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Latitude Media, covering the new frontiers of the energy transition. Honestly, last week's sweater game, I was like, okay, I'm going to wear my Nantucket sweater too. I feel very JFK in this sweater, right? Yeah, you are giving like old school coastal elite. That's no longer the democratic brand, you know? It's okay. Hey, Caroline. Yes. I'm going to switch your mic real quick. There we go. You sound brilliant. Surround sound. Oh, is that what it was? Okay. Yeah, now you're in it. Now you're in it. Yeah. She's here, folks. In it to win it. I just feel so good that I picked a piece of clothing that you obviously approve of, Caroline. Oh, that's a tough bar. You have the reputation of being a fashionista, so. In a very fashion-forward industry, I might add. Energy is at the center of one of the biggest political swings in a generation. Two years ago, Trump rode into Washington with a powerful MAGA coalition promising among many things to dismantle woke energy and cut utility bills in half. But the midterm elections cracked that coalition wide open. Democrats flipped the House and Senate by historic margins and won governor's races in Texas, Ohio, and Georgia. And the core of Trump's energy-dominant strategy, a proud reliance on fossil fuels, a return to coal-fired power, and gigawatt-scale computers powered by muscular gas turbines, did nothing for voters. People are angry. They're worried. They're restless. They feel out of control. Spiraling energy costs, an unpopular war, giant data centers, and erratic policy that jolts markets all fueled the unease. The feeble attempts to blame wind and solar on electricity prices didn't work. Instead, voters blame the tech industry, utilities, and Trump himself. So how will this election shape how we build power in the years ahead? This week, we're tackling some of the biggest storylines in the aftermath, data centers, utility political power, state policy, and the next set of fights in Washington. That's coming right up on Open Circuit. Open Circuit is brought to you by Energy Hub, the flexibility platform for the modern grid. More than 230 utilities trust Energy Hub to build and operate virtual power plants, delivering 3.6 gigawatts of flexible capacity. As the resources grow, okay, this is really great. This is an amazing resource. I can use it. It's really valuable. But here's what I really need to do. To make it as good as or better than my existing conventional capacity. Paul Hines is the chief scientist at Energy Hub, where his team develops algorithms that turn millions of DERs into flexible capacity utilities can stake their grid planning on. My team is working on the algorithms that allow us to meet the utility's goals for shaping these virtual power plants. Machine learning keeps raising the ceiling on what VPPs can deliver. Energy Hub's platform is trained on years of data from millions of devices, optimized for utility needs. We're working with utilities not to just enable that capacity, but also make it more flexible so that utilities can use it, you know, more times per year for longer events in ways that are valuable to both customer and utility. Later in the show, Paul explains how Energy Hub's platform helps utilities scale VPPs for their unique needs as grid demands evolve. Learn more at energyhub.com. Giving Tuesday is December 1st. Time to put climate giving on your year. Year-end checklist and apply the same due diligence you would with any investment. That's what Giving Green does. Giving Green researches the strategies and nonprofits best positioned to unlock the next big climate breakthrough and sends 100% of every dollar donated to the Giving Green fund directly to them. Maximize your impact per dollar. No cuts or guesswork. Make your first gift before 2027 and it's matched up to $1,000. Go to givinggreen.earth slash circuit. You might know them by their former name, Renew Home. We are at a pivotal moment. Energy demand is growing faster than the grid was designed for. Everyday Electric believes we need to start at home with savings before jumping to new expensive infrastructure. They already run the country's largest residential VPP, coordinating over six gigawatts of capacity. And now they're expanding partnerships with energy providers and OEMs so that products like thermostats, EVs, and batteries can help households save money. And support the grid. That's home energy as it should be. Learn more at everydayelectric.com. Hey, welcome to the show. I'm Stephen Lacey. I'm the executive editor at Latitude Media. Thanks for being here. We have our post-election panel assembled, all familiar voices, backed by popular demand. Jane Flagle is a senior fellow at the Searchlight Institute in the States Forum. How are you, Jane? I'm great. I'm energized. I got the liberal zoomies, you know. It's a fun time to be a Democrat. Caroline Golan is the chief growth and policy officer at NRG. How are you doing, Caroline? I'm exhausted. But I'm great. I'm great. I'm just exhausted right now. Jigar Shah is the co-managing partner at Multiplier and co-host of Energy Empire. Hi, Jigar. Hello. All right, so we're taping this a few days after the election, but I think a lot of people are still processing. I think we're seeing the shock of the size of the win for Dems, and the question is, how are they going to govern? What happens to the tech industry's infrastructure bonanza, and what does it all mean for the way we build energy? And I think the midterms are, of course, a chance for us to gauge the mood of the country. We all knew that people were restless and angry, but this is a chance to see just how vast that anger is. So let's kind of start deep here. What story are the American people telling? The story was quite clear, as far as I can tell. I mean, I've sort of been most interested in two things that I think the American people are telling us. The first is that they, you know, it was a repudiation of the Trump administration's policies and a referendum on the cost of living. Interestingly, I think with energy at the center in a way most of us might not have predicted a few years ago. So that's kind of thing one. Thing two is maybe slightly less about the politics of energy and climate and more about politics more generally, which is that the voters are really kind of up for grabs. I mean, I feel like Nate Cohn's data has shown that most of the swing that happened in this election was about persuasion, not turnout. So like the same people who voted for Trump on prices a few years ago fired him basically two years ago. So like the same people who voted for Trump on prices a few years ago fired him basically two years later. Latino voters swung 30 points. Young men swung 45 points. So I guess I just, when you put those two things together, I really think it's a real opportunity and kind of a warning, frankly, for Democrats, where no party clearly sort of owns the energy cost, energy affordability issue. And I think Democrats now have an opportunity to like take the mantle and run with it. So that's sort of like how I've been. I've been thinking about this. But, you know, now if bills keep going up, it's just as likely as we get fired. Like there's a very sort of molten middle of the American electorate that is that is really up for grabs here. But it rocked, by the way. It was a great night for America. I am really surprised at how persuadable so much of the electorate is. I think that my perception has been that people are so entrenched in tribalism that there's a very few people that can be persuaded. And that's not the case in this strange, restless American electorate. Absolutely. Caroline, what about you? You know, actually, I was having this conversation with a number of people on my team. You know, everyone has a different perspective. But one of the women on my team said, you know, at the end of the day, we know what good leadership looks like. And this just wasn't good leadership. And that was it. And that was just this simple statement that I think captured all of it. I mean, I think there were obviously dynamics of the election. There was a Latino community and, you know, a refusal to accept the approach that the administration took to dealing with immigration. And I think there were aspects of this within, you know, the young male community, which was