VIDEO of the announcement at the Alcoa Plant is available in TV-quality (h264, mp4) format here, and on YouTube here.

AUDIO of the announcement is available here

PHOTOS from the event are available on the Governor’s Flickr page here.

A rush transcript of the Governor’s remarks is available below:

Good morning. It is really my pleasure to be here and to be joined by my colleagues. They were all gone through by Howard Zemsky – Howard Zemsky, who said he was proud eleven times. I am proud that he is proud, I want you to know. Howard is from Buffalo, New York. He has done economic development all across Upstate New York. He has done a phenomenal, phenomenal job. Let’s give him a round of applause.

To my colleagues from Albany who have been very involved in this crisis, because it has been a crisis that has gone on just about a month. They were introduced. But again, I want to thank Joe and Patty and Betty and Addie. When I say we are friends, we are friends. We come from different political parties when we are in Albany, but we don’t let our politics become more important than the people we serve. And we get things done and we make progress and we make compromises and they are good people, they are phenomenal advocates for the North Country and they have been very kind to me. Let’s give them a round of applause again. You’ll hear from Senator Schumer in a moment and as a point of personal privilege, Jim Malatras on my team, and Gil Quinones, who runs NYPA, have been working night and day on this plan. So let’s give them a round of applause.

So I was on the treadmill this morning doing my Rocky Balboa routine, listening to Rocky Balboa, getting all fired up. I was watching CNN in the morning. I have to watch CNN in the morning. Why do I have to watch CNN in the morning? Because my little brother Chris Cuomo is on CNN in the morning. And I watch the news on CNN because then I try to pick up some dirt during the show that I can tease him with later in the day, mercilessly. And I actually picked up something today. His shirt collar today was sticking up on both ends. He looked like he had a flying nun habit on. I’m going to use that later, but I was listening to the broadcast and it was all bad news. Story after story after story of bad news. Travel alert, Paris bombing, Brussels closed, all bad news – international and national. And I sent him a text, I said, “I’m turning you off because I can’t take any more bad news.” But it feels like there has been a torrent of bad news. Not in this state, frankly, but in the world. And I was so happy to leave the house and to get on the plane, because we have really, really, really great news for you today.

And the simple point on the good news is the Alcoa jobs are saved and they are going to stay right here in Massena and this plant is going to keep operating the way it has been operating for over one hundred years.

These are 600 good-paying jobs here in Massena. The company was talking about 487 lay-offs. This is a plant, first of all, that played a very big part in the history of this state and the history of this country. It has been operating since 1902, we’ve made material that went in aircraft that flew in the World Wars. It has been state-of-the-art, it has been one of the major employers for the North Country for decades and it is a pillar of the community. It’s not just the jobs that the plant produces. $1.5 million in local taxes are paid by this plant. If this plant closed, it would be devastating to the local community.

The economic impact of this plant is $340 million per year and it is a plant that many people have invested their lives in. The State of New York has been a partner with this plant for many, many years. NYPA has been providing subsidies to keep the plant operating. So when we got the bad news on the layoffs, which was traumatic, frankly, the way we heard it – and so much of what’s happening in the world is bad news that drops from the sky and hits you on the head like a brick falling from a building – we were really shaken up and we were really scrambled. But a lot of people did a lot of work.

We have an agreement with the company that says it will operate for a minimum of three and a half years. The State has put together a package to help the company operate. We understand that the company has to deal with an economic cycle. We understand that the price of aluminum is down. We get it and we want to help. For three and a half years, NYPA is going to provide $30 million in power assistance. Thank you, Mr. Gil Quinones.

Howard Zemsky who you just heard from, who is the President of the Empire State Development Corporation is going to provide $38.8 million in capital and operating expenses to make improvements in the plant, and to help the plant continue to operate. Thank you very much Howard Zemsky.

The agreement also provides the taxpayers because it stipulates that if the price of aluminum rises, then the subsidies will decrease. We also have a $40 million penalty for Alcoa if the number of jobs drops below 600 jobs before March 2019. We understand the economic cycle, we understand Alcoa’s situation and the cost of aluminum and that we have a short-term economic problem. But this is the state’s way of stepping up to say, “We understand the situation. We’ll step in. we want to save those jobs. We want to save that plant. We believe it’s a cycle and it’s going to turn around.” But we’re going to put our money where our mouth is, so to speak, but we’ll invest in the plant and the capital and power, as long as these jobs stay here.

