(WNY News Now) – Governor Kathy Hochul and Secretary Hillary Clinton Highlight New York’s Cybersecurity Leadership in Fireside Chat.
Yesterday, Governor Kathy Hochul participated in a fireside chat on cybersecurity with Secretary Hillary Clinton. Today’s cyber threats are marked by a convergence of criminal and nation-state actors, who increasingly rely on cyber criminals to execute state actions. Those criminals, in turn, continue to perpetrate crimes, aided by additional resources and technical capabilities. This blending of criminal and nation-state malicious activity has increased the magnitude and complexity of cyber threats. In today’s fireside chat, Governor Hochul outlines New York’s first-ever cybersecurity strategy, and highlights her plan for ensuring that New Yorkers continue to reap the benefits of the digital age while remaining protected from digital threats.
Secretary Clinton: Well, I am delighted that we are hosting this conference today and tomorrow here at SIPA, and especially grateful that Katrina Armstrong just introduced us. I want to publicly thank her for the leadership she’s providing to the university in — let us say — challenging times. And we’re here to talk about cybersecurity, AI, and I think it’s important that we acknowledge that the change in administration in Washington will be consequential for today’s topics. Perhaps in ways that we can predict, but also most likely those that are unpredictable.
We can talk a little bit about that at the end, but I want to just jump right in to talking with Governor Hochul, who has emerged as a real leader nationally in this area. States are, and must again be, laboratories of democracy, and the Governor has been working in this vein on the cybersecurity front, having released New York State’s first ever cybersecurity strategy in August of 2023. That strategy outlines priorities for advancing statewide cybersecurity, and the first question I want to pose to you, Governor, after thanking you once again for coming to SIPA and IGP for this important conference, is — tell us a little bit about the advancements that you have been pioneering here in New York and how they are models for other states.
Governor Hochul: First of all, thank you to you for hosting me and inviting me to come back here again. We were here when this just was launched, and I think it’s had a real impact on critically important discussions globally, but also domestically, and how we protect our citizens — which is really the topic of today. And President Armstrong, thank you for making me feel so welcome here back at Columbia.
When you think about the number one job of a governor, It’s really simple to me: You protect your citizens. You protect your citizens in every way you can and you identify vulnerabilities to them, their livelihoods, their businesses and their communities. So our job, number one, was to identify what threats are out there. And I knew — because I come out of a technology family as well — one of the top concerns we have are the unseen: The cyber threats that are out there, either from foreign actors, domestic actors, nation states, criminals — you have all these different individuals who have a motivation, either financial or just to be disruptive to a society or a place like New York, which is every — there’s not a person in the world who does not know where New York is or what New York is.
So when you think about a high profile attack, you’re going to make sure that you’re looking at a place like New York, and we’re aware of this. So, one of the first things I did was make sure I had one of the top, top, top teams in the country hired by the state government — which I’ll get to that in a little bit because I want to hire everybody in this room. I’ve got jobs for everybody. But Colin Ahern came with an international reputation, and I had said, “You go build. Colin, you build the team you need. I will fund this. I will expand it. I will give you all the runway you need to make sure we are not just the best, but nation leading, so other states can follow our model.”
What do we have to look at? First of all, you look at your weakest link. You know this because you have covered as a senator all 62 counties in New York. You know there are many that are very rural. They don’t have the money to be able to build up their own infrastructure — cyber infrastructure. I started in local government so I’m aware of the limitations they have, and so I said, “We will take care of our counties because our counties and cities — they have direct links to my state system. If they’re attacked, then I’m attacked.”
So, immediately it was like, first we protect our flank, we protect our local communities, and so we started with providing them — literally providing them — with very sophisticated cyber protection resources for their computers, their telephones, etc. So that was job number one. Number two was to unify what’s already going out there within the State. Make sure that the State resources are all pooled together to make sure that they’re doing the right thing.