concerned about the technocrat overlord, you know, future AI. And I think there were sub-themes across all of it. I think energy was a unifying sub-theme, but I think it was more a derivative of a general erosion of the belief in institutions. And I think that Trump represented, pulled on that narrative a couple years ago and pulled on the populist narrative, and then he didn't deliver in any of the variables that he pulled on. And it's just, it's at the end of the day, it's like, I think people can excuse certain party platforms. I think they can, you know, quote, quote, quote. Hold their nose on certain policies. But the leadership just hasn't been there, you know, and it just hasn't been there and hasn't been there and hasn't been there. And at the end, and so I think what it's telling us as a country, one, democracy still exists. So that's a good thing, right? The other thing I agree with Jane is people are going to fire your ass if you don't do your job, right? That's another good thing. And I think, but the last thing I think that is particularly unique about this. is that there were, there was some, It's such a huge swing in some states. I mean, if you look at Texas, like Texas does not know what to do with itself. And there's a lot of dog that caught the car mentality going on across the country. We'll get to Texas, yeah. Yeah, yeah, we'll get to Texas. The dog that caught the car mentality that's going on means that we have to show up in our industry with really, really strong leadership and actually execute on things. We cannot have hype statements, we cannot have platitudes, and we cannot kick the can down to the next presidential election. You've got one legislative cycle. You've got one legislative cycle until you're focused on who's going to be the next president. You've got a lot of work to do. And if you don't deliver something quickly, they'll vote you out, you know? And I love that. I love the pressure cooker of that. I think it's going to make us be interesting and innovative and get to work. I love it, too. Absolutely. Jigar, what's your read on the story? You know, I think the two people who got this the most right are Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon. Actually, I was just talking about that. I was just talking about this, that I thought Steve Bannon had been reading the situation right for a long time. Explain more. I mean, these are all the people I grew up with in rural Illinois, so this is why I think this podcast has gotten it right for the whole year, which is basically that this is all about a repudiation of the oligarchs, right? Like, they're just tired of it. They're like, we asked you to release the Epstein files, you didn't do it. We asked you to keep energy costs affordable, you decided to bomb Iran. The two things you said you weren't going to do. You weren't going to do a forever war, and you were going to release the Epstein files. And then that just cracked open their brains. And they're like, who else is screwing us on a daily basis? Every governor who wants a gigawatt data center is screwing us. Every electric utility who's raising rates at 9% a year is screwing us. Like, all these people are screwing us. Like, in an era of a cost-of-living crisis, there's not a single person who gives a shit about cost-of-living. Like, literally not a single person around us is, like, focused on it. They're just blaming this person for higher food and blaming this person and saying we need it and we should just take our medicine and here's the broccoli. And they're like, no. Like, what exactly? And I thought Hinojosa was, like, great in her New York Times interview yesterday where they were trying to paint her as, like, a progressive or, like, a liberal. And she's like, no. Mm-hmm. Like, the people who voted for me. Just want me to take care of them. And I am going to do that. And when you look at the three states that flipped from Republican and Democrat, right, Ohio, Georgia, and Texas, all three on data center moratorium. All three of them, right? And I think everyone's like, oh, no, they didn't really mean it. Watch them. Watch them, right? They had 40 ballot initiatives at the county level in Ohio to ban data centers, right? And, like, the notion that these people are going to be like… They didn't know what they were talking about. These voters didn't know anything. We're going to go back to business as usual. Go back and reevaluate your ideas from the perspective of Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon. Because I'm pretty sure that this new coalition that the Democrats have somehow cobbled together is—they do not want to break it apart on day one. Well, and it's not a super liberal progressive coalition. It is not at all. That's what's amazing is, like, blue dog Democrats are back, maybe. Sorry, Mississippi? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, it's… This is not crazy—I mean, South Carolina, right? Yeah. This is not crazy liberal. This is not DSA. It's not—but it's also not labeled. People are just saying, like, just come back to me and, like, is this policy going to be good for cost of living or not? Is this policy actually going to bring down businesses? Is this policy going to bring down bills and costs for other people? Yes or no? Let's figure it out. New lens, new conversation. Yeah, and we saw a diversity of candidates, and one thing was very clear. They all had a single unified economic message and stayed away from social issues, and that is the winning recipe. There are a few things I hate more than, like, the insistence on engaging in, like, weird factional fights to no end within the Democratic Party and, frankly, within— The climate and environmental movement. But one of the things that I have found very frustrating in the last few years is this sort of false debate between do we do some version of abundance or do we do populism and antitrust or whatever? And I think one of the opportunities that I think is emerging out of this election and one of the things voters are telling us is that they mostly just want us to solve problems. And a clear diagnosis… A clear diagnosis of the problems around affordability and cost of living would almost always indicate a two-pronged solution that both addresses in the energy sector, meaningfully addresses energy scarcity, and also ensures that voters aren't getting screwed by incumbents and monopolies that don't have their best interests at heart. And so I think there's a real opportunity here to, like, get out of our corners and find a way to synthesize those two perspectives. And that's kind of what you see. And that's kind of what you see governors across the country already starting to do on electricity and data center stuff. One of the things that's interesting to me is if you look at Senator-elect James Tallarico, he is unabashedly pro-oil and gas, pro-all-of-the-above energy strategy. But he was loved by the left because he was fighting against corporate power. And I think if you don't apply the purity test that we often see on the left and give candidates the reign to talk… And I think if you don't apply the purity test that we often see on the left and give candidates the reign to talk about the issues in a way that matter locally, you can have some really effective candidates. And that seemed to be a shift to me on the left, that they gave candidates latitude to not pass, for example, a climate purity test. What this means for the Democrats is that you're going to have to drop a lot of the positions that galvanize the Republican Party and the Democratic Party on social issues if you want to get stuff done. And that is something… I don't know if they'll be able to handle, right, or they'll be able to juggle through because that's not why they were elected. I do not think the Democrats were elected because of the—we don't need to go through the laundry list—but social issues that became the platform of the Democratic Party in the last election, right? That's not why they were put up there. And if they lean into those and they create factions again, they're out, I think. They're out again. Totally disagree with you. I agree with you, Carolyn. This was clearly a referendum on Palestine. I don't know what you think is happening here, but come on. It was a referendum on, like, transgender sports. That's what it is. Well, no, but I