New York State Senate Session - 03/12/2026

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to

nation under God, indivisible liberty and justice for all.

in Senate Wednesday, March 11, 2026 the Senate Membersuant to Adjournment Journal Tuesday, March 10, 2026 was read and approved. A motion to Senate adjourned without objection.

Good morning, Mr. President. Let me begin by reminding my colleagues that today is an important day in this chamber. Of course I'm speaking of the fact that it's Senator Andy Lanz's birthday today. But you know what always celebrates his birthday with the passage of a one house budget. But not to diminish Senator Lanza's birthday. But now he has to share it with Senator Zellner. Senator Jeremy Zellner who is new to this chamber but also has a birthday today. Not Jeremy Cooney nor Zellner Myre, but Jeremy Zellner.

Motions. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Mayor I wish to call up Senate Print 524 recalled from the assembly which is

Print 524 by Senator Mayor Enactment the penal law.

the bill was passed.

Adabo, Gianar's Krueger Ort Sukhot and Zellner Ayes 55.

I offer the following amendments.

SCOUFAS on page 15 I offer the following amendments to calendar 323 Senate print 15. Ask that said bill retain its place

The amendments are received and the bill retain its place on the third reading calendar.

Secretary will read Resolution 1722 by Senator Stuart Cousins resolution in response to the 2026-27 executive budget submission.

Senator O', Meara, why do you rise?

Senator Krueger, do you yield?

Thank you, Senator. Yields.

Thank you, Mr. President. So I'll start out by pointing out we've lost 9 billion in federal funds since the year before. Thank you, Donald Trump. And so of course, we still have to make sure we are funding those programs. And so we have to deal with the reality that once what was once funded federal money coming into our state, often even bypassing our specific budget, but going into our communities is no longer going into our communities. And so they are crying out for us to help them through the state budget. So that's I guess more than half the question just there. Then while there is an inflation number, inflation often runs behind. And what it doesn't factor in, which we also have to confront, is that costs since a year ago seem to have gone up 20% much due to these tariffs. Again, thank you, Donald Trump. That in fact the courts have now ruled are illegal. And yet the consumers have had to pay that cost in all kinds of ways. And even though the federal government has now been told they're supposed to give us that money back, nobody has any idea if they ever will and how they will we just know that the costs are skyrocketing for every consumer in New York specifically because of federal decisions. And we don't assume that those costs are going down, even though the tariffs have to stop, because when do companies raise their prices and then reduce them later? They just don't. So everyone's costs are going up. Therefore, there are more demands on the State of New York to come through for our citizens and our communities. And until this insane set of policies stop continuing at the federal level, I feel that this is going to continue to grow. The most obvious new example is the war in Iran, the impacts already

the cost of oil. I will quote a staffer who was driving up to Albany on Monday. We happened to be talking on the phone on business, and they said, you know, I really have to fill my car up before I get to Albany because if I wait till Thursday or Friday, it'll probably have gone up another 40 cents a gallon, and I can't afford that. I won't name the staffer, but I believe that that's exactly right. At the rate the cost of oil is going up. Thanks again to, I believe, very bad federal policy. We're going to just have to keep confronting new surprise cost increases, and we, the State of New York, are going to need to address those as best we can.

Yes. Above the governor's original proposal? Yes, Sir.

Are you asking the senator to yield?

Okay.

Do you, Mr. President, if the senator will continue to yield.

So we have a variety of tax increases in this one House proposal to raise an additional $5.6 billion in spending, which is, I guess your wish list is the Senate majority here continuing,

allowing a business tax that was going to sunset, to actually sunset, not letting it go forward at the same rate without sunsetting it as the governor proposed in her budget. Yet we're increasing the taxes on business in this state at a time when businesses are struggling. How much does that business tax extension and increase? How much does that add to the 5.6 billion in additional taxes we're talking about here?

And can you tell us, through you, Mr. President, can you tell us where then the additional $3 billion is being generated?

Of course.

Thank you.

Thank you, Senator. I guess I'm at least thankful that somebody in government is being responsible about spending. And while there may be some concerns over some actions that the Trump administration has taken, it's about responsibility and spending in government. It's about trying to improve the economy of this country. It's about trying to return manufacturing to this country, which is critical, which we're seeing leave New York State weekly. From the state to other states, we continue to spend more and put more burdens on businesses and households in just the cost of doing business, the cost of utilities, the cost of taxes and every aspect of life. And I'm glad you recognized in your kind of initial remarks that these costs do get passed along by business, because there's often a feeling in this body that the majority thinks that we can just raise these things on businesses and they're not passed on to consumers when they are. Every action we take that increases the cost of doing business doesn't mean that business is just going to automatically accept less profit. It means they are going to pass these expenses on to New Yorkers and to consumers. And that's what's been impacting the affordability, the lack of affordability of living and doing business in this state. But Senator, in addition to generating this $5.6 billion in new taxes and revenues for the state, you have some actions in here to allow New York City to increase certain taxes, primarily a 10% increase on the unincorporated business taxes in New York City. And far more concerning than that. That's very concerning. Far more concerning than that even is a 20% increase in tax on financial services firms in New York City at a time that we're seeing job growth in the financial services industry in major areas across the country. Texas, opening a Texas stock exchange very soon, these jobs moving to Texas, to Florida, to Tennessee. Yet we're going to increase taxes on those firms by 20%. And while at the budget hearing with Mayor Mamdani, who is asking for these increases, they showed a distinct lack of concern with financial service firms leaving New York State. And as they leave and those jobs

the source of revenue for us and the city decreases. What is your level of concern with the financial services industries departing from New York State? It makes up about 30% of our revenues at the state, not to mention what the city's generating for theirs off of it.

I will, although he asked a whole series of questions. So I'm going to go back to the first set of questions, which were not about the city tax changes, but overall tax proposals within this. I want to point out that we tried to be very careful in the taxes we decoupled from at the federal level and even some taxes that do have an increase for some companies at the state level, these are for large corporations, a few medium. But we recognize the unfairness of the New York State tax system because guess what, every time we do lower taxes for the highest income companies who are doing frankly, incredibly well, somebody else has to pay the taxes. And it usually is the small companies and it usually is startups who are trying to move from small or even one employee to a larger company. So we were very conscious about trying to make sure that unlike the Trump policies and taxes, we were not going to transfer costs to our small businesses. We were going to try to make sure we were making our tax system both progressive and fair. And again, very importantly, stopping the leakage of all tax costs translating to small businesses who are trying to stay in New York and grow in New York. And in fact, I would argue, I wish we had gone much farther and we did a little of it in challenging the kind of tax expenditures that we have in our system. So if you look at our state tax expenditure report, you will actually be able to find pretty easily billions of dollars that our largest corporations are not paying in taxes in New York because they have all kinds of special exemptions and credits and subsidies. I think we might be the state with the largest in the country at this point to the largest corporations, Amazon for example, and trust me, they're going to sell to us no matter what. We actually make them pay fairly in their own taxes. They're not leaving New York. And many of the companies even that my colleague pointed out, they could leave New York, they still want to do business in New York, they're still going to sell to us in New York. And so a lot of these taxes, it actually doesn't matter physically where their locations are, they still owe us the taxes. So sometimes I get told they'll leave and you look at what the taxes are and you go, well, guess what, you're still going to have to pay those taxes. But okay, if you want to double your cost by having to move everyone and build new warehouses somewhere, that's your business, but you're still going to sell the products across the lines to New York and we're going to tax you then. So, so when you look at the big picture, our tax policies can be so much fairer and more progressive and it will absolutely help our smaller businesses, our starting up entrepreneurs in New York, because again, when somebody over here isn't paying their fair share of taxes. Somebody else is usually the small guys and the individuals. So I want to do something about that. I want to do more about that. Now to shift to the New York City question. Thank you. So, yes, the city of New York came to us and said, help. We need help. And they put together a very long laundry list of possibilities. We said no to quite a few of the proposals because we thought those were not the best answers for New York City. New York City would have preferred. We just agreed to hand them the money. We do hand them some money in this budget. Right. Because we owed them this money. We never gave them AIM since 2011. We stopped giving New York City its 900 million in AIM in 2011 for financial problem, period. We promised to give it back, we never gave it back. We cut our our reimbursement on the administration of public benefits and social services. We promised to give it back, we never gave it back. We passed federal state laws at the state level to change the rules in child welfare programs and criminal justice programs for young people and said, this will be great. And then we told New York City, even though you're going to end up taking the vast majority of these kids and the responsibility for making sure this model works, well, we invented. Well, Governor Cuomo invented a way to claim New York City wasn't eligible to even file for it. So we've owed them a huge amount of money. And by the way, New York City's taxpayers send so much money here that they never get back. We tried to close that gap in a variety of ways, and I think that's absolutely fair and way overdue. So we said no to the city on many things. We tried to close gaps that never should have been there. But yes, we did give them permission to tax themselves and their businesses. And frankly, I think that they will think carefully about what they implement and don't implement. But if we don't give them the authority to do so, they can't. Because let's not forget, the only tax our municipalities basically can control themselves is their property taxes. And there are a few people who have suggested raising New York City's property taxes by nine and a half percent. And I don't know about everybody else, but if you live in New York City, you really can't imagine a 9.5% increase in your property taxes. So will companies. Again, there are only large companies that are impacted. Five million and more, I believe. Do I really think they're going to pick up and leave New York City? Some might. But the research shows that large corporations, and we're talking large corporations don't make their business decisions or their location decisions based on local marginal tax rates. So maybe my colleague's right, this will be a problem. But so far I'm not convinced and I actually have not been hearing a lot from corporations that this is a problem for them. Just saying. Thank you.

