Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces Energy Affordability Package to Help New Yorkers Struggling With High Utility Costs and Soaring Gas Prices at[...]

Governor Kathy Hochul today signed new legislation as part of the FY27 Enacted Budget to hold the line on rising utility bills and make historic investments in New York's sustainable future. With this budget, Governor Hochul is standing up for utility ratepayers with $1 billion in one-time energy rebates, strict accountability measures on utility companies and aggressive measures to increase New York's clean energy supply to help keep the lights on and costs down. As the Governor enacts measures to combat skyrocketing utility costs, she continues making record investments in New York's nation-leading environmental protection initiatives, flood mitigation efforts and community preparedness amidst frequent extreme weather events.

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:

Thank you, everyone. Oh, Peter, it's so great to be back here. I know we do toy distributions usually from this room around the holidays, so we've been here many, many times. I also want to bring up to the podium a mom from Albany County. I'm not talking about me, this is a mom with a two-and-a-half-year-old and a 10-month-old who can speak to us from the heart about what the challenges are and how we're doing everything we can to help out families. So let me introduce Francelene Louis. Come on up here, Francelene.

I want to welcome our Mayor, although this is your home. Mayor Dorcey Applyrs, I thank you for being such a great friend of mine, and also the great work you're doing here in the city of Albany. And also, another Mayor who spent a lot of time in Albany, so - you're not running for Albany mayor, right, Steve? Okay, okay. All right, all right. Kingston Mayor Steve Noble, and I want to thank him especially because he has been unrelenting in driving up here and championing our SEQR reforms so we can build more housing, and telling his stories and talking about the importance of changing the laws on auto insurance and trying to drive down the cost for his constituents. So I want to give you a special round of applause for everything you have done as well.

Blake Washington, the hero of the hour, my Budget Director. Thank you. Thank you. He has been through a lot, and I've relied on him so deeply for his wisdom, his years of experience, but just his common sense, something that we cherish here in Upstate New York. And I want to thank him for often saying, "What about this?" A different perspective, so thank you. And again, Peter, I want to thank you and all the family at United Way for leading this organization, but also understanding that our missions are one and the same. I mean, we are focused on job training, food assistance, utility relief and doing anything we can. So, the United Way of Greater Albany, of the Capital Region, has always been on the front lines of protecting families when they need it most. So, we are joined at the hip in that mission, Peter, so thank you.

And you know, four months ago, I made a vow in the Capitol that I would work hard, tirelessly to tackle the high cost of utilities that are keeping New Yorkers up at night. And to do whatever we could, working with the Legislature, to protect these individuals, their families, from the exorbitant rate hikes that we had been experiencing, and really to demand accountability from our utility companies that sometimes spend, overspend and then pass those costs on to the families. And my friends, we stood up, we fought and we won. We got it done. We got changes. In a few minutes, I'll be signing a Budget that'll put more money back in your pockets, something we've been laser focused on my entire tenure as your Governor, and also just puts everyday people above excessive corporate profits. Those are our priorities. That's who we're fighting for.

So we have been talking about affordability. Since taking office, we've delivered over $5.5 billion in real relief to help families get ahead. That's everything from homeowner rebates to tuition assistance to paid prenatal leave. And last year alone, at this time we were talking about how we were able to put $5,000 back in families' pockets with the lowest middle class rate cut in 70 years, and that rate cut continues this year and on to the future. So we're continuing our tax rate cut.

We also put money back in pockets by tripling the Child Tax Credit - $1,000 for families under the age of, with a child under the age of four. That just started in your tax bill this year, so that's $1,000 back in your tax refund, as well as the inflation rebate that went to 8.2 million households getting that check when you just thought there was no relief in sight. And we also made school meals free for every child, lifting that burden and the cost off of families.

But the truth is, because of forces in Washington and what we're in for, it's not getting any easier on our families. You know, Donald Trump and his spineless enablers seem to do nothing, just seem to enjoy nothing more than attacking the middle class, the working-class people. And who benefits? You see the tax cuts for their buddies, the MAGA buddies. You could build a huge, garish ballroom with the money we'd like to see here. You can create a slush fund for January 6th rioters with the money. Would you rather see that here back in the pockets where it used to be and should be? Yes, I sure would.

In fact, last month, the President of the United States even admitted, "I don't think much about Americans' financial situations." Well, guess who does? I do. It's top of mind for me every single day, always, because as I've said, your family is my fight. I've lived through this experience. It is exasperating when you're trying to get ahead, and it just feels like the bills just keep piling up. And one of the great challenges I mentioned was the soaring utility costs. And the Trump administration is making it so much worse. They're waging a war on all the sources of energy where if we have more supply that'll drive down the cost, like offshore wind, a war on offshore wind, a war on solar energy. And also, a war with Iran, which is now spiking the cost of gas at the pump beyond what anybody could have foreseen just a few months ago. It is shocking. And too many times people just dread bringing in the mail. Remember that pile that gets bigger, and it's all of a sudden you're looking at that get bigger and at the end of the month, time to open up the envelopes - you probably all do it online. I do both. But it's, it's that eye-popping moment when you add it all up and say, "How am I going to do this? What do I have to sacrifice? What has to give to keep the lights on? Do I have to make sacrifices?" You know, on a hot day in the summer, keep the air conditioning off. On a cold day in the winter, keep the temperature really lower than you want for your little kids - people shouldn't have to make these choices. They should never have to make these choices between crushing utility debt and watching their kids shiver on a cold night.

