Article 10

Enacted Article 10 Statute

On August 4, 2011, Chapter 388 of the Laws of 2011 that enacted Article 10 of the Public Service Law was signed into law.

Article 10 provides for the siting review of new and repowered or modified major electric generating facilities in New York State by the Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment (Siting Board) in a unified proceeding instead of requiring a developer or owner of such a facility to apply for numerous state and local permits.

A previous version of such a law expired on January 1, 2003. Key provisions of the new law include:

1. Defines a major electric generating facility as facilities of 25 megawatts or more;
2. Requires environmental and public health impact analyses, studies regarding environmental justice and public safety, and consideration of local laws;
3. Directs applicants to provide funding for both the pre-application and application phases. It allows funding to be used to help intervenors (affected municipalities and other parties) hire experts to participate in the review of the application and for legal fees (but not for judicial challenges);
4. Requires a utility security plan reviewed by Homeland Security and, for New York City (NYC) plants, NYC's emergency management office;
5. Provides for appointment of ad hoc public members of the Siting Board from the municipality where the facility is proposed to be sited; and,
6. Requires a public information coordinator within the Department of Public Service to assist and advise interested parties and members of the public in participating in the siting process.

The Department was required to promulgate regulations to implement the new Article 10 statute. As part of this process, the Department assisted the Siting Board and (1) developed a working draft of the implementing regulations and (2) commenced informal outreach to ascertain views of stakeholders on the working draft regulations.

The stakeholder outreach was only an initial step in obtaining public comment on the draft implementing regulations. On March 27, 2012 the Siting Board issued draft implementing regulations for public comment pursuant to the State Administrative Procedure Act (SAPA).

All stakeholders and the public had an opportunity to formally submit comments on the regulations through May 29, 2012

An environmental assessment is an evaluation of the known or potential environmental consequences of a proposed action. Such an assessment also determines whether additional relevant information about such impacts is needed. Environmental assessments help involved and interested agencies identify their concerns about the action and provide guidance to the lead agency in making its determination of significance. This environmental assessment was prepared by the Staff of the Department of Public Service to assist the Siting Board regarding its environmental quality review of the proposed action of adopting regulations to implement Article 10 of the Public Service Law.