March 17, 2026 · Environment/ Agriculture/ Housing · 4,138 words · 10 speakers · 31 segments
Alrighty. Good Evening, everybody. Happy St. Patrick's Day. Thank you all for being here. I'm sure there are other places you'd rather be than the Mothership, but. Welcome to the Mothership. This is something that's enshrined in New York State law, where we get together to begin the formal process of budget negotiations. So welcome to the first meeting of the Joint Conference Committee on Environment, Agriculture and Housing as we begin to discuss our recommendations for the 2026, 2027 enacted budget. As always, I'm always elated to be here with my co chair, my partner and my friend, Assemblymember Deborah Glick, as we work to protect New York State's environment. On the Senate side today, we are joined by State Senator Hinchey, Senator Serrano, and we also have Senator Martins as the committee ranker and Senator Helming as the alternate ranker. And the Senate has designated Marie Kelly as our recording secretary. And just a bit of housekeeping. Each member who is seated up here will have two minutes to speak on a variety of issues. So we have, we have housing, we have parks, we have ag, we have environment, we have energy. But we also have a lot of these meetings stacked up. So two minutes each. But first, I'm really pleased to introduce a great friend and a great colleague to introduce the Assembly Chair, Deborah Glick.
Thank you very much. I just want to say these microphones are more responsive than the ones in the other hearing room. I'm Assemblymember Deborah Glick, chairing the Assembly's Environmental Conservation Committee. I have with us today Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, Chair of Housing Committee. Assemblymember Donna Lipardo chairs our Agriculture Committee, Assemblymember Ron Kim, who chairs tourism, parks, arts and sports development. And we have as alternates Assemblymember Brian Cunningham and Assemblymember Jonathan Jacobson. On the other side of the aisle, we have Assemblymember Chris Tague and the alternate Assemblymember John Lomondez. We will be designating Dan Fosack as our recording secretary. And with that, we will begin going back and alternating with the Senate on making opening comments. And I give it to the Senator.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And again, I will just be very brief, giving a few of the environment highlights from the Senate One House. And then you will hear from other Senators on other subject matter. But what we have proposed in our one house, adding 138 million in additional funding for clean water infrastructure for a variety of programs. 75%, $75 million increase to the Environmental Protection Fund. We've added 20 million in capital for farm weather resiliency grants, 95 million in newer restored capital funding for parks, and 200 million for the Energy Affordability Program. We've also suggested another billion dollars for Sustainable Futures 2.0. And in that we have requested $250 million to recreate the New York sun program, which was an incredibly successful program. It helped generating distributed solar, which was cancelled by the Public Service Commission. So those are a few budgetary highlights from our one house. And with that I'll turn it back to Chair Glick.
Just a bit of housekeeping. We have at the table the Adirondack Park Agency, the Department of Ag and Markets, Department of Environmental Conservation, Office of Parks Recreation, Historic Preservation, the Olympic Regional Development Authority, the Energy Research and Development Authority, the Department of Public Service, Division of Housing Community Renewal, the State of New York Mortgage Agency, Hudson River Greenway Communities Council and the Hudson river Park. Our one house also increases the EPF by 75 million to 500 million. These are a wide range of projects and, and programs that touch every corner of the state. And these, they are almost always oversubscribed. So that is the bottom line is that these are dollars that get used everywhere for very important environmental programs. We've also added the to the clean water infrastructure, we move that from 500 to 800 million, accounting for a range of programs. And we also include a specific designation of 50 million for purposes consistent with the WIA to be allocated to cities through a formula. We also have $50 million for water infrastructure projects related to housing preservation in rural communities. And we are committed to ensuring that an additional. We make some suballocations to ensure that we have $5 million for Cornell Ag Tech and, and 3.25 million for the center for Sustainable Materials Management. There are a host of a very lengthy list of individual programs which will be part of our ongoing discussion. And I turn it back to the Senator.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And with that I will turn the microphone over to Senator Michelle Hinchey.
