AMERICAN HOSTAGES IN GAZA: Ronen and Orna Neutra, the parents of Omer Neutra, who is believed to be one of Hamas’ hostages, visited the Capitol today to speak with lawmakers and to join Assemblymember Nily Rozic to raise awareness of their son’s captivity and to discuss options moving forward. “We're raising awareness for a man and all the American citizens who are still hostages. And we're saying this is completely unacceptable. It's actually a threat. We need our government to do more. I want people to understand the gravity of this situation,” Rozic, a Queens Democrat, said. Omer Neutra, the grandchild of Holocaust survivors who is from Long Island, joined the Israeli Defense Forces in 2020 and was serving as a tank commander near Gaza during Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack. “For over 164 days, over five months, we received no sign of life. What we have heard are other hostages’ stories of abuse, torture and starvation. The situation is dire. Every day the remaining hostages, five of them American, draw closer to death. You're running out of time to bring them home live,” Orna, Omer’s mother said. — Shawn Ness ASSEMBLY FLIRTS WITH CLIMATE SUPERFUND PROPOSAL: The Assembly Democratic conference has moved closer to embracing a charge on fossil fuel companies for historical pollution. But they stopped short of a full-throated endorsement of the Superfund-style climate damages measure that the Senate has previously passed and included in their one-house budget again this year. “The Assembly is supportive of holding fossil fuel polluters accountable for costs related to climate change via a cost-recovery method; however, any such approach cannot impact consumers who are already overburdened by adverse price increases,” the Assembly’s summary of its budget proposal reads. The conference is open to discussing the climate superfund measure but concerns remain about how it would impact consumers, according to Assembly staff. The “Climate Change Superfund Act” would raise $75 billion from fossil fuel companies based on the quantity of fossil fuels they sold from 2000 to 2018. The bill has gained significant support since it was first introduced in 2022 with more than 70 sponsors. Assembly Energy Chair Didi Barrett, a Democrat from Columbia County, recently signed on as a co-sponsor of the measure. “My job is to figure out how we’re going to get there and how we’re going to pay for it,” Barrett told POLITICO. “It’s kind of a cliche, but having all tools in the tool chest available to us is the only way we’re going to get there.” Proponents argue that companies won’t be able to pass along costs directly because the assessment will be based on historical sales and they’ll be competing with other companies with fewer liabilities under the law. “I don't think there's anything that we're doing that isn't going to impact consumers,” Barrett said. “This is a tool that I support and want to move forward with, but to pretend that this is not going to impact consumers is pretty, quite naive.” Hochul hasn’t supported the proposal. The Business Council of New York State, Inc., opposes the measure and raised concerns that the bill is “impractical” and “disingenuous” because it penalizes only fossil fuel producers, not consumers and others, for the negative impacts of emissions. — Marie J. French ASSESSING THE CANNABIS MESS — Hochul is tasking the Office of General Services with reviewing the state’s troubled cannabis market rollout. OGS commissioner Jeanette Moy will lead a team that will embed with the Office of Cannabis Management to figure out how to improve the agency’s processing times and develop a way for the governor’s office to monitor licensing activity. Moy’s team will focus on how to improve the process for reviewing license applications and speed up the timeline for operators to get open. The review will last for 30 days and could continue into a second, longer phase with an outside consultant. — Mona Zhang IS MORE SCHOOL AID ENOUGH?: A report by the Empire Center explores New York's continual push for more school aid while highlighting some of the state’s shortcomings in education. The report supports some of the justification that Hochul used when rolling out her proposal to eliminate “hold harmless” and change the inflationary factor in the foundation aid formula. According to the fiscally conservative think tank, 81 percent of school districts outside New York City have fewer students than they did in the 2018-19 school year. Since 2000, enrollment in public schools (including charters) has dropped by 2.9 million, a point Hochul has highlighted when speaking to criticism on her proposal that could cut funding to 337 school districts statewide. The group again noted that New York has by far the highest per-pupil spending of any state, and that state aid per pupil doubled between school year 2011-12 and school year 2023-24, from $7,264 per student to $14,304 — almost triple the rate of inflation. “Rather than increasing state aid, Governor Hochul and lawmakers should be aiming to rightsize New York’s costs, with the goal of matching both the superior outcomes and lower per-pupil spending levels of higher-performing peer states,” the report said. — Katelyn Cordero
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