ALBANY— “Raising hazardous waste fees by more than 20 percent is really a new tax that will harm many New York businesses, especially upstate manufacturers, which are already struggling with a difficult economy,” said Kenneth Adams, president and CEO of The Business Council of New York State, Inc.
In its memo in opposition to the bill The Business Council State: “Contrary to earlier commitments for no new taxes, this imposes in effect a new tax on manufacturing operations that result in the generation of hazardous wastes.
While this bill shifts assessment costs to facilities that generate a large amount of hazardous wastes, it does so without regard to how efficient the facility is, or the degree to which it has reduced its generation of hazardous wastes over the past several years.
At a time when New York State should be positioning itself to become more economically competitive, this bill imposes significant new costs on some of the state's largest manufacturers.
As the fee increase comes mid-year, it is imposing costs that were not included in facility-specific budgets. As result, these affected facilities are going to be forced to make the kinds of hard choices that the legislature has been reluctant to do – reduce staff, reduce investments, and reduce other categories of spending in order to pay these increased state assessments.”
This new tax was passed to fund state parks. But, there were better options to raise revenue for that purpose, including the passage of the sale of wine in grocery stores which would generate nearly $300 million without resorting to a new tax.
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