Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Rallies With Leaders in Erie County to Deliver a State Budget Agenda That Makes New York More Affordable and Fights for[...]

Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Rallies With Leaders in Erie County to Deliver a State Budget Agenda That Makes New York More Affordable and Fights for Working Families

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul rallied in Buffalo with Erie County leaders to deliver a State Budget agenda that makes New York more affordable and fights for working families.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

 Buffalo is always fun to come back to, but we are in Cheektowaga right now and I have to say a couple things about Cheektowaga. It's the home of my husband. That was me decades ago sitting there in Town Park, watching him play softball, hoping he'd pay attention to me. Finally caught his eye and we went out for a couple of drinks - you know the bars in Cheektowaga, they're always fun - and we fell in love. We fell in love a long time ago, and we've rekindled that for, now, 42 years.

And so, I thank Cheektowaga for giving me the best part of my life, my husband, your former United States attorney, William Hochul, and the father of my great children who are also half Polish, the other half is Irish. But I want to acknowledge our leaders here today. Nothing like getting introduced by the Bishop - the Bishop. Tim Hogues, extraordinary leader in his own right, but also the head of my Civil Service Commission, I want to thank him for all he does and continue to apologize to Mark Poloncarz for taking him away, but I think he'll forgive me at some point.

But to Tim Hogues, to the Bishop, who's been my spiritual leader through some difficult times - whether it's a loss in office, whether it's mourning with families who had to endure the unthinkable horrible tragedy a few years ago on the East Side of Buffalo. So I've always admired and appreciated his leadership in our community, but also in my life as well. So let's give another round applause to Bishop Darius Pridgen.

Supervisor Shawn Lavin - I was so proud to represent Amherst as a member of Congress as well, and try to help you with a lot of your infrastructure projects. It looks great. I've been to Amherst many times and I want to thank you for all you do for the people of Amherst and Western New York.

Supervisor Brian Nowalk was absolutely right, okay? Travel and Leisure Magazine. Travel and Leisure, right.

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Fact check? I'm like a walking ChatGPT, just ask me. I know this, okay? Just ask Kathy. Just ask Kathy. Travel and Leisure this week cited Cheektowaga as the best place to live in New York State.

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I think I even posted it - if I didn't, come on team, we've got to post that. They celebrated its hardworking blue collar roots, something that I know all about, and I know what this community is all about, how tight it is, how people cherish it - the families, the places of worship that are so important in people's lives and the foundation it gives so many to do great things. And I want to thank my friends here in Cheektowaga and all over Western New York who've joined us here today, and all the other many, many, many elected officials.

But I'm here because I need you. I need your help. I'm in Budget negotiations, but it's important enough for me to leave Albany to come here, to start my barnstorming across the State of New York, back in my hometown because I knew -

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So here's the issue. I know what's happening out there. I know what it's like. I was a young mom having to clip the coupons and go to BJ's and get the diapers on sale, and trying to worry about whether I could afford to pay for the gas as gas prices were going up back in that era as well. I know what anxiety feels like when the bills start piling up. Pay your property bills, which are coming soon. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Whether you have to figure out how to pay for your car insurance, which seems to be going up, and up, and up and up even though you're a great driver, right everybody?

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Okay. I know you are. Or utility bills, like what is happening? What is happening? Why are they going up so high? It seems unlimited. And housing - housing. Like everybody wants to at least get that first apartment they can afford. And we used to be known for affordability here in Western New York, and we still are comparatively, but for families whose incomes might be stuck, they're not going up - it is still a big hit to get that first apartment. And the dream of home ownership.

Do you know the average age now for a first time homebuyer? Not long ago it was 30 - it is now 40. That is an entire decade where dreams are deferred, and these are young people who worked hard, who played by the rules, did everything our generation did, but now it's so much harder for them.

So I take that to heart. I internalize that. I'm a mom. I feel these things deeply when my children are hurting and I feel strongly that I must be the voice for all of them to let them know that they have a fighter, and I've identified the areas where I need your voices, not just here in Western New York, but all the way to Albany.

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Now let me tell you what the plans are so you can be very specific, okay? Okay? I'll help you out here. Let's talk about housing first. We need more housing built, full stop. Full stop. That way we get more supply, the prices go down. And why do I know this? There's a community called New Rochelle in Westchester County. Brand new mayor, and she has been unleashing thousands and thousands of more units. Their community's only 80,000 people and they approved 11,000 housing units - and they have more to come. You know what happened in that community? I was just walking there last week. Rents are coming down - not just going up anymore, not staying there, they're coming down. I think this community deserves that.

Now, there's something called SEQR law, right? It's important. It's important. It was passed about 50 years ago at a time - and most of you weren't even born yet, I'm looking around this room, but I was. I know what it was like when Love Canal was the raging news, and we grew up in an area where we were concerned about people's safety and health because of contamination that was in the soil harming people. It was horrible. National news, super fun - created because of Love Canal right in Western New York.

