Dear Neighbor,

Earlier this month, the Senate passed our One-House Budget Resolution, as did the Assembly. These One-House Budgets are the Legislature's response to the governor's Executive Budget Proposal, and they serve as the starting point for three-way negotiations on the final state budget.

I am proud to be part of a Senate Majority that is putting forward a strong One-House Budget proposal designed to protect New Yorkers from the damage being inflicted by the federal administration and to address the ongoing challenges our constituents face every day. The proposal expands aid to localities including New York City, increases investment in affordable housing and education, and advances policies that lower energy costs while maintaining the state's commitment to renewable energy and climate leadership. It invests in healthcare and benefit programs to counter the Trump Administration’s cruel and short-sighted attacks on struggling Americans. And it continues our commitment to expanding early childhood care to ensure that parents can go to work knowing their children are in safe, caring, and nourishing environments.

You can read more details about the Senate's One-House by clicking here.

Officially, the final state budget is due on April 1st. But in reality, with so many large, complex issues being brought up by the governor at the last minute, this year's budget negotiations are likely to stretch well into April.

Below you will find governmental updates from the past month, recent actions by the Trump Administration impacting New Yorkers, and upcoming events and other useful information affecting our district.

As always, if you have any questions or need assistance, please email or call my office at lkrueger@nysenate.gov or 212-490-9535.

Liz Krueger

State Senator

What's In This Newsletter?

Governmental Updates:

• Update on Trump Administration Impacts
• Legislators Rally to Defend New York's Climate Law
• Op-Ed: New York Must Press Pause on Building More Data Centers
• New York Jewish Agenda Albany Lobby Day
• Addressing Subway Wait Times on Roosevelt Island
• Senator Krueger’s Virtual Town Hall on Election Security
• Op-Ed: Legality is not Accessibility: Close the Gap in Abortion Training

Community Updates and Info:

• NYLAG Mobile Legal Help Center
• Know Your Submetering Rights
• Shredding Event at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House
• CB8 Art Show Submissions

Update on Trump Administration Impacts

Below is a small sample of actions the Trump Administration has taken this past month that have had concrete, negative impacts on New Yorkers. Click on the links for more details:

• A great deal of ink has been spilled, and rightly so, discussing President Trump's foolish, unnecessary, destructive, illegal, and unsuccessful war against Iran. The war has so far cost American taxpayers over $30 billion and (rapidly) counting, while driving up the cost and energy and just about everything else for the foreseeable future. The war is also doing immense damage to the climate and environment, and the international system that the US worked to build since the end of World War II. And, entirely predictable, it is inflicting incredible suffering on the people of Iran, epitomized by the destruction of a girl's school on the very first day of the war, while only strengthening the grip of Iran's brutal ruling regime and putting the US in a worse position than we were before launching the attack. Meanwhile, with the war ongoing, the Department of Defense has removed all newspaper and media offices from the Pentagon. And, once again predictably, it appears that individuals close to the president are engaging in insider trading based on national security secrets, including when the president is going to flip-flop on his war aims and strategy.

• In light of the Iran war driving up energy costs and inflation more generally, and once again exposing the cost of our ongoing addiction to fossil fuels, it is particularly unfortunate that the Trump Administration has stopped the development of 22 GW of cheap, fast-to-deploy renewable energy generation on public lands, enough to power 16.5 million homes. This month the president, in an extraordinary and possibly illegal move, used $1 billion of taxpayer money to bribe Total Energies to give up their lease on an offshore wind area in the New York Bight. At the same time, a recent analysis from minority members of the US Senate Budget Committee found that HR1, the One Big Ugly Bill, will raise household energy costs by several hundred dollars per year over the next few years.

• A woman in Georgia has been charged with murder for taking medication to terminate a pregnancy, based on a 2019 law validated by the 2022 Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v Wade. This is just one example of people being unjustifiably scrutinized and criminalized under the Trump Administration for pregnancy outcomes, including stillbirth and miscarriage.

• The EPA is rolling back regulations that protect Americans from catastrophic chemical accidents, like fires and explosion, that had been finalized under President Biden after a 12-year process. The EPA is also rolling back regulations of yet another carcinogenic gas, ethylene oxide. Meanwhile, the Administration appointed an eye-doctor who has been a vocal supporter of the president to the EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, which by law must include one doctor, a role that has previously been filled by those with relevant expertise, such as pulmonologists and cardiologists.

