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ALBANY WATCH

N.Y. finalizes rules to allow liquefied natural gas sites

Jon Campbell
jcampbell1@gannett.com

Politics on the Hudson

ALBANY – New York is poised to allow new storage facilities for liquefied natural gas for the first time since the 1970s.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration is to announce Wednesday it will finalize regulations to allow new LNG storage centers outside New York City, capping the amount that can be stored at 70,000 gallons per facility. The state's trucking industry and business groups have pushed the state to allow new LNG facilities, arguing trucking fleets that use the fuel lacked a place to fill up in New York.

"New York's new regulations provide the most comprehensive program to safely site, build and operate LNG facilities in the country," said Joseph Martens, state Department of Environmental Conservation commissioner.

The state placed a moratorium on new LNG facilities in 1976, three years after an explosion on Staten Island killed 40 workers. In 1999, the Legislature lifted the moratorium but left it up to the DEC to create a system for siting new facilities.

The DEC proposed regulations in 2013 but they were roundly criticized by opponents of hydraulic fracturing, the controversial technique used to help extract natural gas from underground shale formations. The agency updated the proposals last year, adding the 70,000-gallon limit to try to limit the facilities to fueling stations and not larger storage centers. And last month, Cuomo's administration revealed its plan to ban high-volume fracking, which garnered praise from anti-fracking groups.

The proposed rules drew strong interest from the public, generated largely by public-commenting drives organized by anti-fracking groups. The DEC received 57,000 submissions in its public-comment sessions, though many were form letters or petitions.

Russ Haven, legislative counsel for New York Public Interest Research Group, said the storage cap is a welcomed change. But the state's regulations leave open the possibility of lifting or removing the cap in the future.

"The good news is the 70,000-gallon cap means the potential for environmental or other kinds of risks is diminished by virtue of capping the size," Haven said. "The problem is they indicate that it may well be removed in the future."

Any move the state makes toward increasing its use of natural gas is welcome, said Karen Moreau, president of New York State Petroleum Council, an industry trade group that has kept open the possibility of legal action to challenge the Cuomo administration's plans for a fracking ban.

"Storage is a very big issue, and there are record amounts of natural gas being produced," Moreau said. "It's important we have the infrastructure in place to store it."

The LNG issue is separate from a proposed facility near Watkins Glen in Schuyler County, which would store liquefied petroleum gas — which is largely propane-based — in salt caverns. That facility, which has spurred protests that have led to arrests, is under DEC review.

Cuomo's administration is to announce the LNG regulations at a legislative hearing on his $142 billion budget proposal Wednesday. What shape the hearing will take was still up in the air as of Tuesday evening, when Assembly Democrats were huddled privately for the second consecutive day discussing the future of Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat who was arrested last week on corruption charges.

JCAMPBELL1@gannett.com Twitter.com/JonCampbellGAN