Lower Utility Bills And Growing The Economy (Hour 1)

Good morning.

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My name is Greg Bach.

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We have a very jam-packed show for you today.

Environmentally themed, in fact.

Got three guests who will be touching on electricity, data centers, and waterways laws.

In about 30 minutes, we're going to be talking to State Senator Jody Habish-Sinneken, and then later Evan Finauer, a staff attorney from Clean Wisconsin to talk about the finalization.

of new water quality here in Wisconsin.

And State Senator Jody Habeson, we'll be talking about data centers.

We talked yesterday with a local organizer on a data center project in Menominee.

Today we're going to be talking about what our lawmakers are doing in Madison to create more transparency, protections for the communities that are affected by these data centers.

So we always want you to be part of the conversation.

Call our text.

Love to hear from you.

Feel free any time to ask your questions, but we're going to kick right off into our first guest.

And he is the founder and executive director of Power Lines, which is an organization that aims to lower utility bills while growing the economy.

Charles Wise here.

He is the executive director.

Charles, thank you so much for being on the show this morning.

How are you doing today, sir?

Well, thanks for having me.

I'm still reeling about the Packers game.

Okay.

Okay.

We're going to go.

All right.

We'll talk about this for a moment.

I'll do this.

I'll absolutely do this.

I'm at, I'm at an event on Sunday and someone says the Packers are winning.

I said, Oh, so I checked my phone.

I'm like, okay, it's a, it's a, it's a comfortable lead.

It's nothing to brag about.

It's nothing that we're like calling the game where it's still mid third quarter.

And I pick up my phone again.

I'm not kidding you, Charles, within like three minutes.

How did we lose everything?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was, I was on a plane and I was bummed that I was going to miss the game, but, you know, in retrospect, not at all.

Bummed.

I mean, what a, what a disappointment.

But, you know, I think

there's

still, there's still hope, I suppose, because, you know,

There's still Chicago on Saturday and like, you feel good.

That makes you feel, that'll make you feel good.

But, uh, yeah, absolutely.

I was, I was, I was just putting my phone down again.

I'm like, well, we're not going to touch that for the rest of the night, I guess.

Uh, but Charles, you're here today to talk about, uh, utility bills and you're here to talk about the economy and you're here to talk about power lines.

Let's start off with that.

What is power lines?

What is your mission?

Um, and what does it seek to serve for the, for, you know,

the country for people for the regular consumers.

Well, power lines is really trying to tackle this issue of rising utility bills.

And our mission is very simple.

It's to lower utility bills and grow the economy.

And we think that those two objectives are not only not in conflict, but actually can be.

synergistic of Dunwell.

But the reality right now is that utility bills are going up.

They're going through the roof.

Nationally, they've gone up 30 to 40% since 2021.

80 million Americans across the country right now are struggling to pay their utility bills.

And this issue is not going away anytime soon.

And that's an interesting thing you put together there.

Like if you were if we talk about lowering utility bills, I feel like that in and of itself is enough of a conversation that can take up

quite a bit.

But when you throw growing the economy in there, it makes you say, I mean, I don't think they're in conflict, but it's an interesting topic.

How do you mean that?

What do you mean by lowering utility bills while growing the economy?

Yeah, look, it's a it's a good question and you know for most people they are seen as in conflict to be clear and I'm talking about policymakers and officials but You know, we have spent a lot of money in this country to build the grid infrastructure that we have now to power small businesses homes

large companies, industrial and manufacturing facilities.

We spent a lot of money in that grid, but it's not efficiently used right now.

In fact, across the country, it's about 40 to 55% efficiency, which means that we're not using our grid efficiently.

And if we just used our grid more efficiently, we could basically unlock more juice out of our system that would both lower prices and

Power new sources of electricity demands whether it's manufacturing whether it's electric vehicles or heat pumps or data centers, but the reality is right now because we don't have the right Systems and incentives in place.

We're not utilizing our grid efficiently and that's costing us more than than we need to

And I think that's, you know, that's something that we hear sort of on the periphery a lot and we state by state, depending on who was, and it's usually in the state of the grid's gone down, there's affected by the weather, things like that.

Can you speak on, you know, I imagine when we talk about the grid, we're not talking about one gigantic grid and educate me here, but we're talking state by state or even like, you know, region by region.

How, how does that

How do we get to a place where it might not be the same, but we have the same practices across the country?

Yeah, that's in some sense a really Challenging but important question You're right We don't have one grid and it sort of depends on how you define it But in this country we have at least three grids basically the east the west and then Texas has its own thing going on But then within each of those three that I just mentioned there's

you know, further kind of ways to slice and dice them.

And that's just the physical infrastructure,

right?

It

is connected to form this bigger

bigger grid infrastructure but but it's a bunch of different things that are loosely connected but then what what makes us even more complicated is that you start involving human beings

in addition

to the physical infrastructure so every state's got their own policies every state's got their own people got their own governance structures and so what often happens is different states are.

mad at each other for saying, well, how come you're building this infrastructure that's going to cost my residents?

Or how come you're doing this or that?

