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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. To those of you celebrating the Jewish new year, L'shanah Tovah and happy 5782. It's the '80s again for better or worse, at least according to the Hebrew calendar, and thanks to Jami Floyd for filling in for me yesterday. Here's a tweet from New York State Senator Jessica Ramos of Queens.

After President Biden visited her district and two towns in New Jersey yesterday, she wrote, "Between the pandemic and the damage left by Ida, East Elmhurst has been through it these 18 months. Happy to have POTUS on the ground to see and hear the human toll climate change has taken on our neighbors for decades. We need a green new deal now." That tweet was a thank you and a prod for the President at the same time. Let's start there today. With me now is state Senator Jessica Ramos whose district covers parts of Astoria, East Elmhurst where Biden visited, Jackson Heights, Corona, and over toward Flushing Meadows Park. Senator, always good to have you on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Senator Jessica Ramos: Good morning, Brian. It's good to be back.

Brian Lehrer: Can you begin by just describing the human toll of the storm in East Elmhurst and anywhere else in your district as we speak here today? I don't just mean the death toll, which is shocking in and of itself, obviously, but also what some of the survivors are dealing with as of right now.

Senator Jessica Ramos: Yes. Thank you, Brian. East Elmhurst, for those who aren't from Queens, it's the neighborhood where LaGuardia Airport is located. The neighborhood itself is shaped like a bowl. The people who were hardest hit by Ida live at the bottom of the bowl. They essentially had rivers running through their alleyways. This is not new. The infrastructure challenges in this part of the neighborhood have been happening for decades for at least 40 years. They usually, when it rains, they might get an inch or two of water in their basements. Unfortunately, Ida brought six, seven, eight feet, nine feet in some alleyways of water.

We almost lost a few neighbors. Unfortunately, we had deaths in Woodside. Here we're talking about working-class New Yorkers who have put every dime that they've ever saved up into these homes. A lot of them depend on renting out their basements in order to make the mortgage, and it's just a very tragic reality of the convergence of our affordable housing crisis and climate change and the lack of updates to our infrastructure, particularly our sewage system in New York City. Listen, our sewage system is not capable of handling the increases in population that we have seen over the past few years and decades.

It is time to make these upgrades. That was my message to President Biden yesterday. We need the green new deal. We need to put people back to work, upgrading our infrastructure so that we can keep people safe. These storms are not once-in-a-lifetime storms anymore or once-in-a-generation storms anymore. We broke the record in rainfall twice over the past few weeks with Hurricane Henri and with Ida, we can't let this happen again. Now we're expecting a little bit of rain tonight, which might not seem like much but this can really wreak havoc in that part of my district.

Brian Lehrer: I know they're talking about the potential for heavy rains and flooding. Potential doesn't mean it's going to happen, but they're talking about the potential. Yet, again, listeners, whether you're in East Elmhurst or anywhere else, we're going to invite you now with Senator Ramos to call in and tell us about yourself or anybody you know recovering from Ida and what you need or what they need, or with any questions for state Senator Jessica Ramos of Queens at 646-435-7280. 646-435-7280.

We definitely want to know about people, even if it's not you, who you know who need things right now because there's a relief effort that's still going on let's be honest, as well as some of the longer-term policy issues that we're also discussing.

Senator Jessica Ramos: : That's right.

Brian Lehrer: 646-435-7280. 646-435-7280, or tweet @BrianLehrer. Senator, in your tweet that I read, you thank the President but also urged him to enact a green new deal like you just did in your last answer. I do want to separate those for the sake of this conversation at least a little bit regarding immediate aid to survivors. He said this about federal officials working with sick or injured people on Medicaid and Medicare,

President Joe Biden: We're going to make sure it's equitable so that the hardest hit, including lower-income folks, communities of color and the elderly and the most vulnerable get help and get it first. They're the ones in the greatest need.

Brian Lehrer: Can you go into more detail, Senator, about the health the President promise or what more people do need?

Senator Jessica Ramos: Yes, Brian. Right now the people that were affected by Ida need access to hot water in order to shower, they don't have that. They also don't have the ability to cook. These are basic human things. That's why we've tried to help in this respect. Governor Hochul on her second visit to East Elmhurst because yesterday was her third, she actually helped us bring in some assistance, a mobile unit from the state where there are people helping our neighbors fill out their FEMA forms, fill out their water damage claim forms with the controller's office, and also help them deal with their insurance.

