Political Quotes

“I rise to introduce, with my esteemed colleague Senator D'Amato, a bill to eliminate an impediment to an important economic development project in Queens. The Queens West development is 12 years in the making. Construction of the first apartment tower should create 1,000 construction jobs, and the entire project should ultimately create 14,000 construction jobs and 10,000 permanent jobs. This in a county with unemployment two points higher than the State average. With the financial parties ready to go to closing this month, the title search turned up an impediment that threatens to make the entire project uninsurable, and therefore untenable. A portion of the development would be built on an area that in the last century was on the watery side of the historical high water mark of the East River. Since then it has been filled, bulkheaded, or otherwise developed. The Federal Government, however, retains the right of navigational servitude, which means the Government can condemn the area because it is still navigable in law, if not in fact. The only solution is for Congress to declare the area nonnavigable. This bill does so.”