Sponsor. Continue to yield.

The authority that we're giving in this one house budget to allow New York City to raise unincorporated business taxes and the taxes on financial services,

the total expected revenue to be generated from those actions if the city pursues them to the 10% and 20% increase that you want to authorize them to do?

At least through you, Mr. President. If we could get to that where you think actually where we end up in the final budget bills by the time we get to debate those, that would be good to have that type of overall impact to that. Now, another through you, Mr. President, Senator Will yield.

I'm sorry, I'm getting an answer to the previous question as we speak, so say this again. The corporation's tax would draw in 1.5 billion, 250 million on the unincorporated tax change. Those are the two. Two answers.

Sponsor. Continue to yield. Sponsor yields.

I believe I remember. The number is 600 million. Oh, you've changed. Hello. Sorry, I didn't notice.

I traded staff.

Through you, Mr. President, the senator would continue

I'm

President, sponsor continues to yield.

another

for

Okay, so the adult shelter money is 500 million and the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families 193 million. And then there's also 263 million for certain foster care costs. Several of these were cut from the City of New York during the Cuomo administration. And so we see this as a replacement for money that was taken and never should have been taken. I don't know that this was cut from other localities. So this was not money taken away from other municipalities. It was just a, oddly, a Democratic governor and a Democratic mayor not liking each other and the Democratic governor deciding that he was going to punish a Democratic mayor in the biggest city in the state by cutting funds that he could get away with cutting.

yield, Sponsor yield,

One demand was that they numbered the pages this year. For me, it's helpful. It is helpful, Mr. President. My colleague is correct about what the governor did. And actually, happily, as I review ours, we also increased financial assistance to Rochester and Yonkers by 40 million each, Syracuse by 30 million, and Albany by 15 million, all above and beyond what the governor proposed.

Well, thank you, Senator. I've been informed that I'm out of town, but I'm just going to wrap up here. Out of time. Did I say out of town? Yeah, maybe both. But thank you for your answers. And this one House budget is. Is fantasy, but it's a very scary and concerning fantasy for the future of the State of New York. I'm glad there's been some recognition finally from the senator on the other side of the aisle that, yes, these increases may very well cause companies to move out of the state and take the jobs with them. That is of huge concern to us. The massive increases in aid to New York City, in addition to them allowing them to increase their taxes that they're going to raise, is just patently unfair to the rest of the state. Maybe a couple of the upstate Thruway cities getting a little more money in the end, but the rest of the state is not. And they have needs just as well. You're worried about the mayor threatening a 10% property tax increase in New York City, and I certainly don't want to see that. But I have municipalities in my district that are facing those same types of increases in property taxes to New Yorkers in my district and across the rest of the state, and they're not getting equal treatment. And my constituents and constituents everywhere in New York State are struggling under the unaffordability of living in this state. This budget that the governor has proposed and is then exacerbated by this one House proposal just makes New York State all that much more expensive and less affordable for New Yorkers to live. We need businesses here to provide jobs for people that live here because we're sick and tired of people leaving this state to find the opportunity elsewhere because we've taxed and spent our way into an unaffordability crisis in this state. Thank you, Mr. President.

I would like to ask a few questions, Mr. President, on the Medicaid area of the budget.

And I also must say that I'm very interested to hear of Senator Krueger's hopes and dreams to have adopted a budget by April 1st. I share that. I believe Senator Rivera yield for a few questions?

So when we look at Medicaid spending, we spend an awful lot. It's the biggest area of the budget fiscal for fiscal year 27, spending is projected to be over 100, approximately $120 billion. The state share has tripled in the last 15 years. It's increased nearly 60% in the last five years. And this Senate one house proposed budget increases the state share by 11.4% year over year. So the Senate one House proposal increases Medicaid spending. It eliminates the Medicaid cap and remove several executive deficit reduction measures. My question is, how can you reconcile this approach with affordability and fiscal sustainability?

Would the Senator continue to yield?

So the executive proposal increased year over year state spending approximately 10%. And when she did this, she also alluded to the federal government and indicated that she backfilled the federal government cuts. The Senate One House, however, not only continues what the includes what the governor had put in, it includes an additional $630 million in spending in Medicaid. Where's the $630 million going.

No

Through you, Mr. President. The biggest chunk of that would be for financially distressed hospitals, which I will remind you, Mr. President, is not just something that impacts safety net institutions in the cities or in urban spaces, but certainly in urban district and suburban districts and rural districts all across our state, there are many safety net institutions that are not just for this year, but over many years of disinvestment, falling on hard times. And so the extra money that we're proposing in this particular budget, number one, is certainly in this the biggest chunk is for distressed hospitals. But again, I'll remind everyone that we are not making we're making a dent, certainly. But the amount, the way that I put it is the cuts that we already suffered, Mr. President, from the federal government are like a bat to the side of the head. But come January next year, there comes the ax for the other side of the head. And so we're trying to do our best with the resources that we have to. You say back. My colleague says backfill. I say try to avert the worst outcomes for the most vulnerable around the state.

Sponsored. Yield.

Sponsor yields.

Through you, Mr. President. God damn, I keep doing that to the damn bottle. Let me just put it over here.

Through you, Mr. President. There is language in the bill that refers generally to working alongside with our assembly colleagues as well as the executive on finding efficiencies. There's no specific outlined savings proposal per se.

Sponsor yield.

Sponsor yields quietly.

Through you, Mr. President, there are a few ways in which the State of New York can and indeed does, find people who are abusing the system. Both the Office of Medicaid Inspector General, Omig, as well as a part of the Attorney General's office that investigates these types of crimes. And I remind my colleague that it is precisely the fact that we have investigated and found people who are abusing the system that any of the things that he is referring to have been found. So certainly none of us in this side of the aisle will ever defend those folks who are abusing a system, particularly one that, as I said before, not only serves the most vulnerable, but also is on the brink of collapse because of the federal attacks to it. So I am all for identifying folks who are being fraudulent or abusing the system and certainly would, as they say, want the book thrown at them. And we have entities in the State of New York that do that sort of work. I thank them for it and certainly would do whatever we can to augment their ability to continue to do that.

Sponsor yield. I will sponsor yields.

Through you, Mr. President. The budget itself doesn't have anything specific related to this, but I certainly believe that if there are entities, either in the state level or in the federal level that are looking to identify illegal and inappropriate actions, and they're asking for information to be able to determine that, that we should provide it to them.

Thank you, Senator Galatou, for it. Senator Helming, why do you rise?

Senator Bailey will be responding. Senator Bailey, do you yield?

Senator Bailey yields.

he yields.

Senator Bailey, in the executive proposal was. The executive proposal included reforming the definition of criminal Fraudulent act and increasing penalties for crimes involving insurance fraud. Does the Senate one house support those initiatives?

