Senate environmental committee advances more than 20 bills, refers several to finance

The New York State Senate Standing Committee on Environmental Conservation advanced a slate of bills and referred multiple measures to the finance committee during its final committee meeting of the year.

Chair Pete Farquhump opened the session and thanked members and staff; committee members noted the panel passed more than 100 bills this year. The committee then considered a long agenda of environmental measures; most measures were advanced by voice vote after a motion and second, with recorded notations such as “1 without rec” or “2 without rec” in the committee transcript but without full roll-call tallies.

Key items advanced to the calendar or referred to finance included bills addressing a proposed ban on polystyrene products, limits on single-use paper carryout items, leash requirements tied to fuel standards, a community care monitoring program, air-quality monitoring for major mass transportation projects, technical-assistance grants and remediation programs, fisheries-related extensions, bans on certain sales and distributions, prevailing-wage requirements for ground-field remediation work (previously vetoed last year), composting symbol standards, the Accelerate Solar for Affordable Power Act (AWRs noted), the Great Swallow Protection Act, creation of a New York Youth Climate Corps, tire producer-responsibility rules, and…