>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Well, our connection this hour was made this past spring when a new book called Out Democrats for Failure to Govern Well.

The book claimed that in blue states and in many blue cities, Democrats have blocked or stalled progress, making it more expensive to live and forcing working class Americans to move to red states.

And the book included reams of data to make this case the effective price of housing in this country has tripled since the 1950s, and it is highest in places like California.

The authors of this book are Democrats Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson.

The book is called abundance.

They argue that Republicans want government to fail, whereas Democrats are simply failing to make government succeed despite good intentions.

Here's Ezra Klein talking to the PBS NewsHour about what it's like to live in California and write a book like this, criticizing the political left that he is a part of.

>> I love my home state.

It is on the technological frontier.

It is the cultural frontier.

It is beautiful.

So why is it losing hundreds of thousands of people every year to Texas, to Arizona, to Colorado, to Florida?

And the answer is that the working class can't afford to live there.

Right.

These are these families are my friends, right?

I was in San Francisco watching people have kids and have to move away because he couldn't afford a home in the city that often they did essential jobs to protect or to serve.

And parts of the book that we wrote are futuristic.

Parts of them are about how we pull the inventions we want in the future, forward, into the present.

Those are things that we don't yet know how to build, but there's no technical problem around building apartment buildings.

The question of how to construct a house is solved.

What is the issue here?

Is politics is process is the ability to get people to say yes.

And frankly, the process where you have to have so many people say yes.

Along the way.

And you've been looking at other problems in California.

Why are we not going to hit our clean energy targets?

Well, we've made it to our build clean energy.

So Texas, which does not love clean energy the way California does, is building more clean energy than California is.

What happened?

A high speed rail, sort of the same story.

And at some point, you begin to realize what you have in a lot of big liberal states.

That is true for New York, true for Illinois, true for others is we have not focused as liberals on creating the supply of the things people need most.

>> And so the book makes a call for government to succeed, to take down barriers to building housing or building high speed rail, or building more clean energy.

In the months since abundance was released, the political left has had a rather heated debate about it.

Some Democrats describe themselves as abundance pilled.

They buy what Klein and Thompson are selling, and they want to see Democrats get back to building more stuff, getting more done.

Others have criticized the book as being too simplistic, too eager to put power in the hands of developers.

One person I thought of almost immediately when I first started reading abundance was State Senator Jeremy Cooney.

That's because Senator Cooney, perhaps more than many of his Democratic colleagues, talks in really ambitious ways about what government can and should do.

He talks about high speed rail, the kind that has only been an idea stuck in planning committees for decades, never getting built here.

And I wonder, does he agree with the critique of the left in abundance?

Does he believe there are ways to make government work more efficiently?

And on the local level?

Nate Salzman is a man who sounds very much abundance pilled, although we'll find out.

Salzman's, a Brighton Town Council member, he recently wrote a piece for the Rochester Business Journal titled New York Must fast Track Green energy projects to meet climate goals.

Salzman writes, quote, we have a democratic state government supermajority, a democratic county government, and democratic town leadership.

Our biggest obstacle is not opposition.

It's our own bureaucracy.

We must get out of our own way in order to build the infrastructure for a cleaner, sustainable future.

End quote.

So we think this is a great conversation to mark my first day back on Connections since July 9th.

On July 11th, my second child was born.

He's finally sleeping a little bit more now.

I think he's sleeping right now, and I'm glad to be back with the Connections team and the Connections audience.

And I want to thank everybody who's been in in this room, in this chair.

Racquel Stephen in particular.

But so many people have done such outstanding work all summer, and I am grateful for that.

It is a team that makes this show work.

And let me welcome the guests here for our first show back here, state Senator Jeremy Cooney from the 56th Senate District.

I did think of you all those months ago, and it's nice to see you here to talk.

>> Nice to see you.

Welcome back.

And congratulations.

>> Thank you very much.

Nate Salzman, Brighton Town Council member.

Welcome.

I'm told your first appearance, I guess.

>> First time I've been a long time listener, though.

First time on the first time caller.

How did I.

>> Think you've.

>> Been here before?

I feel like we go way back.

>> Well, welcome.

I'm sure this will not be the only time.

>> Thank you very much.

>> Unless the hour bombs and then that'll be.

>> It.

>> Let me start by asking both of you as Democrats, if the central critique of Democrats in abundance is fair, that Democrats.

And again, this is a generalization.

But Democrats, for all their good intentions, have in many ways failed to make lives better or more affordable or more sustainable in too many places.

Senator Cooney, what do you think?

>> Well, I don't think it's about whether we have failed or delivered.

I think it's the process for how we have gotten to where we are today.

For me, the central theme of this book is really process versus outcome.

Have Democrats have elected leaders, whether in California or here in New York or down in Washington, D.C.?

Have they delivered what they said that they were going to do?

And ultimately, at the end of the day, I believe Democrats have the right values that are in line with the majority of Americans.

Have we then taken that next step to produce the results, whether it's high speed rail or whether it's housing or clean energy, to meet that value statement that we have set out?

So it's that classic example about politicians during the campaign bringing out big ideas, making promises, getting people excited and bought in on a value sentiment.

But did they actually do what they said they were going to do?

Did they deliver on that plan?

Did we get more housing built?

Did we have more solar and wind development pop up in our communities?

Did we have a better, faster mode of transportation delivered?

And the answer is not really.