• As a result of the Administration's ongoing, and significantly unlawful, attacks on immigrants, the US is approaching net-negative migration (more people leaving than arriving) for the first time in 50 years, which will have several negative impacts on the economy and our social safety net. It was also recently revealed that a personal friend of the president had used his influence with the Administration to have his ex-girlfriend, and the mother of his teenage son, detained by ICE.

• The US currently does not have a functional vaccine advisory committee, after 13 of RFK Jr.'s appointees to the advisory committee on immunization practices were rejected by a federal judge, leaving key vaccine recommendations in limbo, including those for flu, COVID, and RSV for infants.

• In a recent rally, President Trump claimed that "mail-in voting is mail-in cheating." The very next day, he voted by mail in an election for the Florida state legislature, as he has done repeatedly in Florida and previously in New York.

• And finally, the recently-appointed director of FEMA's Office of Response and Recovery has a history of making bizarre claims in public, including having once been involuntarily teleported to a Waffle House.

As we continue to see examples of authoritarianism and dictatorship seep into the fabric of our nation, many ask whether the U.S. is still a democracy or if it has been taken over by an authoritarian regime. The following articles look at the erosion of democratic norms under the Trump Administration, what true democracy looks like, and how to stop a dictator, based on research of how authoritarians lose:

• How to stop a dictator
• Americans aren’t facing a democratic collapse. We’re living in its aftermath
• How President Trump has challenged a constitutional foundation

Daily acts of nonviolent resistance continue to push back against the tide of authoritarianism, from which we can draw strength, inspiration, and hope:

• Judge Strikes Down Kennedy’s Vaccine Policies
• US appeals court blocks Trump administration federal agency funding freeze
• In Latest Blow to Trump’s Mass Deportation Plan, Judge Blocks Overhaul of Immigration Appeals
• King County bans immigration detention facilities, joining other Western Washington cities
• Trump fires Homeland Security Secretary Noem after mounting criticism over her leadership
• Protesters rally across US after strikes on Iran that killed Khamenei

Today, it is anticipated that millions of people will participate in No Kings marches throughout the U.S., in protest of the Trump Administration's authoritarian power grab. There are opportunities for New Yorkers to participate in nonviolent protest, whether or not you feel up to marching. There will also be news coverage of the protests if you prefer to watch from home.

Legislators Rally to Defend New York's Climate Law

This week I stood with many of my colleagues in the Senate and Assembly, as well as hundreds of regular New Yorkers from across the state, to push back against Governor Hochul's last-minute attempt to force through rollbacks of New York's landmark climate law, the CLCPA, through the budget process.

The CLCPA was signed into law in 2019. It set targets based on the best available science, and put in place a process, called the Climate Action Council, that brought together dozens of experts to chart a path for meeting those targets. Unfortunately, those recommendations, issued in 2022, have largely been ignored.

Now, after years of failing to act at the scale demanded by the crisis, Governor Hochul is claiming that the goalposts must be moved. To back up her claims, she points to a series of memos and talking points produced by her own office, focused on the cost of implementing a proposed Cap & Invest program, which is not actually required by the CLCPA, that she says will be too expensive - a claim that has been thoroughly and repeatedly debunked.

Reliability, generation capacity, and energy affordability are indeed critical issues that must be addressed. But the answer in all three cases is the same: not the unaffordable fossil fuel status quo that got us into this crisis in the first place, but low-cost, rapidly deployable renewable generation and storage, coupled with energy efficiency and weatherization that helps New Yorkers save money and reduces energy demand.

The governor's push has not been popular with my colleagues in the Legislature. Early this month I was joined by 28 other Senators in a letter to the governor expressing our strong opposition to rolling back our climate law.

You can read more about the issue in my op-ed in the New York Daily News, which I co-authored with Senate Environmental Conservation Committee Chair Pete Harckham and Energy Committee Chair Kevin Parker.

Op-Ed: New York Must Press Pause

on Building More Data Centers

This month I authored an op-ed in the Albany Times Union with Assembly Member Anna Kelles, urging the passage of legislation we carry (S.9144/A.10141) to implement a temporary moratorium on the construction of new large-scale data centers in New York State.

