Senate Floor Session — Regular Session

In the absence of clergy, let us bow our heads in a moment of silent reflection or prayer. (Whereupon, the assemblage respected a moment of silence.)

In Senate, Monday, March 30, 2026, the Senate met pursuant to adjournment. The Journal of Friday, March 27, 2026, was read and approved. On motion, the Senate adjourned.

Good morning, Mr. President. There will be an immediate meeting of the Rules Committee in Room 332.

The Senate will stand at ease.

The Senate will return to order. Senator Gianaris.

The Secretary will read.

Move to accept the report of the Rules Committee.

Opposed, nay. (Response of "Nay.")

Please take up the supplemental calendar.

Calendar Number 660, Senate Print 9630, by Senator Krueger, an act making appropriations for the support of government.

There is a message of necessity and appropriation at the desk.

All those in favor of accepting the message please signify by saying aye. (Response of "Aye.")

The message is accepted, and the bill is before the house.

The bill is laid aside.

Is there a message of necessity at the desk?

Move to accept the message.

Opposed, nay. (Response of "Nay.")

Lay it aside.

Please go to the controversial calendar.

Calendar Number 660, Senate Print 9630, by Senator Krueger, an act making appropriations for the support of government.

Thank you, Madam President. I just have a few questions on this extender bill that we have, if the Senator would yield.

Absolutely.

Thank you, Senator. And good morning.

This is our first extender of what has been a pattern of late budgets in recent years. Can you just explain to us what -- I think we'll, if we can, talk about both of these bills on this debate rather than calling up the second one, if that's okay with you.

Madam President, I think we're taking up the extender bill first because of the time constraints, and then we'll be happy to take up questions on the other bill.

So you just get to ask me twice. Okay?

Thank you. So on this bill.

Thank you. Happy to answer that, Madam President. This is an extender that totals approximately $1 billion, and it is to meet our payroll costs to allow certain payments of the Department of Health Medical Assistance Administration Program, the Department of Law, the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, and the Department of Veterans' Services. This will go through next Tuesday morning, the day after Easter Monday. And I will tell you the date as soon as I -- there we go, April 7th. And I have more specifics of what items are within that, but that's pretty much the explanation.

Do you continue to yield?

The Senator yields.

Through you, Madam President. Quite a few things are left open, approximately the same number that we discussed last week when we did the budget debt bill. So I don't know how long it's going to be. I don't know how many more extenders there will be. I do want to make sure everyone understands that the Governor decides what the extenders are. That is not negotiated, so only she knows what extenders she will put forward, whether she will keep them as what we call clean extenders, just continuing payments that are already due. Because she technically has the ability to put pretty much anything she decides in extenders, which becomes a concern certainly for us when she goes beyond just doing clean extenders to make sure people continue to get paid and our bills continue to get paid. But for now we are where we are. We are hoping negotiations continue. I do know that senior staff are having three-way discussions and leadership is having three-way discussions on a variety of topics, but I don't have any details of finalization on anything major.

Do you continue to yield?

The Senator yields.

No, I don't believe there have been any announced follow-up meetings.

Do you continue to yield?

The Senator yields.

No.

Do you continue to yield?

The Senator yields.

That is technically correct. And it is my observation after 25 years here that Governors choose to not discuss the smaller and perhaps more likely actions until they have finished negotiations on the larger, more controversial. So it might not be what I would do if I was the Governor, but I haven't been the Governor. So that seems to be a consistent pattern of Executives.

Do you continue to yield?

The Senator yields.

So we still don't think we have full language from the Governor of what she's actually proposing. We have some language. We have an op-ed she put out about a week and a few days before that, I guess Thursday a week ago. But that's not really a budget proposal, it's an op-ed. We have rumored proposals. We have changes in plans by the Governor starting out with her original argument that CLCPA was increasing people's utility bills and then an admission that CLCPA had nothing to do with the increased cost of our utility bills. Although now that we're in Week 4 of the war in the Middle East, that seems to be having quite a bit of an impact on costs of oil and natural gas. So I wish I could tell you there was a specific proposal in writing to share with everyone, but we don't have one.

Do you continue to yield?

The Senator yields.

