What did you think about that? Do you think that was the right move?

You know, I, I think the governor was in a, a tough position.

Uh, and I think, um, delaying some of the, the rollout, um, you know, makes sense with, you know, utilities skyrocketing across the board.

Um, I don't think it should be a permanent delay, though.

I think we need to be moving forward as a state, uh, towards clean, renewable energy.

It's makes sense fiscally in the long run.

Uh, our problem is we have an aging grid, uh, that we need to make investments in, and we need to have a plan to, to get to the point where we can bring these new energy resources into the grid and distribute them out, uh, t- across the state in a way that is, um, you know, going to make sure that people have power when they need it at peak times and, and, and elsewhere.

Would, would you, uh, have voted for the data center moratorium, the legislation, and do you support that? Do you think that need should be passed even in the midst of the governor's moratorium?

So what do you think can be done to enrich the quality of life as far as affordability, education, the environment? What can you do as a legislator?

Yeah.

So, you know, the first step, we hope that things change at the federal level and some of the egregious cuts that were in the big, beautiful bill are canceled or pushed back by a change in legislation.

majority leadership in Congress, that would be great.

But we can't rely on that.

What the last year has taught us is that, you know, we don't know what the administration is going to do next when it comes to targeting us.

And so I think the state has to play a role both budgetarily, and let's be honest, the governor was clear, we can't backfill all of the federal cuts, but what we can do is try to mitigate the damage as much as we can.

Is there one particular issue you care to succeed in this upcoming session? You

Would you have any control over what the federal issues are?

No, it's, you know, obviously as a state senator, you don't have control over what Washington's doing.

But you do have a voice and a seat at the table in what's happening in our state.

But we have a lot of other issues.

As we know, the federal government is targeting New York State, among others, for reductions in federal funding, causing a lot of discomfort and, you know, tragedy in some ways.

for our residents, whether it's lack of insurance for their health care, rising costs due to tariffs and the war in Iran and all of these policies at the federal level are affecting us in the most probably egregious and one of the most egregious, at least in my mind, is the trade war that we're now having with Canada, our neighbor to the north, which plays a huge role in New York State's economy.

And so these are the policies at the federal level that are affecting us in New York, and this is where a state senator or state legislator can push back and also have a say in how the state mitigates the damage.

So what do you think can be done to enrich the quality of life as far as the affordability, education, the environment? What can you do as a legislator?