BILL NUMBER: S4403
SPONSOR: MAY
 
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the environmental conservation law, the parks, recre-
ation and historic preservation law and the executive law, in relation
to authorizing the attorney general to approve certain state land acqui-
sitions made for the purposes of land conservation
 
PURPOSE:
The purpose of this bill is to streamline and accelerate the state's
acquisition of land for purposes of meeting the state's conservation
goals by enabling the attorney general to use title insurance in its
process of reviewing land titles.
 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
This bill amends section 3-0305 of the environmental conservation law
and subdivision 1 of section 3.17 of the parks, recreation and historic
preservation law by providing authority to the attorney general to
approve title from commercial insurers where the title policy names the
state of New York as the insured.
The bill adds a new subdivision 17 to section 63 of the executive law to
provide that the attorney general's powers and duties include the abili-
ty to approve land acquisitions made by the state for conservation
purposes in accordance with amendments made above to section 3-0305 of
the ECL and section 3.17 of the Parks law.
 
JUSTIFICATION:
To meet the ambitious goals of New York's Climate Action Plan, the New
York State "30 x 30" law (CH.747 of the Laws of 2022), and to meet the
expectations of voters who approved the Clean Water, Clean Air, and
Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act, state agencies are directed to
protect and conserve significantly more land each year. For example, if
New York is to achieve one of its "30 x 30" targets, it is estimated
that the state and its land trust partners together will have to
conserve and protect approximately 225,000 acres per year over the next
eight years. However, based on the Annual State Land Acquisition report,
https://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/5069.html, the results of recent years make
clear that the state is not even close to attaining this pace. In 2020,
DEC & OPRHP combined acquired 6,005 acres, and in 2022, DEC acquired
4,416 acres. The backlog is caused in part by lengthy title review at
the Office of Attorney General.
Currently, the Office of Attorney General does not accept title insur-
ance and instead undertakes its own review of land titles going back 100
years or more. This standard is established by longstanding tradition at
the Attorney General's Office, not by statute, and involves long look-
back title abstracting, painstaking title review and often the time-con-
suming and costly pre-closing resolution of title issues that a commer-
cial insurer would consider a remote and insurable risk. Other states
and federal government land agencies, as well as private parties, share
concerns about title risk but have found reliance on commercial insur-
ance, used in combination with careful and thoughtful title due dili-
gence, to be a mitigation measure that is well-accepted for satisfactory
title risk amelioration. New York law requires the Attorney General to
approve title (see ECL § 3-0305(1) and PRHPL § 3.17(1)) but is otherwise
silent on the standards for acceptability. This bill will ensure that
there is statutory clarity with respect to the standard for accepting
title, and accordingly promote the policies underlying the 30x30 law and
other policy-based decisions that require the State to accelerate its
land acquisition. Providing in statute that N ew York State will follow
the modern practice of accepting insurable title will remove a barrier
to achieving the goals of many state programs.
 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
2023-2024 - S.6606-A (May) / A.7372-A (Thiele)
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
Undetermined
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
Immediately

Statutes affected:
S4403: 3-0305 environmental conservation law, 3-0305(1) environmental conservation law, 3.17 parks recreation and historic preservation law, 3.17(1) parks recreation and historic preservation law, 63 executive law