I mean, the State government cannot be vulnerable to attacks. We provide too many critical services to people. Also, look at our infrastructure. I’m really afraid of our infrastructure being vulnerable to these attacks. You know, whether it’s the Niagara Power Authority, which transmits lines all across the State to bring power here, the lines we’re building along the Hudson Valley, bringing power to New York City — we have to make sure that our critical infrastructure is protected. So you have to do a survey asking, where are we weak and how do we build it up quickly before they see that opportunity to penetrate our systems. And then we also created the joint Security Operations Task Force to make sure that we are coordinating with other municipalities and states as well and looking for federal assistance. So, it all starts very local and making sure that we protect all the assets that we can think of, because it’s not just about the government. It’s about hospitals going down. We’ve had attacks on hospitals here in the State of New York. County government — Suffolk County was paralyzed. So, this is not hypothetical. We’re not studying about this in a classroom. It is happening in real time. So, I view this as just an important part of my responsibility as the Governor of New York.
Secretary Clinton: You know, Governor, I think that’s a really important point that you made. You’re right about all of the rural counties — these very small places — and, you know, far north New York. But everything is connected today. And so the idea that you can have a first rate cybersecurity system here in New York City and ignore everywhere else is just totally wrong. And people need to start focusing on that: That the interconnectivity of everything we do means you have to have this state strategy. How has the outcome of this election changed, if at all, your cybersecurity strategy and your approach to cyber regulation?
Governor Hochul: Well, as you said, we don’t know what we don’t know right now. There’s just a lot of uncertainty, but I’m going to stay the course. I’m going to power through this. I will always be asking my federal government if there are partners, federal government partners, to provide resources to us because we can do so much more. And if they make this a priority, if you are truly going to protect us from foreign actors — something you know more about than anybody probably in this whole world. You know where the threats are from your past experiences, Madam Secretary. But, if they want to be helpful to us, that’s fine, but there’s nothing I’m going to change. I’m not going to go in a different direction. I’m going to continue using state dollars to build up our operations and provide money to localities. So I’ve been not anticipating a major shift in this, but as I look at everything we do in the State of New York, we have to protect the rights we have to protect. I’m prepared for anything. In fact, I just announced an initiative with our Attorney General a couple days ago — not necessarily related to cyber, but you never know. That’s our Empire Freedom Initiative, where we’re going to be ready to stand up and protect any right that we hold dear here in the State of New York that is under attack from anybody else, particularly from Washington. So, that’s going to happen. It is happening now. And this may or may not fit into that space, but my message is don’t get in our way. I have a job to do here. Stay out of my way.
Secretary Clinton: Okay. That got some good response. I think, though, it is fair to say that we have to think about what could be a massive overhaul of America’s internet policy and cyber infrastructure. I know that the Dean just had a conversation about this from walking back net neutrality to making sweeping changes to federal agencies responsible for broadband infrastructure, and so much more. And so, I think it’s absolutely on point to say you’re going to go forward and make sure that what you already have underway is going to be implemented. But I think it’s also important to acknowledge some of the successes that you’ve recently had. This year you signed two landmark tech safety bills — the Child Data Protection Act and the Safe for Kids Act. And so, in addition to cybersecurity, which you have a strategy for that you’re implementing, you know, what’s the outlook for a safer, more equitable online ecosystem, and can more states take action like you have if the federal government and the Congress are not?
Governor Hochul: Excellent question. In an ideal world, these would all be national, federal policies. I mean, there’s no reason why individual states should have to be taking steps to protect their own citizens from threats to our children online. This should be a national policy. Full stop. I’m not going to hold my breath. There’s a lot of opposition to even what we did. We had to take on the tech companies. That is not the easiest thing to do. They started this in California, got far, but here in New York, I will say this: First of all, we welcome tech companies to New York. I’m really proud that New York City is the number one tech job destination right now. Not Silicon Valley, not Boston, not Austin. They are coming to New York and I’m proud of that. And I want to make sure these companies prosper, expand and thrive, but as I’ve said to a number of them, you’re also parents. The leaders of these companies are also parents, and you know what’s happening. You know what your addictive algorithms are doing to children.
And if for some reason you do not know this, go with me to one of the round tables I’ve held all across the State where I convene teenagers — you know, young men, young women, but mostly the girls — and say to them, you know, “How are you feeling about things? What’s going on here?” And these kids are in a state that a generation ago they would not have been. They’ve been denied their childhood because they’re depressed and they’re anxious. Suicide rates — either contemplating or executing — are off the charts. And you’re a mom, I’m a mom, we’re grandmas. We have to protect our kids and listen to the young woman who said to me at a high school, she says, “You have to save us from ourselves. We can’t stop using our cell phones throughout the day. We literally cannot stop. We cannot stop when we get home,” from being online all night long and staying up all night because they’re going to miss something. FOMO is so real for this generation. I have it sometimes, too. I really do. My kids know that. But it’s something they can’t be missing out on.