Thank you, Senator Harcom, I'm, you know, very thrilled to be here to support the Senate's agricultural proposal in the budget. As we all know, no farms, no food, so investing in our research programs is critical. And in our budget, we have advanced a number of proposals increasing funding for really important research programs across the state. But specifically we included $5 million for cows in capital and 5 million for cows in operating dollars, which they desperately need. And this will help make sure that we have more research, more learnings, more institutional knowledge in our agricultural sector across the state. Especially in our rural areas, which we know is incredibly important. We also have advanced amendments to the Farm to School program. Having universal school meals done in the budget last year was a really big win. But we want to make sure that the food that we are serving to our students are farm fresh and locally sourced from here in New York. And so we have amendments to the Farm to School program to ensure that we will be able to do that. And we have some amendments we'd like to keep pushing forward through negotiations which we look forward to. We also included $7 million new round of funding for farm worker housing money. And we increased the loan cap which we have heard was a big priority for our farmers across the state. And a new proposal that we have in our one house budget is $20 million for the farm Weather Resiliency Grant program. And this would be a really exciting proposal for us to move forward. The crop insurance program that exists does not work for New York farmers. And as we see especially because of the climate crisis, changing weather patterns, late freez, frosts, flooding, significant snow melts, all of these things, our farms, they lose crops and they can't, it wipes out significant revenue that they need. And when you look at the insurance programs, only about 11% of New York farms are covered, whereas in the Dakotas about 50% of farms are covered. And so this grant program would go to help stabilize our small mid sized family farms when they experience significant crop loss. And that's something we'll be fighting for in the final budget. And we're excited about the significant investments in agriculture. And I will close by inviting everyone after this to the SIP and sample event in the well to support local agriculture. Thank you.
Thank you.
Nothing could be more of an incentive for us to move this along. So with that I will turn it over to our Agriculture Committee Chair, Donna Leparda.
Thank you very much. Well certainly sip and sample goes well with St. Patrick's Day, so we're delighted to have it on this day. So we started off at a good spot. I think the Governor gave us a good place to begin on agriculture. We're generally on the same page with the Senate. The assembly has added about $16 million over the governor with some things that we typically try to restore funding to educational research and outreach along with supporting our various industries associations. The assembly also continues to support, and I know the Senate does as well, emerging farmers by restoring funding for farmland for New Generation Beginning Farmers Grant program and our socially and economically Disadvantaged Farmers Grant Program. We've also had to step up and to try to provide some support after we've had some federal cuts to higher education, most notably the cuts that occurred to maple research at Cornell. Also I know dairy had experienced some cuts as well. So we're helping out pro Dairy, pro Livestock and of course supporting all the investments in the College of Ag and Life Sciences relative to operating aid and capital. I do want to point out something that's going through several budgets in the assembly one house we do fund the New York State Natural Fibers Textile Working Group that had a request for $300,000 to be begin some pilot programs. But in two other places I just wanted to make sure people were aware that in the economic development budget we are putting $250,000 to RPI's continuing work on the Seed to City initiative. And in the UDC budget, this $2 million toward the industrial Hemp Pipeline initiative. It's all about growing a new industrial focus for New York State around hemp fiber. And I think we're all on the same page to increase funding for the Animal Companion Companion Animal Shelter Fund as well as accepting the governor's governor's offer of $30 million for farmer tariff relief for farmers, so long as we define the program and provide guidelines for the distribution of the funds. Thank you.
All right. Thank you very much. And with that we will go to our committee minority rankers, Senator Jack Martins, thank you.
Chair, thank you. It is the Senate Republican minority's position that the budget overspends and overtaxes and does not provide meaningful, anything meaningfully to address the affordability crisis facing all New Yorkers. $16 billion year over year. If you look at the Senate budget and $7 billion over the executive budget. So as can be expected, you are going to hear and we're all going to hear a lot of ads. We are disappointed that the hearings did not include meaningful participation of building owners large and small, whether they are large corporations or small building owners, people who are tasked with building housing and those we are relying on to build affordable housing as well as building managers and the workforce we're counting on to build that housing as well. So we look forward to working with our colleagues to make sure that every voice is heard with regard to this next effort to build and maintain affordable housing. To that end, we urge our colleagues to consider looking at rent stabilized housing. Frankly, we believe in the construct of rent stabilized housing, but it has to be made available for those who need it and cannot be restricted or used for people making multiple multiples of area median income. With regard to energy, we are concerned that there are no changes to the clcpa, regardless of the report that came out from NYSERDA as to how it's going to impact each and every one of our residents, not only with regard to utility bills, but the cost of energy and gasoline. And we urge our colleagues to revisit this. Because if there's one theme that we hear across New York State, across the state, it's the impacts of energy and the cost of energy on each and every household in New York State. And to the extent that we are increasing spending, we must prioritize making sure that we're making it more affordable for all New Yorkers. Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Senator.
We will move to. Since housing was mentioned, we were going to go to our housing Chair. But let me just say that locking New Yorkers into a future of energy provided by fossil fuels is not going to make New York more affordable. And with that, we will go to Chair Linda Rosenthal.
