Odd Lots - NY Governor Kathy Hochul on Her One Year Data Center Moratorium

Episode Date: July 15, 2026

On July 14, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced a one-year moratorium on new large data center projects in the state. It's the nation's first such pause at a time when anti-data center politics is on the rise around the country. But Hochul insists that she's not anti-AI, and that she's an avid user of the technology, as well as a believer that it can be a force for economic growth. On this episode, we talk to Hochul about the logic of the pause, and what she hopes it will achieve. We also discuss energy and housing stress in the state, and what it would take for New York to welcome in driverless cars.Read more: Meta’s Louisiana Data Center to Surpass $250 Billion Price TagOnly Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to Next Africa on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts Radio News. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Joe Wisenthall. And I'm Tracy Allaway. So Tracy, big news in New York State today. We know there's been a lot of AI politics, a lot of data center backlash.

I wasn't really expecting it. But New York State becoming the first state to institute a formal data center moratorium, at least for one year. Yeah, so this is really interesting. Governor Kathy Hokel just announced this. And it comes hot on the heels of there was another attempt in Maine to do something similar, but that ultimately got vetoed by the governor there. So it's really interesting that New York is, I guess, like, stepping up and maybe trying to create a template for other states to do this. Yeah, and it's interesting because like the one question is, does this become a ban? Right? Because we know there are a lot of people that would just like to see like anti-data center. politics is very popular. On the other hand, you know, it's interesting. I saw a story, I saw a headline recently, you know, in some states, there are still tax breaks, like they're trying to invite data center companies in. New York still has tax breaks too. And so, yeah, and it's so it's interesting because we see all these stories about like, oh, there's a compute scarcity, et cetera,

and yet evidently there's still this competition. But basically, data center politics are like really in flux. Absolutely. Also, one of the rare areas of bipartisan agreement nowadays it seems. If you're in the AI industry, you have to be kind of concerned that like there doesn't seem like they have many friends. Everyone hates you. Yeah. I mean, the ratings are negative.

But anyway, of course, data center politics gets into so many other things, you know, the anxiety about job loss. Energy policy. Energy policy. Uh, water policy, et cetera. And it's sort of this litmus test, I guess, because like no one really knows. Like, no one knows whether their AI is going to be good or not, right? Like, will this be a great thing for the world or will this disrupt the world in ways that we can't possibly fathom and, you know. But also, if you agree that AI is going to be important in some way in the future, then it seems reasonable to want to design like some sort of framework for how data centers should actually get built out. I imagine different states, different cities, different municipalities will have different ideas for.

exactly how to do that. But it's interesting to see people start to grapple with those requirements. So, you know, do you have to have a closed loop system for water? Does the company have- Bring your own power? Right. Exactly. Like what are these requirements? What's the optimal data center going to look like in the future? Totally. Well, there are a lot of big questions that this touches on big, like just sort of in the macro sense, like what are we building? What is the government's attitude towards building things, period? excited to say we literally have the perfect guest. Governor Hokel, thank you so much for coming on OBLOT. Related to join both of you. All right. So the big news came out this morning, a one-year moratorium on a big new data centers in New York State. Why now? What is, what was the catalyst for

this particular decision today? Well, there's been really what I call flood the zone. There's been a lot of companies that may have been contemplating putting in plans for data centers. there's massive data centers around the country, but all of a sudden it seemed like there's been a surge. And I have to respond to that. My main challenge is in the state of New York are making sure we keep the lights on and making sure that people can afford to keep the lights on.

And so the challenges that I have to deal with in this environment where everything we want to do for clean energy, renewable energy, or my all-the-above approach, are under attack from Washington. So I have to make sure I'm managing our resources. So when you have a huge company that wants to come in, even on the somewhat smaller side, 50 megawatts of power required. That's 50,000 homes that all of a sudden are competing with that consumption of energy.

