Senate passes bills to combat catastrophic climate change | Local News | dailygazette.com - The Daily Gazette

Senate passes bills to combat catastrophic climate change | Local News | dailygazette.com

STATE CAPITOL — As New York City was hit with a winter snowstorm, the state Senate passed a package of eight bills on Tuesday aimed at protecting residents from the environmental impacts of climate change as weather trends become more severe and unpredictable.

Speaking to reporters at the state Capitol ahead of the votes, State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said — just last weekend — parts of the state experienced temperatures in the 60s and people were wearing T-shirts, and now the state is experiencing a major snowstorm.

“But, that’s the thing, you never, never know what’s going to happen,” the Democratic leader said. “The drastic weather changes have become really unpredictable and are unfortunately a stark reminder of the cataclysmic impacts of climate change.”

Stewart-Cousins is sponsoring legislation that would allow New Yorkers who have lost their homes due to a severe weather event to be exempt from property taxes in the wake of the home’s destruction.

Some of the other bills would reconvene the state’s Sea Level Rise Task Force, which last issued a report in 2010; direct the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to conduct a feasibility study on constructing a seawall along the New York City coastline and require the DEC and the state Department of State to submit an annual agency stormwater expenditure report.

Assemblywoman Shelley Mayer is sponsoring two bills. One would increase the number of properties eligible for the coastal market assistance program and the other would establish a state Office of Flooding Prevention and Mitigation.

“We don’t have a centralized place to get information and assistance for municipalities and force them to work together. Water does not follow boundaries, it just goes between,” Mayer said.

State Sen. Neil Breslin, who announced he will not seek re-election earlier this month, is sponsoring a bill that would direct the state Department of Financial Services to conduct a study examining the increasing costs of insurance premiums, the lack of available insurance coverage for flooding losses and examine the possibility of supporting a private flood insurance market in the state.

“Insurance is people measuring a risk. In the old days, we had sunny summers, snow in the winter and a little of each in other months, so you measured the risk. If you measure the risk and you’re an insurance company, you can come up with a normal price,” Breslin explained. “If you can’t do that, insurance companies say, ‘I’m going to go someplace else where I can measure the risk.' So, it reduces the number of carriers and if you reduce the number of carriers, the ones left can charge more money, right?”

This problem is not impacting New York alone. Last year, a spate of insurance companies announced they were leaving markets in states like Florida and California, citing the increased risk of natural disasters like floods and wildfires.

“It’s the idea of measuring the new normal. How much more snow we’re getting, how much more rain, how many more violent storms and go from there,” Breslin said. “And I think that, in the end, we might be looking at insurance companies that are guided or participating with the [state Department of Financial Services] to provide insurance. So we broaden the market. I think that’s a distinct possibility and something we should look at.”