Tantrums in Albany

Say what you will about the Senate Majority Leader, Joseph Bruno, he certainly can turn a phrase, referring to Governor Spitzer as "some little rich kid having a tantrum." It was the day after our Jacob Gershman reported that Mr. Spitzer intended to embark on a statewide "shaming tour" dedicated to the proposition that it was Mr. Bruno and his Republicans in the Senate who stood in the way of progress in Albany. It struck us as a strange direction for Mr. Spitzer to lash out in.

Mr. Bruno, after all, agrees with Mr. Spitzer on the need for a new tax on traffic in Midtown Manhattan, what Mayor Bloomberg calls "congestion pricing." It was the Democratic Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, who blocked that initiative. Mr. Bruno also, like Mr. Spitzer, backs term limits for legislative leaders. It is the Democratic Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, who is blocking that initiative.

Yet Mr. Spitzer has for some reason decided to target Mr. Bruno, his ally. If we didn't know better, we'd suspect that Mr. Spitzer is picking on Mr. Bruno just because he is an easier target, who has a narrower majority than Mr. Silver does. A cynic might think that politics had something to do with it, as Mr. Silver is from Mr. Spitzer's own Democratic Party. No wonder that Mr. Bruno got annoyed.

By our lights none of the Albany bigwigs look particularly impressive at the moment. And speaking of lights, it is to the state capitol that the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers inconvenienced by yesterday's blackout can direct their blame. The day before the blackout, Mr. Spitzer appeared before the New York State Broadcasters Association to attempt to blame Mr. Bruno for the failure to reach a deal on a law governing the siting of new power plants in the state. In a section of his slideshow called "Unfinished Business," Mr. Spitzer said "In the final week of the session, the Senate Majority called it quits before the full work week was over. What did they leave undone?"

The first item was the power plant siting law. Mr. Spitzer noted that no power plants in the state other than windmills had been sited since the law expired in 2003, and he warned that "energy demand will outstrip supply by 2010." He posted a slide comparing his own plan, which he said fast-tracks "clean energy," with the Senate plan, which he said "Fast-Tracks Dirty Energy."

Sounds good, except that the people who actually build power plants in the state are crediting Senator Bruno for progress on the issue. A May 31 press release from the Independent Power Producers of New York, the trade association that represents power generators in the state, "applauded Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno and the state Senate for passing legislation to enact a fair and balanced power plant siting law in New York State." During the gubernatorial campaign, Mr. Spitzer actually said he favored shutting down Indian Point, the nuclear power plant in Westchester County that is an important part of the metropolitan area's power supply. So while Mr. Spitzer thinks the energy issue is something that "they" left undone, he bears his own share of responsibility.

The recriminations in Albany are entertaining for political junkies, but for ordinary New Yorkers stuck in the dark because Mr. Spitzer's personality makes it difficult for him to reach legislative compromises, that is little consolation. Shaming tours and insults are no substitute for electricity on a hot summer afternoon. Nor, for that matter, are they a substitute for a state and local tax burden more in line with national averages, rather than at levels such that even a news article in yesterday's New York Times conceded, somewhat remarkably given the source, that "The state is mired by a high tax burden."

It could be said that the exchange of insults in Albany seems to have generated more heat than light, and yesterday during the blackout, there was plenty of heat already, but not enough light. We understand that the blackout's immediate cause is being attributed not to a lack of power supply but to faulty equipment, but even so there's a widespread consensus that more supply is needed, with private capital ready to invest as soon as the legal and regulatory barriers are lowered.

Our own sense is that there is a growing fatigue in the state for these sorts of squabbles, and a wish that the lawmakers in Albany all around would stop running around the state insulting each other and begin instead to tackle some of the challenges that confront us. It might make for less lively headlines but at least there would be some light by which to read them.