also think it holds for climate, too. And that is a separate discussion. Climate was never a thing. Like, honestly. What do you mean? It was always about, like, technology, industrial policy. Not for a while. No, it wasn't. I mean, but nobody… No, Jigar, climate was a thing. Yeah, it wasn't for me. I mean, we both worked in the Biden administration. I've never used climate as a debate because it never made any sense. Like, no one even can fathom what CO2 even is. I think there was… I mean, look, it is definitely the case that the Biden administration had a hypothesis about the electorate that was less about swing voters and more about mobilization that suggested that if they did, if they ran strong on the climate crisis, which is language the president often used, we would mobilize the base. And, like… That did not happen. Like, we lost among young voters, and now they're coming back as we are spending more time centering an economy-first agenda. And so, I think there's a real… I think the thing that's going to be tricky for those of us who care about climate to grapple with is there's an assumption right now that there's always a neat alignment between affordability and climate. And in many cases, that is true. But it is not true in all cases. And, like, look at Hillary. Go in Texas. Like, there's going to be tradeoffs here in some instances. And I think the question is… And you can see some of this in the way that the fight about the permitting bill is going down right now, right? Like, definitely a winner on affordability. No question. But, like, everyone online is spending all their time litigating the emissions impact of a bill that isn't even really a climate bill. And that, I think, is a sign that we haven't quite metabolized the need to rethink the way that we get motivated as a party about energy. So well said. I think that really nicely summarizes tension one. Tension two is data center infrastructure. This is the central tension to the election. I think we're going to have a lot more conversations about climate messaging, you know, over the next couple of years. But I think you really summarized that well. So data center infrastructure. Let's go to Texas. A year ago, not even a year ago, Governor Abbott was, you know, calling Texas the epicenter of AI. And then over the last year, rural voters turned on data centers. In September, as we covered, he paused state data center permits pending a grid audit. It was way too late. Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa made data centers the face of Abbott's corruption. She was. outspent $281 million to $36.8 million, and she won anyway. She's promised a moratorium on all data center approvals until the legislature passes new protections. Everybody's talking about Texas right now. Carolyn, I'm sure you're focused a lot on Texas right now. What is the tone of the conversation? Why do you think she's so tired, you know? A little tired. I mean, yes. So I just want to separate what I think is, I don't want to call it political posturing, but what I think, we've talked about this before, what I think moratorium means. Ohio is a very different conversation. We're going to get to Ohio, and that's just a level of county empowerment that I think is going to grow, right? If you actually look at her platform, I think that she is going to maintain real, real, real, real, real, real responsible approach to development, and I don't think it is night and day from what Abbott would have been forced into doing anyways. I think what she is saying, and will continue to say, is if there's development happening and the communities want it, go forth. If development is happening and the communities don't want it, you're going to pause, and we're going to figure out whether this is something we need to broker, and we'll get the communities behind it. But if we're going to have the right to say no, and I think it's that responsiveness to the electorate mentality that is just going to be translated into a development approach. I don't think that that is wildly different from what Abbott would have said. Before the election, everything I was hearing from the Republican leaders in Texas was like, you shouldn't be allowed to build a data center here if you haven't had a town hall. If you haven't had a town hall, and the community hasn't said, we want this, you shouldn't be allowed to do that. I don't think that's wildly different from what will move forward. What I do think will happen, though, is that I think that there will be a significant showdown on transmission and the expansion of the bulk power system in Texas. And I think it will become an interesting potential bedfellow, because the only way to actually integrate more renewables into Texas is going to be to build more lines from West Texas to East Texas, right? That's going to require a lot of communities that are against this transmission to stand up and say that they want it in their communities. It's also going to require suppliers to get behind that message, because they need transmission to interconnect data centers. They need transmission to interconnect new supply. So I think that the data center development piece is going to look very similar. I actually don't think that's the point that becomes partisan and bloody and difficult. I think that all the Republicans, all the Democrats want Texas to still be an economic leader. She's going to want to take home that cup. She's going to want to show that a Democrat as a governor, a female as a governor, can still be an economic powerhouse. She is not going to shut down the state. I do think the transmission debate is where it's going to get really, really, really partisan. And that's what I'm watching. Tigger, what are you watching in Texas? I want to understand how fast Elon Musk moves to Miami. That's what I want to understand. I mean, as the oligarch who Texans most voted against, I just think that it's going to be fascinating what happens to Elon and his plans in Texas, because I don't know that most Texans want him there anymore. On the data center thing, I don't know. I think you guys are going to have to watch. Like, I don't think she's going to stop construction of the data centers that are already under construction, but I think that every one of them is going to have to sign a bring your own new capacity contract. I think every one of them is going to have to spend at least $100 million per gigawatt in the community on community benefits agreements. And I think that my sense is you're going to see some sort of. waving of all of these requirements for data centers below 75 megawatts in size, and you're going to see a crap ton of 75 megawatt data centers get built. Well, I think data centers for ants. I'm just saying, like, people can say whatever they want to say, but as somebody who's actually helping to write all of the regulations in these states, like, that's where this is going. And I think the notion that people, like, you know, I was just with a bunch of Google folks yesterday and the day before, and they don't get it. They literally don't get it. Like, they were like, but Jigar, people like us. And I'm like, they hate you. They hate you just as much as they hate Meta, and they don't know the difference between Meta and Google. I don't think people understand just how much they tie the data centers to oligarchs. It's literally one for one. And I don't think that they, like, when you think about the ballroom and how Trump is in. He's enriched himself. They view that as part and parcel with the data centers, right? Like, and I just think that, like, when you think about John Ossoff on stage talking about corruption every day, they view that directly with the data centers. Earlier, we met Paul Hines, Energy Hub's chief scientist. His team develops the machine learning that orchestrates 3.6 gigawatts of virtual power plants. When you see a utility using algorithms that we wrote on the whiteboard running 250 megawatt events, I think that's pretty amazing. Utilities need capacity they can deploy now, and they're finding it in virtual power plants, which are precise and configurable. I've got customers that have time of use rates. We need to make sure we respect that. I need to pre-cool during these hours. Maybe there's some hours that have a lot of solar power, so let's make sure that we soak up as much of that. Solar as we can, but I need to really manage my peak during this other period of time. And so figuring out how do we take all those goals and then come up with schedules for all the resources, whether it's batteries, thermostats, electric vehicles. Energy Hub maps that evolution through a four-level maturity curve. Level one looks like traditional demand response. At levels three and four, a VPP is a real-time resource that can meet many different needs on the system. It's actually better than a power plant because you're able to solve problems in the distribution network, which is. Where a lot of the cost is right now. You're able to solve problems in an automated way, whereas power plants actually are fairly slow to respond to issues. It's the future of how the grid operates, and we just need to connect them in the right ways, give them the right algorithms, and make that happen. Energy Hub's GridAware DERMS is the flexibility platform trusted by 230 utilities across North America. Time to put climate giving on your year-end checklist. And apply the same due diligence you would with any investment. Giving Green researches the strategies and non-profits best positioned to unlock the next climate breakthrough. 