third reading cal.182
- Reported
- Referred to environmental conservation
Full text
2 pagesUnderlined is new[Struck] is removedOfficial text on nysenate.gov ↗
STATE OF NEW YORK
1775
2017-2018 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
January 13, 2017
Introduced by M. of A. DINOWITZ, ROSENTHAL, COLTON, OTIS -- Multi-Sponsored by -- M. of A. LUPARDO, PERRY, RAMOS -- read once and referred to the Committee on Environmental Conservation
AN ACT to amend the environmental conservation law, in relation to uniform procedures
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:
Section 1. Paragraph (a) of subdivision 1 of section 70-0109 of the environmental conservation law, as added by chapter 723 of the laws of 1977, is amended to read as follows:
(a) On or before fifteen calendar days after the receipt of an application for a permit which has been filed in a manner and in a form prescribed by the department, the department shall mail written notice to the applicant of its determination whether or not the application is complete and shall publish a listing in the environmental notice bulletin that such application, whether or not complete, has been submitted.
§ 2. Subdivision 1 of section 70-0109 of the environmental conservation law is amended by adding a new paragraph (f) to read as follows:
(f) A member of the public, upon request in writing, shall be (i) given access to all correspondence between the applicant and the department except for trade secrets or material maintained for the regulation of commercial enterprise which if disclosed would cause substantial injury to the competitive position of the applicant, and (ii) informed about pre-application conferences or meetings between the department and any applicant and may attend without participating in those in which he or she has an interest.
§ 3. Paragraph (a) of subdivision 2 of section 70-0109 of the environmental conservation law, as amended by chapter 285 of the laws of 1990, is amended to read as follows:
(a) Immediately upon determining that an application is complete, the department shall cause a notice of application to be published in the
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[ ] is old law to be omitted.
LBD03603-01-7
A. 1775 2
next available environmental notice bulletin which shall be not later than ten calendar days after the date of such determination and not less than once during the fifteen calendar day period following such determination in a newspaper having general circulation in the area in which the project is proposed to be located, and shall provide notice to the chief executive officer of each municipality in which the proposed project is located, and may direct the applicant to provide such reasonable notice and opportunity for comment to the public as the department deems appropriate. In addition to being placed in a publication of general circulation in the county or borough in which the project is located, or in more than one publication if appropriate, where one or more publications of less than county-wide circulation exist in the project area notice shall be placed in at least one such publication, and in a project area where twenty-five percent or more of the population is non-English speaking, notice shall also be placed in at least one publication which is widely circulated in the area printed in such language. In no case shall the public comment period be less than twenty days from date of publication, or forty-five days if a legislative hearing or public hearing is scheduled. If no hearing is scheduled and a member of the public requests during the comment period that a legislative or public hearing be held, the comment period shall be extended an additional thirty days from date of publication in the environmental notice bulletin of notice that such a request has been made. Newspaper publications shall be provided by the applicant.
§ 4. This act shall take effect on the sixtieth day after it shall have become a law.
Reflowed for reading: line numbers and page breaks removed. Cite the official text.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.