Last night, The Business Council held its 2012 Legislators’ Reception at Hotel Albany (formerly known as the Crowne Plaza Albany). Heather Briccetti, President and CEO of The Business Council, spoke to the 700+ attendees (who included Business Council members, legislative leaders and guests from around the state) on the organization’s agenda for 2012. Priorities for the Business Council include:

• Supporting the Governor’s call for no new taxes, fees and assessments in the state budget;
• Imposing limits on new spending growth, and adopting additional fiscal reforms including a new pension tier;
• Instituting mandate relief for localities to allow them to manage their own spending levels under the real property tax cap;
• Finalizing regulations to allow the safe and timely development of the Marcellus Shale;
• Reforming the state’s SEQRA, permitting and other programs to provide predictable, workable time frames for the approval of new investment projects;
• Passing a constitutional amendment to allow casino gaming;
• Adopting broad reforms in the state’s business taxes to reduce compliance costs and make the state’s tax code more supportive of in-state investment and job creation;
• Promoting public/private partnerships and procurement innovations such as design build to promote, and get the most out of, new investment in public infrastructure;
• Reforming the state’s rigorous, expensive regulatory climate to eliminate unnecessary and inefficient compliance mandates;
• Opposing new group health coverage mandates, which drive up employer and employee costs and make group help plans increasingly unaffordable; and
• Reducing lawsuit costs, including adoption of long-needed reforms to the state’s so-called scaffolding law, and rejecting expansion of the state’s “Martin Act.”

We made great strides in 2011 by working together to improve the business climate in New York, and promoting private sector investment and job creation.

I look forward to partnering with Governor Cuomo, the Senate and Assembly and, most importantly, our members, for an even more successful – and job filled – 2012.

Kathryn Caggianelli of the Troy Record did an in-depth piece on new Business Council President and CEO Heather Briccetti:

“The characteristics that make a defense attorney successful are not unlike those that propel a lobbyist to victory while fighting for their cause, according to Heather Briccetti.

And she should know. A mother of three sons who resides in Brunswick, she has enjoyed a career championing the underdog.

Briccetti, an attorney, was recently named president and chief executive officer of The Business Council of New York State. She was acting-president for nine months prior to being selected to head up the organization, formerly led by Kenneth Adams. She joined the Business Council in 2007 as vice president of government affairs.

“I like doing defense work. I’m certainly not suggesting that there is anything criminal to defend with regard to businesses that are members of the Business Council,” she laughed. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that it takes the same personality to be a successful lobbyist.”

Briccetti, 46, was born in Tunisia to Peace Corps parents, who after completing their assignment in Africa, moved back to the U.S. and pursued careers as public school teachers in Syracuse. At the time, she was 2 years old.

She credits their humanitarianism and leanings toward liberal politics as at least part of the reason she is passionate about lobbying for the underdog, and ultimately the greater good.

After graduating from the State University of New York at Binghamton at the age of 19, Briccetti returned to Tunisia for a summer and discovered that the country, at the time, boasted an extraordinary educational system and opportunities for women that rivaled those available to men.”

To read more click here.

The Marcellus Shale Coalition has compiled a video that includes testimony from a variety of industry experts, Pennsylvania residents and news reports all pointing to the positive economic impact of natural gas drilling.

To watch the video please click here.

To read the PPI report Drilling for Jobs: What the Marcellus Shale could mean for New York click here.

In a letter to the editor of the Ithaca Journal, Rayola Dougher, senior economic advisor for the American Petroleum Institute, touted the job-creating potential of exploring the Marcellus Shale in New York:

“By quibbling over job terminology, Art Pierce ignores the important economic aspects of natural gas activity in the Marcellus Shale (”Job figures for Pa. gas drilling are overinflated,” Jan. 5).

Every new natural gas job created in Pennsylvania (which pays, on average, $76,036, compared to $46,222 for all industries) leads to the creation of three to four additional jobs. They include jobs in industries providing goods and services to the gas industry and jobs resulting from spending of household income earned from the natural gas industry’s spending.