So, this is something that we now are investing money in, mental health in schools. I mean, did I think a generation ago, or a few years ago, I’d have to spend money to have mental health therapists in schools to help kids who are struggling? No, but I’m going to be there for them. So, I took a step back and said, “What is happening?” The rise of addictive algorithms that are based on your preferences — you’ve telegraphed to these companies what intrigues you, how you’re going to go after it or how you absorb it. They’re preying on that, and they’re monetizing your mental health. That’s what they’re doing to our children right now. And we said, “Stop. If someone is under 18, you cannot send these addictive algorithms to them.”
Now, that doesn’t stop a young person from going on any site they want, but it has to be them approaching you, not you finding them and holding them captive, because there’s a lot of dark images out there. And if a young person’s thinking about committing suicide, they search ‘suicide,’ it doesn’t tell them about help, it tells them how to commit suicide. I mean, that’s what they’re pulled into here.
And the other thing we did was online data protection. Why on earth do we think it’s okay for these companies to take information about children and to sell it? I mean, they cannot do this. We stopped that in the State of New York.
And lastly, these kids are not getting sleep. They’re up all night, and we said that we’re going to have a function so parents can turn off notifications from midnight till 6 a.m. and the companies have to do this. Now, I will tell you, they had every argument under the sun to say we can’t do this. “Impossible. How do we know if someone’s 18?” I said, “Your technology companies, your job is to figure things out.” Guess what? They did. After we passed this, they did. So, I’m really proud of this. We’ll see the effects, the positive impact.
But I also do believe it comes down to — and I don’t want, this generation of young people are used to having cell phones in schools. I’m telling you right now, when you have kids someday, you do not want your kids to have cell phones in schools because they are not learning. They are distracted. 74 percent of teachers are saying, “Please stop this. We are competing with the cellphone.” And the kids are not developing interactions, skills, human interaction skills of talking to each other and learning how to collaborate and it’s just, it’s been really hard. And so this is something I’m willing to stand out there for.
Again, I don’t always find the easiest path, but I know what I have to do. I always have the clarity of saying, “This has to happen, and I’ll take on all the fights.” So, it starts with those tech companies. They could do this on their own. They should not have to be told by the State of New York to do this, but apparently they do. But the rest of the country and other states should absolutely follow suit. I believe in this so strongly.
Secretary Clinton: Well, I really wanted to raise that because when we think about cybersecurity, of course we think about physical infrastructure, but I think we also have to consider human infrastructure. And we have crises in both. We have direct threats to our physical infrastructure, obviously every aspect of our interlinked world, but we also have physical and mental health threats to how young people particularly — but not just young people, other people are being literally addicted to what they find on their phones.
I think it’s really important when we look at this whole area of technology, and you made the point earlier, Governor, that ideally, we would have national legislation, national regulation, and we would have, by now, developed a consensus about the importance of that. That hasn’t happened. Europe has gone further, particularly on data protection and children safety issues than we have. California and New York are really the only states that have any kind of ongoing legislation and California is certainly being litigated against by the tech companies.
But now we have this whole new area of artificial intelligence, and in the introduction, Acting President Armstrong talked about what you’re doing at the state here on AI. Could you kind of bring us up to date on that and maybe give us your vision about whether it’s possible for the state, again, far better if the federal government were doing, far better if the Congress took it seriously, but what is New York under your leadership trying to do to get ahead of what’s coming with artificial intelligence?
Governor Hochul: There’s a dark side and a bright side to artificial intelligence, and we are recognizing both. I’ll start with the dark side.
A year ago, I signed legislation that would prohibit anybody from altering an image with artificial intelligence. If you think about our political lives, the fact that there can be images out there of things you’ve said or some image of you that is not exactly you, there’s a huge vulnerability in the deep fakes out there, so we’ve banned them in the State of New York.