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You can save up to $4,000. that lowers costs for everyone across the grid. That is Everyday Electric's vision. It's the next great addition to your program portfolio. You can learn more at EverydayElectric.com. So on the specifics, I think in Texas, and I think it's state by state, in Texas, water is a bigger issue than carbon, right? I think that labor, local labor workforce, is a huge issue. And I think that there is going to be a large population that says, no, we want our sunsets. We don't want new roads here. We don't want this infrastructure here. Please go take it someplace else. The great thing about Texas is there's like huge swaths of the country where no one really lives, right, where you can build things. The bad thing is you need to build out the bulk power system in order to do that, right? So this is why I think it comes down to that. I don't think Jigar is wrong in saying that they attach it to a world they cannot control. And I think that is a fair thing to just say. Like, many people feel like they cannot control the world that is happening around them, and they don't have buy-in in it, right? That's why we have a democracy, is so that they can voice that opinion. But I don't think in Texas you're going to see. full-out moratoriums like you will see in other states. I just don't. Jane, what do you think the Texas story is? I mean, I'm sort of bored of the data centers, I gotta be honest. For me, honestly, the Texas story that is not getting as much attention is the fact that Democrats now run a state that produces 40% of U.S. crude and hosts most new LNG export capacity, and by the way, funds most of their schools as a result of that. And I think there's been a lot of cognitive dissonance and denial and confusion in the Democratic Party on this issue about domestic oil and gas supply for a long time, and how to navigate the politics and economics of existing demand for oil and gas globally in a world where we want to aggressively decarbonize. And I'm just really eager to see how, over the next few years, the party sort of sorts that out. It's easy enough to say, like, oh, just let—and this is, you know, searchlight, I think, a lot of credit to Adam Jentleson. This has been his whole shtick, is, like, Democrats can build a supermajority if we allow candidates to take more heterodox positions, and if the national brand can accommodate that. On the other hand, like, a lot of politics is national now, and so how is the national Democratic brand and posture on energy and climate going to shift as a consequence of, like, a realization that we might actually be able to build a tent this big? Like, I really—I think that's, like, a really central question, and especially because I think this election was much more about gas prices than data centers across the board. So you're saying Democrats have to be intellectually honest? Yes. Well, we always have been about everything, first of all. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, I think this is, like—I really think it's an interesting—it's an interesting question, and, like, it's going to be hard to work— I agree. I don't think— It'll be a huge flashpoint. I don't think that if you were to—if you were—and I'm sure someone will—if you were to interview many of the voters who voted Trump and then voted blue this time, I don't think their number one issue was data centers. I don't. I don't. And I think we talk about it a lot on this podcast because we're an energy— We're an energy podcast, and you can't talk about energy without talking about data centers. But I just don't think that's what was the main driver. Like, one of the pollsters who I trust on almost everything said to me the night of the election, I was sort of like, so if you disentangled all of the pieces that played into this, say Trump still did the tariffs and did the sort of crazy ICE interventions and, like, the bad immigration policy and yada yada, but didn't do the war in Iran— Like, how much different would the outcome have been, do you think? And this person was just like, you can literally shoot your political opponent on live television as long as gas prices stay low. Like, it is just, like, a shockingly important political— But Trump even said that. Didn't he say that? I mean, he said that. Well, he did, but I don't—I don't think that—I remember that, like, that's what I said. Like, this is really about Epstein and forever worse. Those are the two things that got a bunch of MAGA voters to be like— But you could be in a forever war as long as we don't feel it. No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I think when you think about, like, how many people, like, revolted and voted Trump because of the Ukraine conflict and the fact that they, you know, thought that was a forever war. Like, I just think in general, Trump promised two big things. One was the Epstein files and one was not being in international conflict and violated both of them. But he also, like, his actual promise, like, part of the reason he beat Kamala was about prices and inflation. Sure. But he was never going to do anything positive on— Well, but he didn't—it's not just that he didn't do anything positive. He waged a tariff war on Canada and waged a literal war on Iran and drove gas prices to historic highs. Like, I really think— But I've only said this wasn't about data centers. I don't think I've ever said it was about data centers. Yeah, yeah. I'm just saying that I think that's one of the interesting stories about Texas. Can we just talk about Ohio for a second, Caroline? No, not for a second. I mean— For many minutes. If you really want to understand the entire data center saga, you just got to study Ohio. And it all begins and ends with this state. And, like, yes, Georgia became a touchpoint and Texas became a touchpoint. But if you really want to talk about what set off PJM, what set off all the crazy stuff, stuff around how we're going to meet capacity and reliability and do we have enough transmission and bring your own power and, you know, prices and everything, just go to Ohio. And that's where it all started. And what I think is really, really interesting about Ohio, and I think what you're seeing a lot of elected governors say, is that they're going to put power in the hands of the local communities, right? That is a slippery slope for a governor to go down. And I will be interested to see how that actually gets written into permitting law, into tax law, into any type of negotiation when it comes to development or build out. But I don't know the exact—14, 20? How many counties exactly passed moratorium? Somewhere between there, right? Right. Right. Like a couple dozen counties passed complete moratoriums, right? And that—the number of hyperscalers and data center developers that woke up and went like, can we cuss on this podcast? Like, well, I'm fucked. Like, you know, it was— And so— Roamed my heart. Yeah. And so—but the other—but the reality is everyone went to Ohio for a reason. It wasn't because data centers, hyperscalers woke up and said, let's just do