Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces Plan for the $1 Billion Sustainable Future Program Supporting Climate Action and Jobs

Earlier today, Governor Hochul, while participating in the U.S Climate Alliance’s roundtable, announced the next steps for her landmark $1 billion Sustainable Future Program to accelerate capital projects in New York's transition to a cleaner, greener future. This historic investment will create good-paying jobs, lower energy costs for New Yorkers, and slash harmful emissions in the face of federal rollbacks

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 Casey, and thank you all who are joining us here today representing this coalition of forward-thinking representatives from 24 states that banded together really to show the world that despite what occurs in Washington — going back to 2017 — we can still band together and have a profound impact and that was really the birth of the Climate Alliance, which I would submit today in this era is more important now than ever before because the attacks are more incessant. And I would also say that, reflecting on what happened yesterday when our president called the climate crisis, “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” before the UN General Assembly — what we do is we gather and we become even more dug in in our commitment to lead the rest of our country despite the absence of leadership from Washington. So there was a con job — from a con man — and I also would say that he made some reference to we need to let us work together to build a bright, beautiful planet.

So say what you will, we will do our work and we will build that bright, beautiful planet because we are committed. So let's hold him to that. And so now this group working in collaboration is urgently needed. Our democracy depends on this collaboration. No one individual state has the influence to have a real impact on what is happening with emissions and our climate but banded together, the strength of one is what's making the difference. So we are proving the Climate Alliance states are proving you can cut emissions and grow the economy at the same time, which is what naysayers were certain was not possible. And a year ago, the Climate Alliance announced a commitment to train one million new apprentices across its states and territories by 2035.

We are holding to that commitment. We're doing our part in New York, but also today we are really proud to announce that we have achieved a 24 percent reduction in emissions for our 24 member states. That is ahead of schedule. It achieves the goals that we had set out back in — measuring ourselves back to 2005, a long time ago. This was set forth a few years ago, but to be able to achieve this goal of a 24 percent reduction at a time when the numbers were escalated to go down 24 percent — clearly within a range of hitting the target, which was set for 2025, which is 26 percent. These are 2023 numbers. So I have no doubt in my mind that. When we look at the 2025 numbers, we will have more than exceeded our goal of 26 percent. So, that is enormous. We should be proud of that and celebrate that and talk about that back in our home states to know that what they've set out to do was achievable, and we're going to continue building on that success.

So first of all, we build on the momentum. Secondly, we'll innovate new methods of going forward. And then really have to spend way too much energy fighting back the damaging policies out in Washington. This has certainly been a growth year for our lawyers. I can't tell you how many cases that we're involved with to push back on the Trump administration, but certainly anything related to climate, I will continue to devote the resources to do what is necessary.

So let me just give a snapshot of what we're doing here in New York while the federal government refuses to protect us. We will continue to build a healthy and safe future for our people and our planet. And this year I announced a Sustainable Future program, which is the largest single climate investment in New York history. A billion dollar commitment for decarbonization, clean energy and climate resilience. We're putting that money to work in every part of people's lives. At least $50 million will go to Empower Plus to help families transition, building heat pumps and making their homes more energy efficient to help reduce their costs as well as their consumption.

To date, we've already had 5,700 home upgrades and saved millions of dollars for our families and energy costs. We'll put another $15 million to our Clean Green Schools program to make our public schools healthier and more efficient. And for our State University system, we're investing $200 million to help their publicly owned building phase out of fossil fuels and $150 million for our green small buildings program to help upgrade housing as well.

So we also want to focus on emission-free buses, $250 million for that. Vehicle charging stations, expanding our infrastructure at workplaces and apartment buildings, as well as securing another $200 million to accelerate multiple renewable energy projects. That's what we do with the billion dollars in New York. And we're committed to this. And it was bold and it had a big price tag, but the price tag for doing nothing is even greater in our opinion. So this was an investment well worth making.

We're also thinking about how to bolster our energy supplies overall. And we are committed to being very ambitious and on June 23rd this year, I directed our Power Authority for the State to plan the first advanced nuclear plant in a generation, and I'm going to continue that we have access to our Solar for All program as well as, meanwhile in 2027, we're on the cusp of bringing in 20 percent of New York City will be powered by hydroelectric power brought down by Champlain Power Express that I announced during my first climate week when I was a brand new, unexpected Governor back in 2021.