We have a lot of issues with home insurance companies. Most people don't have flood insurance. What they should be filing for is sewage backup, which is the cause of this flooding.

Even that only gives them $5,000, which barely covers the cost of a new boiler, never mind the rest of the damage. With President Biden's promise to help yesterday, we're really hoping that that money becomes available as soon as possible because these basements are now full of mold, of sewage and they need to be gutted. I do want to shout out a group called the Building Trades Worker Democracy.

It's made of members from LIUNA, the Laborers' Local 78, 79, and the IBEW Local 3, who volunteered their time this past Labor Day weekend to help us start gutting a lot of these basements before the next storm hits us which I understand may or may not be over the next few weeks. We're not out of the woods yet. This is why I need if President Biden is listening to The Brian Lehrer Show, please help us get these funds as soon as possible so that we can have at least some short-term resiliency as we figure out what the longer-term strategy is.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, Joe, if you're listening, give us a call. 646-435-7280. We've never had a president of the United States call in. However, we have had senators and representatives from our area. Joe, let's turn it up a notch. He talked about people on Medicaid and Medicare in the clip. What about people not on Medicare or Medicaid? Maybe they're undocumented and don't qualify or otherwise insured. In terms of health effects, right now, I know people sick from the sewage. I know that people are sick from the sewage and other things like that.

Senator Jessica Ramos: That's right, and the mold. Look, yesterday we finished door-knocking on every block in that sector of the bowl in East Elmhurst. We are imploring everybody to please not sleep in basements. If your basement got flooded, that means there's mold, and you should not be breathing that in. We can connect you through the Red Cross to some emergency housing and hotels where you can say for the next few days while we figure out how to help you get back on your feet. It's really important, including if you're undocumented. We're very lucky to live in the city of New York where every New Yorker is able to access healthcare, medical care at any New York City public hospital.

If there are any questions about this, people can feel free to call our office or your state senator's office. Now my colleagues are going to kill me, but that's what we're here for. To answer those types of questions, nobody should be going without at this time. New Yorkers are resilient and tough above all. I'm continuously inspired by my neighbors over in East Elmhurst who have really been holding each other down the past week. I've been there every day for the past seven days. It's one week today. They've gone through a really hard time. 11369, their ZIP code was also the epicenter of the epicenter at the peak of the pandemic. They lost the most amount of people last year. We need to catch a break, man.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. The emotion in your voice is so real-

Senator Jessica Ramos: : I'm sorry.

Brian Lehrer: -and so welcome and nothing at all to apologize. Geez, I almost broke down the other night when and someone I know-- I don't know anyone personally who was affected in that way, but a friend of mine sent me a GoFundMe page for someone they know in Queens, a domestic worker in her family who had basically everything in their basement apartment ruined. When you know the people individually, it stops becoming a news story on this or so many other things. We could talk about Afghanistan, we could talk about the pandemic, we could talk about anything. When you know the people personally, it stops just being a news story and starts being much more real. Let's take a phone call.

Senator Jessica Ramos: : Oh, that's exactly it.

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead. Did you wanna say something more about that?

Senator Jessica Ramos: : No, I was just going to say that's exactly it. Look, I'm born and raised in my district. There are people on those blocks that I went to high school with, that I graduated high school with, that I hadn't seen in 20 years actually. It breaks my heart because we've got through so much trauma as it is and we come from countries that we've gone through so many traumatic moments to then come here and be ignored and marginalized from services.

Those are the inequities, and that is the racial justice that we need in these environmental frontline communities. The previous governor had proposed building a peaker plant not too far away from East Elmhurst. He wanted to build an air train in East Elmhurst that's only going to make the situation worse. What we need is to stop investing in vanity projects and actually invest in our people.

Brian Lehrer: Here is a landlord in Elmhurst. Taylor calling in. Taylor, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Taylor: Oh, good morning. Thank you for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Certainly.

Taylor: Yes. I have a property in Elmhurst. The basement was called a walking basement. I only got 30 inches of water.

Brian Lehrer: Only?

Taylor: Yes, only. That's [unintelligible 00:12:42] being cynical. My tenants, they lost everything. Not only that, their automobile was covered. My ZIP code is 11373, which is close to the hospital where a lot see as Ramo's hospital.

Senator Jessica Ramos: I was born there.

