Last year, much of New York choked on the smoke from massive Canadian wildfires, at one point turning New York City’s air orange, giving City residents—temporarily—the worst air quality in the world.

This past month, New Yorkers again experienced smoke from wildfires, but this time the fires were closer to home.

The ongoing dry conditions since August created fire-danger conditions in the region to develop and persist, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. The worst drought conditions have been in large parts of Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and West Virginia.

The first half of November was among the 20 driest such periods on record. Temperatures were also warmer than normal, with streamflow, groundwater levels, and soil moisture continuing to decline. With that, drought and abnormal dryness expanded or persisted for much of the Northeast. Extreme drought increased across all of the Northeast.

In comparison, last year during the same period New York State Forest Rangers responded to nine fires affecting 18 acres. This year saw a huge jump: 61 fires affecting almost 3,400 acres.

Even areas which have seen little in the way of wildfires experienced them. New York City has experienced brush fires in Manhattan’s Inwood Hill Park, Washington Heights, Queens and Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. There have been 18 brush fires (so far) on Staten Island. This was the first time in 22 years that New York City issued a drought warning.

Rain and snow that arrived last week aided efforts to contain these fires. According to the governor, the worst of the fires is now 100% contained.

Wildfires have not been the only bizarre environmental events experienced by New Yorkers. The National Weather Service documented that 32 tornados touched down in New York this year. That’s the most since tornados were first recorded in the state in 1950.

New York has suffered even more than wildfires and tornados. This year (as of November 1, 2024), there have been 10 confirmed weather/climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each to affect New York, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

It is unclear whether increases in storm events, including tornados, are directly linked to climate change. But warmer temperatures have led to more energy in some storm systems and more variability in where and when storms occur. Scientists also know that climate change is making other weather events, like heat waves and flooding, more common.

Temperatures in the Hudson River have risen two degrees Fahrenheit in the past two decades, five times greater than the increase in ocean temperatures per decade. New Yorkers sweltered through weeks of extreme heat this summer—by mid-July this year, New York City had already experienced more 90+ degree days than the last two years combined. Torrential rain and flash flooding in New York City and on Long Island from Tropical Storm Debby on August 13 destroyed homes, disrupted trains, and caused major, costly damage all over Suffolk County.

Clearly the worsening climate is expected to cost New York a lot. New York is facing staggering—and growing—climate costs. In 2023 alone, Governor Hochul announced $2.2 billion in taxpayer funding for climate-related infrastructure repairs and upgrades and resilience projects. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that it will cost $52 billion just to protect New York Harbor. On top of that, another $75-$100 billion will be needed to protect Long Island, and $55 billion for climate costs across the rest of the state. The state Comptroller has predicted that more than half of local governments’ costs will be attributable to the climate crisis. 

It’s irresponsible to not expect a worsening climate and with that more disasters and public health threats. In these dangerous times, it only makes sense to develop a response that relies on science and accountability. And let’s make sure that those responsible for the mess are on the financial hook for at least some of the costs. The Climate Change Superfund Act will soon make its way to Governor Hochul. The Act makes Big Oil climate polluters financially responsible for the environmental damages that they have caused.

The first response must be to hold those responsible for our worsening disaster. Governor Hochul can do that with the stroke of her pen. Time will tell.

With Donald Trump returning to the presidency and Republicans set to control both houses of Congress, the incoming Administration’s promise to cut $2 trillion in federal spending does not seem far-fetched. Yet how? The President-elect has promised not to cut Social Security and Medicare; and during the campaign he vowed to bolster the military. He also promised to cut taxes.

For now, how that math works is anyone’s guess, but the nation will soon see his plans. One thing that is likely is that whatever the new Administration decides, federal support for the states will be reduced – perhaps dramatically.

One area that is expected to take a hit is the nation’s health care delivery system, most notably the Medicaid program, which provides health care for low-income and other vulnerable Americans. The federal government spends nationwide about $600 billion annually on Medicaid, helping to underwrite coverage for nearly 70 million Americans.

Medicaid is a joint program of the federal government and the states. States are guaranteed federal matching dollars without a cap for qualified services provided to eligible enrollees. Because Medicaid is administered by states within broad federal rules, Medicaid programs and spending vary across states.

New York offers the most generous Medicaid benefits of any state, and it costs both a lot. Thus, if Medicaid is on the chopping block, it could be devastating to New York.

New York Medicaid provides coverage to 7 million of the state’s nearly 20 million residents. And that number is growing. Over the past decade, New York State has added 1 million individuals to its Medicaid program. The current state budget appropriated over $100 billion to the Medicaid program, with New York providing $37 billion – the difference is almost entirely covered by the federal government.

Thus, big cuts at the federal level could have big impacts on New York.

