The Cuomo administration is having trouble keeping its story straight.
Twenty-four hours after the administration confirmed its plan to award Amazon up to $505 million in grants for its new Queens headquarters would require the approval of the Public Authorities Control Board — an obscure state entity over which the Legislature has some authority — the administration walked it back.
In interviews with the New York Daily News and The New York Times Thursday, Cuomo budget director Robert Mujica said that in the case of the $505 million grant, the state could evade board approval, thereby denying the state Legislature a say in the matter.
A spokesman for Mujica confirmed Thursday night that was the state’s new opinion.
"When the time comes, a decision will be made as to which specific program will be used to meet our capital commitment," said Mujica spokesman Morris Peters. "As we have said, we have several options, including the use of programs that do not require PACB approval."
Empire State Development is the agency spearheading the general project plan for Amazon on behalf of the state. Though POLITICO asked both the governor's spokesperson and a spokesperson for Empire State Development if the grants would need control board approval — and Empire State Development confirmed it did — Peters said POLITICO should have asked someone else, instead.
"You didn’t ask the entity who makes the decision as to which appropriation authority is used for state spending," Peters said.
The administration's new assertion may well be correct — Mujica has a reputation as a canny manipulator of state funds — but it directly contradicts assertions made by the ESD.
The economic development spokesman also said the state’s overall land-use plan for Amazon would require board approval, something Mujica did not dispute in his interviews, and his spokesman, Peters, did not dispute in his subsequent emails with POLITICO.
The question of whether the board’s approval is required for the Amazon project matters because both houses of the state Legislature have veto power on the Public Authorities Control Board. State Sen. Michael Gianaris, who represents Long Island City, is fiercely critical of the Amazon project and is a powerful member of the Democratic caucus that will take control of the Senate in January, acquiring veto power on the board in question.
The Cuomo administration's waffling on the question of which aspects of the project require control board approval comes in the wake of an outcry over the state’s and city’s subsidies for Amazon — an outcry that has resounded across the political spectrum and appears to have taken state officials by surprise.