New York’s new state budget provides funding for a stockpile of emergency generators so gasoline stations can keep pumping and avoid the shortages and long lines that plagued many downstate areas in the days after Superstorm Sandy.

The spending plan still being voted into law in Albany would create an inventory of generators under contract through a state agency that could be leased to gas stations in a disaster. After Sandy hit the Northeast last fall, New Jersey then New York had to begin even-odd rationing because the storm interrupted gasoline shipments for a few days.

Gas stations are now required to have backup power, but the state stockpile will provide a cheaper way to do it.

(AP)