Griffo, Buttenschon advocate for extreme weather legislation

ALBANY, NY- A pair of Central New York lawmakers are pushing for legislation that would essentially support residents and communities impacted by extreme weather, while ensuring local governments are prepared for such future events.

“These events, including destructive tornadoes and winter storms, have caused significant challenges, and the recovery process can be an expensive and time-consuming endeavor,” said State Senator Joe Griffo.

“It is evident that we are going to continue to have to place challenging weather conditions throughout the Mohawk Valley as a priority,” State Assemblywoman Marianne Buttenschon said.

The support for this proposed bill comes from a recent report from the office of New York State Comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, which found the increasing frequency of severe weather in the state has taken a toll on New Yorkers.

Since 1998, there have been an average of 2.5 weather events per year in the state that have resulted in federal disaster or emergency declarations with authorized annual assistance averaging $958.6 million, according to data cited by Griffo and Buttenschon.

Sen. Griffo and Assemblywoman Buttenschon’s bill (S.7761/A.8780), which is in committee, would:

1. Establish the Central New York Extreme Weather Relief and Resiliency Grant Program that would provide grants for small businesses, farms, owners of multiple dwellings, homeowners associations and not-for-profit organizations that sustained direct physical damage under one of the covered extreme weather events which they can apply for to cover repairs. The reason for these specific regions is because they have been some the hardest hit areas over the last several years and have experienced a lack of sustained commitment of necessary resources from the state.
2. Expand and strengthen the state’s Resilient and Ready Storm Damage Recovery and Resilient Retrofit programs to offer additional emergency home repair assistance and/or reimbursement to impacted homeowners recent extreme weather events in the region and those that may occur in the future.
3. Create the Central New York property/casualty insurance resiliency incentive program to facilitate property/casualty insurance discounts for mitigation efforts. As a result of this program, property/casualty insurers in New York would be encouraged to offer loss mitigation tools and services to policyholders for free or reduced cost.

New York State Capitol image.