The person getting the new natural gas industry job is not the only one benefiting. This new job opening provides opportunities for new hires in other sectors. To use Pierce’s example: The gravel worker who took a maintenance job vacated by someone who went to work in a gas-drilling operation likely did so because he would earn more. Likewise, the maintenance worker also is probably earning more.”

To read more click here.

Rick Karlin writes on the Times Union website - “The fight over whether New York will allow hydraulic fracturing for natural gas, or hydrofracking, came down to a Battle of the Boxes on Tuesday as both opponents and proponents of the practice scrambled to deliver boxes filled with thousands of letters, or comments, to the Department of Environmental Conservation by Wednesday’s deadline.

Once delivered, the DEC will review the comments as part of their effort to decide if New York should allow fracking, as it is commonly termed…

Here at the Capitol, gas industry insiders as well as pipe fitters and even organic farmers spoke in favor of fracking, since it would create jobs and generate money to hard-pressed farmers who could lease their lands to drillers…

Later in the day, a group of landowners, led by GOP Sen. Tom Libous, shown above, displayed letters in support of drilling say they will probably submit about 12,000.

“We’ve got the information. I think we can answer the questions,” Libous said, adding he doesn’t believe the comment period should be extended.

To read more click here.

Today, Clean Growth Now—a coalition comprised of New York’s labor, business, landowners, and agricultural communities—urged the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to finalize its draft regulations for natural gas development as its public comment period comes to a close this week.

Collectively representing over 227,000 New Yorkers, the members of Clean Growth Now hand-delivered thousands of comment letters to state officials today, which expressed strong support in New York’s ability to safely develop its resources and, in turn, attract new jobs and investment to our communities.

“This is about moving forward,” Joint Landowner Coalition President Dan Fitzsimmons said. “A diverse array of groups, from landowners to labor, has weighed in with substantive comments to help guide the DEC in finalizing sound regulations.”

Business Council of New York State President Heather Briccetti said, “Capitalizing on the tremendous opportunity offered by Marcellus shale development will help reduce our dependence on foreign oil, produce private-sector jobs, and attract investment. We’re confident development can be done safely and must be done in a timely manner.”

Broome County Legislator Steve Herz added, “Our communities want to secure the promise of a better future, by protecting our environment and bolstering our economy. We want to move forward.”

Scott Colton, Carpenters Local 277 President and Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters Representative, continued, “We’ve come to the table to find a solution that protects the environment while also generating new jobs and investment.”

National Federation of Independent Business New York Director Mike Durant said, “New York stands on the precipice of economic revitalization. By implementing the necessary safeguards, shale gas development will create new jobs and, in turn, boost small businesses and create new ones in communities long-needing them. How many other potential economic development plans can accomplish all of that?”

Developing the natural gas resources in the Marcellus Shale has become an incredibly contentious issue in New York over the past 3 ½ years.  Initially gas companies were caught unaware.  They assumed that development in New York would be embraced as it has been in other parts of the country.  The economic benefits to rural upstate communities would surely make up for the temporary disruption and inconvenience.  Thousands of jobs would be createdand landowners would receive royalties for years to come.   Instead, energy companies have been opposed by a well funded, national opposition determined to stop gas development in New York.  Natural gas companies needed to be out in front of the message years ago but that opportunity has  since passed.  They have made many concessions but it is clear now that the opposition does not want to agree to anything.  Three and a half years of study and delay has yielded a set of regulations that are the strictest in the nation but the opposition is still not satisfied.   It is obvious that their goal is to ban development in the state entirely.

So, who really suffers if development is banned in New York’s Marcellus Shale or the regulations are so cumbersome that they make it economically unfeasible for companies to proceed?  The energy companies will move on to shale plays in other parts of the country and the environmentalists will beat their drum for the next great environmental “threat”.

It is the landowners in Central New York and the Southern Tier who will suffer.  They are the silent majority of hard working citizens desperate for the opportunity to develop their natural resources.  They are the most vulnerable stakeholders in this debate.