Through you, Mr. President, the sponsor will continue to yield.

Yes, I do.

Senator Bailey, what alternatives have you proposed to address auto insurance fraud and to hold back bad actors accountable in this one House budget?

to that through you, Mr. President, if the Senator will continue to yield.

I do.

Senator, in part F or part G, can you point to the language that says that the Senate majority intends to address this

language was very clear, Mr. President. If the Senator will continue to yield,

I do.

Senator Bailey, why did the majority reject the executive proposal? Reconfiguring the New York Motor Vehicle Threat Theft and Insurance Fraud Prevention board through

as

Thank you. Through you, Mr. President, if the sponsor will continue to yield.

Certainly.

Senator Bailey, are you happy with the way that the New York Motor Vehicles Theft and Insurance Fraud Prevention Board is operating currently?

Through you, Mr. President. Quickly on the bill.

So maybe happy wasn't the right term. However, all you have to do is look at the New York State comptroller audit of that board, the Prevention Board. They looked at a four year period and saw that the board is basically dysfunctional. They don't have a quorum present. They can't take action. The money that our ratepayers are putting into the fund to help control, deter, reduce fraud and reduce insurance rates, a large portion of that every single year gets swept from the fraud prevention fund and goes into the general budget. So I think it's something that definitely needs to be addressed. But through you, Mr. President, the sponsor will continue to yield.

Senator Bailey, in part ff, it appears that the Senate intentionally admits the executive proposal to extend the time frame insurers have to report suspected fraud from 30 days to 60 days. Why wouldn't the majority want to make sure that any suspected fraud that there's time to investigate it and to resolve

And when we see a well intended,

Mr. President on the resolution.

So I just want to point out that I appreciate Senator Bailey saying that the majority is going to work on the issue I of reducing preventing insurance fraud so that we can reduce rates to taxpayers or to ratepayers. But I'd like to point out that the language that the majority has included in the budget proposal is extremely weak. It doesn't make a firm commitment. It basically says hopes to continue working on this issue with its partners in the executive and assembly. And that's on everything. That's to hold back bad actors accountable to reduce fraud. But I'd like to go on the record as a ranking member of the Senate Insurance Committee, I'm deeply concerned. The Senate one House budget proposal intentionally admits just about every single proposal that would help reduce auto insurance fraud. This is a real missed opportunity to deliver reform and savings for New York drivers. We talk about affordability all the time. This was an opportunity to take proactive measures to actually put savings back in people's pockets. Motor vehicle fraud and stage accident schemes are not victimless crimes. Every fraudulent claim drives up premiums and forces honest New Yorkers to pay the price. Staged crashes alone at about $3300 a year to individuals car insurance costs in 2023, our state ranked second in the nation for staged auto crashes with more than 38,000 suspected fraud cases being reported to the New York State Department of Financial Services. As a result of all of this, New York drivers pay some of the highest auto insurance premiums in the country. I did some research and found that for many New Yorkers, auto insurance now costs more than $4,000 a year. And for people who live in the New York City area, it is much, much higher than that. I heard a comment earlier that when companies raise their prices, the costs don't come down. Well, guess what? It's different with the auto insurance industry and we have opportunities to bring those costs down. During the budget hearings, the Department of Financial Services confirmed that that enacting reforms will significantly reduce auto insurance premiums. In total, the Reforms that were omitted from this budget proposal by the majority were projected to reduce rates by about 12%. That's real savings that families, seniors, businesses, the municipalities. We heard that we should be watching over the school districts. Those are real savings that we're walking away from. The Senate majority rejected every proposal to reduce auto insurance fraud and lower premiums in place of real reforms. They offered only their hope to continue working on the issue. You know what? Hope doesn't pay anyone's bills. We need action to reduce insurance costs. And for these reasons and so many more, I asked my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to help make our state more affordable and reject this budget resolution before us. Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Mr. President. Would the this is on energy. Would the sponsor please yield for a couple questions?

Yes, Mr. President.

Senator Parker, quick question. You know, why is there nothing in the one house that reflects the governor's stated desire to roll back the elements of the clcpa? And this is like one of the most important subjects to all New Yorkers right now. What is happening with the utility bills? So why isn't there anything put in this one house

Mr. President, would the sponsor continue to yield?

Senator, with over 1.3 million New York residents behind on their utility bills, in light of the recent and troubling NYSERDA memo outlining moving forward, the CLCPA will have a very real financial impact on all New Yorkers. This is the time to see change. And we see nothing has really happened with real impact on the real mandates of the clpa. Nothing to protect our residents from the all electric mandates, nothing that increases all utility bills. This in the face of nyserda's memo. We know there was a memo that was out that said this chamber said that that memo was false, but we know that it was totally true. Obviously with gas prices going up, spiking household throughout the state, we'll pay thousands more on businesses costs is totally increasing. Again, what are we doing to help these 1.3 million residents that are behind on their utility bills?

state,

Through you, Mr. President, would the sponsor continue to yield, please?

Yes.

Mr. President, we actually have a number of measures in our one House bill that actually really address the real need of utility affordability in our great state. In fact, it's the Democratic Conference of the State Senate that five years ago came forward with the first ever utility package and we've passed it year after year after year in this very House with many of my colleagues, Mr. President, voting against it, things that would provide deep affordability to their constituents as well as mine. And so you have seen not just some of the things that the governor has put forward, but in our one House, we've actually expanded the number of things that we believe would provide more affordability around utilities, and we're bringing them forward as things that we're going to be negotiating in the final budget. And so, you know, I think that we're doing all that we should be doing and frankly, more. But let's also be clear that the CLCPA and the plan hasn't even been implemented yet. So you can't even talk about, like, any raising of utility prices being because of the clcpa, because we haven't implemented vast majority of the things. And the big thing that we were going to do, right, which was the offshore wind, once again got thwarted by Trump's administration. So time after time after time, we see the State of New York having to run to the defense of New Yorkers because of a federal government that continues to. To turn its back on us, that continues to go into unsanctioned wars and create energy crises globally, right. As we look at prices going up for all of our homes even as we speak. And so in this moment, we look at this one House bill brought by this majority that says the way forward is to do the thing that we've already said we're going to do, right, which is protect New Yorkers by providing clean, sustainable energy. And it's the law already. So what we're talking about doing is following the law. I know that this is a tough time for everybody, but this is New York. And when things get tough, New Yorkers get going. And what we're doing in this one House is our best efforts to make sure that we stay on course with the Climate Leadership and Community Protection act, because that's what we believe that we must do, provide leadership in our community and protect our climate while simultaneously making sure that we have affordability, reliability, and meeting the energy needs of our great state.

Sponsor yield?

Mr. President, through you, what we actually know about the CLCPA and what we know about cap and invest, which is also the law of the land that still needs to be implemented, is that two things, one, high energy prices are due to the global increase in gas, natural gas, which has not been, not been helped, in fact, exasperated by Trump's war. The second thing that we understand that a full implementation of the CLCPA and a full implementation of, of cap and invest actually would lower prices for New Yorkers making $200,000 or less throughout the state. They would actually all benefit from it. And so what we're doing is advancing that long term goal. I get it, people want gimmicks, right? And sending people a $30 check is a cute gimmick, but it actually doesn't create the structural kind of change that we need in our system. And that's what we're committed to, is really addressing the issues in a real substantial way. And so we stand here today proud of our one house because we understood the amount of time and effort and energy that both legislators and staff have put into putting these ideas together, making sure that they're cost effective, and making sure that we're addressing the affordability crisis that we have here in the state, especially around utilities. And again, this is not something that we started this year on. You can look at the record, we've passed this, you know, for five consecutive years and really tried to bring these issues to the forefront. And so in this moment, what we're trying to do is say, use the resources that the state has to advance the agenda that the law has set up, both the CLCPA and Cap and Invest, because long term our energy costs will be lower and our state will have the resources that it needs in order to meet the growing demand for electricity in the state. Let me be very clear. If the CLCPA was not in effect, we would still have the need to produce additional generation. And how could you in this moment argue that you should build more natural gas plants or coal plants or oil plants when the global price of natural gas and oil is what has everybody's energy prices so high in this moment? And so really the answer is sustainable energy, right? And then I have always argued for all of the above approach as it relates to sustainable energy, right? Sun during the day, wind at night, battery storage, hydro, cogen, all become part of a mix that will not just fuel our state, but also provide the kind of affordability, reliability and safety that we all need and desire.