Taylor: The automobile was so underwater. The insurance company took, I think, I don't know what, seven days to come and tell them it's a total loss. I have to lend them my car for them to continue working. Right now, I have four workers replacing the sheetrock and putting waterproof sheetrock and I pay so much money in real estate taxes. I don't need a loan. I can get a loan at the bank. I got credit lines. We small landlords we need grants because the workers that are doing that work, they started working there literally the day after the flood, I got to pay them.

I don't have the heart to tell my tenants, "Oh, can I get the rent for September?" No, I have to give them the deposit and I still got to do that work. Thank God I don't need the rental income to pay my mortgage, but something is not fair when the city tells you on paper your property is $1000,000, but you don't get the sewage treatment that $1000,000 will take somewhere else, I guess, in Indiana or one of those places. It's something wrong. I signed up for FEMA right after the-- They tell us, "Oh, sign up for FEMA." They said, "Oh, you're going to get an SBA grant. First, you got to get a loan." It's like, "Really?" I don't need a loan. I can get a loan at the bank. I can get a refinance.

Brian Lehrer: I hear you. Taylor, let me jump in there and get Senator Ramos to respond. Senator Ramos, first of all, what help, if any, can you help Taylor in particular for his property at Elmhurst and in general about the issue that he raises?

Senator Jessica Ramos: The first thing is that his tenants lost everything from what I heard. They should be filing water damage claims with the controller's office. The links will be made available again on my social media pages momentarily so that they can pursue being reimbursed for the loss of their belongings. The other thing is FEMA. It sounds like he has already put in his application, but again, what we need is the city and perhaps even the state and federal dollars to come in so that we can actually fix what the problem is.

Taylor the landlord sounds like a good guy who understands that that's really the issue. Our sewage system is very, very old here in New York City and it's no longer working for us. Those are the things that we need to do. I don't know Taylor if you're in the section of Elmhurst that I represent. I don't even want to get into the gerrymandering, but feel free to call my office. The number 718-205-3881, and we can figure out how to help you and make sure that you're getting the resources you need.

Brian Lehrer: Taylor, feel free. We can take your contact off the air if that's more helpful, and good luck to you and your tenants. We're going to continue in a minute with Senator Jessica Ramos, more of your calls. We'll get into the larger policy issues, too. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC with state Senator Jessica Ramos of Queens. Her district includes the part of East Elmhurst that President Biden visited yesterday in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida. Her district is parts of Astoria, East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, Corona, and over toward Flushing Meadows Park. As the Senator was indicating a minute ago, the gerrymandering makes a very interesting district to find the lines of but includes some whole neighborhoods and some neighborhood parts.

We continue to talk about all this. In fact, I'm going to go right to another call. Jim in Kew Gardens, you're on WNYC. Jim, thank you for calling in. Jim, are you there? Do I have the right line? Jim in Kew Gardens. All right, Jim, if not call us back. 646-435-7280. Meanwhile, here's Chandra in Richmond Hill, Queens. You're on WNYC. Hello, Chandra?

Chandra: Hello. Good morning, Brian. Thank you for bringing the is to the forefront. I need to say I went to visit someone from our temple in this address, 90-11 183rd Street. A mother and son drowned in the basement. As of today, no support. It's so horrible. This area is all immigrants. They're all hardworking people like what you said. They go into take care of the elderly, home care workers and they're all trying to make ends meet living in this basement apartment. You can't afford to pay $1,500 a month. She extended her basement and they were living there a long time ago.

The mother and son just went back to get documents and the wall caved in. From what I understood and I never knew this, that that is a flood zone. Everyone there that comes to that area knows that it's a flood zone and no one did anything. They build these basements for millions of dollars and the engineer came there and said none of these basements work. No one has visited this area. Every home, when you walk there, it's like out of this world. All these people have their stuff out on the road. I must say the sanitation has been doing a good job to clean it up to try not to make people get sick, but people are getting sick.

Brian Lehrer: No doubt. Chandra, let me get the Senator to weigh in. I don't think that's exactly in your district, Senator?

Senator Jessica Ramos: No.

Brian Lehrer: Can you help get help to that block and that immediate area in Richmond Hill that she says is not being attended to?

Senator Jessica Ramos: Yes. If you guys can take down the information, I'm happy to connect with my counterpart in that area. I don't have the honor of representing Kew Gardens, unfortunately, or Richmond Hill rather or that section of Southern Queens, but I can certainly help connect you to resources. There's information on my social media if it's relevant to that situation. I do think there's a larger conversation about basement apartments to be had. Look, I think at this point, all of New York knows I don't like prohibition of anything because I think prohibition, for example, banning living in basement apartments is conducive to bad things happening in the shadows without us knowing.