When it comes to health coverage, New York policymakers will do everything they can to avoid cutting benefits to needy residents. It will take creative measures to ensure that the state is getting everything it can out of its health-care system.

One step that must be taken is to tackle substandard hospital care.

Last week, a national think tank established by some of the nation’s largest employers and purchasers, released a report examining the quality of care in America’s hospitals. The Leapfrog Group has been issuing these analyses for over two decades. The Group relies on Medicare hospital quality data to make the best “apples-to-apples” comparisons of the nation’s hospital care. Over those two decades New York has been consistently ranked poorly.

In last week’s report, the analysis found that New York State ranked 34^th nationwide in terms of quality, well behind large diverse states like California (ranked 6^th), New Jersey (5^th), Florida (13^th), Massachusetts (23^rd), Pennsylvania (9^th), and Texas (15^th). The ranking is based on the percentage of a state’s hospitals that received an “A” grade. Only 22% of New York’s hospitals received an “A” grade. The report allows consumers to see the quality scores of individual hospitals as well as states’ averages.

Why do New York hospitals perform comparatively so much worse? In July 2019 the director of Leapfrog Group explained what she knew about New York’s hospital safety:

“The system as a whole didn’t seem to have emphasized safety. We’ve seen other states work together and look at what’s working well at other states and implement it. It just doesn’t seem to be happening in New York.”

So, what should be done? There is a vehicle for the Hochul Administration to demand higher quality. In 2023, the Hochul Administration established the Commission on the Future of Health Care. The Commission is charged with offering recommendations to transform the health care system in New York State.

Given the storm clouds gathering over the nation’s capital, the Commission should be preparing for how changes there can impact New York’s health care system.

Improving quality of care must be a top priority for New York. According to experts, higher quality care is less expensive care. Thus, developing recommendations to improve the quality of care will not only lessen unnecessary patient injuries and deaths, but it will also make the system more efficient in its use of public dollars.

There can be no doubt that New York policymakers have not made quality of care the priority it should be. Given the potential for dramatic changes at the federal level, not acting to improve care will hurt taxpayers, too. Here’s hoping that the Hochul Administration will make quality of care a top health priority.

While the vote tallies for the nation’s elections last week are not fully complete, it is clear that it was a decisive victory for Republicans, with Donald Trump handily taking the Electoral College and winning the national popular vote, a possibility that seemed unlikely in the run up to the vote. Republicans also regained control of the U.S. Senate, with the House of Representatives races still too close to call. Here in New York, however, it was a different story.

Incumbents largely prevailed in state Legislative races and Democrats appear to have won four of the five swing seats for Congress. In addition, New Yorkers solidly supported the constitutional question on the ballot that strengthened legal protections against discrimination.

The Congressional races and the constitutional question were top political priorities for Governor Hochul. From a Democrat’s point-of-view, her marshaling of political resources to achieve those victories must be considered feathers in her cap.

Heading into Election Day, the governor pledged to raise money and distribute resources on behalf of Democratic Congressional candidates and in support of the constitutional ballot question. She did and her efforts bore fruit.

In the swing Congressional elections in Syracuse, the Hudson Valley and on Long Island, Democratic candidates won – or appeared to have won – in 4 races. The incumbent Republican representatives appear to have lost in Syracuse, the upper Hudson Valley and on the south shore of Nassau County. The one Democrat incumbent facing a tough race won. Only in the lower Hudson Valley did the Republican incumbent fend off a challenge.

The performance of New York Democrats stands in contrast to the party’s performance nationwide. But there are warning signs for state Democrats.

This is true because Kamala Harris received far fewer votes in New York than Joe Biden did in 2020 and Donald Trump fared better in New York than four years ago. Comparing the two Democrats’ performances shows that Biden received almost a million more votes than Harris did. Trump received 150,000 more votes last week than he did in 2020.

Harris received 4.3 million votes to Biden’s 5.2 million four years earlier. Yet, there are 6.5 million registered Democrats in New York. Trump received 3.4 million in 2024 – an increase over the 3.25 million he received in 2020. There are 3 million registered Republicans in New York State. It seems pretty clear that Republicans showed up for the Presidential race and Democrats did not.

Democrats’ warning signals don’t end there. Since 2020, there has been a drop in Democratic voter enrollment: There are nearly 300,000 fewer registered Democrats in New York than there were four years earlier. Republican party enrollment is up nearly 100,000. By the way, voters who are not registered in any political party have also seen growth and now outnumber the Republican total.

Why the shift in voter enrollment? It could be a shift in how voters feel about politics in New York. Polling on how New Yorkers feel about the direction of the state has been negative. In addition, it is likely that at least some of the shift in Democrats’ total has to do with the net outflow of people from the state. While the total number of registered voters is up from four years ago, the state’s population has declined. Perhaps one explanation can be that Democrats have been more likely to move out-of-state.