Thank you, Chair Glick. Commenting on the housing portion of the budget, the assembly recognized the dire need to shore up some of our most vulnerable housing developments and also to help promote home ownership. So we provide 200 million in additional funding for the H.A.V.P. program. The governor put in 50. We need 250 million. And this is supported by many, many groups. 250. The assembly provides 100 million for Michellama New York City Housing Authority developments and 50 million to support another round of down payment to families earning between 50 and 120% of AMI. We also restore and provide additional funding for land banks and. And 2 million for fair housing testing for a total of 4 million. Let me just say that we do not address rent stabilization in this budget. You know, in the city primarily, there's rent stabilized housing no. 1, when it was created. It is not means tested. It's kind of slippery to try to insert that language every time one speaks. So rent stabilization is not changing. You know, I guess try and try as they may. Last thing I'll say is that we also have 40 million for the Homeowner Protection Program, which the Governor put in. We appreciate that. And we need to codify the HOP program so we don't have to worry year to year if it will exist and be funded. Thank you.
Thank you, Chair Rosenthal. Our Senate Housing Chair, Brian Kavanaugh could not be here. He has a conflict down in Manhattan. So I've been asked to just give a few Senate highlights from the housing ledger. Very similar to what you heard from Chair Rosenthal from the Assembly. 500 million to New York City Housing Authority or NYSHA. 75 million for public housing authorities outside the city 100 million for Michal Lama preservation was 60 million for inside the city 40 million outside of New York City 200 million for the housing Access Voucher Program as was mentioned for a total of 250. 50 million for mixed income Rental Revolving loan fund for housing development outside of New York City 40 million for the vacant rental program, 40 million for the statewide senior housing program, 40 million in capital for the new Affordable Housing relief fund and then 30 million for the block by block infill housing program that was started last year. So that's a quick rundown on housing from the Senate side.
We'll now go to our lead off from the other side of the aisle, Assemblymember Chris Tague.
Well thank you Chair Harcom and Chair Glick and to my fellow colleagues for having the opportunity to speak today on behalf of the Assembly Minority Conference. I also want to say thank you to Chairwoman Lupardo and Chairwoman Hinchey. We've worked hard and fought for money in the budget for Cornell Cals. That's very, very important and I'm glad that my other colleagues have have seen the same moving forward. So as we enter the final stages of budget negotiations, we strongly urge that all discussions occur on a five way basis. This ensures the diverse perspectives of all New Yorkers, urban, suburban and rural and are fully represented in the final product. New York's agriculture industry is the core of our rural economies and and food supply and I am very pleased that the majority accepted $15 million for dairy infrastructure modernization, a critical investment that helps our farms stay competitive. We hope to build on this and ensure even more funding in the enacted budget, but unfortunately our farmers continue to face serious burdens. The Farm Labor Wage Board's plan to phase down the overtime threshold to 40 hours threatens the survival of many upstate family farms. These operations already operate on thin margins and long, unpredictable hours. Our farmers need meaningful support, not additional costs that make it harder to stay in business and continue feeding all New Yorkers. While additional Local Assistant funding is welcome, the current One House proposal does nothing to address these core threats to our agricultural viability. And we must also confront the real world impacts of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection act, also known as the CLCPA. New York contributes just 3% of US CO2 emissions and only 0.4% globally. Yet the majority has failed to address valid public concerns about implementation challenges. And a recent NYSERDA letter highlights the lack of clear, objective communication on costs and benefits. Residents are losing productive farmland, seeing altered landscapes and facing potential environmental impacts from large scale wind and solar projects with dealing with skyrocketing utility bills driven by these very same energy mandates and policies. In closing, I just want to say that the assembly minority remains committed to fiscal responsibility, spending discipline and an open transparent process. I look forward to working with my colleagues to deliver an on time budget that exercises restraint, supports our farmers and agriculture sector and addresses energy and housing affordability and meets the real needs of all New Yorkers. Thank you Chairs.
Thank you very much, Assemblyman. Before I turn it over to the next senator, just take a point of personal privilege and say very factually the cost of high utility bills has nothing to do with clean energy. It has to do with the price of natural gas. The President of NYSERDA has said that. The head of the NICIO has said that in a recent report. Natural gas is what's driving high utility prices. A price the kilowatt of solar, a kilowatt of wind is far cheaper than a kilowatt of natural gas or a kilowatt of nuclear. So just want to clear the record on that. And with that we will go to Senator Jose Serrano.