So our one-house proposal had quite a few suggested changes that we do believe would lower our utility bills. Actually, the current president up front has a number of proposals that would specifically lower utility bills, Senator Mayer's bills, we included in our one-house. I have bills that would put moratoriums on the building of energy -- excuse me, not of energy plants, of AI plants and cryptocurrency plants, because they are using up an enormous amount of energy. They get discounts and even tax exemptions because of the sort of as-of-right categories they fall under, so that they are skyrocketing use of energy at lower cost, requiring us all as ratepayers to pay more because they are using so much. And once their factories are built, they basically have nobody who works in them, it's all computer. So they don't create jobs even though they eat up our energy at huge discounted costs. And if we just stop them from going forward, we would significantly reduce the rate of growth of utility costs. And quite a few other states are going down the same road. We would like to go down that road also, but we need bills passed or included in the budget package. We are seeing that the states that are doing the most successfully with moving to green energy are actually seeing lowering of their utility costs. So wind, hydroelectric energy, solar, these are the models that are working very effectively. And perhaps the most promising, but we need legislation to move it forward, is battery storage that is basically creating a revolution around the world for improved access to and use of and cost of sustainable energy. So we think there are quite a few proposals we could be speeding along within our budget that would immediately offer reductions in costs. We also have called for increased money being spent for discount costs for low-income and middle-income utility ratepayers. So there's I'm going to say a good 10 proposals that we could see going into effect immediately that could have significant impact on our utility costs for ratepayers, particularly individual consumers.

Do you continue to yield?

The Senator yields.

So our recommendation is a moratorium for three years to allow the state time to create and evaluate standards for when things are approved or not approved. And again, to remind people that quite a few states are making the same decision, because they don't create jobs. AI would still be manufactured somewhere and be used here in New York. So there's no loss of our use of AI or, honestly, crypto -- although personally I advise against anyone using crypto. And it will not impact the jobs or the economic activity from AI. We just wouldn't be blowing up our energy demand and sort of doing damage to our natural resources, water as well as our energy grid, by not using it up on these yet to be even justified plants. But it would not end it per se. It would be a moratorium so that the state could come up with a mechanism to evaluate and to decide which have justification, which don't, what areas might make more or less sense to build them in. Right now there's almost no one making any determination in planning for the state or in answering the questions how much energy are they using, where will we get that energy, and how much more will it continue to drive up our utility costs.

Do you continue to yield?

The Senator yields.

I don't think either of those proposals were included in our one-house. You know, I will point out part of the catch of saying you're going to give back money that has been collected from ratepayers for specific purposes, as we know particularly on anything capital, those monies often get built in to be spent over an extended period of time. So one of the debates I think both sides of the aisle have had is the money that is raised through utility taxes, will it be used for green energy or a continuation of fossil fuel infrastructure? The truth is our infrastructure for fossil fuel is very old, quite damaged, needs replacement either with green energy or a continued replacement of the fossil fuel infrastructure. The money costs show it's much more expensive to rebuild our fossil fuel infrastructure versus building a new green infrastructure. So I would make the case you have real costs for going either direction. We're far better off, and it's cheaper and it's much safer, to go with green infrastructure. But it doesn't mean that you get off free and you can't -- excuse me, and you can possibly give back every dollar you've been raising into a 21st-century infrastructure and grid expansion. We need all that. I just personally hope that we spend that money much more effectively on green infrastructure, not rebuilding a failed model of fossil fuels.

Senator O'Mara on the bill.

Thank you, Senator O'Mara. Are there any other Senators wishing to be heard? Seeing and hearing none, debate is closed. The Secretary will ring the bell. There's a substitution at the desk. The Secretary will read.

The substitution is so ordered. The Secretary will read.

Read the last section.

Call the roll. (The Secretary called the roll.)

Ayes, 59.

Senator Krueger moves to discharge, from the Committee on Rules, Assembly Bill Number 10761 and substitute it for the identical Senate Bill Number 9631, Third Reading Calendar 661.

Calendar Number 661, Assembly Bill Number 10761, by Assemblymember Pretlow, an act to amend Part U1 of Chapter 62 of the Laws of 2003.

If the Senator would yield for a question, Madam President.

I do.

I just have one question on this extender here for the DMV continuing their operations and able to collect our fees that our constituents so love to pay -- that this extender is going out for two years. Why not just for the period of this extension?

Thank you, Senator. On the bill.

You know, it's concerning to me that we are putting this out two years while the budget isn't set. You know, the explanation of that's the way we've always done it is far too common of an explanation around this place. And we shouldn't be putting things out at this point with no budget in place and no specific policy in writing is my take on this, that nothing should be extended further than the length of the other extender we did. Thank you.

Section 3. This act shall take effect immediately.

Announce the results.

The bill is passed. Senator Gianaris, that completes the reading of the controversial calendar.

All those in favor of adopting the Resolution Calendar, with the exception of Resolutions 1821 and 1823, please signify by saying aye. (Response of "Aye.")

The Resolution Calendar is adopted. Senator Gianaris.

Resolution 1821, by Senator Ramos, memorializing Governor Kathy Hochul to proclaim March 31, 2026, as Farmworkers Day in the State of New York.

