Board of Supervisors
Canandaigua, New York 14424
Supervisor Luckern offered the following resolution and moved its adoption:
RESOLUTION NO. 600 – 2011
RESOLUTION OPPOSING THE POWER OF NY ACT OF 2011
WHEREAS, New York State recently enacted legislation known as the Power of NY Act of 2011; and
WHEREAS, Said legislation amended the public service law by adding a new article 10, which establishes a New York State Board of Electrical Generation Siting and the Environment; and
WHEREAS, Said Board will have the authority to permit the siting of electrical generating facilities in the State which have a nameplate generating capacity of twenty-five thousand kilowatts or more; and
WHEREAS, Previously, while various state agencies had regulatory oversight for such facilities, as a home rule state, New York’s local municipalities, by virtue of decisions made by locally-elected representatives, could ultimately decide whether such development was in their residents’ best interests; and
WHEREAS, The Power of NY Act of 2011 removes said decision making from local municipalities, and puts that authority into the hands of a bureaucratic State board which will have nominal representation from affected communities, and even that representation cannot be from elected representatives of those communities; and
WHEREAS, The new Board will have the authority to ignore “any local ordinance, law…or any local standard or requirement…if it finds that…such is unreasonably burdensome…on ratepayers whether located inside or outside of such municipality”; and
WHEREAS, The new law further states that “no…municipality…may require any approval, consent, permit, certificate or other condition for the construction of operation” of such facility; and
WHEREAS, While the law provides for the set-aside of funds for pre-hearing research on behalf of the affected communities, said funds are controlled by the Board and will be allocated as it sees fit; and