Secondly, Lake Erie. Remember Lake Erie? Picture this: little kid going on the beach stepping over dead fish that die because the chemicals from the plant right there, the Bethlehem Steel plant were being dumped in every single night. It looked like molten lava. Every night they discharged it into the water. We didn't know any better - we were swimming in this.

And the skies were orange. The smoke was billowing out. Sometimes you couldn't go up. Remember the Father Baker Bridge? Anybody remember this? You'd like turn on your windshield wiper because the smoke was so thick. That's the world I grew up in. So I don't know - if I'm not an environmentalist dead set on protecting our environment, then I don't know who is because I believe we have a moral responsibility to the people of today and the children of tomorrow.

So when I look at environmental laws, they're important. But there is one called SEQR that I spent 14 years on a town board down the road in Hamburg. And anybody who's ever been to planning board meetings knows it is tough to get projects through. It is hard. They throw up everything and they should. You have to prove that you're not going to hurt the environment, that you have enough water and sewer and traffic is under [control]. You have to manage all that for growth. I get it. But why a local government - Cheektowaga, or Niagara Falls, or Amherst - they go through this whole process. The town board wants it. The planning board wants it. They want to build more housing in their neighborhoods, more affordable housing units, more single family [units]. They want to do this, and then before they can do that, they have to do another two years of review to ask the same questions that were already answered on the front end and costing more and more money.

You know what happens? A lot of developers say, I'm just not doing it. I'm just not going there. So we looked at this and if we could just suspend this additional law when it comes to building housing and child care centers and clean energy infrastructure, just those categories, we can unlock so much more housing being built. I say let them build. Let them build. Let them build. Let them build. Let them build.

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Secondly, I am all about clean energy. $88.7 billion - $88.7 billion, an unfathomable number. That is how much has been spent on clean energy projects in the State of New York since I've been Governor, and I am proud of that. I am proud of that. And I want to do more. I'm on the path to do more. But let me tell you some of the headwinds. Let me tell you how the world has changed since our climate law, our nation-leading climate law was passed in 2019. Now, I can't send this world back to 2019 because it was pre-pandemic. What happened during the pandemic? Supply change stopped. The wind turbines that were supposed to power offshore wind were stuck in ports in Europe.

The cost went up, okay? Pandemic - everything, shut down. Followed by inflation, the cost of all these projects went up. Then we have tariffs. Tariffs are crushing, crushing the businesses that build these projects because guess what they're saying now? I can't afford to do it. And layer on top of all that, Donald Trump, who has personally told me he hates offshore wind, he hates solar, he hates renewable, and he wants us to start fracking here in the State of New York. And I said, "no and hell no." We're not going there. We are not going there.

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And I had to fight so hard. There's an offshore wind project off of Long Island, going to power half a million homes in Brooklyn this fall. It's a 10-year project and they shut that down - and I had to get that turned back on and it was tough. So let me tell you the situation, my friends: They have stopped all federal incentives to support renewable energy. Where are we going next? How do I deal with this? I have goals to meet. I have goals I want to meet, but I just can't.

And if we have to do it in an expedited way, like a court is telling us, you know what's going to happen? Your already high utility bills will go one place and that is higher. They'll go higher. And I cannot in good conscience - knowing the moms and dads and the seniors and the families that are struggling paying their bills now - I cannot do something I know at this very moment that's going to raise those prices. I cannot do it. And I will continue being the clean energy Governor - this is important to me. We will make these transitions but in a way that does not hurt our struggling families across the State of New York. We just can't do that right now.

So I just need a little more time. I'm not repealing, I'm just saying give us a longer runway. And I think that's common sense, and that's what I need you to say to your legislators in Albany. Just give her more time and she will do it. I'll continue doing it despite all these headwinds. So we talked about building more housing, focusing on SEQR law reform, focusing on how we can change our climate law just to slow it down.

But there's one other area, and I'm hearing this all over the State of New York - the cost of car insurance is out of control, Out of control. People are stunned. They're saying, "I've got a good record. What happened here? Why are my rates going up so high?" And I'll tell you, my friends, there are some factors. There are unscrupulous people out there staging accidents, literally trying to get a bus to smack into the rear end of them, cutting off someone else. They're literally creating accidents and there's this whole scheme going on where they've got lawyers who are representing them, they've got doctors who are over exaggerating the injuries. They're going to court and getting these jackpot payouts - and you know who pays for that? You do. We do. All of us do.

And I've just got to say, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute: Why does New York State, with I think very good drivers, have the highest car insurance rates in the nation? On average, $4,000, and I've heard worse stories than that. And it's $1,500 more than the next states around us. Why? Why? Because we have liability laws that are unlike any others, and they're just letting people who monetize this, who make a lot of money off these cases that they're bringing to court. And you know what? They're making money and that money's coming out of your pockets.

I say that has to stop. And that's the next reform I want. So that's where I need you. That's where I need you. So are you with me to let more communities build more housing? Are you with me?

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Are you with me to keep the cost of your energy bills down? Are you with me?

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Are you with me to change our laws so our car insurance rates will start going down as well?

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Well then let's get it done, my friends. Thank you.

Contact the Governor's Press Office