So on that front, it was important to me, but also I've been studying this around the country. A lot of communities are getting, deriving substantial benefits from these companies, and they're willing to pay for it. But I realized I used to represent a very rural area of upstate New York in Congress. these communities do not have the sophistication. They don't have the planning staff, the staff that would know to say, you know, we wanted you to give, you know, $1 million per megawatt. We want you to make sure that you're investing in the grid,

all these other things that could be doing, but they're not being asked. And I think the companies are willing to do that. So I want to make sure that we take the time to have a community investment framework to give to localities. But also, you have to be able to power yourselves. You want to come in. I said this in my state of the state back in January. I launched the Public Service Commission to start this process.

They'll be done within this year of the moratorium so we can have certainty for businesses, but you come, you're to bring your own power source, or you have to pay a premium to use our grid. And those are the basic foundations of what we're doing with this moratorium. It is not a ban. It is simply saying, step back, take a breath, and get it right. Businesses want that knowledge of what the rules of the road are. We've actually had some interesting tweets from,

the builders of these facilities who are now saying, hey, just tell us the rules. Tell us the regulations. We're okay with that. And that's exactly what we're doing. But also responds to a lot of frustration from these communities, from people who don't think that they're paying their fair share or that they're just coming in and just start forcing themselves in. And that's really annoying to people. It's just they've had enough. Americans have had enough. So this is the U.S.'s first statewide moratorium on data centers, which means inevitably this is going to be seen as a test case or an experiment. When you think about this, what exactly is that you're trying to, I guess, prove or disprove or achieve? Like, what are you looking for here?

What should the outcome of the moratorium actually be? Very specific goals. My public service commission will take this year to devise a plan where we figure out how to make sure that they bring their own power or that they're substantially contributing to the grid. Secondly, I want them to contribute. This takes time for government to get this right. Put a, I'm establishing a larger grid resiliency fund. I want them to make major contributions so I can invest in the energy grid, the transmission lines, and everything else that has been ignored for so long. That's one of the reasons why our energy infrastructure is crippled. The investments were not made. So you're going to contribute to the locality. You're going to contribute to bring your own power and also this larger

dynamic. So that's what we're looking. But look at. Those are very specific. I have agencies all working on them now. I have about seven or eight agencies dedicated to this. I'll put the person power behind this. And we will be a template for doing it right. Right. We know in some instances, I think I've seen headlines like in Louisiana, for example, the big meta, campus, data center. It's like there's going to be, you know, payments to teachers in the area. The idea, I suppose, is, okay, any place that's open for a data center business, is let's make sure that we get these, you know, the same agreements that are being put in place elsewhere to benefit the community. How should we, like, moratoria can become bans, right?

Something is like, we're going to put this in place for one years, and then it's two years. We're still working out the rules of the road. That is five years and then you never have them. What sort of, like, are you actively trying to avoid this becoming a ban? I'm not expecting the need for a ban. I want them to work with us. No, I understand how important AI is. We are in a revolution.

This is the winds of change you're coming in at Hurricane Force. And it's disruptive, but it also can be very positive. And I'll tell you my commitment to AI goes back years when I launched the first in the nation, development of a supercomputer, the largest outside any private company, is being built in New York for public good.

What does that mean? All of our universities can tap into, power, computing power that is unavailable to them otherwise. We are innovating new therapies and cancer, working on it right now up in Buffalo. We are also trying to solve some of other society's other problems and even weather forecasting. I mean, you would not believe the disasters I have to deal with as governor, you know, heat waves, blizzards, floods, storms. And so there's all kinds of positive ways we can use AI. And I'll tell you what I just launched. I'm very excited about this. I'm using AI to analyze every single rule regulation policy, see whether it's

antiquated, outdated, too many fees. We just finished this. It would have probably taken five years at the staff level. I did it in a couple of months. And I have over 4,000 recommendations from the public who wanted us to look into things. Plus, I have all my agencies now using this list that they were given. Okay, get rid of these regulations. So I understand. Do you find like wacky old school stuff about like horses allowed on the streets and things. Yeah, all kind of, like everything has to be sent, you know, in many rules under, by telegram or fat. No, no, seriously, it's on the books.

A lot of people have been in violation. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, even I think there's, you know, pregnant women have to have a special permit to be able to work after midnight. No, there's, you know, the fees that you have to pay $25 to bring your dog hunting in the state. Like, inane things. And these were things that you like basically put the New York City, the New York State legal code base into AI and said, find the crazy stuff? Dump it in.