I think that there are basements that we can make inhabitable. There are other basements that are definitely not inhabitable. I think it's on us to make sure that we're advocating for these basements to be legalized. It's a huge stepping stone for immigrant families in New York, particularly during tough economic times for truly affordable housing in New York City is nearly non-existent. These are the challenges ahead of us.

One good thing I think that has come up based on our experience during Sandy, during the aftermath of Sandy, I was already working at New York City hall and got to see how hard we were in helping lift and improve the resiliency of a lot of the houses in the Rockaways. Those houses were able to withstand Ida. We're going to have to take those lessons learned from the Rockaways during Sandy, and now apply them here to other parts of the city that are in flood zones where there are residences built in swamps and really do better.

Brian Lehrer: Chandra, we're going to take your contact information off the air if you want to hold on for the Senator to hopefully get help to that immediate area that you described. It sounds horrible and even worse for it not being attended to by any officials. Can we talk about the illegal basement apartments issue? As you know, they were already complicated in both human and policy terms.

Affordable housing, largely for immigrant families versus landlords who would exploit them with unsafe conditions, not up to code because they were illegal apartments, they weren't registering them. Then they didn't have to keep them totally safe or generally habitable versus another player, neighbors who didn't want them there at all from a NIMBY standpoint of opposing density and immigrant communities coming into their neighborhoods. If you even agree with that as a starting point for painting the picture, how does Ida change that debate in your opinion?

Senator Jessica Ramos: We have to legalize apartments. We have to figure out how to create a code, a standard by which apartments can and should be legal because people are living in basement apartments. Whether we like it or not, that is the reality. We can sit here and say no one should have to live in a basement apartment. I would agree, no one should have to live in a basement apartment, but the reality is that people have no other recourse because there's no true affordable housing because if you're undocumented, there's no way for you to prove that you can make 40 times the asking rent.

Even applying for an apartment, finding an apartment in New York is increasingly difficult. I do believe whether it's a matter of building a second egress, figuring out how we can bring these basements up to code. Maybe deciding that certain basements can't be brought up to code and should not be rented out, but we can't continue to live with this underground market of affordable housing. We need to take it out of the shadows and we need to make sure that government is responsible for keeping people safe.

Brian Lehrer: Here's Issa. Not sure where he's calling from, somewhere in the city. Issa, you are on WNYC with state Senator Jessica Ramos. Hi.

Issa: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I'm wondering at what point we decide that certain areas are probably not very good for building houses in or living in, and we start pulling out of there, compensating owners, and start putting our resources into other areas that are more viable and perhaps more resilient.

Senator Jessica Ramos: Oh, I am so happy to hear your question, neighbor. This is a very good question because this is something that I've been thinking about myself. Yes, there are places where the earth is telling us that people should not be living there. We've actually seen through very complicated legislation at both the city and state level where outside of New York City, actually, and I don't believe this happened in the Rockaways after Sandy, but I might be wrong.

Where the state deemed that land was uninhabitable and people needed to be bought out. Their mortgages needed to be bought out and they needed to be relocated because there's no real fix. Ultimately, that's what it is. We need to listen to la Pachamama, we need to listen to mother Earth telling us where it is that we can keep our people safe. I think that that's not out of the question.

Brian Lehrer: How does that connects with your last answer, which is that we need to take basement apartments which are so vulnerable to this kind of flooding and legalize them and bring them up to code, and have more of them?

Senator Jessica Ramos: Where they are inhabitable. I've also said that some basements are likely not inhabitable, but the ones that are, the ones that are semi basements, the ones that really are true basements, but we can figure out how to build a second egress, this is the task before us. We need to decide where it is safe for people to live. We can't continue to ignore where people are living, which is what has been happening up until this moment, which is clearly not working. This is how we lost entire families with toddlers in Woodside and as we heard from the previous caller, in other places in Queens. We can't continue to ignore reality. We have to figure out how to keep people safe.

Brian Lehrer: Mike in Sayville, Long Island. You're on WNYC. Hi, Mike.

Mike: Hey, good morning. I just wanted to say I have worked on 183rd about three blocks from where those people perished in that house. There was four feet of water on the corner of 183rd Liberty but half an hour after the rain stopped, the water was gone because they did a massive amount of drainage work there a couple of years ago. Four feet of water dissipate in half an hour. That work was done well, it was just too much water. They're working their way up. They were on 183rd. Now they're only a block from that lady's house doing new drainage. It's not that it's been neglected, it's being done. It was just too much rain.