I continue to be entertained in this chamber by people just creating numbers and saying what New Yorkers want. We all represent New Yorkers and I don't have a bunch of people beating down my door in my district talking about we want natural gas. That's literally not a thing, right? Look, people want energy and they want reliable energy. They want affordable energy. They are asking for us to meet their needs, which is what we have done in this chamber, at least under our leadership. And so I'm hearing two separate questions, the first of which is about money's being held or held by the utility possibly going to NYSERDA and what we should do with that. If you read our Mr. President, any, you know, close examination of our one house proposal tells you that our parts that address the, you know, what utilities should be doing through the PSC is that we should be examining these rate cases, really just having a real good look and not just giving rate cases a go just because they're brought forward. And in the case in which we find that the rate cases don't have merit and a refund is in order, we actually are suggesting in our one House that those refunds happen. The second question seemed to be about, you know, other things about, you know, energy. Let's be clear about this. We've been using sustainable energy in this state for 100 years.

Frankly, the base of our sustainable energy program is actually hydro. We have some of the best hydroelectric facilities in the entire world, starting with Niagara Falls.

And so this is not like some new untested thing or you know, as my colleague indicates, some kind of experiment. This is science. We actually, this is, this is a known thing. This is known as they say, right. And like we like to say in Brooklyn, what is understood need not be explained.

We have been doing sustainable energy globally for decades and like I said, you know, over 100 years, just here in this, in this, in this country. And so in this moment we continue to be committed to the CLCPA and the goals of the clcpa. We believe that what we should do be doing with the governor is working with her to look at the other options that are available. We have not addressed the issues around demand response, which is over 10%. There's lots of resources for us to do weatherization and you know, remodeling of buildings in order to save energy. We understand in our Green Collar Jobs act that we have not just, you know, not just that. I wrote 10 years ago that we have re upped, you know, for a number of years. It lowers people's energy prices, right. It, you know, reduces our footprint and also creates full time jobs at a living wage with benefits. And so the work that we have done around sustainable energy and the work that should be done with a full implementation of the CLCPA and Cap and Invest are going to be really, really important, not just for the future of the state from an energy perspective, but, but also for creating affordability, not just with utilities, but in the lifestyles of New Yorkers across our state.

Thank you, Mr. President. You know what this budget's supposed to be about? Affordability. You know what, this budget is out of control. $16 billion more than last year. And, and to do nothing to help our residents in New York State. Energy is one of the most important things topic today about people's utility bills. They can't afford them and they look at their bills every day and say, what am I supposed to do? There's a reason why we have 2.5 million people, residents of this great state that exited to go to Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, even South Dakota because of what's happening here. Gouging all New Yorkers in their pockets, in their pocketbooks. This chamber is doing this. I'm a very conservative person my whole life with plumbers, Local 200, with pensions, making sure to make sure that people can survive. And you know what they're doing. Our workers are leaving. Our pension people are leaving. They can't afford to live here with that pension. Especially what's going on here. Imagine that, a $270 billion budget, more than Florida, Texas, South Dakota and North Dakota combined. We could talk about our energy needs all day long. Our Nessie pipeline is finally coming in because it's a necessity. We had a meeting. We had a meeting before Sessions started making sure that that Nessie pipeline. We proved that we need to make sure that Nessie pipelines here for the future of our natural gas so we can survive here with our energy needs. To go sit there and say all electric, it doesn't work. We put the cart before the horse. We need to make sure that we invest in our infrastructure first, then transition into. No, it's always the cart before the horse with New York State. But there's the governor again. There she is. She sits there and she says affordability. Last year it was about discovery and that didn't happen. I think we're going to have a late budget, everybody, because of this situation, and I hope so. In other words, that we repeal the clcpa, we repeal Cap and Invest. And you know what? Start over, start over. New drawing board. That's how it's important, especially for our energy needs, for our future, for our ratepayers. They care about certain. They want their own fuel choice. They want their energy choice. And you know what, Mr. President, I will be voting a big no on this, first of all, because it helps no New Yorker in their pockets. And that's what New Yorkers care about. Thank you.

Mr. President, I'd like to go briefly on the resolution and then ask some questions on energy.

Mr. President, in Part RR of this budget resolution, the Senate majority is using the Clean Energy Fund, which is paid for by the ratepayers, to pay for $2,000 rebates on used Teslas. In part SS, the Senate majority is using that same fund, asking people to pay for who pay an electric and gas bill to pay for an $1,100 rebate for electric scooters and bikes. In part GGG, the Senate majority is asking ratepayers to give out $2,000 rebates for heat pumps through NYSERDA, paid for once again by ratepayers in part I, I, I. You're asking ratepayers to spend $3 billion more on new York sun to build a capacity of 20 gigawatts of solar by 2035. New Yorkers cannot afford their energy bills now. And with that, Mr. President, I would ask someone on energy to yield for a couple of questions.

I will.

Senator Parker yields.

Through you. Through you, Mr. President. Does this resolution use $2 billion in unspent clean energy fund and send them back to the ratepayers as been proposed by an esteemed member of our body?

There are.

Sorry.

With the sponsor yield.

Through you, Mr. President. Does your budget proposal here have a one year tax and surcharge holiday as has been proposed by a colleague here?

Through you, Mr. President. With the sponsor continue to yield.

Yes.

Yes.

Does this one house budget resolution repeal the system's benefit charge as I've proposed?

Through you, Mr. President. Would the sponsor continue to yield?

Yes.

Does this budget resolution repeal any piece of the CLCPA?

Through you, Mr. President. With the sponsor continue yield.

Yes.

New Yorkers have been screaming about energy prices for. For the better part of a year and especially over the last few months. How much of a reduction. If your budget resolution became law or became the budget in New York State, how much of a reduction in utility costs could they anticipate?

Mr. President, will the Sponsor continue to yield?

Does this one House budget resolution include Senator Omari's bill on ratepayer transparency? So they actually can see where every dollar on their bill is going to all of these things?

Through you, Mr. President, would the sponsor continue to yield?

The concern is specifically on green energy mandates. Will people be able to see what green energy projects are being paid for out of their utility bill? If any of those proposals, I didn't even see necessarily that they were included in this resolution. If they are, will we see any of that out of this resolution?

And through you, Mr. President, will the sponsor continue to yield?

Yes, sponsor yields on Cap and Invest. And I don't want to rehash a lot of the things, but cap and invest, NYSERDA estimates will cost New Yorkers about $5.7 billion in additional each year. They say that the program will add $2.23 per gallon of gas. They say that each household energy cost can anticipate $4,100 a year in additional cost to the ratepayer. They say that Cap and Invest will cost businesses 46% more in utility costs. They say that delivery trucks will cost 60% more to run. Is that affordable?

Thank you, Mr. President, on the resolution.

You know, Dorian Harris and NYSERDA has often been referred to as the experts that we're supposed to trust on these things. But it's amazing that we don't trust the experts. When they show New Yorkers how much this is going to cost them, that is their concern. You're happy to say, oh, the experts are all right on all of these climate models, but when we ask them how much it's going to cost, well, ignore the cost. You're ignoring New Yorkers right now and the experts. You don't want to trust the experts there. The Department of Public Service reported in December of 2025, this is before all of your offices started getting calls about angry ratepayers over the cold months that 1.4 million customers in the state of New York were 60 days or more behind in their energy bills already. One in eight residential customers for our utilities were already in arrears in December. Imagine what that looks like today. People can't afford. They're not even paying their energy bills right now. I don't know how I could say it any louder or how I could emphasize it on their behalf anymore. They can't pay what you've already done and you're asking them to do more. And you've ignored compromise. There's 63 senators in here. 29 of you have signed on to a letter saying we don't want to move on the CLCPA got it. Guess what? That's no longer the majority. The majority in this body says we do want changes to the clcpa. The majority of New Yorkers that can't afford it say that they want changes to the CLCPA because they can't afford their utility bills. Now you have an obligation not to respond to me, to respond to the people of the state of New York who are saying what you're doing is Unaffordable. And in your one House budget resolution today, you've completely missed that opportunity. Stop raising our energy prices. Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Mr. President. I would like to ask a question about HMH Article 7, new part KK, the gender affirming Care Access Program. Someone would answer that question.