Now, it’s hard to police. That’s the challenge. But at least you put out there that this is not allowed in the State of New York. So, we’re working on — any time we can find a threat like that — how we can legislate against it. It’s not easy to do. And that does call for a federal response, I’m sorry. They would be absolutely negligent if they don’t come up with something that helps address this whole situation.
But on the positive side, I knew that one state would end up being the first in terms of embracing the power of artificial intelligence for public good. And right now we don’t have the power for universities like Columbia, for example, your students, your researchers, your professors to be able to have access to the kind of supercomputing power that the private companies had. So, I wanted to create a dynamic, and this is just, just really envisioned about a year ago and I got it through the Legislature just a few months ago, We call it Empire AI. First state in the nation to allocate money — part state, part private, part universities — $400 million to build a supercomputer, the largest in the nation that is going to be charged with solving society’s problems.
It’s going to be housed up in Buffalo because the power is cheap, the real estate is less expensive, but it’s accessible because Columbia had the wisdom to buy into this partnership, this collaborative approach. They have access to this. The James Simons Foundation, Marilyn Simons, she was up in Buffalo with us a couple weeks ago when we announced that we’re really starting as the building’s being built, we’re actually starting this.
This is about innovating new therapies for cancer, it’s about early warning detection of weather. I mean, I just flew in from wildfires in the Hudson Valley yesterday and the extreme threats from climate change. That’s another whole topic. We’ll talk about it another time. But we have been ravaged here in the State of New York, even something like a better early warning system and help us to show where there is — we need to build more resiliency in our infrastructure.
There are a thousand ways that we can use AI for public good, as long as it’s in the hands of the right people. So, this sets us apart. A lot of companies are paying attention to this, they know that we’re not saying no, we’re not afraid of this, but you shape it the way you want it to be shaped. And we lean into that.
And yes, there’ll be problems that arise, and we’ll say, “You can’t do that, you can’t,” and then we’ll find legislative solutions to it. So, I don’t want to be afraid of something that I think has great potential for human good. And so, everyone should be proud that New York is the only state doing this, and we’re the first, and that’s how we are in New York. Maybe it’s a little braggadocious, but I always want to be first.
Secretary Clinton: Well, I think that your vision for Empire AI, and certainly the placement of that up in Buffalo with cheaper power and some other advantages, raises the question about power demands that are now facing us from a lot of the tech companies. And they are looking to literally reopen nuclear power plants. Three Mile Island, there’s allegedly a deal between Microsoft and Three Mile Island; reopen a nuclear power plant in order to provide the computing power for AI. We have to figure out how to deal with that too, because if these companies are literally taking over power generation, the way our current system operates, that all goes into the base for rate payers. And so, rate payers are going to be allocated a significant additional charge because Microsoft or Amazon or OpenAI or whoever it is, is now just stressing the power grid. What are your thoughts on that?
Governor Hochul: I had an interesting conversation with Secretary of Energy Granholm about this very issue, as I’m working with Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, to take advantage of the fact that the federal government was very forward thinking. The Biden-Harris administration and Senator Schumer — Majority Leader Schumer, helped us tremendously by passing the Chips and Science Act.
Huge, huge plus for New York State. What that says is, we want to bring home the semiconductor industry from South Asia, create incentives to do it here in the United States, which is great, but that just helps our country. Now I have to make sure we land them in New York. So I had to do something comparable.
The Green Chips and Science Act, I passed with the legislature just a few days after the federal law, $10 billion that we’re allocating to incentivize companies to manufacture semiconductor chips in New York State. That is exactly how we were able to land Micron, which is looking at other states, and they’ll be producing Semiconductor chips that will be sold around the world.
50,000 jobs. Hillary, you know upstate New York. You know how depressed it was after so many of the industries left to foreign competition. And that’s where I come from. This is going to change the trajectory of upstate New York forever. 50,000 jobs, it’s the largest private sector investment in American history, $100 billion is coming to New York.
Now, I have the power of this as well. But what we’re creating is this whole innovation corridor from Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, and Albany up there, and the power that I’m generating from NIPA, the power authority which generated from Niagara Falls, can do a lot of it, but not all of it. We do have some nuclear facilities up that way.