Landowners in the Southern Tier are facing a critical time.  Even before Hurricane Irene devastated communities the recession had taken a heavy toll.  Central New York and the Southern Tier had been steadily losing jobs over the past years.  During the last decade the Southern Tier has seen IBM, Maple Vale Books and many other businesses big and small shut down or leave the area.  Drive through the small towns and witness the boarded-up businesses and empty strip malls.  Their children, faced with this blight and lack of opportunity, are deciding to leave New York for brighter opportunities.  Now landowners must deal with Hurricane Irene’s devastation on top of an already bad economy and they are close to the breaking point.

The excruciatingly long SGEIS review process has taken an emotional toll on landowners as well.  The contentious debate over the past 3 ½ years has left landowners feeling demonized for supporting the right to develop their land and it has divided communities.  It is time to move forward with safe, regulated drilling and allow the resulting job creation, cheap gas and economic progress to uplift and heal these communities.

This is a turning point for the region.  The landowners in Central New York and the Southern Tier have been patient but this process must come to an end now.  The livelihoods of over 70,000 New York landowners depend on Marcellus development.  And the economic uplift to the region will benefit all Southern Tier residents in the form of new jobs, tax revenues and abundant natural gas.  If New York passes on the Marcellus Shale opportunity, it will inconvenience the gas companies but they will survive and move elsewhere.  The opposition will chalk up another “victory” for the environment and move on to save the salamanders somewhere.  But the landowners will remain and try to scrape together an existence.  They will see their sons and daughters leave the area and they will likely follow; maybe over the border to Pennsylvania where they can find work and dream about what could have been in New York.

Richard Ferro, President, CIREB and Heather Briccetti, President and CEO, The Business Council of New York State, Inc.

Heather Briccetti attended a meeting of the Commercial and Industrial Real Estate Brokers (CIREB), marking her first appearance as a guest speaker in her role as President and CEO of The Business Council.

CIREB is a professional trade association made of real estate brokers and salespeople (all of whom hold membership in a local REALTOR association), property managers, real estate appraisers, attorneys, developers, economic development agencies and financial institutions. Its membership covers the Capital Region and its extended Tech Valley.

During her presentation, Briccetti discussed the Governor’s State of the State address and The Business Council’s legislative priorities for 2012. She covered a variety of issues, including the importance of public-private partnerships to spur economic development and the recent property tax cap. Briccetti also applauded Cuomo’s call for improving the effectiveness of the education system.

Ken Lovett of the NY Daily News writes:

“Gov. Cuomo will urge state lawmakers Wednesday to look at the successes of 2011 as a down payment toward moving the state forward this year.

In his second State of the State address, Cuomo will highlight the bipartisan cooperation that resulted last year in the legalization of gay marriage and the passage of a property tax cap, ethics reform and an on-time budget that cut spending.

“The theme of his speech will be building on the success of last year,” a source with knowledge of the address said. “Using the accomplishments, momentum and credibility generated last year to create jobs and grow the economy.”

In a year-end interview with the Daily News last month, Cuomo touched on a similar theme, noting that the dysfunction that has defined Albany for more than a decade was largely the result of the negative momentum of failure after failure.”

To read more click here.

Governor Cuomo released Building a New New York, a one-year progress report chronicling the strides the state has made in 2011. According to the report:

“In the 12 months since his inauguration, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo has
transformed Albany and made government work once again for the people. Passing a balanced, on-time budget, capping property taxes, driving innovative regional economic development, and enacting historic, fair tax rates, Governor Cuomo has restored New York’s position as a leader among states, restored confidence in state government, and put New York back on a path to job creation and economic growth.

From his first day in office to the close of this year’s extraordinary session of the State Legislature, Governor Cuomo worked closely with legislators and leaders from across the state to move New York forward. Through leadership and cooperation, they showed that progress is achieved when New Yorkers put aside their differences and come together.”

To view the full report click here.