Lastly, Republicans in state legislative races seem to have survived in a Presidential election year. Typically, Presidential years bring out more voters than in off years and in a state as heavily dominated by Democrats as in New York, Republican candidates suffer.

Instead, Republicans appear to have been able to protect their incumbents and even solidify their gains in south Brooklyn – until recent years a Democratic bastion. And a look back at the governor’s race in 2022 – when a Republican candidate ran a strong race against Governor Hochul – underscores a potential longer term shift in the political fortunes of Republicans.

As with any election, who wins and loses matters most. In New York, Democratic gains in the Congressional races and the solid approval of the constitutional amendment are undoubtedly victories. Success by Republicans in maintaining their support in legislative races in a Presidential year must offer some solace.

The trends in voter enrollments and the Republican gains in New York City are encouraging signs for their party and flashing warning lights for Democrats. How they proceed going forward will plant the seeds for future election outcomes.

At long last, the tumultuous election of 2024 comes to an end this week. Of course, the most likely scenario is continued tension over vote counts in the battleground states. Here in Albany, the focus will be on governing.

While the Hochul Administration continues to develop a budget plan for next year, the most immediate task ahead for the governor is deciding what to do with the hundreds of pieces of legislation that have passed both houses, but not yet sent for her approval.

Let’s look first at the numbers. In 2024, the state Senate and state Assembly jointly approved a bit more than 800 identical bills. Of those, as of the morning of November 4^th, the governor had approved 443 bills and vetoed 3, leaving 360 bills to go.

New York’s Constitution has specific rules for how bills are to be handled. The Constitution requires that once an identical bill has passed both houses it should be sent to the governor for her approval. The courts have ruled that every bill approved by the Legislature must be sent to the governor by the end of the calendar year.

Here are the most important rules, buckle your seat belt.

Once a bill is sent to the governor for approval, she has ten days – excluding Sundays – to consider the legislation. If she approves it, it becomes law. If she vetoes it, then it does not. However, the Legislature can choose to override the veto if two-thirds of the members of each house act in that calendar year. In that case, the bill becomes law over the objections of the governor.

If the governor does nothing during that ten-day period, the bill automatically becomes law.

If lawmakers send the bill to the governor at the end of the calendar year, the Constitution provides that she has 30 days to consider the legislation. In that circumstance, she can approve, or veto as described earlier, but if she does nothing, then the bill is considered vetoed.

The Legislature technically controls when the bill goes to the governor – with the house that approved the bill first making the call. However, in order to manage the volume of bills that the governor considers at any one time, there has been an informal rule that the governor requests bills when she is ready. The Legislature rarely sends a bill unless the governor requests it, and since the three leaders are all in the same political party, there are few reasons to upset the current practice.

As mentioned earlier, Governor Hochul has requested and acted upon nearly 450 bills and has 360 to go. She will start requesting them and must have received them all by the end of the calendar year.

Some of the bills still to be acted on are generally considered less consequential – except, of course, to those pushing them. For example, there is a bill that allows the state’s economic development agency to give a preference to any tourist promotion agency that is promoting the sport of stickball. No offense to stickball, but there are some bills that potentially would have more of an impact, such as a bill that requires local governments to maintain municipal websites.

And some are hugely consequential. For example, the Climate Change Superfund Act’s fate in New York now turns to whether the governor approves the legislation. Governor Hochul is co-chair of the U.S. Climate Alliance – a bipartisan coalition of governors committed to fighting climate change. Among the commitments of the Alliance is the promise to build resilience to withstand the impacts of climate change. The Climate Superfund bill would further that goal. Unless the governor approves the legislation, the entire costs of climate change – which already total billions of dollars annually – will be borne solely by New York taxpayers. The bill shifts some of those costs to the companies most responsible for our worsening climate without those costs being passed on to the public. An independent economic paper published by the respected Institute for Policy Integrity at the NYU School of Law supports that view.

And New York’s climate costs are already significant and will mushroom over time. This year alone, with New Yorkers experiencing a record number of extreme weather events, Governor Hochul has pledged approximately $1.4 billion in taxpayer spending to cover climate damages. In addition, New York has already invested $15 billion solely for coastal resiliency projects along New York Harbor. 

That proposal is one of the big decisions for the governor. But only one. As New York heads into the last weeks of 2024, the governor and her staff will be rolling up their sleeves to figure out her position on 360 remaining bills. One of them could help save taxpayers big bucks in the coming years as well as build a safer infrastructure to better protect New Yorkers from a worsening climate.

It makes sense for her to approve it. Time will tell.