Ohio. Let's just all pick one state and get in there together. No, it had an amazing backbone, infrastructure backbone. It had great workforce. It had a lot of existing sites that had been abandoned by the industrial manufacturing offshoring that happened, you know, beginning in the 90s. And so it was a perfect place to start building. It had network. It was a perfect place to start building out cloud. And then once you start building out cloud there, you want to build out— your big hyperscaler compute, because you're already there. So it just sort of piled on itself and piled on itself. And then finally, people were like, hey, AEP, this isn't working. We're not doing this anymore. And they said no. And the fact that that—every single one that was on the ballot passed is like—that is the biggest shock, which is that when you let development happen and you let it run away with like a runaway train, and you don't let it— and you don't let the communities have buy-in, they're going to exercise their right. And I think it's a warning sign to other states. And I think that it will be very interesting to see how these new electeds decide the balance between, I don't really want to give local authority to economic development to county-by-county decision. Because at the end of the day, the one thing the governor is held to is economic development. And to say that they don't have the card on where that goes anymore is— is very slippery. But responding to this populist view means that may happen. It's a very fascinating power dynamic. And we'll see. Yeah, I know Jane's bored by data centers, but— I know, Jane. No, no. No, I think it's—it was an interesting test. Ohio's an interesting test about how much data centers influence the election. And we don't have to hang on this for too long. But if you look at exit polling, I think 56% of voters said that AI and data centers were a crucial factor to the election. To their vote. Three-quarters of those in exit polls said that they oppose a new data center in their community. You saw all these bans throughout Ohio. Obviously, Sherrod Brown painted his opponent, John Husted, as, you know, the face of data centers. I think that Ohio— The ass of data centers. The perfect ass of data centers. Great. I mean, I think Ohio shows that this was on the top of voters' minds. Yeah, a lot of butt talk. Yes, definitely. I don't know. Is anybody else—what are some other stories in Ohio? I have a question about this, Caroline and Jigar. I'm really curious what you think, too, is, like, you know, one thing that's really hard to disentangle, even if you look at the polling, is, like, how much of it is, like, Jigar's point, which I tend to agree with, which is, like, you can't separate the physical infrastructure from people's disdain for tech oligarchs and, like, the politics of AI and whatever. Yeah, yeah. So, like, it's hard to figure out, like, how much of it is about actual, like, local impacts on— price or water or CO2 or whatever versus, like, the other mega stuff. But on this question, one of the things I'm interested in, Caroline, is, like, the way you're describing this tension between local control and sort of state control of some of these decisions, I've been spending a lot of time on local siting fights for clean energy infrastructure, like, leaving aside the data centers, just like, you know, there are a lot of counties across the country adopting bans on clean energy, development. And I think there's a question about like, how do you solve that problem? And does it mean sort of rolling off control over these siting decisions in some meaningful way to the state level and allowing some preemption? Or should we be devolving more to local? I'm just kind of curious. Yeah, that's the tension. Yeah, I understand what you're asking. And I think that is the tension. And I also think that any power that's developed in this country right now is synonymous with meeting AI load. So you're already walking into a conversation where the motivation by which you're trying to negotiate across the table with someone is suspect, right? And so I think that. It's like your transmission point in Texas. Right. And I think the other interesting thing here with Ohio is, I don't know if we're going to have a special auction in PJM. I mean, if all that load drops out, I don't know that you need a special auction. But I think that the state has had such a stronghold. And again, I want to explain the backstory of why so much compute and why so much went to Ohio. It's not like they want to party with each other or something. It actually made sense from an infrastructure perspective. And we were being courted. I mean, Ohio was courting this community heavily, heavily, heavily, heavily. And so everyone made these huge investment decisions. And now it's like evaporating. And the ripple effect that that's going to have on the need for new capacity, it's going to completely affect load forecasts in PJM. It's going to affect the need for new transmission coming into Ohio. So it has massive implications for the region. But the point that I was making with Jane was like. That is a slippery slope. And if I'm a governor, I want to be able to attract new large load that's not necessarily synonymous with AI, right? But all steel on the ground now is suspect. Like, because of AEP's central role in the nervous system of PJM, it is Rome, right? So all megawatts in the PJM can be easily. Transported to Ohio, right? So if you build capacity, a nuclear plant somewhere, you can bring all that capacity to Ohio. That's not true for Virginia, right? And so, like, that's why Ohio was so attractive to everybody. And it became, like, so valuable as data center haven. But to my earlier point, like, the reason why these dynamics are occurring is because nobody in Ohio cared about. about the people of Ohio. Like, Mike DeWine is as good a governor as you can get, I think. And it was pretty obvious that he was not interested in protecting the people of Ohio from the overreach of SoftBank or Meta or other people. And so the reason why the counties decided to rise up was because when they all took the legislation to the state legislature of Ohio, the state legislature of Ohio said, no, we do not want to regulate the oligarchs. And so then that same group of people organized all of these ballot initiatives at the county level. Like, they don't start by saying, we want to do all this heavy lifting at the county level. They all went to their state legislature and their governor and asked them for help. And those people said, screw off. We are making way too much money off of the data center oligarchs. We are not going to regulate them. And so then they said, okay, well, then we'll do it at the county level. And so I just want to make sure that, like, we understand the dynamics here well. The county people are not trying to seize power. They tried to get redress, and the state officials said no. Irrespective of the motivations, though, it sets a precedence that. Yeah, well, it sets the precedent that, you know, like, governors should listen to their voters and stop being bought off by oligarchs. I mean, this is a good segue into our conversation about governors and utility accountability. So we saw Georgia's Public Service Commission flip to Democratic control. Michigan voters banned utility political spending. In Arizona, Democrats are leading for corporation commission seats on the ballot. We saw a slew of new governors come in who ran on utility accountability. Jigar, what are the biggest consequences for utilities in this election in your mind? The utilities have no home. Like, I mean, they are really. I mean, the number of text messages that I got from CEOs of utilities saying, hey, Jigar, can we strategize? I'm like, yeah, I guess so. But, like, what do you want to strategize about? Like, in general, they're like, here are my oligarch masters on the shareholder side. And, Jigar, how do I get past my public service commission so that I can do this, this, and this? And I was like, wrong question, right? Like, the question is, what exactly is your plan to figure out the formula of your state? You have a certain amount of investment that you have to make because we have aging infrastructure and load growth and all these other things. And then you have a certain number of new kilowatt hours you have to