IN YOUR BACKYARD: The People’s Fight for Clean Water

Hey Brett, myself is from the Midas Touch Podcast here, so I want to share with you another special episode of In Your Backyard, our exclusive podcast series hosted by Midas Touch's Luke Radle, focused on some of the most important climate and environmental issues of our time. You may have seen that we've been airing these episodes every other Thursday here on the Midas Touch Podcast, but in case you haven't caught one yet, I really encourage you to check this one out. As you know, this is an issue near and dear to my heart, and what makes the series so important is that we're hearing directly from the people whose lives and communities are being impacted. In this episode, Luke investigates contaminated drinking water, the impact of massive data centers on local communities, and speaks with Senator Ed Markey about what's at stake. Here's Luke within your backyard. Hey everybody, welcome back to episode four of In Your Backyard. I'm your host, Luke Radle, and I'm so glad you're here, as always, to talk about such important issues. We've really tried to take the focus of this show and focus on the issues happening in your community, sometimes at an elemental level. We spoke last week about the pollution issues that are happening in our air. And on this episode, we're going to focus on another elemental aspect of life in your communities, which is pollution in your water. A lot of us live in parts of the country where people talk about how maybe it's not such a good idea to drink water directly from the tap. And every so often, a crisis, like the one that we saw a few years ago in Flint, Michigan, will remind us how much more our water can say about the things that we depend on, about who is being served by those structures that we've put in place, the infrastructure that we have in all of our communities, and who is most often put in harm's way. And sadly, more and more of us are being put in that camp of the vulnerable. We talked last episode about how the Trump administration repealed the landmark endangerment finding that empowered the federal government to take action on the climate crisis. And now, specifically on the issue of water, they've weakened water pollution rules for power plants. They have removed protections for wetlands. They've made it harder for states to try and block pipelines, moving through them. And they've made it easier for polluters to dump toxic coal ash. And maybe you've heard recently about their enthusiasm, specifically the president's enthusiasm, for data centers that compose many environmental and community risks, including to water supplies. We're all being put in the line of fire by the things that this administration is doing. And I wanted to hear more from the people who are already being harmed and are continuing to fight those harms. Now, coming up, you'll hear a conversation that I had with Ed Markey, US Senator from Massachusetts, who was one of the architects behind the Green New Deal alongside Congressman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But first, as we always do, we're going to center and talk to the people who are being directly affected by the things that are happening as a result of this administration. This is In Your Backyard. I want to start off this episode by sharing the story of Sandy Wind Stelt. She lives in Michigan, in a part of the state where the people around her, including in her own family, didn't know the ways that their health was being impacted by water pollution. Until sadly, it was too late. Here's my conversation with Sandy. So I want to set the scene for folks a little bit and talk about your community and where you live for folks who may be aren't familiar with Belmont or with Michigan in general. Tell me a little bit about where you are from and where you're living right now. Well, I live in Belmont, so all of us in Michigan, we carry our map with us. It's just a little north of Grand Rapids. It's kind of a bedroom community of that. Pretty small, pretty rural, lived here for probably 30, 35 years now. What did you know about your community before you first decided to live there? Actually, not much. I mean, I lived in the Grand Rapids area for quite a while. My husband and I were looking for our first home and what we wanted was something with all a lot of people. He was a social worker who investigated child abuse, a psychologist, and so we kind of hate being around people and we wanted something sort of out in the woods and that's what we were looking for. I understand you later found out that the place where you were living had previously been a dump site for tannery waste and that had resulted in the well water that you've been drinking and using in your home being contaminated. When did you first learn about this and what was your reaction when you found out? Well, to set the stage, my husband Joel had passed away the year before I found out. He had died very unexpectedly of liver cancer and so it was the following year that people from the state came to my house and asked if they could test my well water. I thought it was because the Flint water crisis had just occurred in our state and that was a huge event, obviously. When they came back two weeks, well I knew the day they came to test my water and we're wearing hazmat suits that something was up. When they came back a few weeks later to tell me