NYS legislative session's final week: Top issues are social media, climate change
The New York State Capitol in Albany in 2020. Credit: AP / Hans Pennink
ALBANY — The State Legislature on Monday heads into its final scheduled week of the 2024 session seeking some elusive deals on big policy issues, including the threat social media poses to children and the existential threat of global warming.
Two bills in the mix are inspired by Long Island tragedies: the Gilgo Beach killings and the 2023 crash of a bus carrying the Farmingdale High School marching band.
The pressure on closed-door negotiations on those issues is turned up by the need to pass hundreds of mundane bills important to legislators’ districts, such as local governments needing state approval for issues including adding or developing parkland or adjusting hotel and local sales taxes.
“We have a week to go, but I can’t tell you offhand any of the big reforms that might be on the table,” Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) said Wednesday. “We are trying to churn through much of the pieces of legislation, and there is a lot.”
Neither of the legislative leaders, nor Gov. Kathy Hochul, are making predictions about major issues. The leaders already failed to come to agreement on many of these issues in the state budget agreement in April. But the leaders note that the $239 billion budget deal included major policy achievements, including a plan to increase housing affordability statewide and record school aid.
Whether they will add to that list is uncertain.
“We still have 5½ more days, which in Albany time is a lifetime,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) said Thursday.
“I’m feeling more optimism that our priorities are aligned,” Hochul said last week.
The session is scheduled to end Thursday, but probably will extend at least into Friday.
Among the biggest issues on the table:
Hochul has spent weeks making public appearances statewide to push for limiting the impact of social media on children and their mental health.
The proposals include the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation for Kids Act. The measure would require social media companies to restrict addictive algorithms that can ensnare youths for hours, often late into the night, and compound negative thoughts about themselves and their future. The proposed New York Child Data Protection Act would restrict online companies from collecting, using and selling personal information for users who are under age 18.
The effort is facing fierce opposition from social media companies, which argue in part that they already are voluntarily doing much in these areas to protect youths and that government mandates will violate their constitutional rights as businesses, including free speech rights.
The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act would make businesses, not consumers, pay for recycling and reducing packaging waste on most products, such as individual cheese-slice wraps, detergent bottles and potting soil bags. Supporters say the measure would improve the state’s low rate of recycling, reduce toxins in packaging and save taxpayers costs for landfills.
Companies with a net income over $5 million or that sold or used more than 2 tons of packaging per year would be required to incrementally reduce certain non-reusable packaging by 50% over 12 years, although a compromise is being floated to reduce that threshold to 30%.
Business groups, including the Long Island Association, oppose the measure and call it unworkable. They say it would impose billions of dollars in costs on companies, which would be passed on to consumers.
The legislature is trying again to pass the so-called HEAT Act, which failed to gain approval in the budget deal. The New York Home Energy Affordable Transition Act would shift some of the billions of dollars in costs for transitioning to a fossil fuel-based economy from ratepayers to global gas and oil companies. The measure includes ending the “100-foot rule” enacted in 1981 in which new construction is automatically hooked up to a nearby natural gas line at no charge to the customer. But the practice costs all ratepayers more than $200 million a year. The 1981 law also conflicts with current state climate change measures.
The companion Climate Change Superfund Act would require fossil fuel companies to pay for the cost of resiliency measures — now paid by taxpayers — against severe storms.
Heastie said the measure continues to face opposition in his chamber.
“Polluters should pay, but the concern is that I’ve never in my life seen corporations choose the ratepayer over the stockholder,” Heastie said. “They are not going to take less profit and say to the stockholders, ‘We’re going to give out less of a return on our stock so we won’t raise prices.' ”
One bill would close what advocates long have called a flaw in law: Although a 2013 federal law requires seat belts in charter buses manufactured since 2016, nothing requires the restraints be used. The bill was introduced after the Sept. 21 fatal crash of a charter bus carrying members of the Farmingdale High School marching band in Orange County.
The bill would require charter bus passengers 8 and older to use safety restraints on motor coaches. A violation could bring a $50 fine against passengers who refuse. Police could ticket the parents of passengers 8 to 15 years old if the violation happened when the parent or guardian was present, according to the bill.
In another Long Island-inspired proposal, a bill would encourage sex workers who are victims of crimes or witness crimes to report the crimes without fear of being arrested for prostitution.
Supporters of the bill state that if this had been law, sex workers who had information about the Gilgo Beach killings would have been more likely to provide clues to law enforcement. Ten sets of human remains were found over several months in 2010 and 2011 in scrub brush along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach.
“Attackers exploit this fear and commit heinous crimes with impunity, solely because of the nature of their victims' work,” the bill states. “This bill protects a victim or witness to a crime from prosecution for prostitution … when they seek help.”
ALBANY — The State Legislature on Monday heads into its final scheduled week of the 2024 session seeking some elusive deals on big policy issues, including the threat social media poses to children and the existential threat of global warming.