And so there have been situations where Wisconsin may not see eye to eye with Iowa and may not see eye to eye with Missouri, but you've got to build a power line through all three states.

So that's sometimes where there's been challenges.

But look, it's all ultimately connected.

And arguably we need to do even more to make sure that it is all connected even further.

If you're just joining us on Matt and Aaron, we were speaking to Charles Hua, who is the executive director and the founder of Power Lines, which is an organization that aims to lower utility bills while growing the economy.

And one of the things that, you know, I was watching an interview that you did on CBS in LA.

And one of the things that you, when you talk about the human aspect, it's the fact that we also have humans who are deciding

rates, they're deciding prices.

They're deciding, you know, we just, in Wisconsin, there was a measure that passed the public service commission that allows three of the major utility companies to raise their rates.

They say it's for infrastructure and for upgrading, which I can completely agree, I completely believe, but the problem is that rate hike on top of what I'm paying going up more is very hard.

And when you have these individuals,

who are making these decisions, I feel like we're not as people, me as a taxpayer, I'm not getting a lot of buy in or say in what's going on.

And it's just sort of happening in that that's it.

Your your bills going up.

Sorry.

And that's it.

I mean, done.

That's right.

And that's really important is that there's three people in Wisconsin, the Public Service Commission, they're appointed by the governor who set your utility bills.

This has always been the case.

And

you know, different commissioners have served in different gubernatorial administrations.

But at the end of the day, consumers have generally been not as fully represented as they should be.

There are, I should, it's important to note that there are a lot of really incredible organizations that are working to advance the interests of consumers in these proceedings.

On behalf of residents, that includes organizations like the Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin, which is doing

the best that it could possibly do.

But there's a structural challenge here where it's a very inside baseball kind of technical, opaque, highly insular process.

And so consumers are generally shut out of that.

And it's really important that

people do make their voices heard so that commissioners can understand why these rate increases are challenging.

Look, for some people, if you see a number like $4 a month increase to your bill, that doesn't sound like a lot.

But for a lot of people that are already on the brink of not being able to pay their utility bills and getting shut off from the power system, who are already trading off a meal or

child care or rent or education or healthcare, whatever it is, which is happening to a lot of folks, a $4 a month increase could just be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

And so I think it's really important that these decision makers hear from people to understand just exactly why it's important to protect the interest of consumers in this moment.

I think that's something very, very important to discuss too.

We've talked about that a lot on this show is

when you look at, you know, when you look at your entire kitchen table economy, you can say, all right, we're going to buy a little less soda this year or this month, we're going to buy a little like there's things out there that you can cut down on.

But when people have to make those decisions on massive purchases or massive expenses, whether with education, health, especially healthcare, I mean, people will forgo healthcare.

quicker than anything, especially if it's to educate their children or to clothe their children or to keep the lights on.

They'll say, I won't go to the doctor.

I don't need to go to the doctor.

But you're right.

And with regard to that price hike, I was just talking about in Wisconsin.

And next year, it's going to be about $9.75, which again, as you said, it's about $100, a little over $100 for the year.

A lot of people can shoulder that.

But then the next year, it's going to be almost $18 extra month.

Okay.

So now you're doubling it.

And that's when it really becomes the problem on top of the fact that you're going to open your bill at the end of the month and say, just my, my electric bill alone is going to be too much on top of a rate hike.

So I think when you discuss Charles about the nuance, that's something that we always, we can talk about the price of eggs.

We can talk about the prices are too high.

But when we have to get in the nuance, that's where I feel like people get a little intimidated.

And that's where we need to stand up and say, what is going on?

What are you doing that is affecting as the leaders and people on these boards?

What are we doing to?

What are you doing to affect us?

Because I got bills to pay and it's tough.

We don't have all the time in the world, but this is one where I think it's important for people to really stand up and make their voices heard.

Totally and look electricity is a little bit different than any other product that you buy and that you don't have a choice It's and you don't have a choice of who to buy it from because it's a monopoly And so that's why it's even more important that the regulators of these monopoly companies Which is the the Wisconsin Public Service Commission is actively hearing from from you from from consumers to understand why this matters and in a moment where you know costs are rising for for everything for everybody

This is, this is as good of a moment as there's ever been for, uh, for folks to make their voices heard.

Yeah.

We're going to keep this conversation going with Charles who is the executive director and the founder of power lines.

And we're going to talk more about lowering the utility bills.

And I want to also focus more on how people can make themselves knowledgeable on what's going on while still.

maintaining their actual life.

They don't have to dive into this as a full-time job.

But it's important because when you get that bill at the end of the month, that is what you have to pay for.

And then you might have to make choices, which is a problem for people.

But I want to get your advice on how people can just keep themselves aware on what's going on.

But we're going to keep the conversation going.

On the other side of the break, don't go anywhere.

You're listening to Matt Nair on air on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Stay close.

Stay tuned.

Good, good morning.

Welcome back to Matt and air on air.

My name is Greg Bach.

I'm your host and I am here with sweet Cal B on the boards and we are right here on the civic media radio network.

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855-752-484-2855-75.