how high the levels of PFAS were in my water, that's when I knew that something had happened. They still didn't tell me where it was coming from and I eventually learned just through odd coincidences that it was across the street was a 68th or Christmas street farm that was actually property owned by Wolverine Worldwide. Yeah, first I just want to say I'm really sorry for your loss. I understand your husband Joel passed 10 years ago now. Tell me a little bit about Joel and what he was like before this unfortunate diagnosis. Well, he was kind of a cowboy. He loved his job. He really did love investigating child abuse because you just ride in and save the day kind of thing. He was very passionate about following the rules which makes this whole thing rather ironic because this would have drove him insane. We're probably not even old enough to remember the whole Enron scandal where corporations stole money and all their employees went broke and I can remember him then just saying if that were me, I'd just have to go drastic on him and so then realizing that this was from not just Wolverine but corporations being greedy and not even caring what they're doing to the rest of us would have made him insane. Just so we could share with our audience Joel's story and how things ended up, what kind of cancer was he diagnosed with and then how soon after that diagnosis did he end up passing away? He was diagnosed with a liver cancer. We thought he had a hernia. We were going on our 25th wedding anniversary so we went in to have a hernia repair and when he came out they said it was stage 4 liver cancer and he died three weeks later. So there wasn't a lot of time to process or do anything about it and so that's what made hearing the year later about the PFAS contamination. I had no idea what that even was and they started telling me all the things that the health concerns with it and liver disease was one of the first ones they mentioned and that's one kind of everything fell together. I'm really glad we've spoken about your husband and I know that there were also other health issues that you experienced as a result of the pollution and community. What have you heard from other people in the area about their experiences as a result of the contamination in the water? Yeah. I myself, I had my blood tested which is really hard to do. Intrances won't cover getting your blood tested and my blood has extraordinarily high amounts in it. Higher than three M workers because of that my doctor was keeping an eye on some things and found that I had thyroid developed thyroid cancer in 2021 and thyroid cancer is very much linked to this and so I had a total thyroid activity. It had moved into my lymph nodes but I have neighbors, I have children in the neighborhood that have had their vaccines aren't working because it affects your immune system. I have neighborhood children that have thyroid disease, I have, we have kidney cancer in the neighborhood, we have all sorts of issues. What accountability has there been if any for Wolverine worldwide and for the other corporations that were responsible for this pollution in your community? This is going to sound crazy but I'm actually one of the, we're one of the lucky communities believe it or not because our polluter Wolverine did not up in leave town and what most communities around the country are finding is when this happens corporations just bail out and go overseas. There were hundreds of people in my community that filed individual lawsuits including myself. There were others that filed class action lawsuits. The state of Michigan got a $69.5 million settlement with them to put in municipal water so relative to other, and that was against Wolverine and 3M both because 3M manufactured this. But we're the unusual ones with that, we're not the norm. What do you want people to know who are watching this about what your community, about what you personally have had to experience? as a result of PFAS, of water contamination, and of pollution in your community. - Don't assume that just because protection is the EPA's middle name, that they are in fact protecting you, 'cause there ain't nobody protecting us right now. Nobody is. So, you need to take ownership and test your water. That would be the number one thing I would tell people is test your water, even if you're on municipal water systems, because water is the number one source for this. But sadly, it's in your food, it's in packaging, it's in products, it's everywhere. And so, we really have to push to get this either banned or at least labeled. I think if they labeled products that said this contains PFAS, most people would avoid it. And so, I think the other thing I want people to know is you can fight city hall. You really can't fight them. You just gotta be really tenacious. And when you're a widow and you're close to retirement, you got nothing but time on your hands. So, they were sorry to still see me coming in their door. - Well, Sandy, keep fighting a good fight. