Martha McHugh

New York shouldn’t have to choose between the jobs and investment AI can bring and protecting families’ utility bills, and a blanket moratorium fails on both counts. My approach starts with one principle: data centers pay their own way, and ratepayers never subsidize them. Large facilities should cover the full cost of the generation and grid upgrades they require, and they should bring new capacity with them rather than draw down what homeowners and small businesses rely on. That means solving the supply problem instead of freezing demand: keeping existing plants running, expanding natural gas infrastructure, and taking a serious look at advanced nuclear. Local communities should decide whether a project goes forward, under firm, predictable statewide standards on water, noise, and grid impact. On taxes, I would replace open-ended exemptions with performance-based incentives tied to real jobs and investment, with clawbacks if a company doesn’t deliver, rather than repeal them outright and watch this investment move to Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas. Data centers are coming somewhere, and I’d rather they be built here, on terms that protect New York families.

KEWTORDS: balance, taxpayer protection, supply problem

New York’s energy policy has to pass three tests: affordable, reliable, and lower-emission. Albany has treated only the last as if it counts, and even Governor Hochul now admits the mandates would cost families thousands of dollars a year, which is why she pushed the emissions rules back to the end of 2028, years after the original deadline. My priorities start with keeping what works: nuclear, hydropower, and our existing natural gas plants, which stay online until replacement power is built and proven. Next, we build new firm power, including extending existing nuclear, advancing new nuclear, and expanding gas and storage where the grid needs it. Wind and solar belong in the mix where they make economic sense and have local support. Instead of date-certain mandates, I would tie each milestone to results, moving to the next step only when independent evidence shows the grid is reliable and bills aren’t rising. That evidence should be public: grid operator reliability assessments, the state’s own cost analyses, and what families actually pay. In the Senate, I’d require a published cost estimate and reliability sign-off before any new mandate takes effect.

KEYWORDS: all of the above options

No one should be looking to social media as a top source for science information. The NYS Department of Health has a long history of providing factual information related to vaccine science and should continue in that mission. Science should not be conflated by politics. Individuals should work closely with their health care providers to make decisions about vaccination for themselves and their children.

I’d let the evidence guide these decisions, not slogans from either side. My approach is to weigh what a product does for farm yields, food supply, and farmers’ costs against what independent data show about its risks to human health, water, pollinators, and farm workers.

For safety, I’d rely on federal and state regulators’ own risk assessments: the EPA’s registration reviews and tolerance levels, the USDA’s Pesticide Data Program, which tests residues on food, and the FDA’s residue monitoring. In New York, I’d use the DEC’s pesticide registration and use data, the state’s mandatory pesticide sales and use reporting, and Department of Health findings. For international scientific consensus, I’d look at the National Academies, the World Health Organization, and the European Food Safety Authority.I’d also want to hear directly from New York farmers, farmworkers, and public health experts, because data on paper doesn’t always show what works in the field. When the evidence shows a real risk, we act. When it shows a tool is safe and important to farmers’ livelihoods, we protect access to it. And any restriction should come with a workable alternative, so we don’t lose farms or push production out of state.

Visa policy is set in Washington, not Albany, and I don’t think the state should pretend otherwise. There’s a legitimate case for careful screening and for protecting our research from theft and espionage, but blunt restrictions that push away legitimate students and scientists could hurt New York’s universities, hospitals, and growing tech and semiconductor sector. So I’d do three things. First, work with our congressional delegation and other states to press for targeted security vetting instead of across-the-board limits, with New York colleges and employers at the table. Second, build our own pipeline by expanding STEM education from K-12 through SUNY, CUNY, and community colleges, and by strengthening partnerships with employers and apprenticeships so New Yorkers are first in line for these jobs. Third, support what the state can control: helping universities and employers navigate rule changes, and keeping research funding and incentives competitive so we don’t lose talent to other states. I wouldn’t try to override federal immigration law, which isn’t our role and would only invite legal fights. Our job is to keep New York competitive.

New York already supports farm resilience through the Climate Resilient Farming Grant Program, which helps farms prepare for flooding, drought, and extreme weather through county Soil and Water Conservation Districts. Recent rounds have awarded more than $25 million to 133 farms. The state also funds water quality projects and supports Cornell’s research and extension services, and farmers can turn to federal crop insurance and USDA disaster programs. I’d keep those programs and make them work better: simpler applications and faster payments for small family farms, more investment in irrigation, drainage, and flood protection, continued support for Cornell research that gets practical tools to growers, and quicker disaster aid coordinated with federal programs. I’d also keep state mandates and costs from piling onto farms that already run on thin margins. The approach should be voluntary and farmer-led, because the people best equipped to decide what works on a farm are the farmers, not Albany.

License plate readers can be a valuable tool for recovering stolen vehicles, finding missing persons, and solving violent crimes faster. But a network that logs where ordinary people drive and shares it across state lines with little oversight calls for clear guardrails, and New York currently has none, so every department and vendor contract sets its own rules. I’d support statewide legislation built on five principles: use limited to defined public safety purposes, not general monitoring; short retention, with data that doesn’t match an active case deleted in days, not months; warrants or court orders for sharing with outside agencies, including out-of-state and federal ones, with narrow emergency exceptions and no sale of data to private companies; auditable logs of every search, public reporting, and penalties for misuse; and vendor contracts that keep the data under local government control, with security standards and breach notification. Communities should still decide whether to use the technology, as Syracuse did, but within clear statewide rules that protect both public safety and privacy.

The smoke is a real health issue for New Yorkers, and this summer’s alerts, on top of the record-breaking event in 2023, show it isn’t a one-time problem. I do think Canada has a responsibility here. Smoke crosses the border without any regard for it, and New York families and taxpayers bear the health costs. But the state can’t hold another country accountable directly, so my first step would be pushing Washington to make it a priority with Ottawa. The existing U.S.–Canada air quality cooperation wasn’t built for wildfire smoke. I’d press our congressional delegation and the federal government for a real agreement on prevention, forest and fire management, early warning, and shared firefighting resources.

New York spends real money on science, but I don’t think we spend it well. Right now our approach is to pick a handful of industries and write very large checks, with semiconductors at the top of the list, then AI and quantum. That’s industrial policy, not a science strategy, and it has four problems.

It’s too narrow. Billions go to a few favored sectors, while I’m not aware of any major state program that supports researchers pursuing their own ideas in biology, chemistry, physics, or medicine. Breakthroughs rarely come from the sector the government picked in advance. Cutting stem cell funding in 2021 is a good example: we walked away from a program that helped make New York a leader, and researchers left for states that kept theirs.

It’s driven by economic development, not by science. Much of the money goes to construction, incentives, and commercialization grants, all judged by jobs and private investment. Those goals matter, but they don’t build the pipeline of discovery that future industries depend on. We’re paying for the factories without investing enough in the ideas that fill them.

It leans heavily on Washington. New York’s contribution to research is small compared to federal funding, so when federal support gets uncertain, our universities and labs are exposed. Even the Empire AI board has noted how valuable state-led funding is when federal money is in doubt. That should tell us the state needs a steadier base of its own, not just a few flashy projects.

It’s concentrated in a few places. Much of the flagship spending goes to a handful of sites, and the benefits don’t reach all our campuses, small and mid-sized colleges, or regions.

I’d take a different approach: keep the successful large projects, but hold them to strict performance and accountability standards, and rebalance toward a more stable, merit-based state research program that funds the best ideas across fields and institutions, requires matching private dollars, and reports results publicly. That gives us a research base that produces the next Micron, not just one that hosts it