And I, and my team was like, you sure? And I said, no, we're going to do this. I want to rethink government. I want a government that's not on your back, but on your side. And using AI has been powerful to do that. And I think every level of government should use this. So this is going to go on for a little while, but I'm going to make dramatic changes using the power of AI. So my point is we are open to this interview.

It's what defines New York, why we're so spectacular. Why so many tech companies are leasing space at record levels coming to New York? Why recent college grads, this is their number one destination. So I want to capitalize on that. When I talk about those college grads, I also have to mention something else. AI and the uncertainty around this is causing enormous anxiety because young people don't know where they fit in the future with AI. will they lose their job?

Will they be displaced? Will the skills that they thought were so important are now irrelevant? So last week I had launched this a few months ago. We had our first meeting with really substantial business leaders, leaders in tech, people from academia, labor, gathered them together, along with my team,

and I said, we are now called the Future Works Commission. We are studying the positive benefits of AI, what we need to do to make sure that our students, our AI, competent so they can take the jobs, but also how we deal with the disruptive forces. The forces that drove, I'm from Buffalo, drove everybody I knew out of a job when Bethlehem Steel left and automation replaced jobs in our factories. So I saw that happen as a young girl and as a child.

I also want to make sure that we're ready for it this time. So I'm trying to deal with that anxiety that people are feeling, trying to deal with our energy demand, making sure the decisions are responsible. and we'll get through this, but we embrace AI in this state. Listen, and you're there for heart-wrenching knockouts. The world's biggest stage! And breathtaking triumph. In 2026 FIFA World Cup, the knockout stage.

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next in the transition to a more resilient and future-ready world. Powered by Bloomberg's editorial coverage and data-driven insights, will examine. how climate intersects with the forces shaping our future, from technology and the economy to policy and community. Learn more at Bloomberg Live.com slash green NYRadio. So given that you recognize the importance of AI and you do want data centers in the state in the right way, but that's inevitably going to require additional rules. Maybe it'll make the data centers more expensive. And ultimately, New York is competing against other states.

when it comes to attracting these projects. How do you actually, you know, how do you encourage data centers to come in with additional restrictions once this moratorium is over? That'll be up to them. It's also up to the localities. I mean, they should not go anywhere. They're not welcome.

I spend 14 years in local government, and I believe that the localities should be the deciders whether they want this. But let me tell you the larger picture. Whether they come here or not is up to them. What I'm spending my energy on is focusing on the large, massive producers of the elements for this to support AI. What am I talking about? Semiconductors.

Just last week, less than a week ago, I was with the CEO of Micron, who I was, one of my proudest accomplishments was landing Micron to come to New York, not another state where they're looking seriously. $100 billion of investment, largest private sector investment in American history. they will be creating 10,000 direct and 40,000 indirect jobs. Now, I will say, I will work with you to get the power you need. And I've structured arrangements with the New York Power Authority. And they're also helping me with my effort to bring more nuclear to New York. We're waiting for the Trump administration to hopefully green light us on my massive expansion of nuclear that I want to do.

I want to build more nuclear in New York than the entire country has in 30 years. That's how ambitious I am about powering our future of international. But if I have to choose between powering a largely vacant data center with the same amount of power, I can have a micron with thousand jobs, I can tell you right now where I'm going. So they can come under the conditions we lay out, but I'm also going to be investing a lot of my energy on the good paying jobs that will be there for the long term. When we talk about AI labor market disruption, like everyone's anxious about this right now all across the economy. and we're like waiting, right? Like we don't really know what's going to happen to work. However, there's one area with AI specifically where we know that there's, like where we can

already see the rubber hitting the road quite literally. And that is in driverless cars, which is AI. And we know that like Waymo had a trial here in New York State and then New York put a pause on it. And of course there's going to be human drivers interrupted. Can you tell us about. why Waymo couldn't move forward and what that says about your office's framework for managing this disruption? I will say I'm very interested in Waymo. I've been in the vehicles. They're amazing, right?

