From WXXI news.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection.

This hour was made at the end of May when the New York State Legislature finally passed the state budget.

The latest budget in nearly 20 years to $269 billion budget plan.

And there were contentious issues that held things up throughout the spring.

In the end, Governor Kathy Hochul won some reforms to auto insurance.

She was able to push back climate and environmental goals, so much so that The New York Times declared the New York state has punted its status as a climate leader.

Well, there's plenty to discuss with your elected leaders.

And today we begin that series of conversations with Assembly member Jen Lunsford.

I wrote down district number 135.

Still correct.

That's the right.

Number.

Yes.

Congratulations.

You know, it's been a little while, so I got it.

Jen Lunsford, district 135, Assembly member.

Welcome back.

Thanks for making the time for the program.

Always happy to be here.

And does it annoy you to hear people talk about how late this budget was?

I mean, or did you think there's legitimate grievance from the public for being there?

It was also annoying to me.

Yes.

You know, timely budget is what matters to me.

If it's done April 1st or April 7th, that doesn't make a huge difference.

But when you start to get into May, you impact school budgets, you impact other municipal budgets.

That becomes a real practical problem for people.

And it wildly contracted our ability to do legislative work.

We really only have seven legislative days after the budget passed, and it made our legislative calendar very, very difficult this year.

Why was it so late?

Because there were a lot of issues that were, holding us hostage, frankly, issues that we weren't able to get past to then work on the more material parts of the budget that deal with fiscal issues like car insurance, like climate, some of the issues around Ice, these were things, there were some, issues relating to seeker that were intractable for practically the entire month of March and April.

Explain what speaker is for people who just heard that for the first time.

That is a, state law that requires, environmental review of properties before building occurs.

Yeah.

So we're going to get it more into the climate stuff in just a moment here.

But in, in general, you know, I think the public sees a legislature where Democrats have control in the Assembly, in the Senate, and they've got the governor's, House.

And they're going like, well, what is holding you up?

Well, the left is not a monolith.

We are three parties in a trench coat.

I don't know why.

Did you say three parties in a. Trench?

That's correct.

Yes.

Okay.

You know, and you're walking around going, like, who's holding me?

Who up here in this trench coat?

Yeah.

No, it's it's not a monolith.

And there's a lot of disagreement.

But is it healthy disagreement or would you think it's dysfunctional right now?

I think that this year a lot of the hold up was more in negotiating technique necessarily than issues, because, I think that the second floor, the executive's office, they were unwilling to have conversations around fiscal issues while we were discussing these other issues.

And because of that, it caused us to once those issues were dealt with, it took another two weeks to do the math part, to do the fiscal part of the budget.

So I think we need to be better about walking and chewing gum at the same time, to be able to move issues forward on parallel tracks and not do things one after the other.

Other things that did not get done in a regular session because the budget was so.

Like one bajillion things.

Yes.

What's what's the top of the list.

That I can't even tell you?

Like there were so many issues.

That, were really important, specifically around, some environmental policies we were hoping to get done.

I mean, I myself, I'm in the top 15% of bill passes.

I passed 12 bills, which is considered a large amount of bills.

Not one of them was my top five.

I passed similar bills because we just didn't have the time for debate.

Because the bigger bills take more, more back and forth more.

Yeah.

So at the end, yeah, at the end, what happens is you're all fighting for floor time.

So and this is where I think the minority has some power in the state legislature.

If they want to debate a bill, they could effectively in the late days kill it because it won't have time to get on the calendar.

So when we are dealing with one week of legislative days and 150 people all trying to get through the same door, if your bill has a debate that's potentially four hours of time where other bills are not passing because you're having that debate.

So we have to then weigh those pros and cons.

So why don't just extend the session.

In an election year in particular, people have primaries and it becomes very challenging.

But the principle of leadership and I don't disagree is everything has to come to an end.

Pencils have to go down.

There's always more work to do.

And we can always extend that.

We can extend the session forever.

We could be there every single day and there will still be more work to do.

It is the, policy and the law of the state that things happen at certain times and the session just comes to an end, and that's kind of the position.

So, let's go through some of the issues here.

And can we start with auto insurance?

Oh, I'd.

Love to because it's my.

Favorite.

Remind listeners who don't know your background and some of your own professional work history.

And then we're going to talk about this particular issue.

Sure.

So, for 12 years prior to taking office, I was a personal injury, worker's compensation and Social Security disability attorney.

But in undergrad, I also worked for a third party subrogation insurance company.

I have the weirdest and most specific set of education and skills relating to car insurance, which was one of the hottest issues this year.

And when I tell you it was single handedly me with my finger plugging the hole, trying to keep this, issue afloat.

And it was very stressful.

But we got some stuff done.

Okay, so I'm going to read how The New York Times characterized this.

Now and then you can tell me what you think.

That's fair.

And then let's talk about the actual specifics.

The New York Times characterized this as Hochul versus the trial lawyers.

And they write, quote, for years, the trial lawyers lobby wielded tremendous influence in Albany, particularly when Sheldon and when speaker Sheldon Silver, a lawyer himself, was serving in the Assembly.

The reforms included in this year's budget, aggressively opposed by the trial lawyers, mark a clear diminution of that influence.