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me again today and thanks so much for joining us on In Your Backyard. I want to thank Sandy for being some vulnerable and willing to share her story with us. And to thank my next guest, Cynthia, for sharing the ways in which she's been fighting against the construction of a data center in Indiana, where Cynthia lives, where she's been experiencing those adverse impacts of data centers that we've been hearing so much about in the news. For Cynthia, it's not hypothetical. It's not a talking point. It's her real life. And it's having a major impact on her ability to continue living in her community. Here's my conversation with Cynthia. Cynthia, thanks so much for taking the time to join me on In Your Backyard. I really appreciate it. - Oh, no problem. Thank you for the interview. - So tell me a little bit about your community in Indiana and what you've been dealing with as of late from, well, frankly, the folks at Amazon. - Well, it's a very rural community. Lots of corn, I'm sure everyone's heard. There's more than corn in Indiana, but very country, very laid back, very peaceful, very quiet, and that's pretty much gonna go away here with the Amazon. I mean, let's see, just a lot of the things, here I go to my notes. Some of the things people are concerned about is the end of the peaceful country living. I mean, these things are loud, they're full of pollution, they're full of light, we're worried about that. The air and water pollution, the noise disturbance, the light disturbance, definitely the loss of property value. - I want to be super specific about what is being built in your community. I understand that there are some data centers that are being constructed on a power plant. - Yes. - That's been responsible for contaminating the drinking water. So it just feels like the layer and layer and layer of issues. What point did you guys living in your community first learned about the exposure and about this contamination problem? - There has been exposure to the contamination for quite some time due to the shaper plant, the coal plant. Now what they're going to do with this wastewater permit that I was gonna bring up to you is they're going to use the coal plant. They're going to put in a gas-peaker plant to power the data center. And they're going to use water from the Kankie-Kee River. They're gonna pull out 34 million gallons a day for their cooling. And then they're going to dump 22 million gallons a day of wastewater from all of these locations back into the river daily. So at this point, and this is what I have here, and I'll show in, there is already arsenic boron and I want to make sure I save this right. I think it's molybdenum is already passed safe drinking levels in our water now before this even happens. - When we're talking on this show about the issues that are affecting people in their communities, that's why we're calling the show in your backyard. And I understand that the construction of these data centers involved folks literally trampling not on your backyard but on your front yard. Tell me a little bit about what that was like. - And yeah, it's just very loud. A neighbor of mine two miles down, I think. He's already lost his well. And had to have another well dug, the noise pollution. The construction traffic is just constant going up and down this road. It's just, it's horrible to look at. And I would tell you the construction pretty much goes from 6 a.m. till 6 p.m. It's loud. There will be vibrations on the site of my home that's closer to the site. And it's, you know, just knowing what's coming. The light already, I believe they're supposed to have a barrier up for the construction lighting. I would have to look into that a little bit more but there is nothing there and it is ridiculously bright. - I also understand there's been some trespassing that's been done by the contractor and that there have been fines handed out over, I think, $120,000. And yet it's continuing. What impression does that give you about how much these folks care about the community that they're building at? - I don't think they care at all and they can just pretty much by their way out of everything. The fines are basically from the construction traffic going up and down the road as far as I know that they're not supposed to be doing, but they continue and continue. And I do believe they began construction ahead of schedule and were also fined for that 35,000, I think, which this is nothing to them. They don't care. I mean, this is a $7 billion project. That's small potatoes so that when they could care less about any of us. - You mentioned the coal-fired power plant nearby. I understand that plant was actually supposed to be retired. There was a plant to kind of wind down operations there. But President Trump has intervened to try and keep it going. We know he spoke very positively about coal and coal-fired power in the past. What is that decision though by the president meant for people living in your community? - Well, I got my notes somewhere on that too. Well, first of all, it's an emergency order and there's no electrical emergency. The plant is currently non-operational and needs hundreds of thousands of dollars to get it operational. And just for keeping it online, it is costing us $174,000 a day, I believe it was. For non-operational coal plant to be on, that's just going to function again for a specific amount of time and poison our water more. - Cynthia, what is keeping you in your community? You speak a lot about the problems that your community is facing right now, but why have you decided to stick around and to fight for it? - Well, I can't just sit here and let them do this to all of us. And like I mentioned earlier, our property values are gonna be nothing. I don't think