They're fun. Yeah, they're fine. But this is where I want to get ahead of this. Before we have these disruptive effects, what is the alternative for the people who now are the ones we're counting on to drive us in person? You have to have a plan B. This is what we did not have with the Industrial Revolution and all these other, the automation revolution. That's why so many people were so discouraged when they lost their jobs, whether it's overseas or, as I said, automation, because government didn't step in and work with the industry and prepare people for this. That's what I'm trying to do. The people that are currently driving vehicles, are they able to, you know, get some basic AI competency program that we put forward? And they might get a job that pays even more.

Let's make there be a positive impact to this. So that's the strategy I'm using. What is, what is the alternative for people, how do we manage this, how can we get this to all work out? And so I just want to be thoughtful about it. Again, coming from the world I come from, where my hometown was basically a ghost town when all the businesses left, you know, going out of business, last one here, turn out the lights. That's the world I grew up in. And I'm so hardwired to protect the people of this state and these young people, and I gathered 10 of them in my office the other day. I invited people who had lost their jobs. Literally the boss had said, you're losing your job because of AI. Some of them had been studying computer science, coding.

They did everything we told them to do their entire lives. Like, go into, I can't tell you about your young people. I can't tell you, you'll have a job forever. Yeah. And those people, and especially women, are in the jobs that are most vulnerable. I cannot have this disruption without saying we did everything we could to mitigate it. But just going back to the Waymo thing, for example, because I do think it's instructive about what's going to come for a lot of different industries. Like the number of people who would theoretically be a passenger in any car is far larger than the number of people who drive cars professionally.

And you mentioned the Industrial Revolution Center and extraordinarily wrenching. But most people would say, we came out on the other side as a richer, more advanced society. And so, like, I'm curious, like, you know, how do you balance the interests of all the people who aren't drivers that would like a clean ride that would like a safe ride that would like a safe ride that would. would like a modern ride, a ride that potentially could reduce congestion, which I know is a thing you care about. And historically, it's like there are costs, but then you come out on the other side better. How do we get over that? You're absolutely right. But you're looking at the societal costs as being greater at the end. I'm looking at the collateral damage of the people before it gets there. I'm the first governor to say, I grew up in a world where no one cared about the

people and the displacement and why a lot of people had to leave the state because their jobs were gone. lost to foreign comp and lost automation. I'm just trying to fight to not let that happen. I have to help them reimagine life without the current job they have, whether it's the people that are driving vehicles or whether it's the young students who did everything we asked them to do. They got a good degree. They went to college.

They're trying to build a life. And now they're told, well, we don't need any more paralegals anymore. We don't need people to do back office. We don't need administrative jobs. You're gone. I can't let that happen with them. saying, but here's how we can get you a better future. Here's how I can put you on a path.

So then we can try to dial back some of this anxiety and fear of AI. Because I can't have companies be successful, but leave, they can be successful, but leave everybody else behind. That's not how we do things in New York. We lift everybody up. Should tech companies have to contribute directly to, I guess, managing the labor market disruption? So, for instance, paying higher taxes to fund reskilling. programs or things like that?

They should be involved. You know, I have a hostility toward raising taxes in New York. I've shown that I'm going to stand firm because I happen to embrace people that are successful in businesses here in New York because they're the ones who are creating the jobs, the other ones who are already driving

the tax revenues that allow us to have universal child care and invest more in housing and to deal with this energy challenge we're facing. So I want to make sure. sure that we're smart on that front. So, you know, there's a lot of ways to look at it. And I have to make sure that, again, New York has always looked at as a leader. I'm very cognizant of the fact that what I do will have a ripple effect. But that's why everything we do is so thoughtful. I did not wake up one day and say, we should do this. I talk to industry experts. Can you manage this?