This is something I committed to do, and we're almost done, and this is going to be extraordinary. And again, weaning ourselves off the fossil fuels. And some of you may have seen the news that we had to fight hard to save our offshore wind project that preserves thousands of union jobs. And also, we are on the cusp of completing this — the Empire Wind Project. And we'll be powering over half a million homes in Brooklyn next year.

And so it's still going to happen now because we were able to find the path forward. But I know there's other states, particularly New England, that's under attack. And we're here to stand with you to help thwart those efforts and to show that it is a viable form of power. It is renewable, it is clean. We want to make sure that we continue these investments in offshore wind. And as I said, we'll continue to challenge that in court wherever necessary. And again, I want to make sure we have the workforce. We talk about all this development, all these projects. It's extraordinary, but we have to have people who are trained in the skills that are necessary.

We announced that last year through this alliance, but also NYSERDA awarded $5.1 million to support our offshore wind workforce. We've trained almost a thousand people. We've launched our offshore wind training institute with $20 million, the largest private investment in workforce development of any state, and that is now certified 2,500 workers, which is why I'm going to keep fighting any efforts to shut down offshore wind because now I have the workforce, the investment's been made, the private sector has done their part, and so this is critically important for us to maintain the work that's been done and we hope to continue doing in the future.

We also see climate action advanced manufacturers as partners; we don't have to have a hostile relationship with them. And so we put $300 million towards something called the Power Up Fund to have power ready sites with clean energy to attract companies to New York. It is overwhelmingly successful. People want to go where it's already shovel ready, but also power ready — power ready with the power we want delivered to those sites. And we are holding up our polluters accountable for their grievous mistakes of the past. It's something I'm well familiar with having grown up within line of sight of the Bethlem Steel Plant in Buffalo.

And as a child, I thought the skies were supposed to be orange because that's all I saw was the smoke spilling out of the smoke stacks there. And in Lake Erie, one of the greatest freshwater lakes in the world, absolutely polluted the dead fish everywhere on the beach because they were being killed by the discharges from the plant into the water on a daily basis. So that's where I grew up. So I'm from birth, an environmentalist. In 2024, I signed the Climate Change Super Fund act, shifting the burden of paying for climate change mitigation, off of New Yorkers to the fossil companies themselves.

I know only one other state, I believe Vermont has done that as well. So, of course it's being attacked in court, but what's new? Every time we try to do something ambitious or to stop something bad, it ends up in the courts. And back in 2022, I announced that we had a $4.2 billion environmental bond act to help protect our natural resources.

I just want to say we're doing all this, but we cannot lose sight of the fact that affordability is critically important. I don't think that it was part of the conversation as much as it should have been in the past. It is now front and center on people's minds as the costs of tariffs are being felt, the inflation is not abating, despite the promise that prices were all going to go down on day one, as would utility prices. So we're still waiting for those commitments.

But we're continuing our programs to help people with credits helping pay their bills and with the inflation reduction act rebates, which make energy rebates more accessible. I just want to say this, we just refuse to be derailed by this and we just must hold firm and continue creative ways as we've done to protect the environment individually. I encourage others to look at our success with congestion pricing as well. We're the only state in the nation, the only city in the nation that has undertaken it. We can certainly have the opportunity to explain how it all works, but as much as you want to complain about the traffic this week, it would've been worse.

Since we launched this last January, there have been 17.6 million fewer rides into our targeted zone — our district. And that has resulted in extraordinary reduction in emissions in our city. And we can feel it. People are breathing easier. I know it's going to be a reduction in asthma and a whole lot of other ailments, but it is working and we're so proud of that, and we're using the investments from the dollars raised into investing in our public transportation system, our buses and rail lines. And that's the synergy of all this – it all goes toward a cleaner environment. And we're also fighting alongside California to defend the Clean Air Waiver Act. We're focusing on that, and we're joining other states with the affordable Clean Cars Coalition, advancing environmentally friendly cars.

So lots going on. We're proud of what we're doing, but we never rest on our laurels here in the State of New York. We're always driving ourselves hard. I want to recognize Amanda Lefton, my commissioner of DEC, who has a national reputation already. I and her entire team, and everyone at NYSERDA — I have the smartest, the best, and the brightest.

I'm so proud of those individuals because together we're going to make sure that we lead as a nation and our 24 states spanning together the collective talent around these tables is what's going to continue to set us apart as we even break and smash even more records that we set for ourselves. So thank you very much everyone.