sell to be able to keep rates from going up at 9% a year. What exactly is it that you're pitching me is your formula? And everyone was like, we don't like your formula. And so, therefore, public service commission, you know, replacement. Like, I don't think this is that hard to calculate, but, like, they don't have any good ideas. Well, but also, okay, you're a utility three years ago, two years ago. You are called in to the White House and you are told it is a national security threat if we don't integrate these data centers. Yes. And you are told it is my idea. It is my expectation as the leader-in-chief here that you do this. Figure it out. Yes. Right? And then they sent you to me to use a 1706 loan program to fund it. I talked to every one of those CEOs and CFOs and tried to help them through this process and they told me to go pound sand. Well, the color that I want to give here is that as the person who was on the other side trying to build quickly, for a long time, the utilities said, well, we can't do that. We can't do it that quickly and we can't give you a special deal and we can't do all those things. They did that because they have a regulatory construct that they needed to meet and they have like three people working interconnect at any given day. But then they got a gun put to their head and the national defense narrative and now, because they adhered to some of it, they're getting another gun put to their head. Now, I'm not defending all the actions in between and there has been a lot of rent-seeking and a lot of opportunistic behavior. But we can't forget the fact that we all complained about the fact that the utilities, we being the hyperscaler community, we being the AI digital community, complained and complained and complained and complained that the utilities weren't moving fast enough for us and China was going to take over the world if we didn't build these data centers. So if you are a patriot, you will do this. And so we did it. Yeah, and their definition of patriotism was what will cost the most money with the least effect and least change in culture to get this stuff done. Not a single one of them took that signal in 2023 and said, let's invest in transmission. Let's drop our issues with the national corridors that the Biden administration put forward, right? Let's figure out a way to work with FERC to like allow these projects that have been wallowing for 10 years to go faster. Not a single one of them changed their priors. And now you're saying that because they decided to do things in the most expensive way possible, that like we should give them a pass because they had a gun to their head on national security? I don't say they should get a pass. I don't, I'm not saying they should get a pass. I'm just, I'm just saying like, I think we forget that they were slow and this, and the utilities, being slow is actually what kept rates somewhat stable for a while and kept some of this somewhat stable. Hell no. Come on now. If you want to adjudicate why states were, like rates were low, it's not because they were slow. It's because natural gas prices went from $10 a million BTU in 2007 down to $2.50 a million BTU. And they took all of that money and stuffed it in their pocket for transmission and distribution that we're now using at 18% asset utilization. The number of, the number of times I would sit on a negotiation and say, can we do this in two years? And they would say, no. Yes, they can. And they would say, no, we can do it in seven. And we, we had this conversation in Austin around the fact that the only time that we make our grid more efficient is during world wars. When the federal government comes in and forces utilities to join Southwest Power Pool, the Northwest Power Pool. We like, I mean, I'm just, all I'm saying is is that like, like, let us not make excuses for people who literally have the political instincts of like Lindsey Graham. Like, come on. Like, these are terrible, terrible companies who do not know their head from their ass. And we're using campaign contributions to keep themselves in power. And the people of their states have said, we're, we're done. Jane, I don't know how you're going to wrap that up. I can do my usual, my usual shilling here, but I guess, you know, to turn it to my favorite topic, which is the active permitting bill that is under discussion right now. Yeah, I was going to get there. So let's roll into it. I think like, I think, look, I probably, and I know that I know that I in fact do have more space for some of the challenges. I think the utilities are, are grappling with that are not all a consequence of their greed, but rather like they are operating within a structure that has shifted dramatically very suddenly. And the system in which they operate is totally broken. And to Jigger's point, some of that is their fault. Like some of that is that they have lobbied to keep a system that is broken in place. So there, so like, I want to acknowledge that that is true. I'm not saying that's not true. Yeah, of course you're not. I don't know. Of course you're not. But I think like, one of the reasons that I think this permitting bill is so important is kind of across the board. I just think like, yes, data centers are at the center of this right now, but more generally, like the world and the country is electrifying. Like we, that is happening and we want that to happen, not just for climate, but for national security and global competitiveness and geopolitical reasons. And I do not think that anyone in the system has fully grokked, like, the system. I don't think that anyone in the system has fully grokked, like, the system. Like, what a world. Too soon. Too soon, Jade. You can't use the word grokked. Grokked. What a world. What a world of like, of not 20 years of flat demand growth, but of like, very rapid demand growth looks like and requires of our system. It looks like resip engines and jet engines. Like, that's what it looks like. And like, but like, I kind of feel like, and that's terrible, right? Yeah, go ahead. Sorry. No, no, that, no. And like, I guess I just feel like for me, you know, there's use, there's use, there's useful political posturing around and like, you know, around who's to blame. Do you blame monopoly utilities? Do you blame governors? Do you blame data centers? But like, fundamentally, all of these are actors operating in a system that I think we can all agree is not incentivizing the right behaviors for lots of reasons. And the reason we're seeing, you know, diesel gen sets and like these crazy It's because our system was not built or designed to accommodate rapid demand growth. And like, that is bad. And we have to do that in a way that is obviously attentive to anxieties about affordability, which is, I think, a point that Jigar often makes very eloquently. But like, surely we can do both of these things at the same time. And I'm kind of like, I'm less interested in calling people bad actors than I am in saying like, let's pass a, let's, let's change the laws and frameworks and electricity market governance structures, so that like, we get out of this bind, which is a structural bind. It's not just that there's like one bad actor. It is a structural problem. Right. But like, let's put to bed. But you don't think calling people stupid is, is a chance? No, but I mean, I think part of the reason that the permitting bill is as ambitious as it is, is because the utilities are on their back foot. So like, Right. So let's put to bed the fact that people think that Jane and I are on opposite sides of this. We love each other. Right. And I have fought hard to make sure permitting gets passed. And so we are on the same page. But I just want to make clear, right, that the trade that we made is exactly what Jane suggested, that the utilities are on their back foot. And so the trade in the permitting bill is that we finally get to build out this bulk infrastructure in our country, right? If in the manager's amendment, which is supposed to like drop any, second now, right? They, they take out the ability to do backstop authority or any of these things that we need. I'm against the permitting deal. The notion that we like do this trade to give natural gas pipelines, everything that they want. And in exchange, we don't get the ability to build out the bulk power system in this country. Like