I yield.

this is a new program that was created, the Gender Affirming Care Access Program. Does this gender Affirming Care Access program you're creating and funding allow minors to receive gender affirming care

Mr. President, sponsor, continue to yield.

I do.

All right, so you confirmed that children under the age of 18 will have access to this, but you brought up parents. So can you explain to me where in here it requires parental consent and parental notification to get that care? I don't see that here.

Sponsor yield, sponsor yields.

Mr. President, through you I will say it once again and now my colleague says it directly. There is no situation in which there will be some sort of transformation without a process that an individual goes through.

I have a trans niece, Mr. President, a trans niece who

in the worst place to live in this country at this moment. For her situ in Florida, Mr. President, after the election reelection of the person who currently sits in the White House, she works at a, at an Albon Pain or something like that. One of these places makes French sandwiches or whatever person, a red hat. Somebody wearing a nice red hat, orders a sandwich, sees my niece making the sandwich and then proceeds to berate her loudly and publicly in the restaurant saying I don't want that and then said a slur making my friggin sandwich, had to be escorted outside. My niece had to go back home. This person felt empowered to say these things. I believe that what we're talking about here, while it may be couched in a conversation about this particular piece of the one House budget proposal, has this broader stigma attached to it. As if though when we say gender affirming care, we're talking about kids being taken away from their parents and being transformed without their consent. That is not what gender affirming care is, regardless of what my colleagues believe or what certainly people in the right believe. And so I once again will say there's no one who is snatched from their parents arms and transformed into something that they're not and taken away from their families. That's not what gender affirming care is. It never was, it never has been. And this certainly does not provide for anything like that to happen in the

As opposed to that. It proposes the creation of a fundamental which would support individuals, parents and children that are going through this process so

do so with care and with love and with support.

So I really didn't get any real answers to the questions, but I appreciate your stories. There's another part of this bill that's also concerning for me. I was going to ask the question, but I'm not going to get it answered. And that's the fact that this money could be used to help pay for doctors liability and malpractice insurance. And we all are aware of the fact that there was just a recent New York case where a jury awarded $2 million to a gender transition patient who was transitioned as a minor. But later courts determined that she had been unlawfully pressured and the doctors ultimately were found liable of medical malpractice for pushing her to have the gender affirming surgeries. So now we're going to allow more of that and we're going to cover the cost for these doctors to do this. What's interesting about this is this. In New York State you have to be 21 to buy alcohol or marijuana. You have to be 18 to get a tattoo. If a minor wants to get their ears pierced, ears pierced, they have to have parental permission. And when they go there, they actually have to have a copy of the child's birth certificate and the parent needs to present their photo ID to prove who they are.

But if a 6 year old decides that today. I don't think I'm a boy anymore

That can happen with no safeguards in place. And this fund. This fund will allow that to happen. Now, I don't have an issue with someone who's an adult, who makes an adult decision about something that is irreversible. Irreversible. But I do have an issue with a child doing so. And that's the problem with this. It's reprehensible. And I'll be voting no. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. President. Would the appropriate senator yield for questions regarding HMH Part H?

Re yields through you, Mr. President. This has to deal with material transactions. There had been in place a $25 million threshold. Now, additional regulations will be in place when they exceed $100 million

when deemed necessary. Has there been any consideration to what this will do in terms of increasing Medicaid expenses,

We would.

through.

Will the sponsor yield? Yes, sponsor yields.

Right.

Mr. President? Certainly we should consider the conversation we had a little earlier about the extra money that we're putting into the budget that, into this one House budget proposal that some of my colleagues criticized that has to do with providing support to distressed providers. I'm certainly aware of parts of the state that are health care deserts or that have, or have a dearth of services. But in this case, what we're saying is that it is, this is not intended to, this is not intended to stop the folks who are good actors. Instead it is meant to dissuade those who are bad actors. And we found that that is ultimately

And it is not to dissuade individuals from acquiring, you know, healthcare facilities if they're going to do so. But we just want to make sure that we have a little bit of extra time to make sure that if you, if these types of, if these types of exchanges are happening, that they're being done as a, as a way to make sure that more care can be provided and not just some more money can be made by certain people that might be involved. And, and I certainly think that that's a good thing that the state should do.

Mr. President, what will eventually happen with this is that the patients who are unable to be seen because these mergers being denied over a six month period, huge fines being in place, is they will go to the hospital to be seen, which will drive up medical costs because everybody in this body knows that hospital costs for healthcare and Medicaid are higher than a physician's office. And that doesn't just have to be

So that's cancer care, that's OB care. That's across the board. Driving them into a setting that is more expensive will drive up Medicaid costs continuously. I will be voting now.

Thank you. Senator Ashby, Senator Borrello, why do you rise?

Senator gianares.

And as we search for the section of the resolution that Senator Burrell is referring to, let me remind everyone we're now 15 minutes away from the two hour mark. And so with the remaining members who have questions, just understand the time frame.

Senator Martins, why do you rise?

I believe Senator Harcomb will be responding. Senator Harcomb, do you Yield?

Senator Harcom yields the questions.

It does. It narrows the focus of what the governor was trying to do. We base through you, Mr. President, our notion of what this should be on a bill this chamber passed before Senator Maybill. Much narrower focus. Multifamily housing focused on urban and semi urban infill as opposed to sprawl and other projects that the governor had included.

Sponsor yield. Yes, Sponsor yields.

Through you, Mr. President. It would do a few things. One, it narrows and puts a finite timeline on the environmental impact statement. So that would be limited to a year. And then. Yes, essentially, if a property had been developed, redeveloped and was an infill site. Yes, it would effectively do that. As opposed to, you know, a new virgin site. That would be. That would be a different thing, Mr.

Sponsor yield.

Sponsor yields.

It.

Thank you, Senator. Mr. President, on the bill, on the resolution.

So that's, that's the issue with this particular piece, is that it presupposes that the local government, through their permitting process, has the same effect of secret, which it doesn't. Okay. Anyone who understands the process and the burden that this places on our local communities, on our villages and towns and cities, has to understand that merely saying that you can build 200 units in a community of less than 90,000 people without doing an impact statement and allowing for people and the developer to mitigate those costs is a mistake. Whether it's water resources, sewer resources, whether it is the impact on the local community, and whether it's a right fit, height, density, it doesn't speak to how big the property has to be, how many units per acre. It just says in a community. And there are various stages here you can build up to a certain amount with no impact. Now, the consequence of that, Mr. President, not only is that we're taking away the opportunity for a local community to properly gauge what the impact is, and they have every right to do so, but if you understand land use and you go beyond what the secret requirements are, and if they go and ask for a variance and an area variance. Mr. President, part of the determination of an area variance in a community is whether or not the impacts to the community are offset by the benefit from the project. And if you're going to presuppose that there is no impact from the project, you are already putting your finger on the scale and forcing that community to build, and you are undermining zoning in every community of this state. So for those of us who are concerned about the environment,

and I know, Senator, you are,

do we do that and not allow for those items to be properly measured and properly determined in a way that is respectful to that local community, this is a mistake. Secrets can and should be streamlined. But this goes too far. Mr. President, one more series of questions with regard to PPGG part L and PPGG part M having to do with immigration. If the sponsor would yield.

Thank you, Senator. I noticed that these parts were eliminated from the governor's budget altogether. Is that because the majority disagrees with the governor and feels that the governor has gone too far with regard to these provisions and therefore wants no part of it, or is it because you believe that the governor's provision doesn't go far enough and you want to address it outside of the budget?

Through you, Mr. President, if the Senator

Yes.

So is the majority taking a position with regard to the language? Does it not go far enough, or is it just too much and therefore you believe the governor has gone too far? I'm just looking for clarity with regard to the majority's position in repealing or removing these sections from the resolution.

And of course, through you, Mr. President. And of course, I'm sure the Senator means with every senator in this chamber as well. Thank you very much. And thank you, Senator.

Senator Borrello, why do you rise?

I do have the section now. Part VV of 10.

Mr. President. Sorry. Scribbling my notes.

Mr. President.