Are you going to be able to get through this? And what they're telling me is just tell us the rules. So technology companies have a role to play, and if they want to be supportive of the entire workforce, help us retrain people. Let me tell you. I mentioned Micron before. Micron, when I was trying to recruit them, said they needed 9,000 engineers and tens of thousands of people in the construction trades. And I said, I'll get that done for you, I promise. So what I'm working with Micron and our teachers, our teachers unions, we've now changed the curriculum in the nine counties, grounding Micron to teach them basic skills that they would use if they were hired by micron. Now, this is like a 30-year proposition. You know, kids in kindergarten may not take a job

there to their 25 or 30. This is what industry can do to make us more competitive internationally, but I don't have to tax them to do it. You should be part of a consortium with me. And I also said this this morning. The companies that innovated this revolution, which is changing how we communicate, how we work, how we think, how we live. AI revolution have to have the capacity to be able to help us figure out the reasons why we have to have this moratorium. Use your expertise, your talent. AI, use AI to help us figure out how to deal with less energy consumption, less water

consumption, the less noise disruption. Why can't you solve for that and the whole dynamical change around this? So I'm challenging them to do that. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. All your favorite podcasts from start to finish, right inside the free IHare Radio app. Gets the blood going up.

Catch every laugh and eye roll on shows like the Tom Green Farmcast and park the bus. Now with full video. We're building a ramp for Tony Hawk. It's the same hosts and the same chemistry. with all the hilarious moments you've been missing right on your screen. Cheers. Open the free IHRRadio app.

Search video podcasts and tap watch. Start your day with Marketplace Morning Report and me, Kimberly Adams. In 10 minutes or less, I'll explain the day's economic news, why it matters and what it means for the way you live and work. Tune in each weekday morning for independent award-winning journalism that brings clarity to the economy. Listen to Marketplace Morning Report on your favorite podcast. We recently had a pretty awful heat wave in New York. And one of the sort of, I think, depressing things about, you know, New York and the modern era is that when the temperature spiked, we actually had to like turn on some of the sort of like spare like fossil fuel, like oil generated plants, et cetera. I know you talked about like this could be one area in which you actually do have alignment with the administration in D.C. Why isn't restarting, uh, restarting, uh,

Indian Point, which the owner of that facility says it's still technically doable part of the nuclear roadmap. It has been decommissioned. Yeah. They say it's technically still. Okay, because they've already been removing all the radioactive materials, and I'm like, I know they're bringing them back. I would say this. This happened before my time. One of the biggest mistakes in the state's history was shutting down Indian Point, which powered 20 to 25 percent of New York City's power without a plan B.

If you're truly concerned that there's been degradation of the facilities and there's safety issues or whatever the reasons we're back before my time, if that's real, just wait until you have an alternative. And so, yes. She's obvious now that we say it now, but yeah. Well, this is so frustrating for me. Because what I've done, though, in the meantime, as soon as I became governor within weeks, I authorized the building of a transmission line, hydroelectric power from Quebec, the chippy-price. project, the longest underwater transmission in the country. And I knew that if I could bring in an alternative source, we could replace Indian Point somewhat.

But guess what? While I'm doing this, we have pandemic, supply chain disruption, tariffs, war with Canada, which supplies a lot of our minerals and materials, and then I have a war on offshore wind, which I'm fighting to keep a facility that'll power half a million homes in Brooklyn. I wish you ready to launch with that in the fall. Offshore wind is a great alternative for us. So I'm trying to find all these. I also authorize a pipeline, a natural gas pipeline,

to go through from Pennsylvania to Long Island. So I really am all the above, all the above. And so I don't think there's an appetite for the communities involved to do any point again. But I have eight communities upstate. They're begging for it. I have locations. I have existing facilities. I have four nuclear reactors.

that have been working successfully since 1960s. The communities love them. They're good, paying jobs. That's where I want to be able to do this. And so I have a plan. I just need Department of Energy to authorize approval of a plan that they would help us get a long-term low-interest loan to fund this. And I'm all on board.

I've talked to the president about this. I've talked to the Secretary of Energy about this. The energy dominance, whatever they call it, commission. I just sat in my office the other day. about, I want this done because it's also, I said this to the president, one of my first meetings. Nuclear often is supposedly takes 10 years for approvals. Seven of those years are at the federal level. It said, you work on cutting yours, don't compromise safety, and I'll work on streamlining mine.

We can get this done in a couple of years. Plus, where's the marketplace, where's the commercialization of the small modular reactors? I was about to ask, you're looking at those as well, right? We are. We're going big. I'm building enormous facilities. high capacity. I also believe when I'm talking about data centers or the next micrunner, show up with your own small module reactor capability, and I'll find the space for you.