Large-scale data centers place substantial new demand on the electric grid, driving up electricity costs for residential and commercial ratepayers, increasing reliance on fossil-fuel “peaker” plants during periods of peak demand, and complicating compliance with state greenhouse gas reduction requirements. Many data centers also rely on significant water withdrawals and discharge large volumes of heated or chemically treated wastewater, raising concerns for local water quality and aquatic ecosystems. The rapid turnover of data center equipment is also increasing electronic waste, and with New York already running out of landfill space, this could accelerate capacity loss and drive up trash disposal costs for households and businesses statewide.

The legislation responds to these documented and emerging impacts by creating a temporary, three-year pause on new data-center development while the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) completes a comprehensive environmental impact statement evaluating the industry’s current and projected effects on energy use, electricity rates, water resources, air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, and electronic waste. DEC will also be required to establish regulations to mitigate these negative impacts. At the same time, the bill requires the Public Service Commission (PSC) to report on the cost impacts of data centers on all other ratepayers, and issue any orders necessary to ensure those costs are fully borne by data center developers, not regular New Yorkers and other businesses.

This pause is intended to ensure that New York fully understands the cumulative impacts of this rapidly expanding industry and can establish clear, enforceable, data-driven standards so that any future development complies with existing environmental and climate laws and proceeds in a manner that protects public health and environmental resources, and does not raise energy costs for New Yorkers.

New York Jewish Agenda Albany Lobby Day

This week I invited all my Senate Majority colleagues to join me in welcoming New York Jewish Agenda (NYJA) for their Albany lobby day, hosted by Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal. NYJA board members, staff, leaders, and members of their Young Leaders Network travelled to the Capitol to advocate for policies to protect immigrant New Yorkers as well as effective measures to combat antisemitism.

Addressing Subway Wait Times on Roosevelt Island

My office was recently made aware of long wait times being faced by New Yorkers at the Roosevelt Island subway station. In response to this, I sent a letter with Assemblymember Rebecca Seawright and City Council Speaker Julie Menin to the MTA, urging them to improve service and reduce wait times for the many people who use this station daily.

Senator Krueger’s Virtual Town Hall

Election Security: What New York State Can Do

To Ensure Safe And Secure Elections

Monday, April 13th 6:30 pm – 7:45 pm

Free and fair elections are the bedrock of our democracy. The upcoming midterm elections are especially important because they will decide which party will control the US House and Senate.

On Monday, April 13th, from 6:30 pm – 7:45 pm, Dereck Tisler, a national expert on election security, will provide information about what the federal government has done to withdraw support from our election security. And more importantly, you will hear about what New York State, red and blue states working together, and you can do to make sure all our votes are counted. 

Presenter:

• Derek Tisler, Counsel and Manager, Elections and Government, The Brennan Center for Justice

In addition to attending the event on Zoom, you will also have the option to view online through Facebook. Please note that you do not need a Facebook account or profile to view the event through Facebook. 

If you do not have access to a computer, tablet, or other electronic device, you can listen in by telephone. 

**If you register, you will be sent a confirmation email with the Zoom link and the call-in information.** 

The event will feature a question-and-answer session with Derek Tisler, moderated by Senator Krueger. If you have questions about the security issues related to the November 2026 midterms, what New York State is doing to protect voting, and what you can do to safeguard our voting rights, please join us on Monday, April 13th. You will be able to submit questions during the event but are strongly encouraged to submit them in advance.

The event will be recorded and available online approximately one week afterwards. A link to the recording and resources will be emailed to everyone who RSVPs.

Please let us know if you plan to attend the Monday, April 13th roundtable and RSVP to https://nysenate-gov.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_fvOQ27gaRVqP61klmmtxpA

Op-Ed: Legality is not Accessibility:

Close the Gap in Abortion Training

Today, three medical providers, Lily Dalke, Lucy Frucht, and Dr. A. Taylor Walker, took to the pages of Empire Report with an op-ed detailing the need to continue to fund and grow the Abortion Clinical Training Program, which was created in last year's budget. In the wake of the Dobbs decision, there is a national shortage of training options for providers to learn about abortion care in a clinical setting, a shortage that extends to New York in spite of our nation-leading abortion laws. The Abortion Clinical Training Program will expand those training options, and consequently expand access to abortion for under-served parts of our state.

NYLAG Mobile Legal Help Center

Know Your Submetering Rights

Shredding Event at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House

CB8 Art Show Submissions