Cutting red tape for brownfields

First published in Newsday on April 11, 2008

"Oh, those empty spaces" fails to recognize that there is a surplus of over $66 million currently available for the Brownfield Opportunity Area Program. I wrote the state's Brownfields Law and I will not allow the program to be damaged. No group has been denied brownfields funds. No payments have been stopped or missed. The real problem is that the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Department of State are choking the program with red tape. So I am advancing legislation that will streamline the program, getting more money out the door more quickly into our communities.

The state's 2008-09 budget is not perfect; hard fiscal choices had to be made.

The $10 million swept from the program was unspent funds. Had the money been earmarked for clean-up it would have never been touched. The brownfields program is suffering not from lack of funds but from bureaucratic deficiencies.

State Sen. Carl L. Marcellino

(R-Syosset)