I'm in NY too. From what I understand they changed the inspection procudure a year or two ago so that cars cannot pass if their is a CEL or code being read. The theory was that those codes could indicate something potentially wrong that would impact emissions and making it an inspection items forces peiople to fix it. Just disconnect the battery for 15 minutes to clear out any codes and take it back to the same inspection station. They obviously know how to reset the codes too, but by law their not supposed to do it without "fixing the underlying problem" -- phantom or not.