We have a lot of water upstate, a lot of fresh water. We have a lot of land. But it has to be the highest and best use of those properties, not just using hundreds of acres for a couple of jobs. I think we can do better than that. I know we can, and I'm interested in deriving that to happen. Since you brought up Trump and the administration, I understand you're probably more aligned on something like nuclear or maybe less aligned on something like wind. What are your conversations actually like with Trump at the moment? And have you had to, I guess, figure out the tradeoff between like the fights that you're willing to fight with the administration and the things that maybe, you know, you'll leave alone? I'm very good at managing relationships, whether it's with, you know, new mayors. presidents, that's my job. My job is, the governor of New York, is to make it all work out. And I think being even the first mom governor, first woman governor, I have unique experiences that allow me to deal with sort of warring factions all the time. And so my job is to dial down the temperature

and not create drama, just get results. And that's been my focus for five years. So when I have conversations, I often strive for common ground. Let's get Penn Station done together, Mr. President. We can do this. I know you need New York State. New York State does have veto power, but I want this done too, so I think we can get there. But I also want nuclear, and you have the power to say yes or no to nuclear. So let's talk about all these opportunities. So it's more aligned with that. Now, I will say I have called up and said, one time I called up and said, I'm heading to the Gateway Tunnel area. You just suspended this work for months. I'll be seeing a thousand unemployed individuals who thought they had long-term jobs, creating

six to ten thousand jobs. What would you like me to tell them when I arrived tomorrow? Because they're real unhappy. They supported you and they're unemployed. Two days later, the approvals were back in place and they're back to work. And so just having conversation helping point out the impacts of decisions, you know, sometimes can be helpful. but as I know, I'll always stand up and defend our values. I mean, you know, what I think is happening with ICE is abhorrent.

I have called that out. What I think is happening with all the health care costs that are, you know, destabilizing health care, even in the rural Republican areas of New York, like at least the phonics district, it's not a good political story. I once said, I said, this is not good politics for you. You're going to lose in Republican areas

because of these tariffs and inflation and all these costs of living going up. So they're interesting conversations. I think it's always good to have the door open line of communication, but always will stand up for New York values. J.P. Morgan expanding in Texas lately, Citadel, expanding in Florida. Do you have like a main theory of why we see this finance expansion out of New York? And would you say one of your goals would be to grow New York's market share in terms of the finance industry or the share of jobs that we have in this space? Of course it is. And why is it, why do we see this expansion elsewhere? They often call me, and they'll say, you know, I just want you know, governor, this is not a new headquarters. We're still here.

We're actually, then they say, we're expanding here. I just took on, I'm leasing more. I cannot get over the number of leases for commercial space that have been let in the last three, four months. It is extraordinary. No one could have first seen this. People, remember just a few years ago after the pandemic, during the pandemic, I first became, I become governor during the middle of the pandemic. People said real estate in New York City is dead. Yeah.

It's like, you know, turn out the lights. It is dead. It is on fire. So it's, whether it's tech businesses, financial services, just did a groundbreaking for American Express's brand-new headquarters, finishing off the World Trade Center site. That is a statement of confidence. I spoke with the CEO yesterday and thanked him for that. I said, I appreciate your...

He says, we're not going anywhere. There's only one New York. That is what I'm hearing from businesses. What do you want to expand in another location where your customers are? That's what I'm hearing. We want to go closer to customers. I get it. But this is home.

This is our identity. And I will protect that identity. Because to me, after we lost so much industry and the manufacturing and the ports and all the other drivers of commerce in New York, we had to reinvent ourselves. I spoke about this this morning at the Domino Sugar facility where I announced the moratorium. But we always reinvent ourselves for the better. And that's what we did with financial services. will always be the epicenter of financial services, and they'll know that they have someone to me

who's going to make sure that you understand the regulations, you know the rules of the road, and that's all these businesses ask for. I'm going to do a complete 180 from financial services to Democratic Socialists. But, you know, we had Zorin Mamdani on this podcast before, and since then it seems like the Democratic Socialists have racked up a number of wins.