We haven't really delivered on that.

Now, I think we are seeing a change in elected leadership.

I think we are seeing this is not just a generational value set.

We are seeing leaders go into state and local offices who are very focused on specific outcomes and are using that to build trust in their local and state government systems.

>> If you can't get those things done, you're going to lose elections, right?

>> That's right.

And it should be that way, right?

Did you say that you were going to do X, Y or Z?

okay.

Did you do that?

Be honest with the American people.

Be honest with the voters who elected you into office.

And I think it's good.

And we should encourage our political leaders and any party to have big aspirational ideas.

Right?

We want people to think big and to dream big for our for our country, for our children.

But we also want to hold them accountable.

Hold me accountable to what we said we were going to do.

>> One other point for this on this subject, before I turn to Nate on the local level, I know there are people listening right now.

Senator, who are going to say, if you're on the political left and you're listening right now, you might say, why such criticism of Democrats?

Because as Klein and Thompson themselves write in the book, Republicans want government to fail.

They will be obstinate.

They will seek to make sure that your ideas don't work.

They don't want your high speed rail project.

They will seek to undermine it.

Why?

The critique of the left, when the political right has a very different disposition towards a lot of some of these ideas?

>> Well, let me kind of challenge that a little bit, because this past week we saw the new.

Acela train from Amtrak come online outside of Philadelphia.

So these are the really high speed, you know, up to 160mph trains that are now in operation.

They're not going that fast just yet, but they have the technology and the capability to do so.

By the way, built and produced here in upstate New York.

So that is now launched.

You saw on social media that members of the Trump administration were celebrating.

Look at this.

Look at these beautiful new, you know, rail cars that are going to be launched here and across the United States.

But it was actually the Obama administration back in 2016 that really pushed the funding for the development of this technology.

So it's convenient for Republicans to say, yeah, we don't want high speed rail.

We're going to cut funding in Texas for high speed rail.

We're going to get rid of this.

It's not working.

But when it does work, they want to be part of it.

Why?

Because the American people want this.

They believe in mass transit.

They believe in higher forms of getting people from A to B, just like our European.

>> I know many.

Republicans who say we're.

>> Not Europe, we're not Europe.

We don't want high speed rail.

We shouldn't be doing that.

>> But they do want to visit their son or daughter who goes to school in Boston, and they want to get there faster, easier, more affordably.

And we're going to make that.

We're the party.

The Democrats are the party that's going to make that happen.

>> Nate Salzman on the local level, do you think the general critique of your party in this book is fair?

>> Well, I'll tell you this.

I think that we're having a conversation within the Democratic Party because we're the only party who's trying to make government, accomplish these big goals.

I mean, if the right was trying to to use government to accomplish big things, they might be having a similar conversation on their end.

And I'll tell you this.

You know, the right had had doge and they brought DOGE into the conversation, which is, you know, government's not working efficiently.

The problem are the people.

The problem are is the people that work for government.

And I think what the Senator and I are suggesting is it's not the people that work in government, it's the processes that are stopping the good people in government from getting things done.

So I guess I'd flip it on its head a little bit.

We're all having a conversation about government's not working efficiently, and that's why people are frustrated.

Our party is saying and the abundance pilled elected officials you you refer to are saying it's not because of the people that work in government.

It's the process that's holding us back.

>> Are you an abundance Democrat?

>> I am, I am, but you know what?

I'd say this I'd say we could all be abundance Democrats because it's about the process.

And as the senator said, you know, I'm a Democrat because of the values that we share.

And I'm abundance filled because I want to get those things done.

>> And, Senator Cooney, are you an abundance Democrat?

>> Yes, of course.

That means you're a problem solver.

Count me in.

>> okay, so self-identified in that way.

So here's where I think those on the political right would say, well, here's where Klein and Thompson are wrong.

Here's maybe where your guests, even today, are wrong.

I think some Republicans would say maybe many Republican voters would say, no, it's not that we want to undermine government.

It's not that we want to be obstinate.

It's that when government does too much, it fails.

And they they will point to high speed rail in California.

They will point to many examples that they would say show the inefficiency of government compared to either the private sector or just not getting government involved at all.

So they would say, it's not that we want it to fail, it's that you shouldn't be doing too much to begin with.

What do you think?

>> Yeah, I agree.

I agree that government has to be better and and that's what we're trying to do.

>> But you don't agree.

The government can't be better.

That's I think part of what they're saying is you can try all day.

You're not going to run an efficient high speed rail with the government.

>> That's where I disagree.

That's where I disagree.

Government can do big things.

We used to do big things.

FDR and the Great Society.

He he built our country, built new things.

We we did great things.

We did great projects.

We can expand our energy infrastructure.

We can build high speed rail.

We can do these great things.

But we have to remove the barriers that are getting in the way.

>> And can you share an anecdote?

Can I ask you to share it on the air that you were talking about before the program?

You're a local elected official?

>> That's right.

>> Yes.

And so you often interact with other local elected officials.

Now, you happen to be in a rather blue town, but most towns in this state are not blue.

That's correct.

What have you experienced there?

>> So I go to what's called the Association of Towns, and I'm not going to be so welcoming in this meeting.

When I go next year, I'll tell you that much.

>> But you think they're listening to Connections, do you?

>> Oh, I think everybody is.

There you go.

So.

So I go to the Association of Towns, and you would not believe how many people walk around that room saying, you know, I was elected because I promised we wouldn't build any solar in my town.

