N.Y. Assembly to return Tuesday: Here’s what could be on the agenda

The New York State Assembly is set to return to Albany on Tuesday to dig into some unfinished business little more than a week after it wrapped up its regular session.

The special session is not expected to be ambitious in scope, and the Assembly is not poised to revisit housing after Albany’s ruling Democrats came up short of any home-creation accord and gave up earlier this month.

But a handful of issues could be considered anew by the Assembly, which finished the regular session by passing bills to create a commission on reparations, seal some criminal records of New Yorkers who have served their time and move certain elections outside New York City to even years.

Details about the special session remained opaque going into the week. But here’s a look at some of the bills that could get a fresh airing.

Sammy’s Law

A bill that would allow New York City to set and lower its speed limits passed the state Senate by a bipartisan 55-to-7 vote this month, but has hit a snag in the Assembly.

Street safety advocates hope the bill will make it to a vote in the Assembly’s special session. Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, a Bronx Democrat, has not given any public indication of whether he might bring the legislation to a vote.

Mario Cuomo bridge renaming

The Tappan Zee Bridge is technically called the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge after the late liberal lion’s scandal-scarred son, former Gov. Andew Cuomo, formally named the new bridge after his dad.

The sleek 3-mile span replaced the crumbling original Tappan Zee Bridge in 2018. The bridge crosses the Hudson River, connecting Rockland and Westchester counties.

The old name has stuck to the bridge, and lawmakers have pushed to add the Tappan Zee name to the $4 billion bridge.

The state Senate voted, 51 to 11, this month to approve legislation that would dub the structure the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Tappan Zee Bridge.

But the bill has not made it out of the Assembly. It could get a second life this week.

The word Tappan refers to a Native American tribe that lived along the Hudson River; Zee is the Dutch word for sea.

Offshore wind power

Environmentalists and labor groups entered the week hoping to revive a clean energy bill, the Planned Offshore Wind Transmission Act, to clear the way for a wind power development off Long Island.

The legislation passed the Senate by a 42-to-21 vote, with significant Republican opposition. Some locals in Long Beach, L.I., have also mobilized against the project.

Assemblyman Ari Brown, a Republican who represents Long Beach, said he has heard overwhelmingly negative community feedback.

Locals are concerned about the location of the transmission cable routes, the height of a soaring transfer station and effects on water views, Brown said by phone Monday.

“Everybody likes the idea,” Brown said of renewable energy. “But it’s just too many unknowns here.”

But in a letter to Heastie, labor groups said failure to pass the legislation could cause delays to projects that “account for over one-third of New York State’s offshore wind mandate.”

“The environmental future of New York and the future of thousands of union families is riding on the passage of this bill,” said the letter from the Nassau-Suffolk building trades council; Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and the New York State Laborers’ Organizing Fund.

Gov. Hochul, a Democrat, is chasing a goal of moving two-thirds of the state’s electricity sector to renewables by the end of the decade. The legislation’s fate is tied to the Empire Wind 2 project, planned to be located south of western Long Island.

Empire Wind 2 would sit some 14 watery miles from Jones Beach State Park and be supported by an operations base in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

Environmental and labor groups say the legislation’s failure could also hamper other projects, like the Beacon Wind 1 further east.

Empire Wind 2 and Beacon Wind 1 would power 1.3 million homes, Hochul has said.

It is unclear if the bill could be blown over the finish line this week.

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