Section 489-AA. Legislative declaration

It is hereby found and declared
  that continued operation of the interstate railroads in  the  state  and
  improvement  of  their  service  and  facilities  are  essential  to the
  commerce, defense, and general welfare of the people of the state;  that
  in  the  year  nineteen  hundred fifty-nine at a time when the financial
  condition of railroads in the state had deteriorated to the extent  that
  the continuation of vital operations was threatened, a partial exemption
  from  taxation  was  granted  railroad  property  in a manner which gave
  increasingly greater exemptions as the rate of earnings  of  a  railroad
  system  declined;  that  since  that  time  major  interstate  railroads
  operating in New York state have become bankrupt  and  the  earnings  of
  non-bankrupt  railroads  have  also  declined  substantially;  that rail
  services heretofore operated by the insolvent railroads will continue to
  be operated by new rail systems of railroad companies created  under  or
  in  compliance with federal statutes; that federal law requires that the
  property in the new systems be taxed  in  a  non-discriminatory  manner;
  that  in  order  for  the new systems to be viable the railroad property
  which will constitute such new systems should be eligible for a  partial
  exemption which reflects lack of earnings; that railroad ceilings cannot
  be  established  for the new systems under existing formulas without the
  expenditure of large sums  of  money  to  obtain  cost  data  on  system
  railroad  property  located  outside  the  state; that railroad ceilings
  established on the basis of the ratio   of the  operating  revenues  and
  expenses  of  a  railroad  system  will accomplish the same policy; and,
  therefore, that various provisions of the railroad partial tax exemption
  law applicable to interstate railroads  must  be  changed  in  order  to
  extend the partial exemption to the new rail systems.