Weinberg Releases OLS Opinion Showing NY Port Authority Inspector General Would Lack Authority Over Bistate Agency

Weinberg, Kyrillos, Gordon Sponsor Senate Resolution Opposing NY Legislation Pushed by Governor Cuomo

TRENTON – Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) today released an opinion by the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services showing that the New York Port Authority Inspector General that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is urging the New York Legislature to create would have no power over the Port Authority without the passage of concurring legislation in New Jersey.

“It is time for Governor Cuomo to drop his vindictive and unfounded effort to go after Port Authority Chairman John Degnan for putting the transportation interests of the bistate region first by insisting that the Port Authority Capital Plan include funding for a new Port Authority Bus Terminal large enough to accommodate the 50% increase in ridership projected by 2040,” Senator Weinberg said.

“As the opinion we requested from the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services makes clear, a New York Port Authority Inspector General created unilaterally by statute by New York’s governor and Legislature would have no power, authority or jurisdiction over the Port Authority without New Jersey’s agreement. And New Jersey will not agree,” she said.

The nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services issued an opinion last week that bi-state entities created by compact under Article I, Section 10, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution – such as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey — are not subject to the unilateral control of any one state, and that the laws of one member state to an interstate compact are inapplicable to a bi-state agency created by that compact.

Senator Weinberg, Senator Joseph Kyrillos (R-Monmouth) and Senator Bob Gordon (D-Bergen/Passaic) introduced a Senate resolution Monday urging New York lawmakers to reject legislation introduced in New York (S.2010 and A.3010) that would create a New York Port Authority Inspector General.

“Governor Cuomo is proposing to create a New York Port Authority Inspector General with an authority so broadly defined that it encompasses virtually everything the Port Authority does,” said Senator Kyrillos (R-Monmouth). “It is designed to give the New York governor’s appointee virtually unlimited power to go after anyone, including New Jersey commissioners – which is why Port Authority commissioners from both states signed a letter in opposition.”

New York Commissioner Ken Lipper joined Degnan and four New Jersey commissioners in sending a letter to New York legislators on March 3 warning that Cuomo was seeking “to seize political control” of the Port Authority. “The power to control the Board and management with the threat of criminal prosecution and/or destructive reputational ruin through ethical indictment would give Governor Cuomo dictatorial power over the bistate Agency.”

Senator Gordon, who chairs the Senate Legislative Oversight Committee, noted that the creation of a separate New York Port Authority Inspector General serving at the pleasure of the Governor of New York would undermine the independence and authority of the Port Authority’s duly constituted Office of the Inspector General, which has conducted more than 1,700 investigations since its creation in 1992.

“If Governor Cuomo suspects wrongdoing or ethical misconduct, he should ask the existing Office of the Inspector General for a ruling,” Senator Gordon said. “Just because he disagrees with a ruling doesn’t mean he gets to create his own Inspector Javert.”