Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul and Mayor Adams Announce $70 Million Initial Investment to Decarbonize NYCHA Buildings as Part of Clean Heat for All Challenge

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced that the New York City Housing Authority, New York Power Authority and New York State Energy Research and Development Authority are moving forward with the Clean Heat for All Challenge (#CleanHeat4All or #CH4A) through a planned $70 million initial investment in the development and production of 30,000 new heat pump units for use in New York City Public Housing facilities. Last week, the NYPA Board of Trustees awarded the funding through two seven-year contracts to Midea America and Gradient for the development and delivery of cold climate packaged window heat pump units. The announcement is the latest milestone in the Clean Heat for All Challenge, an initiative spearheaded by NYCHA, NYPA, and NYSERDA to develop a new electrification product that can better serve the heating and cooling needs of existing multifamily buildings and hasten the transition to fossil-free heating sources.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the event is available here.

PHOTOS of the event will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Good morning, everyone. It's always tempting when we do something around a basketball court. Because if there was a ball, I might just take a shot from here, but I don't see -- I did that in Buffalo, Mayor. I was at a community center on our Day of Healing in Buffalo, bringing together the community in the aftermaths of the shooting and it happened to be on a basketball court. Once I took my jacket off, I just laid it up. So I just want to say, I'm not trying to challenge anybody here, but I am a little bit competitive. I wouldn't be in this business actually. Great to see everybody.

First of all, to have our Mayor here, who I'll introduce in a couple minutes, partnership matters. And what we're seeing with NYCHA is perhaps the first time in history where you really have this shared objective of lifting people up who live in NYCHA housing. They deserve the best and when you have the feds with the money and the state and the city in partnership, that's when good things happen. So, thank you, Mayor Adams, to you and your administration for being that partner that we need at this time.

I also want to recommend -- I did see Jessica Ramos in Saratoga this morning. So, she was not able to come down. She's the Chair of the Labor Committee. This is her district, but she was up there at the Building Trades Conference. So, I did just see her a couple minutes ago. Julie Won is here. Thank you, Julie. Who's this? Well, how do you have a baby that far from me? We're going to settle this afterward, okay? Congratulations on the baby, Council Member.

Doreen Harris, who is our Resident Visionary at NYSERDA, making great things happen every single day. Thank you for all you do and for all the great ideas. We could just continue on with the status quo, but you're always pushing your team the way I want them pushed, and that is to innovate new ideas. And that's what we're going to be talking about in a couple minutes.

Greg Russ. Greg, we've seen you at some amazing events as we talk about transforming people's lives through building a first ever trust fund, so there's money for repairs going on for generations. You were at the forefront of that, Greg, and thank you as the NYCHA Chair. Justin Driscoll, the Head of NYPA Energy Source, but when I need it, it's a great source of money for projects like this. So Justin, thank you. Annie Cotton-Morris, let's give Annie round of applause, our President of the Woodside Houses Tenant Association. Thank you, Annie.

So, I have some good news that's going to benefit both our NYCHA residents and our environment. That's a good day. If you've been outside lately, it's a little hot, but I'm reminded about extreme weather. It was just about 11 months ago because I was a brand new Governor, when we saw the effect of Hurricane Ida on this community and communities nearby. No one could have foreseen that we would have more hurricanes in New York City than Florida had last year that we'd see our communities battered, and houses flooded, and the desperations, I walk those streets day after day after day. So, we have seen the ravages of climate change right here in Woodside and East Elmhurst and our neighboring communities right here. So, this is not some conceptual idea that things are going to get bad someday. Things are bad right now.

And let's just start acknowledging that we are the first generation to really feel the effects of climate change, and we are the last generation that can do something about it. That's what we're continuing to focus on here in New York State with our nation leading climate agenda. So, we have goals that are bold. We want 70 percent renewables by the year 2030. Sounds like a long way, but 2030 is right around the corner. But, we are getting to those numbers. Well, I think we'll hit that even earlier, and 85 percent of emissions reduced by 2035. So, we're getting there, but now we have to look at our buildings. What's going on in our buildings? We are upgrading building codes, replacing old fossil fuel infrastructure with clean energy systems and making sure that our laborers, unionized labor are the ones working on these projects as well.