And that's why this Budget, long fought for, and really important to deliver on this day, is inclusive of a comprehensive energy affordability package that really puts consumers first. And starting it off, a $1 billion energy rebate for New York families. We're going to send rebate checks of up to $200 out to roughly 8.2 million households this year. That's what's going to start showing up in people's mailboxes. When they start seeing those bills come in, they're going to see this relief come in as well, and know that someone, someone, and people in state government actually care about them, and we worry about them as well.

We're also establishing a robust Ratepayer Protection Plan - includes sweeping reforms to make the rate-setting process fairer by demanding fiscal discipline, transparency and accountability from utility companies. Working New Yorkers should no longer be subjected to higher rates while utility CEOs take extravagant trips or collect hefty bonuses that even make them richer. So utility relief is one way we're addressing affordability. I think it's one that's going to have a more immediate effect. That was an important priority of ours. But also, we talked about the high cost of auto insurance. When I learned that we had the highest auto insurance rates in the nation, some of the highest stage crash rates in the nation, I knew something had to be done and it could not wait any longer. So we're slamming the brakes on the fraudsters who flout the law, who are causing crashes - really, people are doing this, intentionally causing accidents, part of a whole criminal enterprise. We get a few unscrupulous lawyers. Most are not, I'll say that. I'm a lawyer, my husband's a lawyer, my son's a lawyer. Most are not, okay? But there are people taking advantage and scamming the system. And who pays for this? We all are with those high rates.

And also the laws that we have on the books related to liability, they're just far more expansive than any other state does, and that cost is being passed on to our homeowners, our automobile owners, our businesses, our delivery businesses, and it's been too much. And so I want to make sure that we stop this, as well as we're putting a cap on the profits for the auto insurance companies, right? This is money they're going to be saving. The whole reason we took on this fight, and it was a tough, tough fight, I'll tell you right now, taking on entrenched special interests was hard, but someone had to do it, and we did. But as a result, I'm not doing this to make the insurance executives richer. This must go back into your pockets, and that's why this is so important. We'll be the watchdog. We're going to make sure that this happens, and so we'll put a cap on profits for the auto insurance executives as well.

And also, you know, as the Mayors know this, we have to build more housing, and there are just too damn many barriers in place. I know this - you've heard me say this before - I worked 14 years in local government. I knew all the ways to let a - for a project to be greenlighted, and I also knew how to redlight it as well. We knew all the laws in the books, and this is what has been a problem, the NIMBYism, the inability to have the ambition just to say, "We need to build more housing in our state," because people want to live here. Young people are coming here. We are the number one destination for college grads. New York City, New York State, the number one destination. They're coming here.

But you know when they leave? When they start looking for a home to raise a family in. And it breaks my heart that the average age now is 40 years old for first-time homebuyers. It used to be 30, even lower. My parents had a little tiny trailer when they were teenagers when they were married, for God's sake. So there was always a way you could find a home. And now that dream is so far out of reach. These young people did nothing wrong. We have to stand up and build more housing so they can live the American dream as they've always thought they'd be able to do.

So we're modernizing the environmental review process, which is taking so long. I want to drive down all these delays, get rid of them, and that's called the SEQR reform. Complicated, but we're going to make sure that all the local policies and protections are in place. I trust my local officials to make sure that that happens. They don't need two extra years of review from the state of New York just to make them check boxes and add costs and delay. That's one of our problems, and we're dealing with that as well.

Also, any parents in the audience? Okay. Childcare. Childcare. Universal childcare. We're going to get it done. This year's Budget demonstrates our commitment. This is a signature issue for me. It's something I've been working on since I was Lieutenant Governor. I chaired the statewide task force on childcare and the challenges of parents because I was the only person who knew what that really meant. So I'm taking that experience and focused on this intensely. So we're on a path, a rapid path, to universal childcare across the state, because every young parent who looks at New York and says, "I want to be here," they should be able to, and that's really important to me. So they will get more details out on that, but it is happening, my friends. Working with the mayor in the city for the 2-K plan, right-sizing and properly adjusting the 3-K program. But even upstate New York, you know, why we're behind, why we don't have universal four-year-old programs in every community across the state. We don't, and I'm going to change that next year. We're going to be aggressive going after that. The three-year-old program, our pilots for infants to three-year-olds as well.

So let me close with this. There's so much to talk about. Over the last few years, we've really focused with an intensity like we've never done before on these issues, because it matters. I'm proud of what we've accomplished here. I'm proud of the relationship I have with our two leaders in the Legislature, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the leader of the Senate, Carl Heastie, our Speaker. We went through a lot, a lot of battles, working through a lot of challenges, but the result is an extraordinary Budget that puts families, New Yorkers first. So we are going to work on this, continue this, whether our entire affordability agenda, the energy rebate, the school meals, the lower auto insurance rates, universal childcare, and even anybody who used to be a waitress or waitress now, no taxes on tips. I was a waitress. I didn't get too many tips. I was a good waitress. I know it's - it had nothing to do with me. They just, you know, when you're buying a pizza, you just don't think to leave a tip for the person who had to clean up the mess at midnight on a school night. That's all right. I'm over it. But I do leave really good tips, okay? I do leave good tips now.

But all of this adds up. It adds up to making a state that is not just desirable, but affordable. And we're not done yet, my friends. We're just getting started. And so, for working families, if you could wake up in the morning and not have had that knot in your stomach, or don't dread the mail coming in anymore, and you don't fear logging on to your bank statement, then, if we can lighten the load for all of you, then to me, that is what public service, that is what this extraordinary privilege of being your Governor is all about, and I thank all of you who've been my allies in this. Thank you. Thank you.