Under the changes, people found to be more than 50% responsible for causing a car crash will not be eligible for pain and suffering damages.

The definition of serious injury was also made narrower, a change that Miss Hochul said will help prevent fraudulent staged accidents.

Miss Hochul proposed the changes with the goal of lowering New York State's sky-high auto insurance rates, but the idea was met with great skepticism by enough Democratic lawmakers that they were able to add bill language to ensure that savings were not merely pocketed by the insurance companies.

End quote.

Is that a fair characterization?

It is a little dramatic, but yeah, I think in general, when people hear trial lawyers, I think sometimes they think like big evil trial lawyers, like trial lawyers are there to protect their pocketbook, when in fact trial lawyers are there to advocate for people who are injured.

So I stood there as someone who has not practiced law since taking office.

I do not financially benefit from this, but my expertise in the things she was trying to change was what drove me to oppose it.

The trial lawyers opposed it because they understood what she was trying to do and the damage that that would cause.

And I think that while the change to the serious injury threshold is very, very minor, it's going to affect a very small population of people.

The change to our comparative negligence standard, which is the 50% issue, that's going to be very impactful.

And I am most distraught about that change, because not only does that cause problems with existing cases, the way we put it into effect, I was screaming at the end there, the effective date was immediate.

So if you had a case that was right there on the line, that 50% line, it's potentially not viable the day the law changed.

And that seems patently unfair to me.

But I think it also incentivizes insurance companies to find more people, 51% at fault.

I think it's ultimately going to result in more litigation, and it puts people who are partially at fault for an accident, but not majority at fault in an accident, at an extreme disadvantage that I think is wildly outsized to the savings.

That change will.

Okay, but help me help the audience understand a little bit more about this 50%.

Again, under the changes, people found to be more than 50% responsible for causing a crash will not be eligible for pain and suffering damages.

So I'm going to try to envision a scenario, and then I want you to tell me like yes or no, and then I want you to tell me the scenarios you see.

So I see somebody who's speeding at 75 miles an hour in a 45, and they're coming around a hill, and they slam into something in the road that somebody negligently left there that should not be in the road, but they're more than half to blame because they were going so fast and might have had a chance to avoid it had they not been speeding at such a high rate.

So they're not 100% responsible.

There may be 70% responsible, but they've got pain and suffering now because somebody else put something in the roadway that was very, very dangerous.

And they're hurt now.

They get nothing for pain, suffering.

Right.

Is that is that.

What that is?

Yeah.

I mean, I think that's not a great example because it's a one car accident.

Okay.

But.

That's why.

I'm asking.

Yeah.

So under the prior rule, would you had been the rule for decades and decades and decades if you were 70% at fault for an accident and the other driver was 30% at fault for the accident, and both of you were injured and both of you had claims, the person 70% at fault would get 30% of their damages, and the person 30% I bolt would get 70% of their damage.

That makes sense to you.

Yes, I think that's very fair.

Lots of states work that way.

Your no fault coverage covers you for your basic economic loss, so your medical and lost wages up to $50,000, which, given current health care costs, you could expend in the emergency room if you had enough tests, there are people who will walk out of the emergency room with a claim where there no fault is already exhausted.

The question of, you know, whether this is just pain and suffering becomes more complicated at that point, because if you have economic losses in the future, the 50% rule still bars you from making claims for that.

And I can give you a real life example of a real case that could exist.

Yeah, kid on a bicycle hit by a car.

Kid comes out between two parked cars.

A car is speeding and hits the kid.

Kid was jaywalking.

Shouldn't have been driving his bike.

Their other car was speeding.

Is that kid 51% at fault for the accident?

Maybe.

I think that's a I think.

The hard part there is there's no scientific way to decide.

52 4850.

There has never.

Been a 7030.

That's a jury.

That's what your jury judgment.

Did you or in a bench trial, a judge.

And what to me might be 60 41st May way might be 6040 the other way to you.

That's the nature of our judicial system is premised on humans.

Sure.

But also at the initial level, it's premised on insurance companies.

And an insurance company could say, we find you 55%, and now they're putting the onus on you to go bring a case and convince a judge or jury that their assessment is wrong.

It incentivizes the insurance company to find you more at fault that they maybe otherwise would, which I think is going to incentivize litigation and reduce settlements.

But in the situation involving this kid, all his teeth got knocked out.

He's 12.

That kid is going to need reconstructive dental surgery several times in his life.

As his mouth grows and changes.

Dental work is very expensive.

That kid's in a bad way now because of the comparative negligence rule that really disadvantages that person.

And when we looked at the savings that such a change was going to bring, I don't think the trade off is fair enough.

I am very happy that we were able to get in portions of my bill.

Much of the changes that you see around requiring, profits to be returned around, changes to underwriting rules, those are all from a bill that I held, and I think that those changes are going to help control the economy on this, the changes to control.

The economy, as in premiums.

I control the, the rates that insurance companies can charge.

Yeah.

Because the governor is saying that if the reforms that she wanted would to pass, this is what she said in the winter into the spring, that we could actually see this state become more affordable for average New Yorkers because their insurance rates would go down.

You disagree with.

That?

They may have gone down literally tens of dollars a year, like a very minimal amount, and not.

30%.

Not.

3,040%.