F that. Oh, Caroline has to leave. I'm sorry. I'm very, very sorry for the permitting bill. I also think it's an opportunity for direct access. So y'all discuss that while I leave and go take a call. So what is the status of the permitting bill right now, Jane? We are likely, I mean, we will see a manager's amendment later today, late this afternoon, um, that I am optimistic will incorporate some important changes to the bill that I think will make folks, um, happy, hopefully on both sides. Of the aisle. Um, you know, I think we can imagine some fixes to some of the stuff on permitting certainty that environmental groups in particular were very concerned about. Um, and also importantly, some changes to the NHPA provisions around tribal consultation. Um, and I think if those things happen, we'll see a lot of momentum. There's a vote that will happen in the Senate on Monday. Um, and I think it's going to be a vote that is, that has a lot, a lot of support. I like, um, And that's where we are. Is there any pressure to not get this bill done now? I mean, I'm sure a lot of enviros and people who are against the bill are saying, no, no, wait for the Dem majority to come in. How has that picked up since after the election? Yeah, it's weird. Like, I think the election, there's sort of like two effects of the election that run in opposite directions, right? There's the one that's like Democratic sweep. Why would you do a deal now? Wait, which Jared Huffman has been making very loudly, which I find not at all compelling. But OK, we'll put that over here. Then there's the other direction of tension, which is you guys just got elected to deliver on an affordability agenda. This is the first opportunity you have to, like, demonstrate that you take this seriously. And so, like, why would that be the first thing that you do is kill a bill that would directly tackle a lot of energy affordability challenges the country is facing? I think that latter argument is going to win the day. I think there's just, like, a lot of momentum building around this bill. Even as the environmental groups may or may not oppose it. We saw IBEW, a labor union, a very important labor union, which importantly, to Jigar's point, is sometimes a little bit complicated in its posture on these issues because of its relationship with monopoly utilities. I think having them come out in support of the bill is, like, a really big deal. We've seen support from some members in the last few days, Senator Gallego and others, that I think is really promising. We've seen endorsements from, you know, every manufacturing association in the country. So, I'm really optimistic that in an era of politicians prioritizing delivering on affordability and pollution reduction that the bill will get done. But we'll have to see. I mean, it'll be a good sign that they're ready to govern rather than just fight if they can pass this bill. And on that front, how do you expect or how should Dems govern? What are the fights we expect? What do you expect to see in the coming two years that kind of intersect with energy and climate? Any other stories, issues, top of mind as you think about the next couple of years? I mean, I've been trying to think through, like, what, if someone asked me, what do I think Democrats should, in Congress, what do I think the 120th Congress should prioritize on energy in the next year? And I really want to know what you guys think, too. But, you know, we've had some marker bills in the House and elsewhere that have a little bit to me. The character of, like, running back the old playbook, right? And, like, I think there's a question of, like, how much of that should we do? How much should we not do? And, like, what is this new moment demand of us in terms of a new agenda? I think there's a couple of buckets. One is, like, lower bills now, which no one is more focused on than Jigar. So he's got lots of good ideas in that bucket. But I think I do think this idea of above and beyond the kind of cost allocation fights on data center development. Like, is there a way to think about new revenue? Is there a way to think about new revenue streams to get data centers to help subsidize a modern grid? I think I actually think one area that hasn't gotten a lot of attention but should is how you get grid hardening and disaster mitigation costs off of bills, which is just a really regressive way to do that. And I think you could imagine some interesting stuff there. I think there's, like, a real opportunity to do electricity market reform stuff, which is maybe not the sexiest thing, but I think really important. So that's thing one. Like, how do you lower bills today? And another thing. In that category, it's just, like, deliver immediate relief to families through LIHEAP and other stuff. As someone who lives in Massachusetts, I'm not particularly excited about my heating bill this winter. The second thing, I think, is this category of, like, what do we do about gas prices and fossil fuel states? Like, is there an agenda that we can start to advance now to help address some of those concerns? Everything from, you know, strategic petroleum reserve stuff to, I don't know, maybe there's an opportunity to do something. Surface transportation reauthorization on electric vehicles that isn't totally polarized. and insane, but, you know, that seems hard to me. But I think there's, like, it's a real strategy for mitigating, you know, oil price spikes. A bunch of stuff there. The third category is all the stuff around, like, monopolies and putting families ahead of monopolies, and that includes the data center stuff about making big tech pay. But I also think, I don't know, Jigar, I think there's, like, interesting stuff that we could probably do on, like, funding the rate cops, you know? Like, is there stuff that we can do? Is there stuff that we can do to help? Dave Pomerantz gets to tax the budget. Exactly, exactly. Like, can you help state utility commissions do a better job of governing? We also saw on election night some interesting stuff on, like, banning ratepayer-funded politics. I think that's kind of, like, a. Oh, so good. Yeah, that's, like, a great, like, who doesn't want that? That sounds, you know, like. This was Michigan, where they passed a ballot initiative that said that, you know, their utilities couldn't give to politicians anymore. Like, it's not. Like, they can do it, like, with their own cash, but not with corporate cash. And then there's, like, Build Faster, which, like, God help me, if this permitting bill doesn't pass, like, I will never speak publicly again, which is probably a good thing for everyone around me, but, like, I just can't. I'm so. It would not be good for me, Jane. And then, like, you know, a bunch of stuff on interconnection. I think grid equipment, supply chains. This is all stuff, by the way, that I think Trump would sign. Like, this is, like, not crazy lefty stuff. And then there's, like, the innovation agenda, and the sort of make technologies in America agenda. So I don't know. I think there's, like, a bunch. That's a thick list. There's a bunch of opportunities. That's, like, a bunch of big, cool stuff that, like, I really think could get done that addresses the concerns the electorate actually has. It's not a Green New Deal, you know, but. No, it's a great list. I just hope Dems don't get completely caught up in restoring tax credits and fighting the old fights, as you said. I do expect there to be plenty of oversight, too, right? You should. Totally, yes. We'll have hearings and subpoenas on frozen grants and canceled funding. So I expect that to happen. I also think, like, again, like, my Biden admin PTSD as I came in, like, to do industrial emissions, and everyone was like, what? I think, like, one lesson I have is that, like, as we think about 2029, A, that's one reason I think we have to get this permitting bill done now. Like, the person the permitting bill will benefit most is whoever is in power in 2029. And then also, like, the administrations don't, like, pull agendas out of nowhere. Like, they pull from things that have kind of been socialized and tested in states and federally. And so, like, we should be thinking about as bills get introduced in the next two years, like, what do we want to socialize and tee up for our next administration? Like, I'm saying this because