Gov. David Paterson has taken an important step toward passing the Bigger, Better Bottle Bill by including its projected revenues in his 2009-2010 executive budget. But exactly how should those revenues fit into the state's overall environmental budget? For years, environmental organizations have advocated vigorously for the bottle bill, which would add a fivecent deposit to noncarbonated beverage containers and return any unclaimed deposits to the Environmental Protection Fund (EPF). The governor's proposal achieves exactly that. But the executive budget also substitutes bottle bill revenues for real estate transfer tax revenues as the main funding source for the EPF, rather than adding bottle bill revenues on top of the existing dollars.

This raises two significant concerns. First, the bottle bill has long been seen as a way to increase funding for environmental programs - not as a replacement for the EPF's current revenue stream. Second, the Bigger Better Bottle Bill has been proposed in many previous budget cycles, but it has yet to pass. There will almost surely be strong opposition to it from the beverage and retail industries. If the budget is approved but the bottle bill doesn't actually become law, the EPF could receive only $80 million a year, less than a third of its current budget. In our view, the Environmental Protection Fund isn't just vital to conservation programs - it actually puts New Yorkers to work. In addition, the environmental problems that we don't address today will only be worse tomorrow, when they will cost far more to fix. We look forward to working with Gov. Paterson's team and the state Legislature this session to keep the EPF and all environmental programs robust and dependable for 2009 and beyond.

-Marcia Bystryn 

Newsletter Issue

• Ecopolitics Monthly --- April 2007