U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Griesa issued a preliminary injunction this afternoon that stops the state’s new bottle recycling bill from taking effect June 1, The International Bottled Water Association said.

The association last week filed a lawsuit seeking to halt the law from going into effect, saying bottlers will not have enough time to implement the law and put New York-specific bar codes on all bottles and cans.

The association said that the judge requested the state and the bottlers to provide further information for a reasonable timeframe “in which to enact a workable effective date.”

Lawmakers and Gov. David Paterson passed the bottle bill as part of the state budget last month to expand a 5-cent deposit to bottles of water. Yet bottlers complained that the law was full of problems and sought to change it, eventually taking their case to court.

Lawmakers and Paterson offered amendments to the law, but the sides have yet to reach an agreement on potential changes.

Andrew Cuomo’s bill on government consolidation hit a snag today when three senators refused to back it in a committee meeting.

Cuomo’s proposal, likely to be voted on by both houses of the Legislature next week, would make it easier for local governments and citizens to merge and abolish towns, villages, special districts and other government organizations.  Cuomo says taxpayers could save millions by cutting the number, which is now in excess of 10,000.

But Sen. Suzi Oppenheimer, D-Mamaroneck, Westchester County, said she’s worried the bill might make it too easy to put the matter on the ballot- Cuomo’s bill would require just 10 percent of voters to sign a petition – and doesn’t require a detailed plan before the vote. She also said she doubts much money would be saved.

“This could cause some serious disruptions,’’ she said.

Sen. Tom Morahan, R-New City,  Rockland County, voiced similar reservations.

“What are the savings? I’d like to see some numbers,’’ he said.

The two suburban lawmakers, along with Sen. Craig Johnson, D-Nassau County, voted “without recommendation’’ to pass it out of the Local Government Committee. Five other lawmakers voted yes.

Oppenheimer said she plans to talk to Cuomo aides to try to work out their differences.

Gov. David Paterson and legislative leaders agreed today to temporarily extend a key energy-subsidy program for businesses, but couldn’t come up with a consensus on how to permanently reform it.
The leaders all pledged to work to renew the Power for Jobs program that sends low-cost hydropower to businesses that pledge to maintain or expand jobs.
The program has run into trouble in recent years because as energy rates in the state have increased, demand for the low-coast power that is generated by the state Power Authority has increased.
But there is more demand for the power than there is supply, in part because some of it is also used to hold down residential power rates of the three major upstate utilities: National Grid, New York State Gas and Electric and Rochester Gas and Electric Corp.
“We all know there needs to be an extension,’’ Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, D-Queens, said today at a meeting of Paterson and the leaders. “We can extend it for a year, and then come up with a longer term solution.’’
Business groups have complained for years that annual extensions of the program are bad for businesses because they can’t make long-term plans. Still, a short-term extension is far preferable to letting it lapse when the current authorization expires at the end of June, said Brian Sampson, executive director of Unshackle Upstate, an organization of upstate manufacturers and other businesses.

Frustrated that state leaders are not embracing his proposal for a state spending cap, Gov. David Paterson today threatened to veto any new spending measures in this year’s budget.

“If there is any legislation this year that calls for more spending, while nobody wants to listen to me about my spending cap, I will veto it and they will not override my veto,” Paterson said on John Grambling’s radio show on WOR-AM in New York City.

Paterson also knocked legislative leaders for not going along with his call to have the members of the state Commission on Public Integrity resign after the state Inspector General’s Office found that then-Executive Director Herbert Teitelbaum leaked information to the Spitzer administration while it was under investigation.

“Not one legislative leader, nobody who appoints as well, were willing to even publicly ask their person to resign,” he said, adding that “It tells us that they were more interested in self interest than in the people’s interest.”

All this came before Paterson held his weekly public leaders meeting to discuss energy issues.

The state Senate and Assembly is moving toward passing a bill sought by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that would allow local governments to more easily consolidate local governments.

This morning, the state Senate Local Government Committee, headed by Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Yonkers, passed the measure and expects to bring it to the Senate floor next week for a vote.

“For many years, in spite of a myriad of proposals introduced,  the State Legislature has failed to enact measures that would provide New Yorkers with the ability to choose the size, scope and cost of their own Government,” Stewart-Cousins said.  “The introduction and passage of this measure will finally change that.”

The bill has bi-partisan support in both chambers. It’s sponsored by Stewart-Cousins and Republican Sen. Betty Little in the Senate, and by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, and Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb, R-Canandaigua, in the Assembly.

The Assembly Local Governments Committee passed the measure yesterday and moved it to the Ways and Means Committee for review.

   The Senate Health Committee approved legislation today that would legalize marijuana for medical use. But the bill still has to go through the Senate Codes Committee before getting to the floor for a vote. If passed, seriously ill patients would be able to have up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana and 12 mature plants. It has been used to relieve nausea, increase appetite, reduce muscle spasms and reduce chronic pain in patients with debilitating illnesses.