I promised we wouldn't give any land use permits for high speed rail in my town.

It's the great majority.

Housing.

Housing is another big one.

You know, we go around and we talk about there's a housing crisis.

I talk to residents all the time that say, man, it's so great that you and your wife moved back to Brighton after you left.

What brought you back?

I wish my son or daughter would.

And I say back to them, where are they going to live?

And we can build that housing.

I mean, you know, I don't want to go too far off topic, but we have, you know, on Monroe Avenue, access to bus transportation.

the school is right there.

You could walk to R's market if you want to get groceries.

We have all these great things.

And instead of building multi instead of building vertically, we're, we're sitting with empty parking lots and, and we're sitting with single family homes only right along Monroe Avenue.

We.

>> Are you allowed to build vertically?

>> Not without variances.

And that's where it gets complicated.

>> And so it becomes a question of who blocks it.

I want to listen to one other clip that we have because we're going to talk housing.

And then I want to I want to dig in with Senator Cooney on high speed rail, because when he hears about the critique in California, I mean, I know you're I see a vein starting to pop.

I'm ready.

We're going to get there.

I want to listen first to this clip that has gone viral.

former Obama speechwriter Jon Lovett is the co-host of Pod Save America, and they hosted a kind of abundance debate in California.

So on one side, they had a California state senator who had introduced legislation designed to make it easier to build more dense, affordable housing upward.

So higher heights, I think 6 or 7 stories.

so particularly in the form of taller buildings.

But also specifically near public transportation, because a lot of people who need affordable housing, they don't own EVs, they don't own cars, they need public transport, transport.

And that bill ends up getting blocked here.

So here's what I want you to hear.

On the other side is a Democrat.

Los Angeles Council member Imelda Padilla.

And she basically said, look, my constituents don't want that.

they think it would be ugly.

They don't like the esthetics.

That's not what they want.

So she claims she is in favor of affordable housing and less regulation, all while defending her opposition to affordable housing.

Listen to what she says on the podcast, and I wish you could see Jon Lovitz reaction to this, where he's seems to be melting into the floor in agony.

But let's listen.

>> The neighbors didn't want it at all.

They just didn't want the density.

They wanted me to kill it.

But by law, I really have no jurisdiction anymore because it's an easy one.

Right?

But we still, as a team, got together with the developer, the high school across the street, other stakeholders, and instead of building something that was potentially six stories, we got it down to three stories.

And we also got the developer to also work with us to make sure that it helps the families of the area.

We also said, you know, instead of a ton of office space, we do want you to also incorporate a few more parking lots and EV chargers.

So yeah, I mean, there's some developers that have built housing where it looks like a big ugly cement box in the middle of the neighborhood.

But what I want is something that people will be proud of.

>> That is Council member Imelda Padilla, a Democrat in Los Angeles, explaining that she thinks it's a victory that she worked to make sure new affordable housing would be three stories instead of six, and would have more parking lots and more EV chargers.

What did you hear there?

Nate Salzman?

>> I, I feel Jon Lovitz pain because this is this is a lot of the conversations that are taking place at the local level.

You'll have senators like Senator Cooney with grand ideas that were bought in on.

But if you go to some of your very local meetings, this is what they sound like.

They sound like you know, I don't want to out anybody, but I listen in on a zoning board conversation where they were opposed to the new patio.

That's at Core life in 12 Corners in Brighton.

And it was a long debate about whether we should allow them to build a patio.

So even if that's how hard it is to build a patio.

>> How do you build upwards on Monroe Avenue?

>> How do you build upwards on Monroe Avenue?

>> How do you get more density?

>> And I'll tell you this, one of the things that I've been talking to my colleagues about right now on Monroe Avenue, we have mandatory parking minimums, which is one of the reasons why you drive on Monroe Avenue and you're driving from Highland all the way to Westfall, and you're looking to your left and your right, and you're seeing so much potential.

I mean, I mentioned ours market.

You see kids walking home from school, you see folks biking to 12 Corners, but they're biking past a lot of empty parking lots.

Now, why can't that be affordable housing?

Why can't that be small cafes and coffee shops and local restaurants?

There are these variances that that are put in place that are making it more difficult for, John and Jill, the, the couple who wants to open a coffee shop to, to open.

>> And they're often put in place by your party.

>> Yes.

Yes.

Right.

Yes.

>> okay.

Yes.

So, Senator Cooney, as a Democrat, when you hear that kind of a clip and you hear Nate saying, look at the local level, we can work with Senator Cooney, we can work with people who can leverage federal dollars, state dollars, if we have the local will.

But there's only so much you can accomplish on the state level.

If there isn't, local will.

Right?

>> Sometimes when we hear the term variance and zoning and planning processes, we forget about the bigger picture here.

If we were able to have the density on Monroe Avenue, as Nate was just talking about, we'd have lower housing prices.

Since I've been elected at the probably the number one thing I hear about is housing is too expensive.

Housing is too expensive.

Here in in the city of Rochester or in our suburban communities.

Well, we can lower the price of housing, whether they're affordable units or market rate houses.

If we have a higher supply, if we have more density on Monroe Avenue and other parts of our community, we can get more supply.

>> So how do we get there?

>> Right.

And so it's the question, I think, that this book does a really good job of framing is it's not about more government versus less government.

It's about the effectiveness of the government.