anybody's gonna buy any of our homes. They're going to poison us. They're going to kill wildlife. I mean, I can't imagine just sitting here and not fighting against that. I mean, this is also bigger than this area. These data centers are going up everywhere. - Cynthia, I really appreciate your time. Thank you again for sharing your story and your experiences with us. And I'm hopeful that the fight that you guys are waging out there, that you get some progress for you guys. So thank you again for sharing. - And thank you for letting me do that. Thank you so much. You have a wonderful day. - Now, water pollution is not a new issue. It's something that we've been dealing with for a very long time. And that's what I got at the start of my conversation with Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey who said that he grew up dealing with water pollution in his community, in his hometown, and that his work fighting for environmental justice, fighting against the climate crisis, was shaped by those early experiences growing up in Massachusetts. We talked about a wide range of issues including what Democrats can do if they take back control of Congress in the next few weeks, as well as the presidency come 2029. Here's my conversation with one of the architects of the Green New Deal, Senator Ed Markey. - I'm joined now by Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey. Sir, thank you very much for joining me on In Your Backyard. - Yeah, great, great to be with you. You're out in your backyard, which looks like the most beautiful location I could imagine. And I'm here in Maldom, Massachusetts right now where I was born and raised, I still live. And actually, about three blocks from here is the Maldon River, right? When I was going up, every community has a environmental sacrifice ward. And Maldon is the city of 65,000. One, two, where I live right now. That was the environmental sacrifice. And all of the rubber companies, coal companies, they were all along the Maldon River, this three blocks from here. And they would use the Maldon River as a dumping run. And so my mother said to me, one of those 10 years old, Eddie, whatever you do, don't swim in the Maldon River. Because it was black with a pre-Jimmy Hendrix purple hazel. And so when you were the same, don't swim me, because the industries have churned it into an unsafe, drinking water, you know you're not a Tom Sawyer on the Mississippi River out there for inventions. You know, that body of water is off limits, because it's in the environmental sacrifice. That's what the lesson I learned early on from my mother here in Maldon, upwork hard, the clean up the Maldon River. We're going to be building a Maldon high school, a crewhouse down there for the high school. Maldon High School is one of the ten most diverse high schools in the United States. One quarter black, one quarter white, one quarter Latino, one quarter Asian. And it's a blue collar community. But why shouldn't we have access to clean water? You know, that people in all communities should be entitled to. So a lot of what I think about on this issue really just goes back to that first lesson from my mother. And we have to make sure that as we move into this data center here up, that we guarantee that people have the protection of the waters, which God has given to us, which is right over your shoulder right now, which is a gift that each one of us should cherish. You're right. And it's so important. I'm glad you're joining us from your hometown. I'm joining from my hometown. So I'm just outside of Utica, New York, beautiful central New York. So that's what you're seeing with the foliage behind me. Not to be outdone though by the foliage in Massachusetts and in New England more generally, which we've been fortunate enough. I'm wearing half of my wardrobe has this little Cape Cod logo on it. The real ones know that it's Cape Cod you've got here with the strong arm. My family and I have had the privilege of being able to spend many summers in Cape Cod and Dennis Port, Massachusetts specifically. And so I know how important water is to your state, to the state's economy, to people's daily lives in Massachusetts. Speak a little bit about that you spoke about what it's been like in your community dealing with a waterway that was unsafe. But throughout the state, because you're representing so many people in Massachusetts, what does it mean for them to rely on waters of all kinds? Both the ocean, the lakes and the rivers that you have throughout your state? Well, you know, for people who love Cape Cod, actually Massachusetts brought a lawsuit. And it basically said in its suit, which was Massachusetts versus EPA, that the waters of Massachusetts were getting dangerously high because of climate change. And it was endangering our coastline. So they brought that case saying that it was the fossil fuel industry through their greenhouse gases that were leading to this endangement of our coastline. And that lawsuit was finally rendered by the Supreme Court in April of 2007 in Massachusetts versus EPA. And that decision said to the EPA, you must make a decision as to whether or not climate change is endangering the coastline. And ultimately, the EPA made that decision. And out of that, Barack Obama, Joe Biden were able to take actions that reduce greenhouse gases through the vehicles we drive, through the power plants that emit fossil fuel