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Adirondack Mountain Club

Before the Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means Committees

Testimony on the 2009-10 Executive Budget 

January 13, 2009 

Good afternoon Senators and Assembly Members. My name is Paul Ertelt, Communications Director for the Adirondack Mountain Club – also known as ADK.  Thank you for this opportunity to testify on the Governor’s Executive Budget. 

The Adirondack Mountain Club’s 30,000 members love the outdoors and are committed to protecting the state’s wild lands and waters for future generations to enjoy.

ADK recognizes the serious fiscal situation facing New York. The State faced similar circumstances in 1993, when the Legislature devised a plan to support critical environmental programs in good and bad times. The Environmental Protection Fund has been a great success, supporting essential environmental projects, assisting local governments, and creating jobs. As an outdoor recreation organization, ADK has been particularly pleased that the EPF has been used to expand and enhance open space throughout the state. ADK also supports the traditional stewardship category of the EPF, which provides money to maintain state-own lands and parks and make them more accessible to the public. Stewardship funding allows DEC to draft high-quality unit management plans for state lands and supports ADK’s efforts to build and maintain hiking trails in the Adirondacks, Catskills, Finger Lakes and other parts of the state.

Protecting open space is about more than just providing playgrounds for outdoor enthusiasts. New York’s forests act as a carbon sink, reducing the state’s contribution to global climate change. The Catskill Forest Preserve protects New York City’s reservoir system and allows the city to avoid the cost of building a water filtration system.

In his State of the State Address, Governor Paterson noted that New York spends more than $6 billion a year on obesity related health care costs. At the same time, New York spends about one one-hundredth of that amount on open space protection. Considering the growing body of research linking access to green space with good mental and physical health, especially in children, it is clear that protecting open space is a real bargain.

Unfortunately, New York’s main funding source for open space protection and other environmental initiatives is facing its greatest challenge. The Executive Budget would authorize a $205 million Environmental Protection Fund for the coming fiscal year. That’s a 20 percent reduction from the current fiscal year, and a 32 percent reduction from the $300 million authorized in the EPF Enhancement Act of 2007.

But this deep cut is not ADK’s main concern. Much more unsettling is a proposal to shift the funding source for EPF, a proposal that threatens the viability and future of this program. The EPF is supported primarily from proceeds of the Real Estate Transfer Tax. The Executive Budget would replace all but $80 million of the Transfer Tax funding with proceeds from an expanded Bottle Bill. The deposit on bottles of water and noncarbonated beverages is expected to generate $118 million from unclaimed nickels. Miscellaneous sources, such as sales of bluebird license plates, would provide the remaining $7 million.

ADK supports an expanded Bottle Bill, which would greatly reduce the litter that defaces our wild lands and waters. But the Bigger Better Bottle Bill still faces significant legislative hurdles. The EPF would be devastated if the budget passes and the Bottle Bill does not. ADK opposes the replacement of Real Estate Transfer Tax revenues with prospective revenues from the Bottle Bill. If the Legislature does decide to alter EPF’s funding stream, it should not do so until the Bigger Better Bottle Bill is approved and the funding is assured. Also, any change to the funding stream should be temporary and include a sunset date.

Thank you.