What if you could create fourteen thousand new jobs, and save New Yorkers one billion dollars on energy bills at the same time, without additional cost to taxpayers?

A bill that I co-sponsored and which passed in the State Senate last week will do just that.

The Green Jobs/Green New York initiative will get to the heart of two of Central New York’s biggest issues—the availability of permanent, skilled jobs and high energy costs.

Last night the Senate passed the grounbreaking Green Jobs/Green NY bill, a measure that will create thousands of jobs across the state and help hundreds of thousands of families and businesses from Montauk to Buffalo save up to a billion dollars annually in energy costs. The bill, which passed the Senate 52-8 and passed the Assembly unanimously, is a major step toward rebuilding New York’s crippled economy and rescuing the state’s energy consumers.