From Newsday.com:

Spokesmen for Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Brunswick) and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) said last night that negotiations were continuing. Among the unresolved issues:

Property tax cap: Talks continued over Gov. David A. Paterson’s proposal to cap at 4 percent yearly increases in school levies. Senate Republicans, initially skeptical of the cap, say they now would support it if a sunset provision were added so the matter could be revisited in a couple of years, their spokesman said. The Assembly’s Democratic majority is opposed, fearing schoolchildren could be harmed if funding is diminished.

Bottle deposits: The Assembly has again approved expanding the 1982 deposit law to include water, juice and other noncarbonated beverages as a way of reducing litter. Bottlers and beverage distributors, who want to keep unclaimed deposits, are opposed.

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From Citizen-Times:

Republican leaders oppose proposals to ban smoking in state cars and near the entrances and open windows of state buildings.

House Republican leader Paul Stam said today the bills that won tentative approval in the Senate Tuesday -with many Republican supporters - seem like an attempt to “isolate smokers” and make them feel like “second-class citizens” rather than to improve public health.

An objection from Sen. Tom Apodaca, R-Henderson, delayed a final vote.

Sen. William Purcell, D-Scotland and a retired pediatrician, is the bills’ sponsor. He said smoke was damaging the cars: “One of the problems when they have a vehicle that has been occupied two or three years by a heavy smoker, they have trouble getting rid of the vehicle.”

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