And so you're right, it is Democrats in some communities that control the makeup of these zoning boards and planning committees.

Right.

And do we have elected leaders at the town level or at a city level that are saying, we want to put folks in place to make these difficult decisions that are pro growth oriented?

Yes or no?

Do we do that or not?

And I think the result will help deliver on what our constituents are looking for, which is more units, more opportunities to to raise families.

more abilities for seniors to stay in their communities longer.

That's what people are looking for us to do.

>> So, Senator, one more question on housing before we turn to transportation, do you think that there is a change happening within your party?

I mean, you've served in state government for how long now?

>> This is my this is my fifth year.

This is my third term.

>> okay.

Third term in state government.

You've worked in politics for a long time.

You're a veteran on a number of different levels.

Do you sense that there is a reckoning happening on housing within the Democratic Party, in the state, or in this country that will pave the way for for more density, more to happen, less expensive builds, and potentially, as you say, more supply, which should bring prices down?

>> Well, I certainly hope so.

you know, I got my start almost 20 years ago working for the late Congresswoman Louise Slaughter.

And I think the Democratic Party that Louise Slaughter was a leader within is very different today than it was when when she was in office.

And I don't necessarily mean different as in bad or affirming some sort of value statement to that.

It is just different because the needs and challenges are different in our community.

And so what I'm hearing is, as more of our elected officeholders at the at the local, state and federal level are turning over and changing, right.

Congress today is very different than Congress.

In the early 2000. you know, is that there is a value shift and that there is probably the biggest value shift is the sense of urgency and speed.

And so the idea of saying we want housing to be more affordable or we want to have a new mass transit system like high speed rail waiting 10 to 15 years to do a study that ain't going to cut it anymore, right?

They want leaders who are going to deliver on this in short order.

And by the way, leader, elected leaders, whether to the north in Canada, elected leaders in other parts of our world are moving at a faster pace than American government.

>> But one other question on speed.

I'm glad you bring this up, because the book tackles this, and this is one of the places where Kline and Thompson have taken some criticism from the left.

If you point to say the I-95 highway collapse in Pennsylvania, where Governor Shapiro, a Democrat, said, we cannot go through.

Anything that causes undue delay.

And in like 11 days, they rebuilt that section of highway, like 11.

>> And they had to stop clock, literally.

>> It was like less than two weeks, right?

Right.

And they got it done.

And Shapiro, who might have national prospects, likes to point to that, saying we can move fast.

We can move quickly.

And Democrats will point to that.

But some will say, look, don't extrapolate too much here, because the reason that Los Angeles looked the way it did in the 1970s and 80s, and the way it doesn't look now, is because we did have environmental regulations.

The reason that the Cuyahoga River was orange in the late 1970s was because we didn't have the regulation and the processes in place that we do now, and that's a good thing that protects the waterways, that protects the water we drink, that protects our kids, our air.

So if we move so fast that we just think we just build, you know, to hell with everything else.

We're going to be going back in a direction that we came out of.

Is there is there a middle ground?

>> There absolutely is.

And this is why I love what the authors were talking about in abundance.

Is this all or nothing thinking?

Right?

Whether you have environmental regulations and review process or you don't, that's that's not the way to look at this.

It is how do we make the environmental review process work better?

And let me give you a specific example.

in I won't go into specifics here, but in Monroe County right now, there is a piece of land that is set to be developed for new housing.

The town supervisor is supportive of that land, but the challenge is, is that that land now has to go through a governmental review to make sure that it's not on wetlands right now.

You know, I'm coming from a scouting background.

I believe in environmental conservation.

That's a good thing.

It's okay to have that process, but there's no time restriction on how long the review process will be to determine if this new housing project will be on wetlands.

>> It's effectively just a a block forever.

>> It could go on for months, if not years.

And think about the costs and the opportunity lost by not having this new housing developed in this part of Monroe County.

So the so the the middle ground, to answer your question more directly, Evan, is that we put on some reasonable time restrictions.

There will be an environmental review, but that review has to be accountable back to our local municipality within 12 months from the state of New York.

That seems reasonable.

There's still a pause moment.

There's still an effort to make sure that we're not just putting, you know, concrete over everything, over our natural landscape, but that we're also having a reasonable expectation for the developers who want to build this housing.

>> Councilmember Saltzman, does that make sense to you?

Do you think that that is a reasonable solution?

>> I think it's a great idea.

And, Evan, I think what it also comes down to is, do you think that we can just conserve our way out of the climate crisis?

Because I grew up in the generation where we were taught, this climate crisis is coming.

It's up to you to save the planet, and you have to act urgently.

And I took that to heart.

And a lot of my colleagues and a lot of folks our age, and we got into government and we said, well, great, let's do, let's, let's build the things we need to save the planet.

And, you know, one example is we were approached by a company that wants to build a battery storage facility in the town of Brighton.

And this is great because, you know, this can conserve the solar.

So we can use it at off peak hours.

So, so this project, I was first approached the first time I was on paternity leave.

I'm on my second paternity leave in the project is still no shovels in the ground yet.

And if you believe that the climate is a crisis that you have to, you have to invent your way out of and build your way out of, as I do, a two year delay before you can even have shovels hit the ground is unacceptable.

>> All right, so we've covered a lot of ground here.

Here's what we're going to do.

First of all, listeners, I want to welcome your feedback.

I got to remind myself how this works.