Uber, who was in charge of the, pack that was sending you mail.

Many of you may have received these car insurance mailers.

Their best argument was that it could save you $16 a month.

That was they're selling it at.

$16 a month.

Yes, that was their best estimate.

And I think.

It's almost 200 bucks a year.

Right.

That was wrong.

But that was their like propaganda argument.

And I was like, you couldn't make a better propaganda argument than 16 bucks a month, but also not instantly.

And when Florida made these changes, it took four years to see a profit change.

But if my insurance eventually goes down by 40 bucks a month, will you say you were wrong on this one?

No, because my changes contribute to that and make it better because of the changes that my bill put in.

Insurance companies, number one, have a 5% profit cap.

They have to return all of the savings above 5% to the ratepayer under the original proposal, there was no guarantee that those savings would be returned to the ratepayer.

They could have been, kept by the insurance company.

We also change the underwriting factors so that an insurance company can't charge you more than me because you, have a lower, education level than me or because you're a renter and I own a house.

They also, and I think, most importantly, can't use zip code, so they can't charge people in the 14621 different than the 14612.

Why did you need that law?

Why wouldn't insurance companies just already decide to do it this way?

Because they don't make as much money, insurance companies or financial institutions.

They don't do this out of the goodness of their heart.

They make money.

Okay, but there's a reason I'm asking you.

There are stereotypes about insurance companies and their stereotypes about trial lawyers.

Yes.

And the trial lawyer stereotype is ambulance chasers out to make much money.

You know, whatever profit off of people suffering.

And the the stereotype about insurance companies is they want to deny every claim possible and keep as much money as possible.

This was why this was the wildest argument for someone to.

Make you, as a former lawyer, are saying that one stereotype is wrong and the other stereotype is correct.

I think that the stereotype that trial lawyers are out to make a buck, first and foremost is wrong.

I think the argument that insurance companies as an institution are in the business of turning your premiums into profits is literally a fact that's written in their, shareholder reports.

My mother broke her hip recently.

It's not been a good few months.

I'm sorry.

And what an amazing thing to find out that because she convinced the rehab center she was ready to go home and live independently, the insurance company said, well, she's been cleared.

Why would we have to pay for a home health aide now?

Nobody went to her house to see how she lives.

Nobody checked out if it was working.

Okay.

All right, let's move on to a different subject.

Have we exhausted that one?

Is there anything else you will make if.

You don't think I could do three hours on car insurance, you have underestimated me.

Is there anything else you want the listeners to understand about this?

You will see reductions in your car insurance, but it's going to take a couple of years.

Okay.

All right.

I'm going to kind of bounce around a little bit here, but one of the big ones we've talked about for years with you is child care.

So tell people what happened in this budget.

This was a good one.

This was a good one right from the get go.

So we had a couple of years ago created a task force to create a pathway towards universal child care.

And I think calling what we're doing universal child care is bold, but we are in fact trying to figure out ways to reduce the cost of child care to virtually nothing.

And one of the things that we have been successful in doing is increasing access to subsidies over the last several years.

So because of our efforts, efforts of the mom squad, we have, increased access to child care subsidies, up to people, families of for making $113,000 a year.

This is kind of the next step of that.

And one of the really exciting things is that Monroe County gets to be one of the three pilots for the universal child care plan.

That means we got $20 million.

That's relatively flexible to, open up new slots and offer them at, extremely reduced, if not completely free rates to families.

We're still figuring out the facts around that.

But in addition, and I always include this in the conversation, even though you pay is not child care.

It is part of that discussion.

A long fought battle in the Assembly and the Senate has been increasing the per pupil reimbursement rate for Yup'ik.

Previously, New York City students got $10,000 per student for universal pre-K, rest of state got 5400.

And I mean the state is Nassau and Westchester felt like there's a huge difference.

That was undoable.

That is why so many places outside of New York City don't offer up K, because the numbers simply didn't work out.

Even in my district.

Your Webster's in your Penn fields that started offering it.

They had to supplement that per pupil right out of their reserves.

We were able to increase that rate to $10,000 per pupil or your foundation rate rate, your foundation aid rate, if it's higher, which is huge, that is going to allow every district over the next couple of years to roll out universal pre-K.

And I think that's a huge benefit to people.

One of the things I heard the Republicans say now they're in the minority, they don't get past a lot of things, but this is one of those issues where they said, hey, who's paying for this?

I how are we going to do this?

What's the answer?

It's paid for with our state funds, the same way everything else is paid for, the same way we fund foundation aid.

It's really just becoming another part of our state education package.

It's not like there's a dedicated line item.

However, what's going to be really exciting about this is the way we're going to be able to continue partnering with our community partners.

I want to make sure and I've talked to both the state education Department and, the Office of Children and Family Services about this.

We can't expect our schools to suddenly start offering up on site, in part because the facilities aren't there to offer, you know, classrooms, more of space.

But also if you remove three and four year olds from our existing daycares, you really upset the economy of the childcare market because three and four year olds offset the cost of the 0 to 3 care in our daycares.

So it's really important that we continue to house three and four year old upkeep in community partners, who can then also offer wraparound care, provide daycare to siblings.

It's just a really important continued cooperation that we are allowing with this process.

Okay.