emissions up into the atmosphere. So that was the historic decision. And by the way, it all just went back to Cape Cod. All of the people who love our coastline. And that's our water. But it's everybody's water. This is not just water for the industry to be able to exploit. And it has to be protected for everyone forever. I mean, it's George's bank off our coastline. Not Shells Bank, not an oil company, this can come in a drill. And we need those protections. And what's happening because of the Trump administration's demand from the oil and gas industry, that if they raise a billion dollars for Trump in the 2024 election, that the Trump administration will eviscerate all of these environmental protections, kill the clean energy industry. And so this is more like a mafia crime family that's sitting in the White House right now. It's paid a play. It's an all you can eat buffet of corruption. And now the industries are demanding their payback by demanding that the EPA roll back protectors that have been there, including the endangering finding. That there is a danger which is created by the emissions of greenhouse gases up into the atmosphere. So this is a pivotal time in our history. The industry is engaging in a pretty much a godfather part one. They're giving all communities this offer they can't refuse. We're coming and we're going to do everything we can with the U.S. government out of act to undermine the protections which historically have been put on the books to protectors. You mentioned the role of the Supreme Court in all of this in reading through some of the reports that your office has put out on this issue of the environment and specifically of water pollution. I was struck by the ruling that was made under the Biden administration, but as a result of a court that was stacked with appointees of president Trump in sack at versus EPA where the determination was that they were going to be protection stripped from certain bodies of water from future development. There's a little bit about that decision which was I believe author by Justice Alito who's been out on something of a press tour as of late. And what you make of the role of the courts in protecting our environment and specifically our bodies of water. Yeah, it's in 2023 decision, the sack it decision, which the EPA under Lee Zelda is now taking as a commission start to go out and to begin to undermine the protections against PFAS and its coal ash, but there's a long litany of safeguards which the EPA is now in the process of attempting to remove. And again, it's all part of this larger story and this Supreme Court is not to be confused with the Supreme Court of 2007 which issued the Massachusetts versus EPA decision. This is the Supreme Court post Trump naming three Justice System as a Supreme Court that is absolutely held by an undermining environmental protections in our country. They've just become wholly old subsidiaries themselves at the Supreme Court of the oil gas and coal industry. And to the extent to which Trump was able to win, name these justices, the other on the court and now he's able to name Lee Zelda at the EPA. It's all part of the very well constructed concentrated plan to undermine environmental laws in our country and the protection of the bodies of water, whether it be off our coastline or in communities or wetlands all across the country. And so we're at a pivotal point in which is why I've introduced legislation to ensure that protections are there that were able to guarantee that communities have the right to protect against data setters coming in and just turning it to massive pollution machines that are no different than the Malder River. Just notes re-blocked him here that began to happen in the end of the 19th century. It's the rebirth of the gilded age with no rules of regulation but now the billionaires and trillionaires living out in Silicon Valley that want to do the same thing to communities like Walden, all across the country. If as the forecasters and political prognosticators predict Democrats take back control of House representatives and potentially even your body, United States Senate, do you believe that passing your legislation, other legislation on issues like data centers, like issues affecting people in their communities, the type of issues we've been talking about on the show, water, air, pollution, extreme weather. Do you think that should be the focus for Democrats if they take back Congress and is there the pressure there from people in their communities to put it on President Trump to sign legislation like that into law. 75% of people in America do not want data centers in their communities. If there are going to be data centers in their communities, they're going to be demanders, they're going to be demanding protections. He gets pollution, it's rising, electricity, rates, noise, pollution, they're going to want to protect it. So this issue now is completely bipartisan, it's democrat-recomplicated, independent, it's across all states, people just don't want these data centers, we dunk them to their communities with minimal protections. So from my perspective, states, individual community are like two say no, and I do believe it's a lot like the Superfund law, I was in Congress when Superfund, Superfund is the law which mandates that the corporations that created all the pollution in communities, like Maldon, then have to pay