Host in this program.

It's been a couple of months here.

It's 844295 talk.

Haven't changed a number have we guys.

It's still the number 8442958255263 WXXI.

If you call from Rochester 2639994 Connections at wxxi.org is the email Connections at WXXI.

Org if you're watching on our YouTube channel for WXXI.

hello, you can join the chat there.

So lots of ways that you can get in touch with us as we talk about how to govern more effectively and the critique largely on the left, from the left.

in this book, abundance and what state Senator Jeremy Cooney thinks on the state level as a senator representing the 56th district, and Nate Salzman, a Brighton Town Council member.

When we come back, I want to do a couple things here.

I'm going to ask Senator Cooney to tell the story of the cement plant.

If you could, can we do that when you're.

Absolutely.

And we're going to talk high speed rail because there's maybe no more hobbyhorse for the political right to attack than high speed rail.

They'll point to California starting and stopping.

They point to cost overruns.

They'll say that it's just not feasible.

Senator Cooney does not think that is correct.

We're going to talk about that, and we're going to welcome more of your feedback.

Let's take that only break.

Coming up in our second hour, we sit down with a man who once advised Vice President Dick Cheney on matters regarding Russia.

George Beeby is now with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

He's visiting Rochester this week as a guest of the local chapter of the World Affairs Council.

And he comes to Connections to talk about peace and war and how to end wars, and what the Quincy Institute is all about in places like Ukraine, Iran and more.

That's next.

Our.

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>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Let me start with a piece of feedback that's on the subject we were just hitting.

Before we get to this, the fabled cement plant and some other issues here.

Rick is listening.

Who says I read the book abundance and came away disappointed.

While I understand the concern about overregulation, that is counterproductive.

I did not get the sense that the authors fully considered why we have regulation in the first place.

I'm of the generation that read Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle, so perhaps my ideas about regulation might be dated.

I would ask Senator Cooney, what does he believe constitutes an appropriate level of regulation?

Are there principles he would use to make such a determination?

I think you largely answered this, but I want to if you want to extend the point there.

So, Rick, if you I'm sure you heard Senator Cooney talk about the speed of environmental review.

He's not saying no more environmental review.

He's saying if it takes a decade, we've effectively stopped progress.

So is there are there other ways that you would look at what determines, okay, these wetlands are off limits.

This actually we can green light.

How do you how do you see that?

>> Yeah I mean Upton Sinclair's Jungle Book, which of course, I read when I was growing up as well.

And it's perfect that we're having this conversation the day after Labor Day.

Right.

Is working conditions were just absolutely atrocious, as were outlined in that book.

And yet through the organized men and women who are part of the labor movement, we have now gotten to the point where we're able to have those negotiations about working conditions and those benefits that are going to workers, and we want that process.

You know, a lot of times employers cringe when they hear about unionization efforts or organization efforts in their workplaces.

But I think that's a really good thing, so that we can prevent those types of working conditions for for our neighbors.

ultimately, though, what I think this book tells us and challenges us to do is to make the process work better.

And so whether we're putting time limits on governmental regulation, whether we are shining more light on bureaucracies, how the decisions are being made, you know, I don't get I don't think this is a Republican or a Democratic problem.

I think this is looking at how government works in today's expectations for how public life should operate.

Again, this is about making sure that we are doing what we say we're going to do.

And if we are standing in our own way, and I'm going to give that example about the cement plant, in just a moment, you'll see that we are trying to do two things at the same time.

We're trying to say we want these values to be followed, but we're not going to let it happen.

And that's just frustrating for everyone who's involved.

>> So what happened with the cement plant?

>> okay, so let's talk about cement and concrete.

Everyone always you know, I chair transportation.

Everyone always wants to talk about more sidewalks in their neighborhoods in their communities.

That's a good thing.

Well what are sidewalks made out of?

Generally concrete.

And the key ingredient in concrete is cement.

So cement is like the glue that holds all the rocks and the sand together to make the the actual concrete material.

So there's one cement plant left in New York State.

It's in upstate New York.

And this cement plant, was producing cement for state projects.

And it's a very high emissions process.

It's the how how that actually happens is I won't go into all the technical details, but there's a large carbon off put.

So in our whole decarbonization movement, we're trying to make that more efficient, more green friendly.

Right.

That's a good thing.

So the state of New York back in probably about five years ago, 2020, had a set of grants from the state agency Nyserda Energy and Resource Development.

And they said, we're going to give you some money if you can find a system that cleans up how you produce cement in New York State.

okay, that sounds good.

They were actually awarded a state grant of $5 million towards a $50 million project to overhaul how cement is produced.

okay.

Sounds good.

All right.

Flash forward to 2025.

They haven't gone through that capital change in their cement factory.

Well why not?

They can't get a state permit to allow them to do the construction to create a better output system.

Why not?

Great question.

Well, they got a permit way back in 2015 that has been renewed.

You know, under administrative processes, every year.

Well, the state says we're not going to give you a variance.

There's that word again.

We're not going to give you a variance to your state permit until to to to do these changes until you renew the process.

But that renewal process could take two years and will cost millions of dollars to do.

So.

You can't.

We gave you the money to clean up the process so that we could hit our state environmental goals, which are a good thing, but we're not allowing you to actually go through and spend the money that we gave you to spend to do a cleaner, greener cement process to make a greener concrete product for the rest of the state.

