Gas Drilling Amendment Overruled
State Sen. Tony Avella attached a hostile amendment to the Senate budget bill that forced a vote on whether or not to include funding for the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to conduct a seismic and health impact study on the hydraulic fracturing process in the state budget.
Avella, the ranking member of the Environmental Conservation Committee and author of the Senate bill (S.4220) calling for a ban on hydrofracking, introduced the amendment that would provide approximately $300,000 for DEC to commission these studies.
The purpose of the amendment, the senator stated, was to ensure that the people of the state of New York are fully informed about any and all potential public health or seismological impacts posed by the extraction of natural gas using horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic fracturing.
After receiving the hostile amendment, Avella noted, the Republican leadership in the State Senate ruled it out of order and not germane with the original bill. State Sen. Neil D. Breslin on behalf of the Democratic Senators appealed the ruling, something that Avella was permitted to debate.
“My amendment to this budget bill, which would direct the Depart- ment of Environmental Conservation to commission studies to fully analyze both the potential seismic and public health impacts of hydraulic fracturing and appropriate $300,000 to fund these studies, is germane,” Avella said, pointing to the following reasons:
– Both the budget bill and the provisions of the amendment proposed changes to the Environmental Conservation Law with respect to the Department of Environmental Conservation’s responsibilities and operations.
– The amendment’s addition neither expanded the object or subject of the underlying budget bill, nor would it have changed the purpose, scope or object of the original bill.
– When the Assembly introduced its budget bills earlier this month, their proposal would have authorized funding for a Health Impact Assessment in the same Article VII bill.
– If amended, the bill would still have required consideration by the same standing committee that reported the underlying bill.
“Regardless of which side of the aisle you sit on, whether you are for hydrofracking or not, to consider moving ahead with hydraulic fracturing in this state without doing a detailed study of the potential seismic and public health impacts is a disgrace,” Avella concluded in his argument on the Senate floor.
Shortly after the debate was closed, the majority voted to overrule the motion denying Avella’s appeal.
