Blair Horner

This past weekend marked the start of Climate Week. Climate Week is an annual event dating back to 2009 and runs during the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting held in New York City.

Good campaigns rely on message control. Present your points in simple, understandable, and popular terms, recruit a range of “trusted” messengers, and relentlessly hammer home your message.

New York regulators have developed a draft of the state’s next energy plan and a public hearing process has begun. The Energy Law requires key state agencies to develop a plan to assess the state’s energy needs, energy supplies, climate impacts, and related issues and plan for at least the next decade. Not surprisingly, the draft energy plan is controversial: For example, the plan reflects the Hochul Administration’s embrace of the state’s aging nuclear power plants.

September brings the final days of summer and with it the early days of the fall semester. The excitement of attending college is at its peak: Students are glad to see friends, the weather is great, and the work hasn’t started. Not so much for college administrators, who are laboring to keep the roll-out going while dealing with increasing financial pressures.

It’s summertime and New Yorkers are paying more attention to swimming, barbeques, and picnics than they are to New York State policies.

Last week, state Comptroller DiNapoli released his office’s analysis of New York’s finances. His observations were sobering: State government faces a three-year aggregate budget deficit of $34.3 billion.

One of the big political news stories last week was the effort by President Trump and his allies to steam roll through changes to Congressional lines in “red” states in order to boost the likelihood that Republicans will continue to control the House of Representatives after the 2026 elections.

As New Yorkers choked through another day of poor air quality – driven by ongoing Canadian wildfires – another environmental threat looms, this one found in the state’s surface waters. The threat of “harmful algal blooms,” which can jeopardize drinking water supplies and the public’s health, is spreading across the state.

There is an apt observation about government budget-making: They are the clearest way to see priorities. That makes sense of course. After all, when it comes to public spending, there are unlimited demands and limited funds. Balancing the needs of society with the available resources is the centerpiece of rational governmental budget-making.

Hospital care is a big component of the nation’s overall health care spending. Spending on hospital care totaled $1.5 trillion in 2023, representing nearly one third (31%) of national health expenditures in that year.