We have the Fitzpatrick facility up on Lake Ontario. The conversation I had with the Secretary of Energy was this— if we’re going to continue being a place where we can bring these companies to and be known for semiconductor manufacturing and artificial intelligence, and all the other ways we want to be embracing the innovation economy, we have to find power sources. And the conversation came around the small modular reactors and companies, large companies, that come to New York or other states, at some point — I don’t know how far down the road this would be — they have to come with their own plug and play reactor that’s been preapproved, that meets all the environmental standards you’d ever want to have, but like, come with your own power.
And if other states all did this, then they are not putting a burden on the grid. But I don’t want to be at a competitive disadvantage if other states are providing it. I know places like Texas, they’re struggling. Other states are struggling with providing power just for their existing businesses and population.
So it takes a lot of creative thinking. I hosted a summit on the future of energy in New York in Syracuse a couple months ago. And this is part of the conversation. How we can do geothermal. We can continue our offshore wind, which, you know, we have the largest offshore wind — commercial grade offshore wind facility in America.
The coast of Long Island, but it powers maybe 600,000 homes. That doesn’t get me where I need to get. So we’re trying to find an “All the Above” approach to it. And nuclear is something that I don’t think people were talking about for a long time. But we’re in competition with other states where it’s widely used, and it’s all over Europe it’s been used, and I think we have to take another look at it. I do. Again, knowing that we’re going to have the toughest environmental standards, all the protection we could possibly think of, but otherwise we’re ceding to other states, and I don’t want that to happen.
Secretary Clinton: Well, I think this whole question of cybersecurity, power, all of it is connected. Because historically, one of the biggest worries people had about cybersecurity attacks was on the grid, was on power sources. And have you taken steps to particularly harden the grid? Because our grid in this country is out of date.
It doesn’t have the kind of resilience duplicative approach that it is needed often. We should have thought more about linking across the border with Canada and taking advantage of some of their hydro-power among other sources. So talk a little bit about the vulnerability of the grid.
Governor Hochul: No, it’s real, it’s real. And that’s why I don’t have Colin in the room. Colin, our grid’s good right? Alright, my guy says the grid’s good. Okay, that’s all I need to know. But no, this has been a huge focus of ours. I know Collin was on an earlier panel today and again he’s the national expert on this.
That’s where you go first. I mean if you’re a bad actor, you want to harm any state or a location, you’re going after this. We have done 23 tabletop exercises just on this alone. I’ve participated in them. We talk about what happens if there is a cyber attack on this facility, the power goes down, it’s up in the north country, it’s bitter cold out.
What do you do in a situation where people lose their power when it’s 20 below zero and there’s — the lights are out, we have single moms at home with little kids. We literally talk about how we’re going to take care of kids in case there’s a cyber attack on our infrastructure. You have to game out every scenario. So we are very adept at this and putting preparations in place on how to restore the power as soon as possible, try to identify what happened.
Some of it’s just, some of it’s ransom related. It’s about money, but others it’s just trying to be disruptive. So we have worked really hard on this with our tabletop exercises. I get a weekly report on how many cyberattacks we thwart every week.
It’s a lot, right? Is there a number I can throw out? No, it’s a lot. But you should feel good about that. Not that there’s attacks coming, but that they’re being stopped. I feel better about that.
So, no, you are absolutely right. That is an area of huge vulnerability. I don’t know that every state is taking it as seriously as we are. You know, we’re all connected, and we need to be sure of that. And we are bringing down hydroelectric power from Quebec. It’s a very expensive proposition, but it’ll be opening in about two years. And we’ll be protecting that as well as offshore wind. Everything we’re doing, every bit of it has to be protected. You cannot have any weak links in your power grid that are vulnerable.
And again, this comes to where us working with businesses. I didn’t even talk about how it’s not just we’re helping our state government and our counties and municipalities. It’s also about making sure that our businesses adhere to high standards. We have standards that are in place, regulations related to cybersecurity that are mandating that companies have protections in place, especially our vulnerable industries, the infrastructure. Right, Colin? I’m just going to have him come up here and tell you the story.
Secretary Clinton: It’s nice to have your expert in the back there.
Governor Hochul: He’s waving cards up.