Senator, will the sponsor yield for a question?

Absolutely.

So interesting that 19 times in this section you struck the word citizen and replaced it with community.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Just. It's a broader term. It's more inclusive.

Senator Oberacker, why do you rise?

Senator Krueger, will you be responding?

Yes.

Do you yield, Senator Krueger?

Okay, thank you.

Through you, Mr. President, I will openly confess we predicted this question, and Senator Hinchey and I were able to have a conversation so I would be prepared for you. So thank you for asking the right question. So to answer, we created a funding stream previously to provide a grant program a few years ago to meet these needs. And it was a Senate ad. It's been very successful. And in fact, the funding was oversubscribed, so we did another year that hasn't gone out yet, but it's going out very, very soon. So I'm just reading the notes. The program was, for the first time, over subscribed. We did a second round. It should be going out the door soon. Ag and Markets did an RFP at the Hudson Valley Agribusiness Development Corporation is who distributes the money. And we have also funded them in the budget as well with a line item to help them with ensuring. Ensuring that this program continues to move forward and that the money does get spent. And I suspect if we were to ask Senator Hinchey on another day, she would say, sounds like we'll probably want to fight for this yet again next year.

Thank you, Senator Oberacker, on the resolution.

Thank you, Senator Oberacker. Senator Rhodes, why do you rise?

Senator Rhodes, on the resolution.

Thank you Senator Rhodes, appreciate your time. But we have reached that two hour mark where debate is now closed. We'll call the roll at this time.

go into vote explanations I remind the House that we are limited to 2 minutes per member to exclude explain your vote and we will be looking to maintain that two minute time frame. Senator Ryan to explain his vote.

I think it was said

respect to energy that not one thing was done for New Yorkers. I disagree with that. I take exception to that. I believe that we are passing a bill that adds additional inappropriate utility expenses for its review for the Public Service Commission. We are requiring utilities to return revenues in excess of their authorized return on equity back to taxpayers. And we're going to modify the executive proposal to limit utility recovery of retroactive rate increase charges back to ratepayers. I think that's a good thing. It's transparency and I'm dismayed as to why anybody would be voting against that. Second, I want to tell you a little bit about we talk a lot about energy prices and affordability and I think there's a lot of conversations and I think quite frankly a lot of misinformation. Quite frankly I think a lot of it's disingenuous. I had a little, I'll tell you quick story and this is why I'm talking. I had a little epiphany over the weekend. I happened to be visiting my brother and sister in law in the great state of Pennsylvania. My brother in law happens to be in the banking business and the commercial lending business. We talked about energy. We were talking a little bit of politics and he said, you know, and a lot of people aren't borrowing so much money because businesses aren't because of the cost of their natural gas in business and their utility bills. Point to that story is I would remind everybody that Pennsylvania is having the same problem that we are and guess what? They don't have the CLCPA that everybody keeps blaming that on. So and I also want to talk about the NYSERDA report that everybody keeps talking about. There's also another report to the New York State independent operators which talks about the price of utilities, the volatility of the gas market. And as I say back home, yes, you don't have to be an economist to understand that when the price of gas goes up and it's a colder winter and you use more of it.

Senator's gonna go up.

Start Senator Tedisco to explain his vote for two minutes.

Senator Rhodes.

Senator Tedisco to be recorded in the negative. Senator Murray to explain his vote for two minutes.

At the end of the day, I'm

Senator Murray to be recorded in the negative. Senator May to explain her vote for two minutes.

I vote aye, Senator May, to be recorded in the affirmative. Senator Harcomb to explain his vote on the resolution.

Senator Harcomb to be recorded in the affirmative. Senator Bailey to explain his vote.

So the last thing I'll say is

Avoid I. Mr. President, Senator Bailey to

It's ironic to.

It's ironic to hear my colleagues talking about affordability when in reality your policies are making the state less affordable. It's great to talk about the hungry and the homeless when your policies are creating more hungry and homeless. You're spending in this budget. When you took charge, we spent $164 billion as a state. This budget will be just to tick under $270 billion. A 61% increase in spending by the state. Inflation is at 2.4% this year. You're going to raise operating spending by 10.8%. Quadruple, quadruple the rate of inflation. And at the same time, you ignore policies introduced by this side of the aisle that would actually help the issue. HDRA taxes account for 5 to 6 billion dollars annually. We have a bill by Senator Gallivan that would repeal those taxes and actually save the average family $1,400 on health care premiums per year. No income taxes on overtime by Senator Martins. Senator Weber, A three year freeze on property taxes that would save every one of our constituents, every one of our property owners money. Myself with the single largest tax cut in the history of New York State, which could be paid for by slowing the rate of growth to the same 2% cap that every other municipality lives by. That would save the average taxpayer $5,000 a year. Those solutions you don't touch. It's more taxes, it's more spending, and it's exacerbating the affordability death spiral that the policies of this chamber over the course of the last eight years have put New York in. And this budget just throttles it up. I'll be voting no.

Mr. President, we've heard concerns about the situations in Iran driving gas prices up, yet there's no proposal for gas tax holiday in this budget, my colleagues across the aisle have boasted about how they're making New York more affordable for New Yorkers. But this budget only increases taxes and spending. We proposed a bill that actually slashes taxes for New Yorkers and even eliminates income taxes for most New Yorkers when it's fully phased in. It's called the Taxpayer Rescue Plan by Senator Rhodes. Yet it's nowhere in this budget. This budget is an increase of 11.5 billion from last year's enacted budget. Yet there's no relief at all on the massive energy increases caused by the clcpa. No plan to eliminate fraud, waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars. An $11.5 billion increase. And yet the basic needs of most New Yorkers are still not being met. This is another budget full of mismanaged special interest funding. And I vote no.

Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, this document is not a serious document. I think everyone in this chamber, including the majority, knows it's not going to see the light of day. You've promised everything to everyone all at the same time. And eventually, between now and hopefully April 1st, you'll turn around and you'll tell everyone that it's either the governor's fault or somebody else's fault, that you're not going to be able to actually write that check. You've increased spending by $16.1 billion year over year for state operations. Think about that for a second. If we could actually make this state more affordable by increasing spending, you've done it. But we all know that's not true because we all hear from our constituents just how unaffordable the state is right now. So what's your answer? You want to tax corporations? I've said it before. Corporations don't pay taxes. People pay taxes and they pay all of them. Taxing corporations is just what politicians do as a sneaky way to pass taxes on to people. Not right own it. You're not going to be affordable by just simply increasing spending. Mr. President, I vote no.

Thank you, Mr. President. In the short two minutes that I have, I hope I can cover enough and I hope I'm tall enough to address this tall order of a resolution. Speak on behalf of the people of Southern Brooklyn. The cost of living upon us is extremely high. It is very stressful. We are borderlining on struggling. We have utility bills that are outrageously high and over the past six, seven years, I believe they've gone up in upwards of 40% or so. Here we have with golden opportunity to give our ratepayers a tax holiday, saving them 25 to 30% over the next one year. In some cases, that can amount to 2, 3, $4,000. Yet nowhere in this resolution does it address that. My constituents are also very concerned. Right now in Brooklyn, we pay the highest auto insurance rates possibly in the country. We have no provision to address that. And when we try to address it, we talk about insurance fraud, but we never talk about uninsured motorists. Because I can say that almost every accident in my district involves some kind of uninsured motorists. As a result, the ratepayers of insurance premiums have to pick up that tab through their own policy. My constituents cringe every time our mayor speaks. They feel that they're being held hostage. Every time he speaks, my constituents feels

here comes the kicker. We're going to get fleeced with something else. We feel that the mayor is shaking down the state, that if he doesn't get what he wants, he's going to take it out upon the taxpayers of New York City and the residents. So on that reason, my vote is no.

Thank you, Mr. President. To explain my no vote on the Senate's one House budget bill. This budget is proposing an increase from last year's 254 billion to a proposed $270 billion is clearly not addressing our affordability issue. There are two key components that could have made a difference to every New Yorker's everyday lives that are completely ignored in your one House budget bill. Energy In 2019, New York State was 136% the national average on energy cost. In 2024, it is 152% of the national average.

