N.Y. must make amends for Tappan Zee debacle

Just about everyone – well, except certain state officials – recognized that New York was completely out of bounds with how it wanted to fund part of the massive Tappan Zee Bridge construction project.

The state wanted to get far too creative, seeking to borrow money from a federally funded program supposed to be used to help localities with water-quality improvement projects.

The state was warned not to go down that road – but it stubbornly refused to listen. As a result, the federal Environmental Protection Agency predictably and rightly rejected the maneuver, saying only about $30 million of the $511 million initially sought could be used in such a manner. The state is appealing and likely will lose.

What's more, the New York Authorities Budget Office has just come down hard on the state board that tried to get away with such shenanigans last summer. The budget office, an oversight board, chided the Environmental Facilities Corp for essentially failing to perform due diligence, for meeting only a few times about such an important matter, and "as a matter of practice approved loans for all eligible projects with little discussion."

Making matters far worse, EFC held no public hearings, didn't seek public input and "inappropriately used executive session to discuss the project."

Another bureaucratic layer in the process, the state Public Authorities Control Board, did mitigate the EFC decision by agreeing to authorize only about half of the $511 million loan and saying the money would be used for environmental concerns, such as dredging the Hudson River near the construction site and disposing the dredged material.

But the area's most powerful EPA official had questioned why the state didn't do more to engage federal regulators before authorizing the loan, and the Authorities Budget Office addressed this issue as well, saying "Once the board was put on notice by the EPA of its concerns, it had a responsibility to defer action until those questions were resolved."

The state needs to find the best way forward here after an obvious abhorrent process. The state Thruway Authority pegs the Tappan Zee project at just under $4 billion but the funding sources are unclear.

Fortunately, the state is getting a nice windfall from big bank settlements connected to the financial crisis that led to the recession. Some of that money, likely to be more than $5 billion, could be used for the Tappan Zee project. Whatever the state does, it should do so openly, and in a far more appropriate way than it has shown to date.