But state funds is, of course, where the money comes from.

There's just a question of how do you get enough state funds to pay for more stuff, taxes, taxes.

That's I mean, it's it's not like there's new taxes.

It's just we are allocating existing funding.

We don't have a a new tax for this.

We don't have a new line item for this.

This is out of the general fund, another education priority that we have made.

Okay.

Now on the subject of taxing the rich, the of course, this is one of the debates within your party.

And Governor Hochul stood opposed to a significant a significant number.

I don't think all but a significant number of legislators on the subject of a super wealth tax, things of that nature.

And, and New York City had its own multi-billion dollar budget gap.

And you heard from a former Assembly member and now Mayor Zoran Mamdani appealing to the governor, saying, you know, you need to tax the rich and you need to help us out here.

So the mayor ends up and again, let's get the times.

Characterization.

The mayor was ultimately successful in this fight, winning nearly $8 billion in state assistance over the next two years for New York City, as well as a new tax on high end second homes in New York City that, the senator said would bring in $506 million annually.

But I guess the question is, is that a parochial should you look, that is like a New York City fight or what did you make of that argument there?

So those are kind of two different buckets of things.

Sure.

Because taxing the wealthy is one issue.

The money that went to to all of our cities to offset deficits is another.

And the terror tax is a separate thing.

The terror tax is the second home tax.

Yeah.

I have been a proponent of the terror tax since I was running for Senate in 18, when I saw it resurrected, because no one has said the phrase predator in like six years.

I thought I was reading an old article when I saw it.

I think I say it right there, I think I say like a ten.

Yeah.

I don't know how to, I don't speak.

I took Spanish, but it is I'm a huge proponent of it.

It's like, and, you know, there's some suggestion from people that it's going to reduce, the, interest in purchasing second homes in New York City.

And I'm like, good.

There's not enough homes in New York City.

We need first homes in New York City.

If this stops an Iranian prince from buying his fifth penthouse, I'm okay with that.

But I still don't think it will, because the kinds of people who want to own a $5 million condo in New York City are still going to buy it.

We should be taxing second homes in New York City.

I think that this isn't going to raise quite as much money as, the legislature suggests, because many second homes are owned by LLCs and there's many ways around that tax.

In fact, I texted Zoran, because, you know, we were in the same class.

We served together for five years when he first brought this out, and I sent him a Brookings report from 2019 that talks about this issue and how you have the potential to capture more funding with a tax on the sale, as opposed to an ongoing tax on the property, like a stamp tax.

They of Shanghai does it this way.

And that to get around the LLC problem that that might be a better solution.

But it's certainly going to generate more money.

And I think that there's a lot of value in that.

I absolutely support it.

Why then, did the governor I don't know if cave is the right word.

Why allow if you're the governor that to go through.

But she was firm on a super wealth tax.

So I can't speak for her okay.

And what her issues are I do think that there is a difference between a property tax and an income tax.

I personally support a tax on people who earn $1 million or more a year.

You know, we're not talking about people who have assets of $1 million.

It's an important distinction.

People with income, new income, yes.

Exceeding a certain your.

W9 income, your, investment income that amounts to $1 million per year, that you have to pay slightly more taxes.

I think you can swing it.

I support that, and I will tell you, wildly popular amongst regular people.

I can't speak to why the governor opposes that.

But, I. Said people are going to leave the state.

You don't buy it.

I don't, because we put in a tax on ultra millionaires in 21, and we increased millionaires in the state.

Okay.

But that's one where the governor is still winning that fight, right?

I mean, I think that there wasn't the same kind of push.

There were a lot of complicating and competing issues this year.

And I don't know that that was argued for enough that I would say there was a fight to win or lose.

Okay.

Yeah.

Fair enough.

Other controversies were bigger.

And when we come back from this only break, here's what we'll do.

We're going to talk about utilities.

We're going to talk about new restrictions on ice in New York State.

We'll talk about some other things that were in this budget or weren't in this budget with Assembly Member Jen Lunsford from district number 135.

And I should mention it's been a little while.

Yeah, I've been in and out here.

I mentioned my mother phone broke her hip.

That's one of the reasons I've been out.

And, she's doing pretty well now.

So, mom, keep keep eating and keep doing your stuff.

If you're listening.

If she's not, she's probably watching something else.

But, I'm I'm glad to be back.

And I will mention to the audience it's 844295 talk toll free if you want to call the program 84429582552636.

If you're in Rochester 2639994.

The email address as always connections at six.

I thought you can join the chat if you're watching on the Sky news YouTube channel.

We'll be right back.

Coming up in our second Our Connection Summer sessions turns our attention to my favorite interviews over the past decade on this program, and this day, we bring you Doctor Iselin Abu Alejo.

She joined us a number of years ago to talk about his book called I Shall Not Hate.

He's a Palestinian doctor who was one of the first allowed to deliver Israeli children.

He lost three of his doctors in a missile attack.

But he says peace must be found and we'll talk about air.

Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Carey, Yola center, proud supporter of connections with Evan Dawson, believing and informed and engaged community is a connected one.

Mary Carey, ola.org.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Let me start with an email from Alex.

Alex says budget frustrations aren't super new, but I think this season saw the most public rancor, if we can call it that, from state Senate and Assembly leadership about the governor holding up the process to ensure her wants were included.

