“Governor Andrew Cuomo has today outlined a bold agenda to rebuild New York’s economy through a broad and visionary infrastructure plan that puts our State’s construction industry front and center to lead the Empire State’s economic resurgence.

Governor Cuomo, recognizing the critical nature of the construction industry to New York’s economy, has kept construction essential throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. And, even as the industry has worked—safely—on projects that have remained online during this time, New York lost more construction jobs year over year than any state other than California, a loss of nearly 10%.

Our industry is ready to meet Governor Cuomo’s challenge to ‘Build Back Better,’ a vision echoed by President-elect Joe Biden. That means building both transformational, signature projects as well as core infrastructure like roads, bridges, schools, social and environmental infrastructure across the entire State. The COVID-19 pandemic creates the need and gives us the opportunity to reconfigure and reimagine much of this infrastructure, a challenge we must meet now.

We also need to tackle impediments to private sector investment and growth in New York.

AGC NYS looks forward to learning more details about these specific plans and funding levels for key capital programs in the Executive Budget.

At the same time, action by the federal government is essential to the realization of this aggressive plan and the recovery of our economy. With new leadership in Washington, there is hope that the next ‘Infrastructure Week’ will at long last lead to real action and not just another punchline.”

Mr. Elmendorf is available for further comment or interviews. To book, please contact Brooke Rayder at brayder@agcnys.org.

For more information about AGC NYS, please visit www.agcnys.org.