So we're just not going to allow you to do.

>> That's why people become libertarians.

>> It gets worse.

You want to hear this.

So I mentioned it's the only cement plant in New York State.

So what does this mean if they're not producing the green cement.

Right.

The greener cement products, the lower carbon output cement, that means we still want green concrete, which means we are going out of state to purchase cement to be trucked in.

That's right.

Trucked in.

There's some carbon that comes along with trucking, heavier equipment.

And by the way, we have 200 union jobs in upstate New York that are now going to waste.

So but you feel.

>> Good about yourself because it's greener.

>> Yeah.

It's greener coming from a different state.

And again, we have all the right materials in place, but it is not some external.

This is the key message here.

It's not the external force that's causing us to not be able to hit our climate goals.

It's us.

It's ourselves.

It's one state agency versus another state agency.

>> Where is this plant, by the way?

>> It's outside of Albany.

So they've got great access to some decision makers just to just down the road in the state capital.

So those are the types of infuriating examples of how we could be producing a better material to go into our sidewalks, that our families walk on.

That would make us all proud to live in a state like New York, which has ambitious climate goals.

But we can't hit those goals because we're standing in our own way.

>> Are you going to change that one with the plant?

>> You better believe it.

>> okay, we're going to check with you in a few months.

Or maybe I don't know, you want to give it a year?

We'll come back.

Talk about cement.

>> That sounds good.

Always happy to talk about cement.

>> Cement?

and Jen emails to say Jen does not believe that the town of Brighton actually wants affordable housing.

What do you think, Council member.

>> I would say I do, I do and and I'd say, you know, I'd love to talk to Jen about where we could, where we could put this affordable housing.

I think we should be building more on Monroe Avenue.

I already brought up the example of of the parking minimums, eliminating parking minimums, which I think will help go a long way.

>> But do you think that your colleagues in government, and do you think that the the people of Brighton generally want more affordable housing?

>> I can tell you, I think they do.

I have very positive conversations with my colleagues about this.

When I talk to residents, overwhelmingly, I'm hearing I wish my kids would come back like you did.

And and I'll tell you this, you know, when I bring up variances, it's a big deal.

If you're the Whole Foods developer, you can afford to work with the town to hire lawyers to go through all the different variances and make it work.

And and Whole Foods, they made it work.

It's fantastic.

I got my my coffee from there.

This morning.

But if you're a smaller time developer and you're looking to build maybe 2 or 3 units, it's harder for you to to find the attorney to work with the town, to wait years to battle potential lawsuits to make this work.

And I think that by by closing the loop, by ending some of these, the need for variances, we can build that affordable housing that we need, that I support.

>> Well, on the subject a little bit more of housing.

And then we're going to turn to high speed rail.

Let me get Alex's email.

He says I won't go too far criticizing Ezra's thesis because I generally agree that we need more housing and should have ways to fast track development as needed.

But I do think he lets the political haves off the proverbial hook.

Governor Hochul has shown incredible reticence to increase taxes on business or the highest income earners, even though the data shows they're not the ones leaving the state.

It's people who make less than 50,000 who are leaving.

You had a show earlier this summer talking about the cost of new builds.

If these projects require more resources than cities or counties can reasonably budget, why is the executive not following the lead of the Senate and Assembly and increasing the tax levy on the highest earners?

Senator Cooney, what do you make of Alex's critique there?

>> There's a lot to unpack there.

And, Alex, I agree with you fully.

one thing that I think the book touches upon in the housing conversation is how cities used to become places of innovation that would draw people from more rural parts of our country to come to the city because they had a higher earning capacity.

Right.

So the the story of the family that moves from rural West Virginia to a larger city because they can make more money, that's not happening anymore.

And so what we're seeing is the folks who cities are attracting are perhaps lawyers, right?

They can come, they can make money and they can afford to live there.

But the but the people who are paralegals can't afford to live in that same community.

That's not the American way.

And so when we're talking about taxation policy, when we're talking about wealth equity, when we're talking about wealth generation, for me, you're right, and Alex is correct, it is not the top 10% that is leaving the state of New York.

The people who are leaving the state of New York are people who are looking to buy affordable housing, to send their kids to good schools and to be able to afford healthcare costs.

Right.

That's what they're doing to survive.

That's what they're doing to get through this difficult time.

And if we keep on losing that population, then our cities are going to become empty and really, that's that's the the fear that I think a lot of us have in state government is what are we doing to keep population here, not just in upstate New York, but just New York State as a whole.

>> By the way, Nate, do you want to I mean, you're a local Democrat, I get it, but do you want to see higher taxes on the highest earners?

>> Yes.

But I'll tell you this with housing, what I've been talking about is just having government get out of the way.

So I'm approached by developers that say, look, I would love to build here or there, except, you know, hiring an attorney and I don't really understand the process.

So I, you know, with the project on Monroe Avenue, I'm not talking about spending taxpayer money to build apartment complexes.

I'm talking about let's make it easier for mom and pop Coffee Shop to come in with two units above.

>> okay.

>> Can I just say one more thing on housing, which is we didn't touch upon, which is kind of the, gorilla in the room, which is electrical, connectivity.

I can't tell you how many times I hear from developers.

They say we worked our way through the process, we got the variance, we got the attorneys involved.

We got all the approvals.

We actually have the financing in place to build these expensive units, right, that are going to be affordable units for our community.