Brian Lehrer: There are a lot of people to get to and I get that. This was a different storm from Sandy. You know living in Sayville, Sandy was more of a coastal storm surge thing affecting mostly people near the shorelines. Ida was just these gobs and gobs of rain like you were just saying overwhelming the sewage systems everywhere. Do you now think as a matter of adaptation to be ready for future Idas as well as future Sandys that different kinds of adaptation measures from the government are needed than you might have said a week ago, Mike, just from your experience and the work that you do?

Mike: In my experience, people have extremely short memories. We had houses here that were wiped out in Sandy and then six years later, people are moving in. You tell people we need to account for five inches of rain with the drainage, they don't want to pay for it because they'll say, "Oh, it only happens every 100 years." Then when it happens, everybody's-- Americans got the shortest memory of any country on the planet. We make the same mistakes every 10 years. We'll do the same with the rain and the floods and everything else.

Brian Lehrer: Mike, thank you for your call. I appreciate it. Call us again. Senator Ramos, anything you want to say in response to his call and the follow-up question that I asked him about different kinds of adaptation measures that are needed for Sandy-type storms and for Ida-type storms?

Senator Jessica Ramos: That is absolutely right. There are coastal storms, then there's just rapid rainfall. I forget how many inches we were getting per hour with Ida, but it was extraordinary. We've never had a storm like this. It has never been this bad. The problem is that the next storm probably has the potential to be even worse. Here's where I'm going to start talking again about the green new deal, but also about ending our dependency on fossil fuels. We have to take more care and I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican, the science is the science.

The pollutants that we are pumping into our air are creating an atmosphere that is not conducive for us to withstand the changes in weather and the changes in air quality that we're breathing in. This is a man-made disaster and we need man-made solutions. This is again why we plugged so much the green new deal, this is again why we continue to fight the peaker plant that's being proposed in Astoria by NRG, the one that's being proposed in Gowanus and actually upstate in Newburgh. I introduced actually legislation called the CLEAN Futures Act so that the state never again approves any plant that burns fossil fuels in part or in whole.

We cannot continue to burn fossil fuels. We have to end our dependency even on gas-guzzling cars. Here's another thing. Now I see a lot of people because of the flooding, now they want to buy SUVs, which puts us in a bind as well. There's a lot to say about investing in electric technology so that more people can charge electric cars but overall, this is why we need the MTA to be better. This is why we need public transportation to be better. We need fewer cars on the road altogether. This is going to be a massive effort.

Brian Lehrer: It's interesting about more people wanting to buy SUVs. One story that I heard from the night of Ida was a guy stuck in a sedan in floodwaters in Edgewater, and a friend of his with a four-wheel-drive Jeep came and pulled him out. This kind of a storm might encourage people to get even bigger vehicles. Not to say that's goods but it's the dual impulses.

Senator Jessica Ramos: That's exactly it. It's not good but you also understand where they're coming from. I know many people who were trapped in cars and they were like, "Oh, I'm going to need to be higher up in order to get through." You understand where they're coming from but at the same time, it's not going to help our atmosphere. If we're burning these emissions and putting them in the air, it's going to continue to contribute to these crazy weather changes that we've been experiencing.

Brian Lehrer: On the longer-term federal response to climate change that you're talking about, the President in your district in Queens yesterday also said this.

President Joe Biden: They've been warning us the extreme weather would get more extreme over the decade, and we're living it in real-time now. We can look around the wreckage and the ruins and the heartbreak from so many communities to feel it. You don't understand, you can feel it, you can taste it, you can see it.

Brian Lehrer: Senator Ramos, when the President was in your district in East Elmhurst yesterday, he was singing your song but in your opinion, have the President's actions been matching his words?

Senator Jessica Ramos: No, we need to act faster and start making these changes. We need the green new deal passed yesterday. This is urgent. I don't have any other words to express how dire our situation is and how important it is that we enact these changes as soon as possible. I am very thankful to the President for coming yesterday, I am very thankful for the promises and the plans that he outlined yesterday in his speech, but we need action. We need it now.

Brian Lehrer: What does it really include? Everyone says green new deal now. De Blasio says green new deal. Cuomo said he had a green new deal. What does a green new deal, as you define it, need to actually include?

