Enacts the "New York Determining Obligations and Guaranteeing Enforcement (DOGE) in Government Contracting Act"

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why the sponsor says this is needed

New York should heed the call of the federal government and its unelected, unauthorized advisors to "investigate waste, fraud and abuse" of state government resources. There is no better place to start than the state's leasing of state-owned premises to private parties for the production, manufacture and/or development of solar shingle products, electric vehicle charging networks, advanced driver-assistance systems, and/or supercomputer hardware. According to news reports, private parties to these contracts are the beneficiaries of significant state investment and yet they squander state money without delivering on their promises. As just one example, Tesla operates a factory in New York State out of a state-owned facili- ty. As part of the agreement to use that state owned facility they are required to meet certain standards in terms of employment and invest- ments in New York State. Tesla is allegedly not meeting these contractu- al obligations without consequences. The New York DOGE in Government Contracting Act will take these nefari- ous private parties to account by requiring a systemic audit of related government contracts. The audit will - unlike federal DOGE's opaque and discredited methodology - be supported by documents and data, and follow the law in requiring the state to hold private parties up to their contractual obligations. This legislation seeks to hold - among others - Elon Musk and Tesla accountable by requiring a thorough examination of the business dealings that New York State has with parties like Tesla to determine if they actually are doing what they promised in terms of job creation, invest- ments in supercomputers, opening new dealerships and payment of their leases. If they have not, then our legislation will require New York State to take any measures necessary to terminate our contracts with parties like Tesla and get back any funds that parties like Tesla may have improperly taken from New Yorkers, and redistribute that money to impacted communities. It thus may be the case Elon Musk is doing enormous damage under the pretense of cutting waste, while benefiting from one of the biggest and worst government subsidy deals in the history of New York. This legis- lation is about fighting back --- both against this alleged actual waste of taxpayer dollars by Elon Musk himself and against a regime that is directly hostile to the interests of New York.

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.