Secretary Clinton: I wanted to ask you about business next. Because one of the problems that we’ve historically had in the Congress trying to get to federal regulation, is getting cooperation from certain sectors, from certain businesses and trying to create a private-public understanding, regulation, legislation, created so that we can count on that kind of cooperation. And of course here, you have the financial industry, we already talked about utilities, you’ve got transportation, you’ve got the airports, you’ve got everything that could be a potential target. How have you found businesses that are here in New York, with respect to whether they are really willing — not just to come and talk — but to act to have that kind of partnership with the state?
Governor Hochul: No, they are very cooperative with us and they know we have also passed laws requiring them to be cooperative with us. So, we’ll always have that and can always go further in our regulations and so we want to have them at the table, but it is in their financial interest to work with us and to share with us when they’re under attack. You need to tell us, we need to know what’s going on here so we can detect any patterns. If it starts with one financial services institution, and maybe going to the next one, or one hospital. We saw a series of hospitals — there has to be reporting. I think for a long time, a lot of companies and institutions like hospitals and schools — they wanted to keep it under wraps because they don’t want to make — someone paying off ransom, and if they do, then you feel like, “you paid this guy, then I’ll try them — because they’re going to pay me, too”
So there’s this whole, almost a psychology around how to handle this, and it’s wildly complicated. But they have to cooperate with us, because we’re the ones that can also be sharing information with them. I might see something that you should know about, and we can share that. So it’s in their financial interest, and their long term survival to work with us closely on this.
So I don’t know if we’ve had trouble with our mandates on that, but again being the epicenter of the financial capital the world is here. And you know, there’s a reason 9/11 was attacked here. It was an attack on an institution, basically it symbolizes the American economy. So we are very aware of our potential to be under attack, so we have to be on guard constantly.
I had to beef up this office. It was just a handful of people. I was like, “No, bring in everybody you need to.” And the other thing I really need is more people to go into this field. I truly, truly do. And I know you can all make a lot more money at the financial institutions. They’re always going to be there. Okay. It’s young people. When you have to pay for your kid’s college — when you’re done paying with yours, you have to pay for your kid’s — that’s when you go work for those companies.
But in the meantime, just help your government. I’m telling you, it’s a lot more satisfying to save a whole community from losing their water because you were able to spot a cyber attack and stop something bad from happening to a community, than just walk around with a big paycheck — I’m telling you. As someone who’s been in public service my whole life, you can be okay.
There’s so many great programs here at Columbia. We’re also trying to reduce the barrier to entry in these jobs, too. We are so anxious to get more people to go into state government that we’re really reducing even the educational requirements that were in place to open the door to more people. And particularly in underserved communities, open the door, they can get the training on the job from us.
So, state government is a great place to work. We’ll train you, and then those guys will want to pay you a lot of money with the experience you have — but give me five years, okay? Just give me five years.
I think this isn’t a field that we’re growing up like, “Oh, do you want to become a cybersecurity expert?” What are you watching, Star Trek? What are you talking about? It wasn’t real, but now there’s a whole career path in this. And it is exciting. And it’s enormously satisfying to know you’re out there protecting fellow citizens and your country.
Secretary Clinton: Okay, you heard it. That’s the pitch, everybody.
I wanted to ask you about how you cooperate with neighboring states, as well as our friends across the border in Canada. Do you have a kind of formal set up where you and Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut are in Communication about this. How does that work, governor?
Governor Hochul: We all have organizations of cybersecurity officers, and they communicate all the time. There’s constantly having conferences and forums, and just sharing best practices as we do in every level of government.
The head of my regulator of Wall Street, my Superintendent of Financial Services, she’s always out there. And this is part of their conversation when she’s meeting other financial regulators. Again, everybody’s always looking to New York. They look to us for having the best practices. They want to be like New York.
We announced our really best in class cyber protection plan. The federal government came up from Washington to stand with us to say this is, this model, this blueprint that you came up with is what every other state should be doing. So we’re very happy to help protect our neighbors, and we have great cooperative relationships with all of them on so many areas.
And that’s essential. You don’t come up with the secret sauce and a sluice of something and then keep it yourself. You share it with others, and there’s a great collaboration in that front as well.
Secretary Clinton: And also maybe you could describe what just was announced in Albany, because that’s connected to your nanotechnology and the whole corridor up there.
