The cost of electricity in New York State grew 12 percent
between March 2006 and March 2007, more than twice the national
average cost increase, a new analysis of Energy Information
Administration data by the Public Policy Institute shows
A major new study of New York State's economic development
programs says that the state "must stop underwriting
the past," and should shake up its "balkanized"
development structure, work aggressively to cut the cost
of doing business, and refocus its efforts on the high-wage,
technology-enabled growth industries of the future
ALBANY—A new bill designed to help trial lawyers
determine how much insurance defendants carry would give those lawyers
a "fishing license" to sue, increase business costs in New York,
and damage the state's attractiveness as a location for new businesses,
Business Council President Kenneth Adams said in a letter to Governor
Spitzer in which Adams urged a veto
A
new ranking of states' business climates puts New York in
the middle of the pack, with a generally favorable ranking
for quality of life pulled down by one of the nation's worst
environments for taxes and other business costs
In a victory for The Business Council and New York State
employers, Governor Eliot Spitzer has announced a 20 percent
average reduction in workers' compensation premiums—a
cut that he said would save employers about $1 billion in
the 2007-08 fiscal year
In a victory for The Business Council, Governor Eliot Spitzer
has signed legislation to renew the state's Power for Jobs
program.
The Power Authority program, part of a series of economic
development power programs, would have expired June 30 without
action from state lawmakers
After The Business Council raised strong objections to
the idea, Governor Spitzer vetoed a bill, S. 4565, that
would have prohibited employers from using employee Social
Security numbers for identity purposes.
“While we believe that the sponsors' intent was to
address a specific privacy concern, this bill imposes broad,
unworkable restrictions on the state's business community,”
Business Council President and CEO Kenneth Adams wrote in
a June 28 letter to the Governor
New
York State needs to substantially increase its electricity-generating
capacity, and state lawmakers should return to Albany as soon
as possible to seek a compromise on a new law to expedite
the siting of power plants, Business Council President Kenneth
Adams argued in a July 12 op-ed in the Albany Times Union
Millennium Pipeline Company has begun building a 182-mile-long,
30-inch-diameter buried natural gas pipeline across New
York's Southern Tier and lower Hudson Valley.
The project will be constructed over the next two years,
with some restoration work extending into 2009
ALBANY—New York State lost a net 225,000 residents in moves to
and from other states during the year ending in July 2006, according to
new Census data. The losses amount to 12 persons for every thousand New
Yorkers, and the total exceeds the population of New York's third-largest
city, Rochester