And just to pick up on a point that Howard Zemsky made. We started just over four years ago as Governor with a new administration, and we started with a very clear direction. And our direction was simple. We were going to focus like a laser beam on the upstate economy. Why? Because the upstate economy had been dropping for decades. For decades. Howard is from Buffalo. When you go to Buffalo, they say yes, “We’ve had a bad forty years.” They’re not kidding. Second, third generation. You had to see New York City doing great, but Upstate New York was suffering. And frankly, the state government was asleep at the switch. People in the North Country associated more with Canada than they did with Albany and they really felt that they were the stepchild of the state and nobody cared and nobody was paying attention and that everything was about downstate. And we got it. And we have been focusing on upstate, doing economic development, investing billions of dollars in Upstate New York.

Now, there is going to be an ebb and flow to the economy. Things happen. And it’s not about our state, it’s about the overall economy. We have a problem now – they want to close the Fitzpatrick Nuclear Plant because the company decided they want to make changes in their portfolio and they don’t want to do nuclear energy. So it comes and it goes. We had a problem with Kraft-Heinz, where we were going to lose thousands of jobs. So you have companies who are making moves that could be a negative. But you have many, many more companies that are investing in New York and coming to New York, and that is upstate New York.

We just brought GE back to Utica, believe it or not. Forty years after they left Utica, they are coming back. The largest solar manufacturer in the hemisphere – Solar City –the largest solar panel manufacturer in the hemisphere moved into Buffalo, New York on the old Riverbend site which was their old steel plant. Literally, on the ashes of the steel plant now comes this new solar company. We just started a new photonics company in Rochester. Albany is doing great as the nanotech company of the world. And the North Country is doing better than it has in decades. We’ve brought 700,000 new jobs to the state, unemployment is down, all across the state, especially upstate. In the North Country – the unemployment drop is one of the largest unemployment drop in the state of New York, believe it or not – that is a credit to what you have been doing.

Today is a microcosm, you give us a challenge and we will figure it out. Our goal is jobs, our goal is economic development. If we’re creating jobs and they’re good paying jobs, everything else will take care of itself. If there’s a challenge, the state is going to accept that. This is just the microcosm of what we can do. I believe from day one, and I said four years ago when I started in Buffalo – which was our first effort to really get the economy going, it was the slowest part of the state – people thought that I was crazy. I said “I’m banking on upstate New York, I believe in upstate New York. You have every gift you could possibly have in this state. All the geography, all the history, all the beauty that you can possibly have: hospitals, healthcare, universities, and something else that you can’t find anymore – the best workforce in the United States of America. And when you’re talking about the steel workers, you can’t find a better, more talented group anywhere in this country. If you ask me, “Why did save this plant?” Because you, my friends, cannot be replaced. You can move a lot of places on this globe, but you’re not going to find the steel workers who are the work force in this plant.

I’m not only proud about what we did, but how we did it. We came together and we came together as New Yorkers and when we do, there is nothing that we can’t do. I want to once again congratulate all my colleagues who have worked so hard, Gil Quinones, Jim Malatras. Let’s give them a round of applause – and to Howard Zemsky.

Now it’s my pleasure to introduce a gentleman who has been a friend of mine for a long time. He is a great, great public official of the State of New York, who was incredibly helpful on this project. That is Senator Schumer. Senator Schumer and I, we are a dual-pronged strategy, let’s say. One hits you high, one hits you low – I don’t want to say who hits you high and who hits you low. Forget that analogy, how about this one – one comes from the north, one comes from the south. But the senator – as soon as this happened – we were on the phone. I think I’ve spoken to the Senator more this past month than I’ve spoken to my kids about the Alcoa plant. By the way, I think that’s just fine by my kids. This was creative, it was difficult, we didn’t have a lot of notice, but it worked out. It would not have worked out if it was not for Senator Charles Schumer. Let’s give him a big round of applause.