ALBANY – A long-running feud over the final burial place for victims of the September 11, 2001, World Trade Center attack intensified last week following the passage of a Senate bill authorizing the removal of remains from a Staten Island landfill to an unidentified memorial site.

The debate over burial has remained largely out of public view, owing to the inability of legislators last year to advance a bill on the issue. The speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, is said to have scuttled talk of a bill last year because it would have called for the remains to be transported to ground zero.

“There was absolutely no way he was going to go along with the first version,” a source familiar with the debate said of Mr. Silver’s opposition to the original proposal. “He’s committed to economic development. He doesn’t want that site to be a graveyard.” The source declined to speak on the record.

The families of victims could see movement on the issue this year though, because a new bill in the Assembly does not specify where the remains would be brought. The Senate bill that passed last week is similarly vague, authorizing the transport of up to 480,000 tons of ashes from the Fresh Kills landfill to “a fitting site.”

The lead sponsor of the Senate bill, Thomas Morahan, a Republican of Rockland County, wrote in a legislative memo that the bill is intended to “rectify the indignity that families of victims have expressed at having their loved ones buried in a landfill.” The lead sponsor of the Assembly bill, Ryan Karben, a Democrat of Rockland County, said family members of victims have pressed for action this year.

“Many of the families reached out expressing their distress that the remains of their loved ones are in a landfill,” Mr. Karben said. “The pain was difficult enough of not getting bodies back, but to have no place to mourn, no grave site, no memorial was really very difficult. To have to go through that tragedy was horrible, but having to visit your loved one in a dump – no one should be subjected to this.”

Lawmakers in New Jersey have already passed a measure authorizing the transport of remains. That state’s involvement relates to its joint oversight with New York over the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which organized the original transport of remains to Staten Island. With a New York bill on the matter passed in the Senate, attention now turns to the Assembly, where the companion bill has been tied up since March in the committee that oversees the Port Authority.

The chairman of that committee, Richard Brodsky, a Democrat of Westchester, said the bill is under consideration. He also said the removal of the provision on ground zero makes the legislation likelier to pass, though he noted that the sheer volume of bills before his committee, about 500, could delay consideration for another year. “We’re looking at it very carefully,” Mr. Brodsky said. “I think that amendment has given it new life.”

Mr. Karben, meanwhile, said he is confident the bill will make it to the floor this month and then to Governor Pataki for signature.

“Passion is running very high and these 9/11 survivor families very much want this bill to be passed,” the assemblyman said. “They want to see this done by the end of the session, and I’m optimistic we will be able to do that.”

A spokesman for Mr. Pataki did not return calls seeking comment.