What's happening
This bill increases public notification, access, and participation in environmental permit applications, including multilingual notices and extended comment periods.
Why it matters
Expanded public access to permit application information. The bill grants the public the right to review most correspondence between permit applicants and the Department of Environmental Conservation, and to be informed about—and attend—pre-application meetings, increasing transparency in environmental decision-making.
Stronger requirements for local and multilingual notification. By mandating notices in local publications—including those in languages spoken by at least 25% of the project area's population—communities that may have been previously overlooked or excluded (such as non-English speakers) will receive critical information about projects that could impact their environment.
Longer and more flexible public comment periods. Minimum public comment periods are increased (at least 20 days, and up to 45 days if hearings are scheduled), and can be further extended if the public requests a hearing, giving stakeholders more meaningful opportunities to review, understand, and respond to proposed environmental actions.
Potential for earlier and broader public engagement. With earlier notice (even before applications are deemed complete) and expanded means of notification, the public will have more time and opportunity to identify and raise environmental concerns before permits are granted.
Albany, before your first meeting.
Every bill that moved yesterday, summarized in a sentence and ranked by impact. The Albany Scorecard follows on Sundays.
Free. Unsubscribe in one click. Want alerts on specific bills? Create an account.
Who cares
Headline styles
Expand Public Notice Access
Plain English, a few words. Used as the page title.
Sponsors
3 Multi-sponsors
History
- Referred to environmental conservation
- Referred to environmental conservation
Full text
2 pagesUnderlined is new[Struck] is removedOfficial text on nysenate.gov ↗
STATE OF NEW YORK
3678
2019-2020 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
January 30, 2019
Introduced by M. of A. DINOWITZ, L. ROSENTHAL, COLTON, OTIS, CARROLL, ABINANTI -- 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.
LBD00717-01-9
A. 3678 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.