ALBANY COUNTY — Governor Kathy Hochul pushed her green agenda on Tuesday afternoon at a construction site in Vista Technology Park where Plug Power is building a 350,000-square-foot facility.

The $55 million project is getting $45 million in tax breaks and will be “creating jobs and opportunities leading to a much brighter, greener future,” Hochul said.

Hochul linked the state’s green initiatives to the need for energy independence as Russia’s attack on Ukraine has brought into sharp relief the United States’ dependence on foreign sources for oil.

She said the OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) oil crisis had a “profound impact” on her as a teenager just beginning to drive.

The 1973 crisis was caused by OPEC targeting countries, including the United States, that had supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War. The price of oil increased 300 percent.

“We were captive to foreign energy sources,” said Hochul. “We were literally brought to our knees. You could not buy gasoline when you wanted to at the pump and the prices were going through the roof.”

She stressed the importance of green energy initiatives as a way to be independent from imported oil.

Last year, the United States imported about 3 percent of its oil from Russia. On Tuesday morning, President Joe Biden announced an executive order to ban importing Russian oil, coal, and gas.

With Russia’s current “unlawful invasion” of Ukraine, Hochul said on Tuesday afternoon, “All of us have to stand together against that aggression, but also to do what we can, our part, to make sure that Russia understands there’s consequences to what they did. We don’t want to have Russian oil in this country when they continue that path of aggressive behavior toward their neighbors.”

She noted that the state is divesting itself of investments in Russian businesses, and said New Yorkers would open their “hearts and homes” to Ukrainian refugees.

New York State, Hochul said, is going to become an international leader in green initiatives. “We have no choice …. It’s what’s going to happen to our children, and our children’s children going forward,” she said of what matters.

"From concept to concrete"

“This hub is one of the reasons we’re here,” said Andy Marsh, the president and chief executive officer of Plug Power, who was the first to speak at Tuesday’s event.

Vista Park is located mostly in Bethlehem and partly in New Scotland.

David VanLuven, Bethlehem’s supervisor, told the crowd that his background was in ecology and he was used to green spaces. As he stood at the sandy construction site with a bulldozer behind him, he said such projects are key to protecting communities in the face of climate change.

“The role of government is getting things done,” said VanLuven, crediting the town, county, state, and federal governments for working together to get the project underway “from concept to concrete in five months.”

“The future is green,” said VanLuven, noting that the Plug Power project, combined with a wind-turbine project out of Bethlehem’s portion of the Port of Albany, will create 2,000 high-paying green-energy jobs in town.

The wind turbines, constructed at a port facility, will travel by barge to be installed off the coast of Long Island.

“We worked hard and fast,” said New Scotland’s Supervisor, Douglas LaGrange, of moving the Plug Power project forward. He added, “We still have some more to do.”

Plug Power develops and manufactures hydrogen fuel cells, designed to replace the conventional batteries used in forklifts and pallet jacks. The Vista Park facility will include a 200,000-square-foot manufacturing space, a 100,000-square-foot building to service the units; and 50,000 square feet of office space.

Hochul saluted the “men and women of labor” at work on the site and said as a kid she played with Legos more than dolls.

She called Plug Power’s hydrogen-cell technology “brilliant” and said, “I also love the fact that it’s about jobs.”

Plug Power has committed to creating 1,633 new jobs, and retaining another 701 jobs in Albany County for green energy production.

When they had finished speaking, the politicians stood in a line behind a row of shovels and a placard that said, “Green jobs, green economy: A new era for New York.”

Each picked up a shovel and, while cameras recorded the groundbreaking, threw shovels of dirt.