I was supposed to do industrial decarb, and, like, there wasn't. There hadn't been a bunch of bills that had been socialized on this other than, like, 45Q, you know? So, like, I would want to think. I think that there's, like, a bunch of work that we need to do. I think there's, like, a bunch of work we can do with an eye toward 2029 around just, like, building momentum for things that matter. Jigar, what do you think? I've seen chatter. Jane alluded to this. Chatter from climate progressives who think that this moment is, like, 2018 when we started to see more pressure on Congress to pass the Green New Deal, which eventually rolled into efforts to build and pass the IRA. There will be many people who are calling for trying to bring back clean energy tax credits. How do we. How do we ensure that we're. Well, first of all, do you agree with any of those priorities? And second, how do we ensure that Dems are not just fighting old fights and really taking on things that can meet the moment? Well, first of all, Jane is amazing, so read all of her stuff. I think that, again, this is a Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson moment, and I think people, like, need to check their priors at the door. In 2018, we had one of the most robust economies of all time, when we were doing this Green New Deal thing. That is not true. We are headed towards 10% unemployment by the end of when Trump leaves office, right? Like, this notion that, like, we actually have the luxury of adding cost to the American people for the desires of climate or whatever it is, that is not the mandate that anyone was given, right? So the question really becomes, what, as part of this Venn diagram, reduces people's. people's bills? I think, effectively, eviscerating utility power is going to be part of the process, right? Federal Power Act changes, PERPA changes, right? Figuring out how you actually give power back to the people, as opposed to having, you know, paternalistic organizations tell you how they know what's best for you, I think is going to be a big item here. The other piece of, though, is that, as you suggested, is some of the hearings and, like, investigations, and some of that is critical. For those of us who care deeply about industrial policy, Trump is warping industrial policy in ways that might turn us off for 20 years to industrial policy, right? When you think about how many people are getting money just because the Trumps invested in that company, you have the office of strategic capital, I'm pretty sure every one of those people is probably going to resign in the next week because they don't want to be in office when the next, like, Congress gets. And it is critical that we investigate all of them and say that this is not a feature of industrial policy, it is a feature of corruption from the president, right? Because I think that America needs a strong public-private partnership to be able to do big things, whether it's nuclear power or large transmission or geothermal or the things. And if we lose the mandate from the American people to do big things in this country, it is going to be very difficult and it's going to be very hard to get that back. And so I think some of these investigations are going to be critical, but we're going to have to be careful which ones we work on because the American people do not have the appetite for all of these investigations. Absolutely. They're only interested in investigations that are directly applicable to how we get down the cost of living. Yes. They're going to have to be very targeted in which stories they thread out for the American people on, for example, corruption. But going back to. Sorry, I didn't answer your question on tax credits. We should absolutely not extend the tax credits for solar and wind. And I have been trying to phase them out since 2012, so I am very clear on my thought process around the fact that our industry doesn't need them anymore. Yeah, I guess my final thought is what we were talking about in the beginning, which is this is a really energizing moment and not because Democrats won, but because the electorate can be swayed by economics. And the electoral map is wide open. And if you are working on clean energy issues, to some extent climate issues, like it is up to you to meet the moment. And I think that there are cases that can be made for a wide swath of Americans who just want their lives to be better. And Gina Hinojosa, in an interview with the New York Times, which you mentioned earlier, Jigar, she was getting pushed on why she doesn't call herself a progressive and why she calls herself a populist. And she just said, I don't call myself a progressive right now because it's affiliated with the culture wars. And this is not the moment to have culture wars. I am focused on making people's lives better. And that is purely what I ran on and what I'm focused on as I govern or when I govern. And I think we should take that to heart in this industry and in the climate movement that there's a unique opportunity to have a different message and actually resonate with people. One of the things I would say is, is that I think people forget, and I'm all for what Jane is suggesting on how to decarbonize sectors and other stuff, but people forget that 50% of carbon emissions in our country can be offset with technologies that save money today. Yeah. Right? And we are just so bad at figuring out how to deploy those at scale. When you think about what Jane was suggesting around her heating bill this winter, I pray for all of those people on fuel oil. But Lord Almighty, we have technologies that have like a two-year payback to like help those people move to heat pumps and other stuff. Like they're paying $27 a gallon delivered for remote communities in Alaska. And I fear that people are going to die this winter because like the president does not care about like figuring out how to use the U.S. military or other people to get them the supplies that they need in time for the future. The winter, I think people are going to start burning parts of their houses. Like we have got to start thinking about how to use all this modern American technology that we've invested in for over 20 years, that we spent all the money to get the costs down on into the hands of the American people. It's also, by the way, why, I mean, I remember talking to a former Senate candidate from Maine at one point about climate politics in the state. And I don't disagree with you, Jigar, at all about the promise of heat pumps, but I think it does go back to this issue of like, you can't just do like a wartime push on consumer technology and demand side stuff if you haven't addressed the electricity supply side. And like in lots of parts of the Northeast in New England, like we just don't have enough electricity supply. And so like, you know, we have to be careful here because we make these promises about cost reductions from things like heat pump deployment. But, you know, we're often in situations where electricity prices are crazy high. And so, you know, So we just have to think. think there needs to be, there doesn't seem to be a real debate right now about like how you should think about tackling electricity supply and the decarbonization of electricity supply as you scale to meet growing demand and like the pacing of those two things, which feels complicated to me, but like at the heart of some of the fights right now in the environmental movement about what we should be prioritizing. Jane Flegel is a senior fellow at the Searchlight Institute in the States Forum. I have enjoyed your takes and your wonderful screensaver on your TV behind you. It's been incredible to watch. Oh my God. Not made in America. Don't tell anyone. It's changed every couple of minutes and I'm really digging it. Yeah. Really good to talk to you again. You too. Thanks guys. Jigar Shah is the co-managing partner of Multiplier. Great to see you, Jigar. Always a pleasure. Open Circuit is produced by Latitude Media, show is edited by me, by Sean Marquand and Anne Bailey. You can find all of our audio episodes on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your pods. And of course, subscribe to us on YouTube. You can watch Open Circuit and Catalyst and you can get transcripts of every episode at LatitudeMedia.com. I'm Stephen Lacey. We'll catch you next week.