Thank you very much Mr. Chair. It's a pleasure to be here with you and my colleagues. Very happy to see that in our Senate one House we had funding for environmental justice initiatives considering represent the South Bronx in East Harlem with some of the highest asthma rates and many health disparities linked to climate. And these initiatives, environmental initiatives are very important from the park side. I'm chair of the committee on Parks certainly critical parks capital funding is very important, especially in our high use parks. Connecting more people to nature, to the great outdoors is something that we in New York understand is very important, especially for our youth. And we want to make sure that our wonderful state park system, which is I think the best state park, state park system in the nation has all that it needs to remain viable. A couple of initiatives that I'm very proud that we added funding to New York Swims of course, which speaks to itself, helping to connect more communities to learning how to swim and having swim infrastructure as well as New York building recreational infrastructure for communities, kids and seniors, otherwise known as New York bricks. Additional funding for that to create recreational spaces for our community for zoos, botanic gardens and aquaria. Increasing funding, restoring funding to 21.5 million is critically important. An additional 10 million for capital improvements. These are all things that we and our state really do enjoy and love and they provide educational opportunities for the sciences and really gets our students and kids involved. So I am very proud of the work that we've done in this one house and look forward to continue discussion as we move through the budget process. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will move to our chair.
Assemblymember Kim thank you chairs for kicking off the moderatorship meeting today. As the chair of the Assembly Tourism Committee, I have the unique responsibility of overseeing the Department of Parks, Arts and Sports through the lens of uplifting the experience economy of New York State. Recent surveys have shown that the next generation born into an AI world is moving away from an ownership toward experience mindset. I believe a combination of extreme over reliance of digital devices and the impact of AI technology has led younger people to seek more human face to face experiences. Instead of moving, instead of having more possessions, they're interested in visiting and having more unique experiences. And instead of fighting this trend, we should be leaning in and unlocking its potential, which is what we're doing today. As the Senator my counterpart has laid out, we're adding in the Assembly $60 million to the executive proposal, a total of $1.1 billion to the parks, uplifting New York swims, New York plus Place and our zoos and botanical gardens. In the final budget, I would like to see us investing in more public private partnerships like the Hudson Highland Ford Trail that will connect 7.5 miles of trail between Beacon and Cold Spring. We should be relaunching the Empire Summer State Summer, Empire Summer Games and the Empire Sports Entertainment Fund to help attract one time and touring events which we are losing to our neighboring states like Connecticut and New Jersey. And we must continue investing in our arts institutions and our creative workforce, including the tax credits for Broadway and film. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Senator.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And now the final participant from the Senate side will be the minority Alternate Ranker, our colleague, Senator Pam Helming.
Thank you. Senator Harcomb. There are many strong investments in the environment, agriculture and housing portions of the budget. And that's a good thing because when you think about it, it's these three areas that really directly touch just about every single New Yorker. What I'm hearing from my constituents is the same thing I'm sure everyone on this panel is hearing. The number one issue for seniors, for working families, for our farmers and for small businesses is affordability when it comes to housing. I don't know if you realize this, but New York State we have just about the lowest we rank at the bottom of the barrel for home ownership in the entire nation and our Rent costs are way too high. But in order to make housing more affordable for people in this state, we're
going to have to be real leaders.
We're going to have to figure out how to reduce property taxes, how to reduce the cost of utilities, how to reduce the cost of insurance, and how to reduce the regulatory burdens and all that red tape that just continues to drive up the cost of housing and everything else. As we look forward, I think that we can make significant progress in making our state more affordable by number one, reducing the state's costly energy mandates. And at the same time, it doesn't have to be a choice that we change the mandates or we protect the environment. I truly believe that we could do both. But we need to repeal the state's costly energy mandates to ease the burden on people who are paying the bills. We need a strategy that protects our environment without pricing New Yorkers out of the state. Action is needed now. I'd love to see more action in the state budget. We're losing way too many New Yorkers. When I talk to my small business owners, my farmers, everyone else, their second concern is workforce. I just heard today that over the past five years, New York has lost about a million people. We've got to stem the flow of people who are leaving this state and we need to act, enact real changes.
Thank you, Senator.
Just a couple of closing comments. The assembly does address the issue of affordability in our utility bills by providing a $2.6 billion rebate program and by instituting a two year moratorium on any rate increases that are done by the psc. So we are as sensitive as anyone to the issues that are concerning people. But I will reiterate what the Senator said. Our reliance on building very expensive pipeline infrastructure for natural gas is what's driving up our costs, when in fact renewables happen faster and are ultimately cheaper per kilowatt. So that concludes the Assembly's comments,
and I believe that concludes the Senate's comments. We want to thank you all for being here. Those of you in the hearing room and those of you watching us on your device, and to colleagues, all 12
of you, we really appreciate it from
both sides of the aisle. We thank you all for being here. Good night.