Two bills in the mix are inspired by Long Island tragedies: the Gilgo Beach killings and the 2023 crash of a bus carrying the Farmingdale High School marching band.
The pressure on closed-door negotiations on those issues is turned up by the need to pass hundreds of mundane bills important to legislators’ districts, such as local governments needing state approval for issues including adding or developing parkland or adjusting hotel and local sales taxes.
“We have a week to go, but I can’t tell you offhand any of the big reforms that might be on the table,” Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) said Wednesday. “We are trying to churn through much of the pieces of legislation, and there is a lot.”
WHAT TO KNOW
- The State Legislature heads into its final week of the 2024 session seeking some elusive deals on big policy issues.
- Those include limiting the impact of social media on children and their mental health and addressing the threat of global warming.
- Two bills in the mix are inspired by Long Island tragedies: the Gilgo Beach killings and the 2023 crash of a bus carrying the Farmingdale High School marching band.
Neither of the legislative leaders, nor Gov. Kathy Hochul, are making predictions about major issues. The leaders already failed to come to agreement on many of these issues in the state budget agreement in April. But the leaders note that the $239 billion budget deal included major policy achievements, including a plan to increase housing affordability statewide and record school aid.
Whether they will add to that list is uncertain.
“We still have 5½ more days, which in Albany time is a lifetime,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) said Thursday.
“I’m feeling more optimism that our priorities are aligned,” Hochul said last week.
The session is scheduled to end Thursday, but probably will extend at least into Friday.
Among the biggest issues on the table:
Social media
Hochul has spent weeks making public appearances statewide to push for limiting the impact of social media on children and their mental health.
The proposals include the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation for Kids Act. The measure would require social media companies to restrict addictive algorithms that can ensnare youths for hours, often late into the night, and compound negative thoughts about themselves and their future. The proposed New York Child Data Protection Act would restrict online companies from collecting, using and selling personal information for users who are under age 18.
The effort is facing fierce opposition from social media companies, which argue in part that they already are voluntarily doing much in these areas to protect youths and that government mandates will violate their constitutional rights as businesses, including free speech rights.
Recycling
The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act would make businesses, not consumers, pay for recycling and reducing packaging waste on most products, such as individual cheese-slice wraps, detergent bottles and potting soil bags. Supporters say the measure would improve the state’s low rate of recycling, reduce toxins in packaging and save taxpayers costs for landfills.
Companies with a net income over $5 million or that sold or used more than 2 tons of packaging per year would be required to incrementally reduce certain non-reusable packaging by 50% over 12 years, although a compromise is being floated to reduce that threshold to 30%.
Business groups, including the Long Island Association, oppose the measure and call it unworkable. They say it would impose billions of dollars in costs on companies, which would be passed on to consumers.
Climate change
The legislature is trying again to pass the so-called HEAT Act, which failed to gain approval in the budget deal. The New York Home Energy Affordable Transition Act would shift some of the billions of dollars in costs for transitioning to a fossil fuel-based economy from ratepayers to global gas and oil companies. The measure includes ending the “100-foot rule” enacted in 1981 in which new construction is automatically hooked up to a nearby natural gas line at no charge to the customer. But the practice costs all ratepayers more than $200 million a year. The 1981 law also conflicts with current state climate change measures.
The companion Climate Change Superfund Act would require fossil fuel companies to pay for the cost of resiliency measures — now paid by taxpayers — against severe storms.
Heastie said the measure continues to face opposition in his chamber.
“Polluters should pay, but the concern is that I’ve never in my life seen corporations choose the ratepayer over the stockholder,” Heastie said. “They are not going to take less profit and say to the stockholders, ‘We’re going to give out less of a return on our stock so we won’t raise prices.' ”
Long Island-inspired bills
One bill would close what advocates long have called a flaw in law: Although a 2013 federal law requires seat belts in charter buses manufactured since 2016, nothing requires the restraints be used. The bill was introduced after the Sept. 21 fatal crash of a charter bus carrying members of the Farmingdale High School marching band in Orange County.
The bill would require charter bus passengers 8 and older to use safety restraints on motor coaches. A violation could bring a $50 fine against passengers who refuse. Police could ticket the parents of passengers 8 to 15 years old if the violation happened when the parent or guardian was present, according to the bill.
In another Long Island-inspired proposal, a bill would encourage sex workers who are victims of crimes or witness crimes to report the crimes without fear of being arrested for prostitution.
Supporters of the bill state that if this had been law, sex workers who had information about the Gilgo Beach killings would have been more likely to provide clues to law enforcement. Ten sets of human remains were found over several months in 2010 and 2011 in scrub brush along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach.
“Attackers exploit this fear and commit heinous crimes with impunity, solely because of the nature of their victims' work,” the bill states. “This bill protects a victim or witness to a crime from prosecution for prostitution … when they seek help.”
Michael Gormley has worked for Newsday since 2013, covering state government, politics and issues. He has covered Albany since 2001.
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