to clean up the mess which they created, they just can't walk away from it. So I was in the room and it would have seemed to be absolutely impossible that we could pass a Superfund law. ultimately we were able to do so and in Massachusetts it's excuse like Blueburn and Bill Ricka but it's all across the country, hundreds of sites all across the country that got cleaned up. Well, people who sought that was impossible because of the power of the industries. I think the same things happening. The more the people hear about data centers, the more the people hear about the callous indifference of these AI geniuses. I mean, they go on 60 minutes and they say, well, you know, my technology could destroy the world and everyone's applauding them. Oh, great, what a courage to say you have a technology. It's like Dr. Frankenstein is holding a press conference and say, you know, I'm building something. I know my shoulder here and it couldn't pretty much destroy the whole town. But yay, what courage for you to tell us this? Well, the more that they're telling us this is the more that we try to make sure that we can put the wards on the website in order to protect against the Frankenstein monster-like quality that these praise could bring to you. I wonder, the president, my day job when I'm not here at home in beautiful outside New York, is to be our White House correspondent for Midas Touch. And so a lot of the president's calendar has not been filled with types of listening sessions and meetings that I'm sure you're having with constituents who are concerned about these issues, the kind of conversations I get to have on the show with not just elected officials like yourself, but people who are actually affected by these issues in their communities. Instead of the president, it's been spending a lot of time talking to those CEOs, those billionaires, those people who are directly responsible for a lot of the pollution and issues that we've been seeing with our environment. And it seems to so he's been coming away from those meetings with the impression that the only thing that needs to be changed about artificial intelligence is the name. Dan's you get to super-intelligence. What do you make of his response on this front end? And do you think there is any leverage that you have anymore as a Congress, as the public in the United States now that he doesn't really have to be on the ballot anymore? Is there any way to put political pressure on him and is he going to be responsive to that pressure in these final two years and often? Yeah, I think that I think he probably still envies, whoever came up with the idea to call the game at the end of the season between the AFL and the NFL, the Super Bowl. That's what he thinks was a big achievement. That's Super Bowl. Yeah, the biggest game of all time. So that's his big achievement when it gets called a super-intelligence, right? But the reality is that he put all these guys over his shoulder at the White House. And they were all guys, let's just stick it like that. And he extracted from them a moral commitment, that they would not do anything more. These are very satisfying. The mall, from trillions and billionaires, who have already created the Frankenstein once, that they won't do anything. And that's like a meeting in Godfather Pop One where Marlon Brando was brought, you know, all the families together at the table and they're all about all agreeing, all going to, like, agree up where the, where the territory sucks that they're all operated. And so it's got, but a moral agreement, almost, you know, the, the dawns. Literally, it looked like to me. It's the Godfather of your favorite movie, Senator. I'm getting a sense. It's the Godfather of your favorite movie. I'd like you to say this. I think all you need to know about politics in the Trump era is in Godfather Pop One, too. Okay, everything. Okay. Fascinating. Some people say beep, some people say it's Godfather. It's things. It's the white ball. New York. No holds by politics. Okay. And that's how Trump sees it. He's just very cynical. And and just this whole idea that people are going to believe that these guys are going to act in a morally sensitive way to the impact that's having on the privacy of individuals, the workers in our society, the environment in our society, not having to be used to actually launch nuclear weapons without any human decision-making, creating pathogens that can, in the wrong words, destroy the world. And everyone's going to be on kind of a, always scout, oath, you know, a promise that they won't do anything bad with their fingers crossed behind their back. It, of course, it's ridiculous. Okay. And that's why we're going to need binding top legislation, which we're on the worse, in order to protect the public. This is the first time a technology of this nature has been totally controlled by the private sector, nuclear weapons, other technologies have always been under the government control. Now it's under control. And these guys say we're sitting around President from the White House, which is why people like you who have the responsibility of reporting else from America from the White House, you know, going to have a big job when you hit us to make sure that every bit of information does become, it does become, upon the base, every incremental bit of information is rising, raising the opposition national to data centers going into