Senator Jessica Ramos: We need the federal government to work with both the state and the city so that we have pockets of money that actually invests in big projects, for example, what we've been talking about in terms of updating our sewage system or, for example, here in Jackson Heights where I live, our electrical wiring is still covered in cloth from the 1920s, which actually has led to many fires happening here in Jackson Heights. All of these things need to be upgraded and need to be changed.

We need cool roofs. We need to incentivize people to buy electric cars. If they really insist on having to drive, they need places to be able to charge these cars conveniently. We haven't done any of these things. That's what I mean by a green new deal. I mean hiring more people, paying them, creating good union jobs, putting them back to work in doing these projects specifically.

Brian Lehrer: Finish maybe with the relationship between some of the economic safety net aspects of that and the climate change prevention aspects that you were just talking about, and that people always talk about with respect to the green new deal. Are they just too progressive priorities tacked onto one another or can you make a case for them as an integral whole?

Senator Jessica Ramos: Oh, Brian, this is not about politics. I guess it is progressive. I certainly identify as a progressive, but this is a matter of life and death. I hope every New Yorker understands that. We're trying to save lives here. We can't continue to put ourselves in these positions. I'm sorry to digress slightly, but even the Coronavirus is a result of deforestation and overdevelopment all over the world. We need to really think-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: For people whose eyebrows just went up, how do you make in action with the Coronavirus?

Senator Jessica Ramos: From what I've been reading for the past I guess almost two years now, largely deforestation is bringing humans closer to nature in ways that we weren't really ready for. There is a possibility, many scientists that we will be exposed to other illnesses and other pandemics are possible in the future unless we start thinking how it is that we coexist with nature in a much more harmonious way. Again, that's not a matter of politics. That's a matter of science. It's a matter of math. It's true. It is proven. We need everybody on board.

I actually visited a different section of East Elmhurst yesterday before the President arrived that also got flooded, not as bad as the section the President was in. There was a Republican woman, I told her, I was like, "When you see your politicians out there fighting for a green new deal, we're talking about fixing your sewage backup so that your toilet doesn't become a geyser every time it rains. I understand you're a Republican and you can continue to be a Republican, but I need you to agree with me on this. I might need you to come to help me advocate in a press conference for the updates that we need." She ended up having to agree because what else are we going to do?

Brian Lehrer: I think we're seeing it in Congress where an increasing number of Republicans, even if they come to some different conclusions about fossil fuels in general or how to proceed exactly are not taking the Trumpist line that global warming is a hoax or anything like that because it's affecting so many communities around the country. In red states and blue states, people are being shocked into reality no matter what side of the aisle they're on.

Tell us one final thing. Since we've been talking about President Biden, his visit is the news hook here, but you're in the state Senate and Governor Hochul is obviously still getting her feet on the ground. What's the most important thing the state can do? Does it take maybe another special session of you in the legislature to get something done, or is this on the governor?

Senator Jessica Ramos: I'm ready to go back to Albany any day of the week if it's a matter of passing the CLEAN Futures Act if it's a matter of holding companies that pollute our air, that pollute our water responsible. They should be paying and contributing to a lot of the upgrades that we've been talking about for the past half hour or so. There is a whole slew of environmental bills that my colleagues and I have been proposing, have been advocating for in order to prevent these tragedies and put us on the right path.

I'm very thankful to Governor Hochul. I think she's been on the job only for two weeks. She's been in East Elmhurst three times and she's been running around the state. I have to tell you, you run for office because you love your people because you believe in your streets. I never thought that I would have to get in and not even dip my toes but be entirely involved in crisis management, but this is what it's like to be an elected official now in New York.

Crisis management is a huge part of our job description now. I'm going to be very honest. I am very worried about having a mayor next year, a new mayor who does not have a climate plan. We need a solid climate plan. We need to save lives in New York. There is no more time to squander. If anybody takes anything away from my appearance on your show today, it's that we need to take action yesterday. We cannot afford to continue to elect people who do not have a solid climate change plan.

Brian Lehrer: Senator Jessica Ramos of Queens, who as you could tell from the emotion in her voice is neighbors with some of the people in East Elmhurst in her district who were most affected by hurricane Ida. The district covers parts of Astoria, East Elmhurst where Biden visited yesterday, Jackson Heights, Corona, and over toward Flushing Meadows Park. Senator, we always appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Senator Jessica Ramos: Thank you for having me, Brian. I really enjoyed this conversation.

 

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