New York

Intergovernmental cooperation

New York State is a member of the Council of State Governments and its allied organizations. The state participates in many interstate regional commissions (and in commissions with the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec). Among the more active interstate commissions are the Appalachian Regional Commission, Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, Delaware River Basin Commission, Great Lakes Commission, Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission, Northeastern Forest Fire Protection Commission, and the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission. In 1985, New York joined seven other Great Lakes states and two Canadian provinces in the Great Lakes Charter, for the purpose of protecting the lakes' water reserves.

The three most important interstate bodies for the New York metropolitan area are the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, Interstate Sanitation Commission, and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The Palisades Interstate Park Commission was founded in 1900 (with New Jersey) in order to preserve the natural beauty of the Palisades region. The Interstate Sanitation Commission (with New Jersey and Connecticut; established in 1961) monitors and seeks to control pollution within the tri-state Interstate Sanitation District. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, created in 1921 and the most powerful of the three, is a public corporation with the power to issue its own bonds. Its vast holdings include 4 bridges, 2 tunnels, 5 airports and heliports, 2 motor vehicle terminals, 6 marine terminals, the trans-Hudson rapid transit system, an industrial park in the Bronx, and the 110-story twin-towered World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, until it was destroyed in 2001. Bridge compacts include those on the Buffalo and Fort Erie bridge, the Ogdensburg bridge and port, and the Canada and New York International bridge. Other compacts include the New York-Connecticut Railroad Service, and the Susquehanna River Basin Compact (with Maryland and Pennsylvania). Federal grants to New York state and local governments totaled almost $32.9 billion in 2001, higher than for any other state, except California.