Governor Hochul: Oh, this was such big news. The federal government, when they passed the Chips and Science Act, decided they’re going to announce a national semiconductor training center. And Albany was selected, we announced that with Senator Schumer last week — and this is everything.
Again, it puts a spotlight on New York State as being the place where we are attracting the best and the brightest, and we have the money put into it. We just did another billion to help with EV lithography.
What is it? It’s $1 billion. That was something that — We have Global Foundries up there. We have Mike Brown. We have other companies. They’re all being attracted.
So people are paying attention to us. So to have, Albany, University of Albany dedicated as the center. Already we’re seeing recruitment opportunities, people to come up with this area. And it’s really exciting. I’ll keep repeating this, but for those who have spent their lives in New York city, there’s a whole state out there that really suffered from industrial decline for about 40, 50 years.
That was my entire life. And you just feel like you’re really beaten down. And now people are walking around those streets like they do in New York City with this kind of confidence, and this lift in your step. And you’re like, you know, we’re back. And it’s a really good feeling.
And driving these industries there is what is making it happen. And people are discovering that it’s a high quality of life, and it’s great for the businesses. So Albany is a natural place for that, but that has a ripple effect all the way down to the city. It just puts us on the map in ways that you cannot imagine.
This is, we are the most talked about place when it comes to the innovation economy in the country. And it was not that way just a few years ago.
Secretary Clinton: Well, finally, I want to ask you, what are you looking forward to? What are some of your hopes and ideas or plans for the next couple of years? Obviously implementing all of this, executing on it but any other priorities that you are going to try to focus on?
Governor Hochul: Well, outside of this, I’m trying to make it so that I’m attracting all these individuals to New York State — that it is an affordable place for them to live. I am laser focused on building more housing. I have to build basically another city to accommodate all the workers who are coming to upstate, for example.
And as more young people want to work in our tech industries here in New York City, we have to drive down the cost of housing. And how do you do that? Economics 101, you build more supply. I have been on this bandwagon for years, and it’s really more difficult than it should be if you ask me — but there’s a lot of NIMBYism and a lot of resistance to building housing that’s affordable for our newly arriving individuals or our graduates from schools like this, who want to make their way here, it’s just so expensive.
So those are areas — I just came from a state of the state meeting.before I came here. I had to prepare for what I’d be announcing in January. And we just have to let you know that New York State is the best place to live, to work, to raise a family — and you can’t afford it. And that defies our reputation, but I’m working hard.
I’m working really hard to make it a place that people want to work. One thing I want to add is we’re innovating ideas. My CHIPS and Science Act we passed has higher standards than the federal one. What I’m asking for are companies to buy into my societal priorities.
For example, all the buildings must be built with sustainable materials. It all has to be green. It all has to be compliant with every standard to make sure that we’re reducing our emissions. So they are all required to do that to get assistance from us.
The other thing is I need to see more young women and people of color in these jobs. and I told them I want them to build a child care center. If you want to come here and get help from the state, you’re going to have an on site child care center. And they looked at me like, “Okay, guess what they’re building right now?” Yeah, it’s under construction. So I said, “This is how you start changing it.”
I will give you help to come here, but it’s a privilege to be in New York too. And you want a lot of money to build up your industry, which will be mutually beneficial. But I also need you to go into the city of Syracuse and in Buffalo and Rochester, go into those neighborhoods where nobody ever recruits from. You lift these young people up, you give them some training.
We literally changed the curriculum in the nine counties around Syracuse, and they’re now being taught coding and computer sciences in classes they never had been before. Just to change the whole experience. So Micron and all the other companies that are coming will have a more highly educated workforce that they can draw from.
So, these are the changes you make. When you’re trying to start something, you have to look at the whole community. How we can get the housing, get the child care, get all of this — so people can feel they can live in the state and have a great future.
It’s my biggest priority. Just make people proud of New York. Make people want to be in New York, make people want to stay in New York.
Secretary Clinton: Well, that was a great conclusion for our conversation. And Governor, thank you so much for everything you are doing, for the leadership you’re providing, and for once again joining us here at Columbia.
Governor Hochul: Thank you, Madam Secretary. It’s great to see everybody.