But we can't get power to turn the lights on.

And when I talk to our utility provider, they say it may be six months, it may be two years.

And we had this situation in Henrietta, myself and a member.

Bronson worked through that issue with their town supervisor a few months ago.

But the idea is this is becoming another issue because what is government doing?

We say we want all electric buildings.

Well, that sounds great because we want to encourage cleaner forms of power.

That's a good thing, right?

But if you can't turn on the lights, that means developers aren't going to spend the time to build these units.

If they don't spend the time to build these units, there's not going to be more supply and there's not more supply.

The housing is not affordable, so we have to recognize that it's very complex policy that sometimes, even though we have good goals as Democrats, as elected leaders, if we're not flexible with that, then we're not going to get the result that we want.

And at the end of the day, we want more housing to be built here in Rochester.

I'd like it to be clean energy, but there has to be some flexibility.

It can't be all or nothing thinking.

>> So here's Dallas on the subject of high speed rail.

Let's get into this, he says isn't it the case that high speed rail in California has been trying to build for decades and is billions over budget without a piece of track laid yet?

>> I think that that's mostly correct.

I mean, I mean, I haven't seen the very, very latest.

How much high speed rail is I don't know if a mile has been built.

I don't know if a track has been laid yet, but that becomes Senator Cooney.

The cautionary tale.

So when you travel the state and you talk about high speed rail transportation chair, and you have these big visions and people remember what you know, your first boss in politics, Congresswoman Slaughter, wanted people love to say there's a reason you can't do it.

Look at California, look elsewhere.

You're not going to do it here.

It's too expensive already.

It's going to overrun the cost.

People won't use it.

Do something else.

So take me through your abundance agenda idea for why you think you can actually do this efficiently.

Stay on budget and that people will want it.

How do you do it?

>> When people talk about the California High speed rail example, they're really talking about apples and oranges to what we're trying to do here in New York.

The book talks about this process beginning in the early 80s.

So almost as long as I've been alive at that time, governor Jerry Brown said, we're going to connect high speed rail from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

There was a lot of fanfare and a lot of taxpayer dollars put into place to start doing these reviews.

In the late 90s.

They kind of moved this forward into doing those environmental permits and variances and all that kind of good stuff.

By 2008, they were still doing that work, probably close to $10 billion being spent of taxpayer dollars on just doing the approvals, just trying to get where is the track going to be laid to connect these two markets?

By 2025?

Not one piece of track has been laid, and it's frustrated.

The the right and the left right, because I think everyone still sees on a core value system that this would be good to connect L.A. to San Francisco.

Right.

Because even though there's air travel that connects those two, it's not the most efficient way of getting people to point A to B.

What's different between what's happening in California and what we're trying to do here in New York is that we're not trying to do it by ourselves.

In New York state government, meaning that there has to be for, I believe, in my opinion, a public private partnership, meaning that the state of New York has something that only the state of New York can provide, which is the land access, the permitting process.

So we're trying to do that.

And we've talked on this show before about changing up the game instead of looking at Amtrak and using their existing freight line rail system with CSX, looking at the New York State Thruway, the I-90 corridor as an alternative route for high speed rail to travel.

Mostly because we already have the variances, the land rights, the permitting, all under state control right now underneath this New York State Thruway Authority.

And by the way, this is what's happening in other high speed rail projects out west between L.A. and Las Vegas.

They're using the I-15 corridor to put a high speed rail line right down the median of that existing interstate.

We want to do the same thing with the I-90 corridor.

I was successful with getting funding in this year's state budget to evaluate whether that is feasible, whether the terrain to connect high speed rail from, let's say, Buffalo to New York City by using the I-90 corridor is even possible.

By the way, that was the first investment we've seen in high speed rail studies or infrastructure since 2006.

So we're really trying to to get excited about it.

But I think what people often come and talk to me about is, yeah, I like that high speed rail concept.

I believe in it.

Yeah, I've taken a train and in Europe and I think that was really great, but we can't do it.

It's too expensive for New Yorkers.

We have other more pressing needs here in New York.

Well, that's why it's different than California.

California is trying to do it all by itself.

I'd like to bring in whether it's a private line, business, whether it's a conglomerate organization to be able to build out those track infrastructures, to build the trains themselves.

That's what we've seen work successfully in places like Florida.

The Brightline rail system, which we talked about on this show, connects Orlando to Miami.

Now, that doesn't mean that we just let them do whatever they want to do.

And, you know, we don't take tickets are going to be too expensive for the average person.

No no no no no.

There's reasonable restrictions that can be put into place.

But it's not state taxpayers that are having to hold the bag and fund this project completely.

Like we're seeing in California.

So I do think that it is about thinking creatively in a way that solves that problem, that we can learn the lessons from California and apply it differently in New York.

But at the same time, we still have a responsibility as state lawmakers to make sure this land is available.

And that's the process that we're undertaking right now.

>> Do you have a private partnership, idea in mind?

Do you have a player here?

>> Not not that I have one company in mind because, you know, Brightline, quite frankly, may not even be interested in coming to to New York State.

They've got a lot of on their agenda, right.

Because they're in Florida, they're looking to expand north to Jacksonville in Florida.

They're also doing the Bright Line West program, which connects again, Las Vegas to to Los Angeles.

So they've got a lot on their plate.

But what's changed since Louise Slaughter was in elected office to where we are now is that rail has become so popular as a mode of transportation that there are a lot of companies that are doing this now nationally because they can make a profit.