   This is the first year the legislation has a chance of passing the Assembly and Senate. The Assembly has passed bills before, but this is the first time identical bills have the support of the political party in control in both houses. Democrats have long controlled the Assembly, but the last time Democrats were in charge of the Senate before this year was 1965.  

   Senate Health Committee Chairman Thomas Duane, D-Manhattan, said the committee received a memorandum in support of the legislation from the Medical Society of the State of New York. It has received memos in opposition from the state Conservative Party, the Drug-Free Schools Coalition in New York and the New York Society of Addiction Medicine.

   The medical marijuana legislation in the Assembly was reported by the Health Committee and now sits in the Codes Committee. It is not on the latter committee’s meeting agenda for tomorrow.

Gov. Paterson and minority lawmakers today reveled in President Obama’s  nomination  of Bronx native Sonia Sotomayor to be a Supreme Court justice. If confirmed by the Senate, she would be the first Latina and only the third woman to serve on the nation’s highest court.  Sotomayor, 54, whose parents moved to New York City from Puerto Rico during World War II, now sits on a federal appeals court in Manhattan.

“This is a great day. We are proud of her and look forward to working with her,’’ Paterson said in apparently passable Spanish (later translated for a mono-lingual reporter by an aide), as lawmakers cheered.

Paterson also recalled that when he was 12,  his father shouted to his mother that President Johnson had nominated “somebody that sounded like Theodore Marshall’’ to the Supreme Court.

It was actually Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to serve on the high court.

“I hadn’t seen them so happy since the day my brother was born,’’ he said.

The nomination of Sotomayor shows “any child in this country can grow up to be whatever they want,’’ said New York’s first African American governor, and also the first legally bind person to be the chief executive of any state.

   Lawmakers have been sending out statements in response to the California Supreme Court decision today to uphold Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage. The New York Assembly passed same-sex marriage legislation a few weeks ago. The Senate has not voted on the measure yet this session:

From Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan:
   “I am extremely disappointed and saddened by the California Supreme Court decision to uphold Proposition 8, which bans same sex marriage.  The New York State Senate must take this opportunity to affirm its belief that all people are equal by acting quickly and decisively and passing marriage equality legislation.  All citizens are entitled to equal rights and that will not be the case until same sex marriage is recognized.”

From Sen. Thomas Duane, D-Manhattan:
   “Today’s 6-1 decision by the California Supreme Court to uphold Proposition 8 is an outrage. To allow discrimination under a state’s constitution is morally wrong. The Court’s recognition of pre-Proposition 8 marriages proves just how arbitrary courts and lawmakers can be in deciding who has the right to be married.”

“I sympathize with the thousands of same-sex couples in California who have been told by their high court, the very same court that previously granted them the right to marriage, that their love and commitment will not be recognized. I understand their pain because the New York Court of Appeals also issued a dubious and shameful opinion denying same-sex civil marriage in New York State.”

   Duane, who is openly gay, said he is confident the Senate will pass same-sex civil marriage legislation “in the near future.” The regular legislative session is scheduled to end in four weeks.

   New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms issued a statement congratulating ProtectMarriage.com, the National Organization for Marriage and other groups that worked on getting Proposition 8 passed last year. The Rev. Duane Motley, executive director of the New York group, said he is disappointed that the California court’s decision to recognize same-sex marriage licenses granted before Proposition 8 was passed. Read more of this entry »

The good news for Gov. Paterson is that legislative leaders today didn’t dismiss out of his hand his proposal to establish a new independent ethics-watchdog panel that would also have authority over the Legislature.

“We are open to changes,’’ said Dean Weiller, a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan.

Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, D-Queens, said he welcomed the plan – but pointed out the Senate was  already working on its own proposal. Historically, lawmakers have nixed any plan that would take oversight of their ethics out of their own hands.

Such is life for a governor who has record-low approval ratings. His plan would set up a five-member commission appointed by a 10-member nominating panel whose members would be selected by him and other top state officials.

Paterson wants to shuffle the deck in part because the existing Public Integrity Commission is in hot water because its executive director leaked confidential information to an aide to Eliot Spitzer when the commission was probing that gov., according to Inspector General Joseph Fisch.  Paterson called on them all to quit, but they said no.

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On the heels of today’s poll, same-sex marriage advocates in New York released a second ad today, featuring a Warsaw, Wyoming County, family who has a gay son.

The ad is being broadcast on the Internet by the Empire State Pride Agenda, which is hoping to raise money to put the ad on television. The group is running a television ad already that started earlier this month.

The latest ad features Karen Schuster and two of her children: her 23-year old daughter Jessica, who is straight, and her 19-year old gay son Luke, who is gay.

“I believe that Luke has the goal of settling down with someone and I want him to be able to do that and to have same rights as other people,” Karen said.

Added Luke: “It makes me feel very upset that my sister is able to have this wonderful thing called marriage and I’m just as much of a citizen as she is, but I’m not allowed to have the same thing.”