It's the IDC all over again.

With the increasing appetite for Democrats to deliver on progressive issues, especially with the big changes seen in the New York City primaries.

What levers exist to change things and give the legislature some power to actually legislate the budget in the future?

It's from Alex.

So New York has a very powerful executive.

And it's interesting.

I've been spending the summer listening to the Power Broker audiobook, which is the biography of, Robert Moses, who I've learned is the reason, all of this is very annoying to me.

This is it's all his fault.

Absolutely.

Everything about the reconstruction of our state, is Robert Moses is small.

So, without fundamental constitutional changes in the organization of our state, or an end to silver v Pataki, which is a lawsuit that you can age by the names in it.

That says that if the budget is late and an extender needs to be passed, the governor can unilaterally pass whatever they want, and all the legislature can do is say yes or no.

We can't negotiate the extender.

We can say, yes, this is fine.

We'll keep the government open under your terms, or we shut down the government.

And that gives them a lot of leverage once the budget is late.

I actually think it incentivizes governors to let the budget be late.

But as late as this was, there are people I serve with today that sat under David Paterson.

We had a budget that went to August.

It's actually Cuomo say what you will about, trains ran on time.

Cuomo could pass a timely budget and that was a big priority for him.

He really cared that the budget was basically on time and the only on time budgets I passed were under Cuomo.

Now, do I think his methods were worth the timeliness?

Not necessarily because he was a big bully about it.

And that's not to say that he didn't get his way.

He certainly did.

I think he just started earlier.

I think that he would line people up beforehand.

I'm not in it.

I'm not endorsing his methods.

It's just one of the reasons that the budget was on time were not necessarily good reasons, but the budget shouldn't be this late either.

And under Hochul, we had timely budget budgets that were a couple weeks late.

That's that's fine with me.

I think that both the, speaker and the Senate president laid down the law at the end of the year that we are not going to do this again.

And we're promised that this is not how the budget would be in the future.

I think that if next year's budget is similarly protracted like this, then serious legislative changes could be considered.

But the governor did seem to appreciate that this was not something we were going to accept moving forward.

Alex, thank you for the email.

Oh.

Elena.

No.

I'm sorry.

Lane.

Laney.

A rather lengthy note essentially saying that, this is an election year and that, as a Democrat, she's not going to vote for the Republican candidate, but she's very upset about, what the governor has done with climate issues.

So let's talk about that.

And so what Laney is asking is like, is there any consequence for this?

So, the the broad outlines that Laney is talking about in her email is the way it's been at least described by my colleagues like Jamie Viel, kind and others, is there is first of all, it is an election year.

You can take that into account.

Governor says this not that's not what this is about.

She's saying that the climate goals were too aggressive and we're putting too much economic pressure that might not be achievable, and had to move some of the horizon back on when we're going to make these changes, etc.. And, The New York Times put this, in in this kind of context.

They said that New York State has shirked its climate leader status and is no longer a climate leader in the nation.

With what happened this year, what did happen?

And do you agree with that?

Well, the start is I wouldn't say we're not a climate leader, but when we passed the CL, CPA in 2019, it was the most aggressive climate policy in the country.

There's absolutely no question that we were the climate leaders.

And I don't think that the decisions made this year were because it was a budget year.

The decisions made this year was because there was a lawsuit we lost.

That's the truth.

The climate goals that were pushed back, both the timeline for achieving them, the standard for what the goal was and the accounting methods were all changed.

And without getting too much into the weeds, I have some graphics on my Facebook page.

If people really want to see what it looks like.

I think the part that was really difficult for some of us to swallow was the accounting method.

In the CL, CPA, we had used a ten year accounting method for quantifying the amount of methane in the atmosphere.

So the CL, CPA used 1992 the standards of, you know, what emissions were in 1992 as the goals, you know, threshold we needed to reduce our methane to percentages of a 1992 standard.

Most other states that have an emissions goal use a 100 year timeline, not a ten year timeline, because they are inclusive of all greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide.

The problem with that is that methane only exists in the atmosphere for 8 to 10 years.

It's gone after ten years.

You can use a 100 year timeline, but that's silly because it's just not there after ten years.

So by changing the accounting method from 10 to 100, you get to divide the number by 100 instead of ten.

So you make progress immediately just because of math.

It is a math change, not a science change and not a real change.

And that's something that was very disappointing to people, because it's going to imply progress that does not actually exist just because of math.

And that really seems like a dereliction of our duty, because we did make the decision to be different than everybody else.

One of the arguments the governor made was, you know, why are we the only state doing this?

But it's because we made that affirmative decision to be the only state doing that.

I understand the need to push back some of the timelines.

The lawsuit that we lost, was premised on the idea that when the CPA passed, there were three timelines.

I'm sorry I got to get into the weeds on this just to explain it.

We had to create a committee, which we did on time.

Then that committee had to promulgate a scoping plan, which they did on time.

Then we needed to promulgate regulations that enacted the scoping plan, and we did not do that part.

We did pass a cap and invest plan, which was going to be the funding mechanism for it.

But then the regs for cap and invest never went into effect.

So some environmental groups sued the state about never putting that into effect.

And what the court opinion said was not only do these regulations have to be put in place, they have to work.