communities without community protection, without the community permission being given. So, so yeah, we're at a turning point and water is one of the issues, but so is in electricity rates, so is in the air pollution, so isn't the, let's be honest, the data centers are just where all the information is going to be gathered, that's going to result in the compromise of a privacy of TH, Kenya views in our country in the in the installing of this technology into the workplaces all across our country with no safeguards. They want to turn workers into robots, and so all of it has to now be front and center, and these environmental considerations, I think, are right now with striving the opposition all across the country, because communities can see that they are going to be the experiment. In fact, you can hear them talking right now about building a data center and then building an SMR, a small modular nuclear reactor, right next to the data point in the community. I don't think that that should be allowed to happen without a total community input, and that's really crazily what they're talking about. You know, oh, we could solve the electricity problem for data centers used by building baby nuclear power plants in Yurika, New York, or Maldon, Massachusetts. That'll solve the problem. Well, the community might want to have a few words with the CEO of the company about the impact of my government, the walkthrough of seeking security. I have a few more questions for you on life beyond Trump, because that is coming. It may be not as fast as people would want it to, but you introduced a lot of Trump. I said a lot of Trump as well. Until I see a walk, we could talk about that. We could talk about that as well, but I'm curious. You introduced the Green New Deal with Congresswoman Acacia Cortez back in 2019. That was a 10-year framework. That 10-year clock is almost up, and it will be coming up by the time the next president of the United States is sworn in. What will they need to do? Presuming that it's a Democrat, and presuming they're listening to the things that Senator Markey has to say, what will they need to do to take on these issues that we've been talking about today? We need to not just have a democratic majority in Brazil, but a progressive majority of the country. At the heart of it, there is environmental injustice. It's ensuring that we get back to the agenda of deploying wind and solar, electric vehicles, battery storage technologies to solve the problem. They're already there, right now, Trump is trying to kill them in the coup in the offshore wind, off of the coast, to Massachusetts, Dominion, the op-ordinate, and the agenda. And then come back to an agenda where we ensure that we're funding the program, $65 billion was in the IRA, $65 billion, Joe Mediate, Environmental Justice, who I'll damage around the country. And then to pass legislation, the legislation of the 21st century, to deal with the protection of the water of the air, clean water, clean air laws, that will be there generation in order to protect families, including all across our country. You mentioned wanting a progressive agenda for that next democratic president. The de facto leader of that wing of the party for the future is Congressman Accusy, a part of what I mentioned. She's been pretty open about the fact that she has a decision to make about what she should do in the 2028 election. It seems to be a choice between running for president of the United States or running for the U.S. Senate. You serve in the U.S. Senate. You know Congressman Accusy of Cortez. Are you advising her on that decision at all? Do you think it would be wise for her to run for Senate or run for president? To be honest with you know, I'm a long out of the business of telling people if they should or should not run for anything. It's so personal. It's up to them. I think it's a big decision to make. And so to the extent to which. Has he asked you about? I know. No. to the extent to which it's a personal decision. Hasn't had such a profound factor from you, you can't wait everyone around you, that it's impossible for anyone else to join all the decisions that go in to read that decisions. My thing is true for someone, even to run the United States Center, which I just did called for the last year. Running on the Green New Deal, running on Medicaid, running on CACs in the years and the years, but ultimately the decision has to be made by myself, my wife, my family insurance. So that's where I did a decision of that magnitude, especially the way that the presidency has to use on. - Senator at Markey, I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for joining us in your backyard. - Of great to be with you, thank you. - I wanna thank Cynthia, Sandy and Senator Ed Markey for taking the time to share their stories and their perspectives with us here on in your backyard. We wanna hear your perspective now. You can drop your comments below. I've really enjoyed reading them and thank you for continuing to share the work that we're doing here on the Midas Touch Network, independent journalism, on these types of issues is something that needs your support because this is not the mainstream corporate media apparatus. We are doing this on our own. So please continue to share your support for the Midas Touch Network and for shows, like in your backyard. We'll see you back here in two weeks. (whooshing)