What do you think is going on here? Like, what is the appeal of that particular message and how much of it do you yourself share? It is extreme frustration with the cost of everything going up, the knowledge that no matter how hard you work, you play by the rules, you'll never be able to have what your parents and grandparents had, which is the possibility of owning your own home. To hear the statistic a few months ago that the average age of a first-time home buyer, if you're lucky enough to have a home at all, went from 30 to 40 in just a few years. Look how long that milestone, that everybody else count on before this generation, how long it's going to take. To me, that hurts people. And I'm a mother of young people.

And I see the struggles they have, whether it's with child care, something I used to work for as an attorney for Senator Moynihan. I had to give up that job because there was no child care a generation ago. Those babies are now struggling to find child care themselves. So is it just a frustration? angered toward Washington because they were promised and inflation was going down day one. No more, forever worse.

All these promises that were broken and ICE is only, ice enforcement only for the baddest of the bad, the worst of the worst. I think they're just feeling so disaffected that they're angry at everything right now and who can blame them. And again, we talked about AI. I'm doing all this and I'm going to lose my job to AI.

So we just have to let them know. We hear them, number one, your message is delivered, we get it. We also share the concerns. And note there's people like myself out there saying, I'm going to do a billion dollar energy rebate to help pay utility bills. I'm changing all the red tape that is holding back the building of housing because the reason you cannot afford your rent or own a home is because we didn't have the ambition to build more housing. We got hung up with laws like Seeker Law. It's a 1975 environmental law, which had its place at the time.

In a time when I lived near Lake Erie, the pollution was rampant and people weren't protecting the environment and industries were irresponsible. Smok stacks everywhere. Sky was orange. I thought the sky was supposed to be orange when I was a kid. So I come out of that world. But fast forward to the world where they just feel like

no one's paying attention to them. And when we start ignoring these cries for help, you get a change. You get people just demanding change. So here's what I want to do. changed the policies, build more housing, the secret law, outlived its usefulness. I just got that through the legislature and people said they, it was called dead on arrival, even the last couple days of session until the budget was done.

And I said, I'm not leaving town until I get this. I'm very aggressive when I have my priorities to drive down costs in New York, whether it's auto insurance. I took on the trial lawyers, one on that front. So the larger answer to your question is I'm focused on all these. areas to drive down to cost living, housing being probably the top of the list. But also, let's harness that energy. In my whole life, we've been asking young people to show up and vote in higher numbers. And I was a little kid during the Vietnam War when people said,

why did it be 21 to be able to vote? These young people are dying and shutting blood on battlefields far, far away, and they can't even vote for the leaders who sent them there. So when it changed 18, we thought there'd be a revolution at the time of young people just so engaged, and it took until now. And I think it's just an enormous stress with Washington, their lives feeling frustrated and being denied the American dream. And leaders like myself are doing everything we can to change that dynamic.

We have to. I'd love to have you back some time just to talk three hours about housing because it does feel like the er issue that it could explain expansion into other cities by these big companies, et cetera. There's a million angles on housing. One specific thing, think about young people,

is one specific thing in the housing is from everything I understand, property taxes on a lot of multi-family buildings end up being higher implicitly than single-family owner-occupied homes. And so it's like if you really want to build housing at scale and you need to fund government, you need to have property taxes, we are sort of like penalizing the lever that could expand sort of units the most. should we revisit the core property tax system in New York so that we don't put such a, you know, favorable rate on the sort of traditional single family occupancy? I think it's more indicative of what's going on here in New York City.

Okay. Statewide property taxes have been too high, but there's not a disparity in that treatment that you're describing. So that is something that the city council would have to deal with specifically. But the larger question is, I just go back to supply. I think that we just, you know, you look across the New Jersey, you can see the houses they built on their waterfront, and we did not. And the nivism, not just from communities out in Long Island or in Westchester, some of them, it is like right here in the city. And the opposition I heard from so many city council members who you consider very left, very progressive, who was like, no, we don't want that. We don't want to have office conversions. This was a big deal. I wanted to be able to

convert empty office space into housing, especially during the pandemic when we had a lot of empty office space. Even raising the height requirements for buildings and doing more expansive thinking, I ran into so many roadblocks. I had a project that was going to be homeownership for 900 people, low-income individuals, be able to own their own home in one part of this great city. and the legislator said, no, we don't want people like that coming in in this progressive city. So that's what I'm up against, and I'm still trying to break it all down. I'm just trying to fight back because the collateral damages of people who are just want to be here so desperately. The young people came here with that dream of you can make it in New York.

