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The Legislature's Planning, Energy, and Environmental Quality Committee today passed on to the full Legislature a recommended resolution that would have the Legislature ask New York State to perform an assessment regarding the health and environmental risks associated with large-scale new natural gas pipelines and compressor stations.  The measure supports a position taken in June by the American Medical Association advocating legislation to require a comprehensive health impact assessment regarding what the AMA cites as the health risks of such natural gas infrastructure.

The recommendation states that "Tompkins County joins the AMA in recognizing the potential impact on human health and the environment associated with natural gas infrastructure and requests New York State to perform an assessment regarding the health and environmental risks that are associated with natural gas pipelines."

While the proposal ultimately was recommended by a 4-0 vote of the committee (with Legislator Martha Robertson excused from the vote), committee members stopped short of recommending two other provisions, striking proposed language that would have urged a moratorium on new air and water quality permits for large new pipelines and compressor stations by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation until such studies are complete and public comment is received, and also calling for a State moratorium on new air and water quality permits for all natural gas infrastructure project applications.

Legislator Dan Klein moved to delete those two provisions, praising the AMA's work, but noting that the Association did not recommend a moratorium.  He maintained that the health study is what should be called for, and predicted that a measure that advocated a moratorium would not win support of the Legislature.  The amendment to eliminate references to a moratorium passed the committee by a 3-2 margin, Legislators Klein, Robertson, and Dave McKenna voting in favor, Legislator Carol Chock and Committee Chair Dooley Kiefer dissenting.  Proposed language to urge the DEC to have, or to consider, a "de-facto moratorium" failed 2-2, with Chock and Kiefer, who proposed it, voting in support.

Legislator Chock stressed that the recommended action focuses on large-scale, interstate pipelines and infrastructure, not on smaller pipelines within the region.

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