Thank you, Madam President. You know, before any of us woke up this morning there were already people across New York doing very important work. Those people are farmworkers. These men and women rise before dawn, they work through heat and cold, they bend, they lift, they harvest, and they carry the food that ends up on every one of our tables. Their work isn't just essential, it's foundational. There is no food system without farmworkers. There's no economy without farmworkers, there's no daily life in this state without farmworkers. And yet for generations they were excluded from the most basic protections that other workers in New York State sometimes take for granted. Not by accident, but by design. But farmworkers didn't accept that quietly. They organized, they spoke up, they demanded to be seen. And there's some history here, of course. From Chicano organizers like Dolores Huerta to Filipino organizers like Larry Itliong, who built the foundation of the farmworker movement, they showed us what dignity in action looks like. And that movement is still very much alive today in the work of the United Farm Workers and RWDSU, who continue to organize and raise standards for farmworkers here in New York State. Farmworkers carried this fight for decades, and I'm proud to have been part of the moment when Albany finally listened in 2019 and passed the Farmworker Fair Labor Practices Act. That law finally recognized what should have always been true, that farmworkers are workers and that their dignity is not negotiable. But passing a law is not the end of the story, because having rights on paper only matters if they are real in practice: If wages are fair, if conditions are safe, if workers can speak up without fear. And we also have to be honest about something else. We talk a lot about the cost of food in this state, but we don't talk enough about the cost of labor behind that food. You can't have cheap food and exploited workers at the same time and call that a fair system. If we want affordability, it can't come on the backs of the very people who feed us. And today many of those workers are immigrants, people who come here to work, to provide, to build a better life, and who too often live with fear. They feel fear of speaking up, fear of retaliation, fear of being targeted simply for showing up to do their jobs. We've seen how far that fear can show up in our communities across our state. And that should be of concern to all of us. Because a food system that depends on fear is not a stable system. It's not a just system. And it's not worthy of New York. So today, as we recognize Farmworkers Day, we do more than honor their labor. We acknowledge our responsibility. Because the people who feed us should never be invisible. They should never be exploited, and they should never feel like they've been left behind. If we value the people who sustain us, then our laws, our enforcement and our priorities must reflect that. Today we honor farmworkers across New York and recommit ourselves to making sure that dignity, fairness and respect are not promises, but guarantees. And today, Madam President, we are joined by Maria Martinez and Prijenett Flores. They are both organizers who are carrying on the legacy of Dolores Huerta out in the fields of New York and are here representing all farmworkers and organizers. I ask that you welcome them to our house. And with that I vote aye, Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President. I want to thank Senator Ramos for this resolution and for recognizing the very important work that farmworkers do for all of us. We would not have affordable food to put on our tables if it wasn't for the farmworkers doing this work. I proudly represent Cayuga County, which has the most dairy production of any county in the state, and dairy workers in particular work year-round, day in and day out. It's hard work and often dangerous work being around large animals. And I have visited a lot of the farms in my district and seen how hard they work and what good care they take of the animals. But year-round workers often don't have the kind of protections that H-2B visas give to temporary workers who come here. And so we are hearing from farmers in my district who are terrified about deportations or trying to track what has happened to some of the farmworkers that they really value very highly. I think one of the reasons we're seeing food prices go up is because we are seeing labor becoming more scarce and some of the farmworkers frankly afraid to show up for work, or the farmers holding church services and that kind of thing in their own homes so their workers don't have to leave the farms. It's a terrifying time for farmworkers and for the employers who care about them in my district. And so I think it's doubly important at this moment in history that we lift our farmworkers up and give them the respect they deserve. I vote aye.

Senator Gianaris. Oh, the question is on the resolution. All those in favor please signify by saying aye. (Response of "Aye.")

The resolution is adopted. Senator Gianaris.

The Secretary will read.

Senator Zellner on the resolution.

Thank you, Senator Zellner. The question is on the resolution. All those in favor please signify by saying aye. (Response of "Aye.")

The resolution is adopted. Senator Gianaris.

The resolutions are open for cosponsorship. Should you choose not to be a cosponsor, please notify the desk. Senator Gianaris.

Senator Comrie for an introduction.

Anyhow, there are young people on both sides of the gallery. And whatever we do as legislators, we should make sure that young people understand, appreciate civics and government. As some of you know, I've been trying to get civics back in our schools. It's important that we teach civics, important that we teach history. It's important that our people understand all aspects of our great state. So thank you, Madam President, for allowing me to take a minute to recognize them. And if everyone could please give them the privileges of the house. Thank you, young people, for coming up in the rain today, and I hope you have a great day. Thank you.

Senator Gianaris.

There is no further business at the desk.

Senate is adjourned until tomorrow, April 1st, at 11:00 a.m. On motion, the Senate stands adjourned until tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. (Whereupon, at 11:52 a.m., the Senate adjourned.)