New York State Legislature

With the calendar year wrapping up and Governor Kathy Hochul filtering through hundreds of bills, let’s take a look back at some of the biggest issues that New York State politics faced this year.

Writing in the Times Union, the Democrat expressed her intent to sign legislation that allows for physician-assisted death for terminally ill patients as long as the New York State Legislature agrees to additional guardrails on the measure that passed both houses in June.

New York State has consistently blocked the construction of new pipelines to allow for the transportation of gas. The state Department of Environmental Conservation has rejected new gas pipeline construction on the grounds that it would harm water quality.

New York’s ethics laws – those covering the actions of public officials and lobbyists – gets an annual airing at a public hearing convened by the state’s ethics watchdog.

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.

Rural ambulance services across New York State are facing a growing crisis that threatens the health and safety of small communities. For decades, these services have relied heavily on volunteers, but that model is straining under modern realities. Fewer people are available to volunteer, while the demand for emergency medical services continues to rise due to aging populations, chronic health conditions, substance abuse, and mental health emergencies.Recognizing these challenges, the New York State Legislature created the Rural Ambulance Services Task Force. The Task Force brings together representatives from state government, EMS professionals, and local stakeholders to study the state of rural emergency care.

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.

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.

As the New York State legislative session came to a close last week, state lawmakers voted to repeal a decades-old policy referred to as the “100-foot-rule.” Christopher Casey, Utility Regulatory Director for New York for the Natural Resources Defense Council calls the repeal overdue.

In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, the state Assembly wrapped up its 2025 legislative session, a week after the state Senate finished. In many ways the legislative session was a typical one: The budget was late (the latest in 15 years), lawmakers held campaign fundraising events in the capital district (at least 176 for the 42 nights that state elected officials planned to be in Albany) or were held by leadership, and hundreds of bills were approved in a flurry of activity in both houses.