We are an outlier against the national average. And oh, by the way, those are over the Biden years, not the Trump years. 1.4 million ratepayers are in arrears at least 60 days or more. As of December, that number could easily be twice that. Now. That's one in four New Yorkers are potentially already behind in their in their energy payments. And yet, and that's according to the Public Service Commission, Roy Christian, not our guy, the governor and your guy. A $4,000 increase for every annual energy cost for upstate homeowners and $5.25 a gallon for gas when the CLCP is implemented. That's according to NYSERDA. Dorian Harris, your guy, not our guy. These are your numbers, not our numbers. And yet this budget proposes to do nothing about the energy cost.

The other thing that's completely ignored is Medicaid. We spent $49 billion a year in this state in Medicaid. You've got the comptroller saying you've got a Medicaid fraud problem. There are some estimates that have been done on the outside that say that that number is 20 billion, billion a year in Medicaid fraud. Nothing in your proposal to do that. If we fixed even a fraction of the Medicaid fraud and you did something about energy, those are two areas that you would make affordability a reality for New Yorkers. I'm not sure this body should use language if you don't know the definitions of the words.

Thank you, Mr. President. You know, every budget year, we start off in this chamber talking about affordability, say we need to make New York state more affordable. And after every budget the last number of years, we said we address New York state's affordability. And yet here we are. Now, Mr. President, I think I might be a couple of years older than you, but, you know, when I see bloated budgets, it always reminds me of that Wendy's commercial from the early 1980s. Where's the beef? We found the beef. $16 billion more than last year's current year's fiscal budget. That's where the beef is. This budget raises taxes by $6 billion. Now, I thought we were going to deal with the tax issue, give serious middle class tax cuts. Maybe it's on a page that I didn't get, but, you know, this budget is not giving people the reasons to stay in the state. You talk about college age kids like my daughter, talk about younger generations of my kids in high school. You talk about retirees. What in this budget document is going to give them reasons to stay? It's not. And it just becomes more and more affordable. We had an opportunity to deal with utility relief. It's not in here. And unfortunately, people, as we heard earlier, are falling more and more behind on their utility bills without some of the changes that are going to happen. So, you know, it's unfortunate, it's a missed opportunity. I have the same hope that we'll get this budget done on April 1. So we have a couple of weeks to get this fixed. But we really got to do a better job than this I'll be voting no on this resolution and I encourage my colleagues to do the same.

Thank you, Mr. President. I'd like to remind my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that if you vote no on this budget, you are voting against a number of important issues. For one thing, you are voting against the construction money, the capital budget for SUNY and CUNY desperately needed. You are voting against SUNY and CUNY Reconnect, which provides a wonderful program of free tuition for people between the ages of 25 and 55 in high need areas of study. And you are voting against the free the no tuition increase that we imposed on when we took the majority in 2019. There has not been an increase in tuition for your constituents since then when in the past there was. And when you controlled this chamber, There was a $200 increase every single year and it was borne by your constituents. I proudly vote.

Thank you, Mr. President. You can't spend your way to solve the problem of affordability. If you could, New York State would already be the most affordable state in the union. And you know that. You've proposed a $16 billion increase over last year's budget. Just in your one House budget resolution that accounts to 11% in increased state spending over last year. People's salaries haven't gone up 11%. Their wages haven't gone up 11%. You've included $500 million in new funding for New York City public housing. $500 million in new funding for New York City homelessness. I was looking at the school aid expecting that you would invest in our next generation. I saw $285.3 million over what the governor proposed in foundation aid. My school districts are hurting with energy costs. They're concerned about the EBUS mandate, but I didn't see anything repealing that in your budget resolution. Their health insurance costs have skyrocketed and they've got a lot of concerns about special education costs in their schools. And yet for hold harmless schools in the state of New York. And if you don't know, that's two thirds of the schools in the state of New York. You're proposing a 2% increase in foundation aid. Well, you do an 11% increase in overall state spending. So you've showed me where your priorities are. This falls onto property taxpayers because school districts are going to have to go out. Unless they're cutting teachers from their school district, they're going to have to go out to the property taxpayers and ask them to pay a lot more. And it hurts our youth. So I'd ask you to consider that as you go on in budget negotiations. I'm not voting on a budget resolution today that's going to become law. This is your answer.

Thank you, Mr. President. Very proud to support this resolution today. We've had a lot of discussion today on the clean energy transition that we are investing in. I'm very proud that we're doing a billion dollars for sustainable futures and thermal energy networks and the Empower program and some other support. I want to just highlight a few of the housing aspects of the budget as the chair. This proposal includes $3 billion in new operating capital subsidies for housing. That includes really large investments in our public housing both in New York City and throughout the state, $100 million to support our Mitchell Lama developments and numerous other programs that this house has championed, including block by block and infill programs that are building housing in all of our communities throughout the state and the Small Rental Development Initiative which is working in smaller towns and villages in our rural communities. There's also a very large investment that we facilitated by this budget in the capital needs of both co ops and condo buildings and rental buildings in New York by expanding and reforming the J51 tax abatement program. Our proposal today is significantly more generous to the property owners than the executive proposal, and I'm sure that's something we'll be negotiating. We also recognize that people need services to keep them in their homes. We are investing $40 million in the Homeowner Protection Program and $60 million for tenants who are facing eviction. We're investing $30 million in our neighborhood and rural preservation programs. And finally, a big continued investment focus on rental assistance here. $250 million for the housing Access Voucher program, which has been successfully launched in the last couple weeks. And a separate program to pay the rent when people are facing eviction and the eviction rates in a lot of our communities are exceeding 10%. That is a program that we launched last year and has been already kept almost 1600 households in their homes with that and time is short. I will wrap up today just to say thank you for your for everyone's support for this and I look forward to continuing negotiations. And I vote aye.

Thank you, Mr. President. I just got here. Not 2019, but right now, New York State is under attack from the federal government. A trillion and a half dollars cut across this country for health care. Millions cut from subsidies in our own state that help our most vulnerable who need food subsidies and trillions taken from New Yorkers through illegal tariffs. So we have a job to do here, I guess, and it's to help maintain the services and programs that make this the Empire State and to help take care of the most vulnerable that the federal government seems to have abandoned. And I think this budget does that.

Senator Zellner to be recorded in the affirmative. Senator Borrello to explain his vote.