And that may seem silly, but that's important because first off, how can I guarantee that?

But also it means they have to be extremely aggressive in order to ensure that they meet the timeline.

And because we were now years behind and Covid did have something to do with the fact that we were delayed in that all of this was delayed.

You know, we passed this in 2019 and then spent 3 or 4 years in Covid.

The cost of that was in fact going to be prohibitive.

So something needed to be done.

I don't necessarily think it was exactly what the governor did.

And we did exact some, funding for that, in an additional billion dollar sustainable futures fund that allows us to continue to invest in renewable and thermal and methane reduction.

So we are continuing to move forward.

It's just at a slower pace.

A fresh billion dollars for renewables.

Was that thrown in there to try to appease people, to say, oh, you're not going to be happy with this, but here's here's $1 billion, not.

Thrown in, fully extracted, like yanked out, like this wasn't like a tossing of a bone.

It was a demanding of a bone.

We made that part of the deal.

Okay.

But overall, what were the changes?

A mistake.

Some of the changes.

I don't personally agree with some of the changes needed to happen, because we do have to deal with the fact that this is a cost, and this is something that is challenging for people to afford.

And given the fact, more so than anything else, that the federal government has suspended so many of the rebates and funding mechanisms that you're relying on to enact these plans, the economic model we were relying on is it is dramatically different.

We're talking in generalities.

What is an example of something that was too aggressive, the way things have stacked up now?

What is something that you look at and say that probably can't be done by?

We do need to push back.

So the initial goal, was a certain percentage reduction by 2030, which we were not on.

Goal reduction in emissions and.

A reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Yes.

And, some of the projects we were onboarding to help us achieve that goal, like offshore wind on Long Island that was scuttled by Trump.

Yeah.

Like, plans to expand solar across several communities that were further scuttled specifically by Trump.

And I'm not saying that, you know, politically, he literally called the companies that were investing in building those projects and gave them deals to build other fossil fuel projects elsewhere, to abandon their renewable projects in New York.

This was literally taken away, and by killing a lot of the rebates, especially around community solar and other things, we were relying on, it really impacted our ability, even if we had been more aggressive in trying to meet those goals earlier in achieving that timeline.

Okay.

A couple other issues here, but let me grab a couple other comments from listener, see why.

Wanted to know does the insurance law say anything about vehicles versus bicycles?

No, I mean, in insuring bicycles.

I don't I don't see why if you're if you're listening, follow up here, it says about vehicle versus pedestrian or bicycle.

Like, you know, car accidents.

Not specifically.

No.

It would still be, standard of percentage of fault.

Okay.

Like, let's if you were writing your bicycle the wrong way on I-90, where bicycles are illegal, like, that's your fault.

That's there isn't a special carve out.

Nor was there before for vehicle versus bicycle accidents.

Okay, I hope that answers that.

Another YouTube comment.

The auto insurance fight was always such a head scratcher.

Who cares?

Oh, cool.

I guess you're donors.

Do you think this was about donors?

I think this plan was brought to her by Uber, and I think that without consulting people who know more about the topic, it was put out into the world the way Uber wrote it.

Uber, who does not necessarily have a lot of expertise in this area and I think was trying to retrofit a Florida solution onto New York, which for months I said was apples and oranges, without appreciating that pun until my husband pointed it out.

That's very.

Yes.

I had not even notice.

How about that?

And.

But, but but here's the implication.

ExxonMobil has written energy policy for this country in Washington.

You're saying this is an Uber policy.

Uber is the number one single purchaser of auto insurance in the country.

So they're very happy with the governor.

Yes.

Okay.

So the governor might have been motivated by that.

I think the governor was offered a plan that seemed to make sense.

But did she call you?

I mean, like, I know you guys.

Me?

I mean, you're in the legislature.

She probably knows that you've worked in this area.

They found out I worked in this area, and I. Know they did, but they didn't, like, preemptively call you, like, hey, your expertise would be helpful.

Here.

No.

Although I will say that that does not traditionally happen in any context.

But I know that even indistinctly.

Hold on.

If I'm the governor and I've got hundreds or whatever, however many lawmakers we have, and I know there's people from different industries and backgrounds with professional experience, if a company of ExxonMobil, if if Uber, if Wegmans, if anybody brings me a bill, I might seek out somebody who might have something to say about it.

That's why she has her own counsel.

She has counsel that does that.

And I have been, I did have conversations both with the Department of Financial Services and with her office, throughout this process.

But I was not consulted beforehand, though.

Again, in her defense, no governor does that.

They might steal our bills.

I mean, borrow our bills for budget purposes, which, frankly, I welcome.

Please, I have good ideas to make my bills happy to do it.

But, afterwards, I did get to be involved.

I did get to talk directly to her staff.

And I think that, we ultimately, it's it's challenging during the budget because we're kind of a representative government inside of a representative government.

So I don't get to have those conversations, but leadership does.

And leadership talk to me.

And then talk to them.

So I got to telephone, came my way.

And now they know that we know that.

That's correct.

Yes.

But you haven't talked to the governor herself?

No.

Sounds healthy.

Okay.

Well, I mean, the governor doesn't talk to a lot of legislators about individual things.

She's very busy in her, obviously.