The best city in the world. It still is, always will be, always full stop. But they get tired of living with five other people in a small apartment. At some point, they want to expand out. They want to have their own family. And that is exactly what we have to do. I'm listening to those people. I'm breaking down barriers.

I'd love to come back because I have a huge platform on housing. What I've done already, what I have to do next. And it's a huge task. That and energy keep me up at night. But I'm going to deal with both, dealing with both now. All right. Governor Hockel, thank you so much for coming on odd lots. We'll immediately start coordinating with your people about our three-hour housing.

And I would actually enjoy that. That's great. I hope you enjoyed this too. We would definitely enjoy that. Thank you so much for coming on awesome. Thanks for having me. Well, that was a lot of fun talking to the governor. Yeah. I'm looking forward to our three-hour version of the conversation. Yeah.

Yeah, I think we should do it. Absolutely. No, that was fascinating. Look, like, whatever you think about the specific move, it seems like it could be the first of many, right? Totally. Well, yeah, it definitely seems like it could be the first of many. I think there are two ways to look at it. I mean, I think you could say, that's New York State, saying no to something again, right?

New York, you know, the perception, including many people in New York, but I think it's like, oh, it's a bad place to, it's a bad place to build. It's a bad place to start a business. You want to go to the sunbelt, et cetera. So there's the one view. It's like, this is just another in a long line of things where, like, New York is not, you know, embracing the future, embracing economic activity or embracing business. The other possibility is that data centers could actually be very good.

They could incentivize, you know, companies to add to the grid. We've had episodes. In theory, they can reduce ratepayer costs because this is yet another company to bring down the cost of that capital expenditure, gets distributed, et cetera. So the question is, like, could in one year something that on the surface is like, oh, this could become a ban if it just, That's how government works. Or in this year, could they find a model where data centers are clearly something that if you get the economics right, a community wants to embrace? Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's what the one-year moratorium is trying to figure out, right?

The other thing I thought was really interesting, this is slightly off topic, but just using AI to dig through for old defunct laws, I guess, that no one actually pays attention to anymore. It's kind of crazy. Yeah, just drop the entire code base in and say, find the dumb stuff. Like, that is actually, and then you're like, of course, have the human confirm it. But that actually strikes me as one of those things that AI really is good at. Yeah. Prior to that, it's like, you, I mean, I didn't go, I doubt the prompt was literally find the dumb stuff. But like, that is actually what AI is good at is like, find the dumb stuff.

And then it's like, okay, here's 5,000 things. And then you review those rather than reviewing, you know, millions and millions of pages. I do think the Waymo thing is very instructive as a thing to watch. Because here is an exam. Waymo is AI, right? Yeah. And right now the impulses, I get why politicians have the impulse. A lot of people have the impulse.

It's like we have to, you know, make sure that the displaced have an opportunity to go. But on the other hand, most people aren't drivers. I think a lot of people like the, I think there's, the evidence seems pretty strong that driverless cars are in fact very safe. We know that road safety and congestion are also very big deals. We didn't even get into the congestion tax. But these are like big things. So it's like, you know, at what point, how does the government make on popular decisions that it's like, okay, there are clear benefits here, but they are going to fall disproportionately on one small group, this is the comes up over and again. This is the Jones Act phenomenon, which is like

how many people have Jones Act jobs and how many people like, and it's immovable. So I do think like how this resolves, if ever, is kind of like an instructive early warning about like how AI politics will actually go down. All right. Shall we leave it there? Let's leave it there. This has been another episode of the All Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway. And I'm Joe Wisenthall. You can follow me at the stalwart. Follow our guest, Kathy Hokel. She's at Kathy Hokel. Follow our producers, Carmen Rodriguez, at Kerman Armin, Dashel Bennett at DashBron, at Kale Brooks, and Kevin Lazzano at Kevin Lloyd Lazzano. And for more Oddlots content, go to Bloomberg.com slash oddlots. We have a daily newsletter and all of our episodes.

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