Thank you, Senator Burrell. To be recorded in the negative. Senator Scoufus to explain his vote.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you so much. First off, I want to thank all my colleagues for their participation. I want to associate myself with pretty much everything this side of the aisle said today. But I want to highlight my point. People are talking about affordability and Fraud, Those are important issues. We're looking at it the wrong way though, because I lived through all the years of Republican majority rule where everyone was obsessed about Medicaid fraud and they kept saying all these people are illegally using Medicaid. So what did we do? We did a bunch of Medicaid fraud reform, except nobody noticed. Medicaid fraud is the medical institutions, not individuals signing up for extra health care. It's the medical institutions. So please be aware, if we're going to go after Medicaid fraud, we're going after our hospitals, our nursing homes, our doctors, all of our health care providers. That's where Medicaid fraud takes place. And I'll be damned if I was. I'm going to defend them. I don't want anybody to go through fraud. I don't want to have to pay for fraud. Car insurance. We had a hearing. We learned that the car insurance companies are claiming they're on the verge of bankruptcy when they're having some of the largest revenues in the history of insurance. There's some kind of fraud here, but it's not the occasional fake lawsuit which then doesn't get through the courts anyway. So isn't really the cost of the skyrocketing insurance. We have too much fraud. And then we've all been really busy. But some of my colleagues had a hearing this week on white collar fraud. Do you know that according to the federal government before this president, it's the number one cost driver for everyone in this country? Over a trillion dollars a year of corporate fraud with a whole series of federal agencies who were supposedly going after it. Guess what? It's no longer in their job descriptions. A year later, we're not even trying to go after fraud. So you want to deal with affordability, go after corporate fraud. And then last night, by accident, I was reading about that. The IRS in the last year has basically ended any investigations of the ultra wealthy and corporate fraud in not paying their taxes. I'm always saying it here. If they don't pay their taxes, whoever they are, we pay their taxes. So you want to do something about tax rates? Please, let's do something about people committing fraud, corporate fraud, not paying their taxes. It's ridiculous. And finally, just because I've been here forever, I remember all the years of Republican control where everybody always talked about we're not raising taxes. So there's two models. There is borrow and spend. That was the Republican model, kept borrowing and skyrocketing long term costs of the state for the next generation. And the next generation or tax and spend. Personally, I want to stand here, be able to justify why we do sometimes have to tax people who we're taxing, but then be able to say we're not just kicking the can down the road for the next generations to have to pay what we spent. So I proudly vote yes to today. Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you so much, Mr. President. And of course, before I begin, I want to thank my deputy leader, Senator Mike Tianares, for once again helping guide through the debates of the day. I also want to thank his counterpart. Is this your birthday, too? Happy birthday. This is probably not your birthday present, but we're going to get out early, so you. Okay. So thank you, Senator Lanza, and of course to the Minority Leader Bob Ord, and to the ranker Tom o', Meara, and of course, special acknowledgment to the wonderful Senator Krueger, who again, countless hours spent on trying to get through what we know is only the beginning of, you know, one of the most important things we do here. I also want to thank Governor Hochul and Speaker Hasty for our year round partnership. And again, I'm always grateful that we are collectively rowing in the same direction. I want to offer my deep gratitude to our staffs on both sides of the aisle because, you know, none of this is really easy. But I particularly want to thank my senior staff and their crew, starting with Jonathan Lang back there somewhere. Okay. The Secretary of the Majority Counciling program, Dorothy Powell, counsel, Chris Friend, brand new Finance Secretary. Did great job for your first time out. Of course. Mike Murphy, our Communications Director. Emily Brueggeman, Deputy Director of Intergovernmental affairs, and all the staff members whose hard work and dedication made our one House possible. So let's give them applause. Thank you. And of course, I want to thank my amazing Senate Majority Conference who have spent untold hours not only in hearings, but, you know, on zooms. And thank you always for your invaluable input. I know I have to look back here and there for your invaluable input and for your constant advocacy not only on behalf of your own districts, but on behalf of all the people of New York State. State. Today we're advancing a one House budget resolution that defends our values, lowers costs for families across multiple sectors, and delivers for all New Yorkers across the state. Families are facing high costs. Municipalities are being asked to do more with less. And once again, we're seeing harmful actions out of Washington that Threaten essential programs people rely on every day. We've seen cuts to health care, to food assistance, to public benefits, and other basic supports that help keep families afloat. New Yorkers are under pressure and I hear from constituents every day in the same way you do about the stresses they feel in order to keep their lights on and to keep food on the table. I talk to young people who are uncertain about their job prospects and they're worried about whether they can pursue higher education every year throughout this process, I say, and we say that budgets are about our priorities. And this fiscally responsible and balanced budget resolution reflects our priorities. It protects essential services. It supports local communities. It invests in long term economic opportunity, and it does ask those who can most afford it to contribute more so we can continue meeting the needs of working people across this state. Our responsible revenue measures ensure the wealthiest individuals, large corporations and luxury industries pay their fair share. At a time when federal threat, threats and economic uncertainty are putting enormous pressure on our state and our local governments, we're taking responsible action to generate sustainable revenue so municipalities can continue delivering vital services and families can get the support they need. We're also continuing our affordability agenda with targeted investments that help New Yorkers lower everyday costs. That includes working towards universal childcare, which you hear over and over again today. Expanding access across the entire state. Supporting the child care workforce was a $500 million investment beginning implementation of two care seats in New York City and helping ensure more families can actually access the care they need. We're building on the work that we've already done to lower energy costs, strengthening energy affordability. New Yorkers have long been burdened by some of the highest utility rates in the country, with little to no transparency about how these rates are determined. And this cold winter has only exacerbated the strain these high bills place on businesses. Yes. And on families struggling to keep their heat on. This budget invests hundreds of millions of dollars in energy affordability and advances utility reforms to provide greater transparency, greater accountability and fairness for ratepayers. New Yorkers deserve utility bills. They can understand, a process they can trust and a government that is willing to stand up for them when costs go too high. We also continue our strong commitment to education and youth opportunity with greater investments into our school districts to provide the proper resources so that every child, regardless of their zip code, has the opportunity to learn, to grow, and to succeed not just during the school day, but beyond it. We support expanding program. I'm sorry. We support expanding the success of universal school meals by growing the Farm to School program to include breakfast and snacks. We're strengthening foundation aid with additional investments for high needs students, increasing transportation aid, supporting universal Pre K, investing in community schools, after school programming, tutoring, libraries, civic education, youth employment and yes, youth sports. We're also expanding higher education opportunities. This budget increases financial aid for students, supports workforce training programs, invests in suny, CUNY and community colleges. We're providing millions in tuition assistance, making it easier for our students to access this crucial help. We're expanding nursing programs across the state, supporting a bilingual educator pipeline. Higher education remains one of the clearest pathways to opportunity and we must keep this path open and affordable even as the federal government cuts down on your opportunity to borrow so that you can indeed contribute. On health care, this budget sends a clear message to New York will protect care, protect coverage and protect people at a time when federal actions threaten to destabilize healthcare access. We're directing the Department of Health to minimize coverage losses while strengthening support for financially distressed and rural hospitals, nursing homes, health centers and long term care providers. It also advances lower prescription drug cost costs. And we're providing funding, yes, for gender affirming care. In the wake of the Federal Administration's attack on health care for the LGBTQ communities, we continue major investments in reproductive freedom and maternal health. New York will remain a firewall for reproductive freedom and a state that continues to confront maternal health disparities head on. We're also strengthening mental health and behavioral health services because we know it all matters. We're also standing with our brothers and sisters in labor by strengthening labor protections, cracking down on wage theft, and we remain committed as a conference to reforming Tier 6 and improving benefits so that a career in public service can continue to be a pathway to stability, security and dignified retirement. This budget restores and increases arts funding, supports tourism and downtown revitalization. It redesigns aim which we have increased over the past few years so it works better for our municipalities. On housing, the Senate continues to take decisive action on to expand affordable housing, prevent homelessness, protect homeowners and tenants. We're investing in rental assistance, public housing and home ownership opportunities through the New York First Home Savings Program while strengthening support for nycha Mitchell LAMA preservation and raising the SCREE and DRI thresholds. We continue to lead on climate resilience and clean water and under the belief that investments in renewable energy will continue to lower energy costs for New Yorkers. This budget restores a billion dollars for the Sustainable Futures Program, increases the Environmental Protection Fund, increases clean water funding to work towards Lead pipe remediation, private well testing and drinking water grants. We invest in our local infrastructure, expand transit safety and affordability. This budget builds on our past historic investment in CHIPS funding, which, as you know, continues to support our road and infrastructure. And we provide resources to our crucial public transit systems in New York City and across the state. We're continuing to value our New York farms and the agriculture industry that sustains our state's economy. We know that without farmers, we won't have food on our tables. We're making targeted investments in safer communities, including increased funding for successful community violence prevention programs like Snug and providing help for our local law enforcement and first responders. We're strengthening human rights and justice by investing in legal services, including additional funding for the Office of New Americans. And we remain committed to achieving the goals of New York for all with our partners to advance solutions that protect immigrant families and ensure that every community in our state is treated with respect as we progress through this budget process. I welcome the challenging yet necessary conversations and negotiations with the executive with the Assembly. The Senate Democratic majority remains united in our commitment to ensuring New York remains an affordable, equitable and resilient place to live. And I look forward, as I'm sure you all do, to the work ahead as we continue negotiating a final budget that ultimately delivers for the people of New York State. So thank you for your work. And of course, we have only just begun. And just for everybody, this is the end of the beginning. Monday will be the beginning of the middle. Thank you very much, Mr. President.

relation to the resolution. Those voted in the negative are Senators Ashby, Barrello, Cancer, Fitzpatrick, Chan, Galloping, Griffo, Helming, Lanza, Martin, Matera, Murray, Obra or Palumbo, Rhodes, Rosa State, Tedisco, Walzig, weber and white. I38.

Mr. President, returning to motions for a moment on behalf of Senator Jackson on page 22, I offer the following amendments to calendar 443 Senate 5183 and ask that said bill retain its place on the third reading calendar.

We will be back here on Monday, March 16th at 3pM I move to adjourn until then, with the intervening days