Is very busy.

Too busy to come on this show.

I would like her to come on this program and, you know, I'll ask her.

Maybe next time, call Jen Lunsford.

Not that I'm rooting for you.

I'm saying I want you to.

Come on.

I want you to come on the show and tell me you were wrong.

If you end up being wrong.

I will say that, you know, we've been having some conversations about more things to do in this area that I think were left on the table.

Things I don't think were addressed in her office was very open to that.

I'm trying to set up some meetings for off cycle to get ahead of next year because, you know, she was, her office kept saying 70% of the fraud is in the no fault system, but nothing that she was proposing or that we were proposing dealt with the no fault system.

That's a separate show.

But I have a plan for how to fix the no fault system, and she has been open to that.

I've actually found that.

And this part of this is just having worked under Cuomo in general.

Governor Hochul has been very cooperative with the legislature in comparison to a lot of other governors.

Okay.

Now, do you want to come out and talk about that?

No fault on a different day?

Oh, sure.

That's that's, snoozy time, but okay.

I'm looking at your team going, I do.

I really want to do this.

No, let's get in the weeds on a different day.

Okay.

And back Delaney's emailed.

Do you think the governor acted the way she did, moved the way she did on climate?

Because it's an election year?

No, I really don't.

You know, I think it was a lawsuit.

I think that her hands got tied by what I don't think was a great legal decision.

I think that that legal decision was, right in spirit, but not in substance.

And we were in a very challenging situation.

The reality of the nexus between energy costs and climate goals is extremely difficult to navigate.

And I really think the governor has been a rock and a hard place on that.

While I don't agree with the way we necessarily landed, I understand what her motivations were and I genuinely don't think they were political.

I related to car accidents, Dallas says.

How about deer?

How about New York State more aggressively calls them.

They are everywhere.

So anything the state can do on that.

I mean, we allow hunting.

So I mean, to the extent that we regulate hunting and taking of deer, that's the the way we impact that, someone who literally can't plant a thing in her yard because I live of the woods, I understand.

Deer love your house.

That.

Yeah.

I mean, we did.

I didn't even know I had hosta until one year.

I put down this, like, special fertilizer someone recommended, and the deer didn't eat it.

I was like, I have hosta.

Like, they would mow it down the second it came out.

But, yeah, I mean, doing things around, baiting with birth control is actually one of the better ways to control the deer population.

Like literally putting out salt lakes full of birth control like that.

Stop making baby deer.

That's one of the things that people can do.

But I hear you, and, we've actually also expanded the bow hunting season.

It's it's a difficult issue.

Okay, I want to talk about an issue that we talked about on this program.

I think in the winter into the spring, it was on the question of tier six.

Now, labor unions.

And we had, representatives from a number of different sectors and labor in the state on this program talking about their desire to, quote, fix tier six.

That did happen.

They are they're celebrating a victory and you are happy for them.

You think this is a good change?

It is a good change.

Explain to listeners what tier six was.

So in the state pension system over the years, because it was very expensive.

We began to create a tier system.

So if you came in before a certain date, you were in tier one or 2 or 3.

We got to tier five and very quickly had to go to tier six.

This was probably about 15 years ago now.

And tier six is not great.

It erodes benefits.

So substantially that that tradeoff people would make to make less money in the private sector to work for the public sector, because you got better benefits because because you got a pension almost doesn't exist anymore, especially with the wages we're seeing.

I mean, a direct service provider for, facility makes less than someone who flips burgers at Burger King.

Is that person really going to trade that for what they make on tier six?

And this affects our teachers.

It affects our road workers.

It's people who run a lot of important things in our state.

And you think this changes is going to affect the the number of people who want to work in the public sector.

It is both attracting workers and retaining workers.

Retaining is a big deal.

And right now, I think part of why we're seeing movement on this, critical mass of legislators are now tier six, including me, and I am related to a tier one and a tier two.

And I see the difference in a very dramatic way.

I see what they are receiving, and I know that no one who's entered in the tier six or even tier five, status is going to be able to have that sort of retirement.

So I understand why the trade off isn't there.

The changes we may don't fully fixed year six, but they are a good step forward.

They are were heavily negotiated such that like the teachers have a different deal than other tier six, employees because they had different priorities.

It's a first step forward, but it is in fact a very expensive fix.

Yeah.

Just briefly, Republicans saying too expensive.

We can't we can't afford it.

I think we can't afford to have the amount of vacancies we have at the state level.

It's our government is wildly inefficient because people don't pick up the phone.

You have one worker doing three people's jobs.

If anybody's tried to get a birth certificate from Vital Statistics in Albany, it can take 18 months because they're still working on a Covid backlog.

We need more.

Employees.

I got to ask about Ice.

I got to ask you about utilities.

So new restrictions on ice include something that, there was this debate about whether New York State could even do this, which is bar ice agents from wearing masks.

You're going to do it.

I mean, we did it.

We bar all law enforcement from wearing masks when interacting with the public, except in certain circumstances.

Like if you're directing traffic and it's winter time, I'm not going to make you stand there with your mask.

Of course.

But is ice going to comply with this?

So I honestly, I don't think we can make them if it's considered part of their uniform.