This is a profitable enterprise.

Now, people, the people of this country are looking to have high speed rail.

So they have found a way to market and monetize this where it's an attractive business, private sector, business proposition.

So again, this should be a public private partnership where we have a public outcome better, more connected, faster transit with a private partner who can afford to do it, not on the back of New York taxpayers.

>> We've got Joel and Art sending me notes about coverage of Brightline saying, hey, they have a high accident rate.

You know, that's true.

Their safety record isn't good.

what do you think?

>> So.

So, look, Brightline's got to make sure that there is a safety record in place.

There are some learning curves here.

you know, one thing that makes Brightline a little bit different from what we're trying to do here in New York is that Brightline in Florida, they use an old freight rail line.

And so the the train technology, the car technology is different to go a passenger on freight lines than it is what we're trying to do here.

We're trying to build new here along the New York State Thruway.

So it's not necessarily apples to apples when you're making that comparison.

But safety has to be paramount.

And back to earlier part of our conversation.

This is where government can step in.

We do want to make sure.

And this is, by the way, federal and state.

We do want to make sure that whatever passenger rail system we set up here in New York has safety first and foremost as paramount.

Right.

And so we don't just check, check the box and say, oh, nope, that's that's a private rail lines responsibility.

We're not taking any responsibility for that.

>> So to kind of wrap up on on that particular point, you look at California and you say, we've learned lessons, but we're not doing it the way they do it.

You look at Florida and you say there's a lot they're doing well, but we've got to see how they do with the safety record.

We wouldn't do it exactly that way.

But you believe a public private partnership can work.

And if you look at L.A. to San Francisco, yeah, you can understand why they want high speed rail.

You think there's demand in this state that would have enough passengers moving on high speed rail across this state?

>> Absolutely.

>> To sustain the business once it gets built.

Because often it's a question of how do we get it built in the first place.

But if you think if we can get it built, do you think that there's a model that will sustain.

>> It?

Absolutely.

Again, using my time in Congresswoman Slaughter's office as one point in time, and then 2025 is where we are today, micron has made a commitment to being in central and upstate New York and all of the semiconductor suppliers.

Right.

These are large employers with lots of resources that are going to be looking to move people and goods back and forth.

Toronto is now larger than the city of Chicago.

So Toronto in the early 2000 looked very different than it does today.

And so, you know, there is a demand to connect a market.

The largest economic unit in Canada, to New York City.

Right?

So by using New York City and Toronto as our endpoints, there is a demand to move people back and forth.

And again, not to go back to housing, but it always seems to go back to housing, right?

If you want to create more housing units in New York State, you can't do that in Brooklyn and the Bronx.

You've got to look at places like Brighton.

You've got to look at Syracuse and upstate cities.

So high speed rail connects people to allow people to live and work in New York City, but also to live and work in upstate cities.

I have to say this because this is a quote from the book that I just think really stands out in the time that California has spent failing to complete its 500, 500 mile high speed rail system.

China has built more than 23,000 miles of high speed rail.

So just think about that from a speed and an competitiveness standpoint.

We are falling behind our biggest economic competitors by failing to move people from A to B, and whose fault is it?

It's our fault.

>> All right.

Let's rap about 30s apiece.

Nate, what do you want to leave with the audience?

As we think about people who are going to pick up abundance and have it ready yet, what do you want to leave with.

>> Them?

That all the problems that we that we face today, we have to take the urgency around our rhetoric and actually put it into practice.

And that's what I think the senator and I are pitching here is we believe in what we're saying.

We believe in trying to solve the climate crisis.

We believe that we need to make housing more affordable.

We believe that we have to make transportation safer and cheaper.

the same thing with energy.

as I'm sitting there on paternity leave, collecting my mail, I notice our rates went up again.

So we're service higher.

Higher rates.

Let's bring more.

An abundance of clean energy to to bring rates down.

This is all possible.

it's possible in New York State, we have elected officials who believe in this.

And I think this book is one of the ways we can get this done.

>> 30s what do you want to leave with listeners there, Senator?

>> It's not about having the debate whether government should be bigger or smaller.

It just needs to work better.

And if Democrats can prove that they're able to run government better, they're able to get results for the people that put them into office.

They will start winning elections again.

The mega movement that we're seeing happen in Washington, D.C. is because Donald J. Trump said he could make government work better.

Time will tell on that.

But that was what he said.

And that's what the majority of Americans believed.

If Democrats want to start winning elections again, we have to show that we can make government work better because we have the values that better align with Americans and the vision to make it happen.

>> What's our next transportation conversation?

What are we going to talk about next time you come in?

>> Well, while you were away, I had some time to get actually into these aircrafts that take you up into the air with zero carbon output, with lightweight possibilities and very low cost and no sound.

>> What do you call these things?

>> They're called vtols.

And I want to talk to you more about that.

>> All right.

We're going to talk about that soon with Senator Cooney who's always generous with his time.

Thank you very much for being here.

>> Thanks for having me.

Welcome back.

>> Senator Jeremy Cooney and Nate Salzman, Brighton Town Council member.

This will not be your first and last appearance.

It's just the first appearance.

Thank you so much.

Please come back.

In the meantime, happy paternity leave.

Thank you for being here.

>> Thanks so much.

>> Evan Moore Connections coming up in a minute.

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