And one more thing I need to make a pitch for, a $4.2 billion bond act on the ballot this November. And why is that important? Because that is going to free up the money we need for the next generation to continue investing in clean energy initiatives, as well as building up resiliency. What does resiliency mean? It means protecting you, your families and your businesses from the ravages of climate change, the storms, the flooding, the rain and that's what we're going to continue doing as well. We're also investing in offshore wind. We have so many projects, but we're here today to talk about prioritizing green investments in public housing.

No one has focused on this before. No one has done this before. So, because we're investing in communities that have been systematically ignored -- the buildings go up, the people go in them, and all of a sudden people on the outside are like, "It doesn't matter what happens there." Guess what? It does matter. It matters to the Mayor, it matters to myself and everybody's sitting here. It does matter.

And so, we're taking steps to improve the indoor air quality in public housing. That's what this is about. And in the process, we're going to spur innovation for brand new technologies here in New York that the rest of the nation will be looking at. So, I'm excited about that because today we're announcing the Power Authority and NYSERDA, and the State are making a $70 million investment to decarbonize buildings by using electric heat pump technology. Now, I'm going to explain to you what that is in a couple minutes, you're going to be an expert on electric heat pump technology before you leave here today. But I'll give you a clue, it looks like that.

So creating a healthier, cleaner air environment for NYCHA residents, and making contributions to protect our planet. This is a good day. And what we're going to do is to achieve our goals by transitioning to fossil-free sources of heating, while addressing heating and cooling initiatives in our buildings. And what we did, how do we get that? We decide to launch a competition. As I mentioned, I'm a little bit competitive, right? I love competitions. We announced in December a competition called the State's Clean Heat for All Challenge that we launched. And we did it because we wanted the private sector to help us come up with how we would do what we want to do. We didn't have all the answers, we knew who to ask and we put to forth this competition.

And as a result, industry and manufacturers have a competition to have a new design for a heat pump that can be deployed for the first time, right here in NYCHA housing. And that's what we're so excited about. So, I asked you "What's a heat pump, anyhow?" I ask all these questions, and I said, "Why isn't it a heat and cooling pump?" Right? It should be called a heating and cooling pump, because it does both. So I just wanted to put that out there. I would call it more than just a heat pump. It's a heating and cooling. Maybe I can make that happen. But what it does is, it provides cool air in the summer and heat in the winter. But right now, the technology is too expensive and it's not available and it's not a good use of our resources.

So, let's re-innovate to get a better product that makes sense. So, we'll be able to have residents control the temperature in their own units. That's a radical idea for NYCHA residents, is it not? Because you're always too hot, you're too cold. You're opening up the windows in the winter time when it gets too hot and you're like, "What is going on here?" So, we're giving the power back to the people and saying, yes, you can have control because if it's too cold for your little baby, or your seniors are getting a little too hot, whatever it is, you can now have control over it. So, this is important to me. This is important to me that people feel empowered over their own lives. And that's what we're talking about.

So, we're focusing on -- and you're also going to make sure that we focus on quality of life issues as well. And this is a big milestone. We're going to continue focusing, not just here at Woodside Houses, but we're going to be selecting a number of homes right here that'll be installed over the next two weeks. And eventually, we're going to have this in over 30,000 units, 30,000 units in our first wave, as soon as this is developed and what we're talking about, developing this technology, and I want it built here in New York. Greg and I were just talking about this and Doreen knows this. Where are we going to build this? I'm not having this built in China, just telling you right now. I want it built right here, not just in the United States, I want this built in New York State. This is what we should be doing is creating jobs to manufacture these technologies, and let's get that done.

So we've had firms selected, Doreen will mention the names and what they're doing, but this is also going to reduce greenhouse emissions as well. So given how hot it is, I'm not going to go on and on, but we have want to hear from some other speakers, but this is how we're going to continue improving the experience for NYCHA residents. Greg mentioned the last time we were together, we talked about how we now have a preservation trust to make sure that the money is there, unlocking billions of dollars, billions in federal funding to help long-needed repairs, and finally make people who live in these homes feel, "Yes, you are valued."

Your experience should be just as positive and uplifting as any other building in the City of New York or in the State of New York. So that's what we're focusing on as well. We're also going to cut tape around getting repairs done in NYCHA projects, as well as other rights of residents. So, I signed a number of bills last year. It's all important. We're going to get it done. And I want to thank everybody for being out around this hot day to talk about heat pumps, but there are also heating and cooling pumps. So that's the good news. So with that, let me bring up my amazing partner in government. Our Mayor, Eric Adams. Thank you, Mayor.