Seventy percent of New Yorkers voted for a constitutional right to clean air, clean water, and a healthful environment. Now, Governor Hochul is using the April 1 budget crisis cudgel to force the State legislature to accede to her demands that the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) be effectively destroyed.

Governor Hochul should be protecting the environment, not weakening the laws that protect it.

Governor Hochul believes that by weakening the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act, that more housing can built. There is no question that we have a housing crisis, but weakening environmental review will not solve the problem. It will encourage short-cuts so that homeowners won’t be assured that their homes are safe from environmental disasters or that endangered species were not killed in the process.

This is a rapidly approaching disaster that will undermine the excellent progress we’ve made in the last 50+ years in cleaning up and preserving the natural features of NY State. This repeal will effectively put Save the Pine Bush (SPB) out of business because we will no longer have any ability to file cases. SPB is an all-volunteer citizen’s group that has managed to create a Pine Bush Preserve in the face of encroaching suburban development, mainly thanks to SEQRA. The Pine Bush Preserve is now one of the much advertised attractive features of the Capital District that makes people want to live here.

To put it plainly, SEQRA empowers citizens. That’s why the powerful want it to go away.

In contrast to the Governor’s proposal, the NYS Senate modifies the proposal to reform SEQRA by limiting the proposal’s SEQRA exemptions to only infill multifamily housing in urban areas, conditioned upon the project fulfilling minimum environmental and infrastructure standards.

The housing crisis is a difficult challenge, that is not a question. But it is beyond ridiculous to claim to able to quick fix a systemic problem with degradation of legislation that has worked very, very well for everybody. The only persons who are truly opposed to SEQRA are land developers, speculators and investors out to make a faster buck at our expense. But that fringe minority, as we all know, makes big campaign contributions, along with other valuable favors.

New Yorkers overwhelmingly voted to protect the environment. Governor Hochul needs to start acting like a Democrat, and work to strengthen environmental protections and not weaken them. The housing crisis will not be solved by weakening environmental protections.

We need more protections for the environment, not fewer. Save the Pine Bush asks Governor Hochul to reject loosening environmental protections.