Gov. Kathy Hochul delivers the 2026 State of the State Address on Tuesday. (Photo courtesy Office of Governor Kathy Hochul/Darren McGee)

ALBANY — Gov. Kathy Hochul remains focused on making New York less expensive, easier to live in and easier to start a business in, all laid out in her State of the State speech.

From the Egg performing arts center attached to the Empire State Plaza and the state Capitol, the governor delivered a roughly hourlong speech on Tuesday, outlining the biggest successes of her tenure and her plan to tackle some of New York’s top issues in the coming year.

Her speech wasn’t short on callouts to President Donald Trump. Hochul said that some of what the president has done is driving the high prices New Yorkers have been complaining about for more than two years. She pointed at his tariffs, his push to shut down infrastructure projects, and his myriad directives to cancel or pause federal funding and benefits meant for New York.

“This moment carries real threats, from Donald Trump and his enablers in Congress,” Hochul said. “Driving up costs on everything from groceries to farm equipment with these reckless, reckless tariffs. Killing major infrastructure projects that put union members to work. Tearing apart nursing immigrant mothers from their babies and calling it public safety.”

Hochul also denounced the recent killing of Renee Nicole Good, a U.S. citizen shot dead by a federal immigration officer in Minnesota. She said all those issues, barriers and challenges posed by the Trump administration are part of a concerted agenda to make life worse for Americans. But Hochul said she will use the power of her office to push back on those efforts, as she has been doing.

“Mr. president, the message is still the same,” she said. “We will not bow to a wannabe king.”

Part of the pushback Hochul has called for includes a new wave of immigrant protection legislation, although the governor’s proposals don’t go as far as some bills filed in the legislature. The governor has proposed enacting a state law to designate religious houses of worship, schools and hospitals as “sensitive locations” that federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents wouldn’t be permitted to enter without a judicial warrant.

Despite the challenges, Hochul said New York is on a clear path to improvement. Although the state continues to lead the nation in the number of people who are moving away, Hochul noted that New York is the top destination for recent college graduates. Major projects and business investments are taking place across the country, and the governor proudly noted that the massive Micron microchip manufacturing center outside Syracuse will break ground on Friday.

“From Babylon to Buffalo, New York is rising,” she said. “If you’re betting on the future, you need to bet on New York.”

Hochul said she wants to take steps this year to ensure that rise continues. She has directed state agencies to review their regulation books and to cut regulations that are out-of-date, overly onerous or expensive.

She has proposed reforms to the State Environmental Quality Review Act, or SEQR, a 50-year-old law that requires construction projects to conduct environmental reviews and prove their development will not have an overly negative impact on the local biosphere. Hochul’s State of the State book contends that the SEQR process has been weaponized to stall projects, and her proposed changes would make for a more streamlined process.

The governor’s State of the State this year also includes an investment in child care, in an effort to address one of the costliest issues facing families in the current economy. Perhaps her biggest single policy proposal this year is Hochul’s investment in universal child care, setting aside funds to spin up pre-K in the last few upstate school districts without a local program, as well as funding pre-K for 2- and 3-year-olds in New York City. Hochul’s planned child care investments total $1.7 billion.

The governor has also proposed a new slate of social media restrictions for people younger than 18, expanding on the SAFE for Kids Act passed and signed into law last year. The governor wants to ban the automatic use of generative, artificial intelligence-driven chat bots for minors when they use online platforms or video games, and more broadly restrict person-to-person chat options for kids.

Hochul has other plans for the growing AI field this year. The governor has continued to push for broad investments and state programs to make New York an attractive place to base an AI company, but at the same time has pushed for restrictions and regulations at the state level. This year, Hochul wants to bar political candidates from generating AI-created images of their opponents within 90 days of Election Day.

Hochul is also seeking to expand the Empire AI initiative, which based a supercomputer at the University at Buffalo and allows academic institutions statewide to use it to study the new technology.

With major tech investments like the Micron site and a desire to host more AI-capable data centers in New York, Hochul is looking to boost the state’s power production. Last year, she directed the New York Power Authority to build 1 gigawatt of nuclear capacity, but in this year’s State of the State book, Hochul expanded that even further and is now calling for another 4 gigawatts of nuclear power on top of the power authority project.

Hochul wants the state to develop a “nuclear backbone,” of at least 8.4 gigawatts of nuclear-derived energy that will be reliable and support other power generation methods like renewables or fossil fuels. The state currently generates 3.4 gigawatts of nuclear power.

That expansion comes with a nuclear jobs program, NextGen Nuclear New York, with the goal of creating a skilled, in-state workforce ready to build and operate these nuclear plants.

Hochul’s 2026 State of the State included more than 200 individual policy proposals, and laid out a broad vision for what she will be pushing for this legislative season. Within the next few weeks, the governor will put out a detailed budget plan that will explain in more detail what she intends to do and how she intends to pay for it, and that will kick off a monthslong budget negotiation season before the April 1 deadline.

Her agenda will go up against the wants and needs of the state Senate and Assembly. Some lawmakers offered frank assessments of her agenda shortly after her speech on Tuesday. Republicans broadly derided it, releasing a rebuttal before she even spoke that called her agenda a “wishlist of radical left-wing proposals.”

Although state Sen. Dan Stec, R-Queensbury, didn’t seem to agree with that assessment, in a statement, the North Country lawmaker said there was a lot to like in Hochul’s agenda.

“Scaling back regulations on housing to make new construction more affordable is something I’ve long called for and I’m pleased that the governor is following suit with her proposal,” he said. “Protecting minors from AI chatbots is a good idea to help parents and students. Given the drastic increases our electric and gas ratepayers are facing, a more realistic energy plan should have been presented and wasn’t. That being said, and while the details of her 5-gigawatt nuclear strategy remain to be seen, an all-of-the-above approach to energy that includes the hydrocarbon and nuclear power is a necessary measure I’ve called for.”

But Stec said the governor’s child care plans were too focused on New York City and unlikely to make a big impact upstate. He had a similar complaint for her pitch on public safety, which revolved around keeping cops on public transit in the city.

The North Country’s sole elected state-level Democrat, Assemblyman Michael Cashman, D-Plattsburgh, had a measured view of the agenda laid out on Tuesday.

“Like many things, the devil is always in the details,” he said. “Due to this, I will be looking into all of the proposals to ensure they right for our region and acknowledge that we are a long way from a budget. There are real concerns in our communities about safety, rural health care and infrastructure that is in dire need of repair. Therefore, I will continue to punch above my weight in Albany in order to secure the resources our communities need.”