However, I would like to see someone challenge the idea that what some Ice officers are showing up in is a uniform, considering that many of them are wearing, like a Hawaiian shirt and a patch, asking law enforcement to dress in a way that differentiates them from someone who got an outfit at Party City, I don't think is too little to ask, but the enforcement of that has been very challenging in California.

So I do think we do have real enforcement problems.

Okay.

What else regarding Ice, do you want people to understand?

Sure.

So, one of the biggest changes we made was we affirmatively limit ICE's ability to enter into the private areas of a whole list of sensitive locations, unless they have a signed judicial warrant.

So if you have a signed judicial warrant and you need to enter into a school or a hospital, you show that warrant the same way any other law enforcement would be expected to show a warrant, and you can access that person.

But if you're there on a fishing expedition because you saw someone walk in the door and you want to go past the waiting room of the emergency room, you cannot do that.

There is a long list which I actually pulled up here because it's been a little while, but one of the changes we do make is, polling places, which I think is important because we have seen muttering from the federal government that they would like to put ice at polling places, even though polling places are by definition, self-supported for citizens.

Things like, public parks, schools, courthouses, hospitals and other health care facilities, daycare facilities.

It breaks my heart that I have to say this, but I think what that does is it gives guidance to the people in those areas to really know what they can say yes and say no to.

Because I think when confronted with an Ice officer, the person working in the front desk doesn't really know what their rights are and what they aren't.

And this helps clarify that.

Okay.

And regarding utilities, what happened in the budget.

Sure.

So, utility costs are obviously a huge issue.

One of the things that we are doing is we are putting out, rebate checks.

So, New Yorkers who, pay a utility bill, who have been residents for a year or more will receive a check, based on their income, I think it's $200 is the max later this year, to help offset utility costs, we also launched a blue ribbon commission, which is going to study the issue of residential, utility costs and ways that we can reduce that.

I think one of the big issues that we have is that we have one of the oldest transmission grids in the country.

Our, transmission grid is well past its lifespan.

And upgrading that, by virtue of the fact that utilities own the grid comes off the back of the ratepayer.

That's just the way things work.

Ratepayers pay money, and that's what insurance company, if rather, utility companies use to upgrade their system, I think ultimately we're going to have to figure out a different way to fund some of that infrastructure to take that cost off of our, ratepayers, because that's really the bulk of the big increases they've been looking for.

We also require utilities to disclose executive compensation, and they can no longer include executive compensation as one of the renewable costs they're looking for in a rate case.

And as rate cases move forward, we're asking utilities to give us two plans the plan you need to upgrade and what we're calling a budget constrained plan, which is how how much does it cost to maintain the status quo so that we can really see what the difference is and what those investments need to be.

Has it been controversial?

Not really, because everyone knows we need to do something.

I think if anything, it doesn't do enough.

But it's I think the first step in what will hopefully be years of changes, especially after we see what this commission comes out with.

All right.

The only other two things I flagged from the New York Times piece.

We've got like 90s on there are new protections for children online.

Yes.

So, we do a number of things around AI chat bots.

And, That's probably like a whole other discussion.

Oh my god, forever.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's something that that I will try to dig in and learn more about for this audience, because it's important.

This one was amazing to me.

People have received 16 speeding tickets in a one year period, will be required to install a speed limiting device on their car, or lose their registration.

Just in New York.

That's it.

That's all you got to do if you get 16 speeding tickets.

To be clear, that's also just New York City.

So you up here, you can get 1718.

Rock on.

How about it?

I'm I'm driving too slow.

I will say that actually is really controversial because we've never used one of those speed limiting devices before.

And the but I mean.

If you're people getting 20.

Units a year.

Yes, it's actually it's a super speed.

It's a whole New York City problem.

I mean, eventually probably you just should not be driving.

Yeah, that's probably the better remedy.

Because I think you're more than 50% at fault for whatever happens.

You see what I just did there?

There you go.

And try to call back.

Okay.

So let's close with this in in our last 30s, because the budget was late and because things were tightened up here, what are you going to be focused on next that you really wished you would have had more time on?

I mean, really figuring out what to do about the people who are being knocked off the essential plan, having real conversations about how once the H.R.

one changes go into effect on Medicaid and that begins to affect the broader health care market.

What are we doing to protect especially rural health care people who are falling out of the system?

People who need access to meds.

What are we going to do about our emergency rooms that begin to get clogged up?

That's going to be the name of the game next year.

And it this all take takes effect after the federal election.

How convenient.

Yes.

Okay.

But they're coming.

Thank you for being here.

Happy to know.

Assembly member Jen Lunsford is from district number 135 of course hasn't changed.

And this is part of our series of conversations with your elected leaders.

They're coming in to share an hour and take your questions and are talking about the state budget.

And as you've seen, there is a lot in that.

Nice to have you.

Thanks for being happy.

To be here.

And more connections coming up in a moment as we continue with connection summer sessions.

And this week is my favorite interviews in the last ten years.

That's what's coming.

This program is a production of WXXI Public Radio.

The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of this station.

Its staff, management, or underwriters.

The broadcast is meant for the private use of our audience, any rebroadcast or use in another medium, without express written consent of WXXI is strictly prohibited.

Connections with Evan Dawson is available as a podcast.

Just click on the connections link at WXXI News Talk.