Civic, don't forget, after the 930 News, we're going to be welcoming State Senator Jody Habish-Sinneken to be talking about legislation and protections within the worlds of data centers for our communities and what we are seeing.

in this exploding, absolutely exploding topic on data centers here in Wisconsin as they are popping up everywhere.

But we are talking right now with Charles Hua, who is the executive director of PowerLines.

They are an organization that seeks to lower utility bills as well as grow the economy.

And Charles, one thing I wanted to, oh, by the way, I didn't mention this.

I didn't mention this about Charles.

He was named one of the top 100 world's most influential rising stars by Time Magazine.

That's pretty cool.

Okay.

I forgot to mention that, Charles.

That's a nice picture too, I must say.

But one of the things I want to say with regard to the state senator coming on, talking about data centers is when we talk about the power grid, when we talk about utility bills, we can't not talk about

data centers and AI and the things and the amount of energy it takes to power those centers and what it does to the communities who live in those in those areas, especially ones who are Maybe I don't know.

They're not they're not, you know, these are old farm towns that don't don't see industry anymore But they're coming in and they're gonna build these gigantic buildings that are gonna take a lot of power a lot of water and that's going to affect the communities

Yeah, look, it's, it's, it's a big issue.

Um, Greg, first I'll just mention the most important thing that you didn't mention.

I don't think I told you is that I am in Wisconsin.

I, I grew up in Wisconsin.

I no longer live there, but, uh, that's why I'm a Packers fan.

Um, I like how you brought it back.

You're like time magazine, bubba, whatever.

That's fine.

Packers though.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's important.

Um, but, but on the issue of, uh, data centers, this is.

Probably the most important development of 2025, frankly, the last couple of years is AI and how it's transforming our economy, how it's transforming our everyday lives.

And what's interesting is that the biggest bottleneck that AI companies and tech companies right now are facing is electricity.

As you can imagine, it takes a lot of electricity to power these data centers.

And so the intersection of AI and energy is becoming increasingly pronounced and urgent.

And so for a lot of these, we talked about the Public Service Commission, these utility regulators, these 200 people across the country that control and oversee more than $200 billion a year in utility spending.

A lot of that spending, a lot of utilities are saying it's needed for.

powering these new data centers.

And the question is just how much is that going to ultimately cost residential consumers?

We don't actually know.

It's a hard question to answer.

It's harder than it might seem because

How do you say for any given new infrastructure that you're building, what percentage of the cause is data centers versus it's just to upgrade the grid that's aging versus it's to serve you?

It's sort of hard to say and so what's needed in this moment though, no matter what, is a lot more transparency around how all these negotiations are happening.

These deals are being struck because there's a concern, rightfully so, that consumers are left out and shut out of that process

altogether.

You brought up the magic word in all of this is the transparency.

And we want to make sure that, you know, I'm not against business and I'm not against business growing.

But what I want to make sure is that these businesses aren't walking into the halls of power saying, here's what we want to do.

Here's what we're going to do.

That's it.

And in some cases they'll say,

don't say much to people just keep it on the download because we they're not popular but it'll be fine and and I think that's wrong and I think you know we we spoke to an organizer yesterday and we're seeing folks stand up and meeting saying we don't want this at least without a plan don't just say yes to it say you know say

Answer more questions.

That's what we want to hear and something though when it comes to the rising cost is something We've been focusing on for at least you know the last year year and a half and it was always the price of eggs That was the thing we saw on in the paper We saw on the news and I want to quote something you said here in the New York Times Which was electricity is the new price of eggs.

This is a defining moment for politicians of all stripes

What's your answer to lowering utility bills?

Because I think consumers and voters are looking for leadership on this.

And I think that's perfectly said.

And I want to get from you, Charles, advice onto the regular listeners who worry about their kitchen table economy.

How do they get involved and understand what's going on?

So they're not all of a sudden seeing construction going up and then saying, when did this happen?

So what do you say to those folks who, you know, have two, three kids, have a job, two jobs, but

need to stay on top of this information.

Where do they go to learn more and to stay aware?

So the first thing that I would say, and this is really important, is that it's not your fault.

If your utility bills are going up, it's not your fault.

It's not just because, oh, you're using more energy or oh, this, this and that.

It's there are systemic.

and structural reasons why your bills are going up that we haven't addressed.

And it's important to name the institutions that have the power to address them.

In Wisconsin, it's the Public Service Commission, again, three people appointed by the governor.

You can write to your public service commissioners, you can write to your governor, you can write to your congressman, you can write to your state legislators, all of them, the more the merrier, because they all need to hear from you and understand why this is no longer tenable.

Take

the couple of minutes to do that because the fact that they're hearing more and more from people is a new thing.

And it shows that that people are concerned about their utility bills in a way that they haven't been in the past, because these are the folks that have the power to do something about it.

It's going to require that we all work together to change the regulatory system so that consumers benefit.

And that's going to require deploying new technology solutions and regulatory solutions that can get more efficiency out of our grid.

So there's a lot that we can do.

You can also learn more at our website.

PowerLines.org.

We have more information about all of

it.

Excellent.

We'll put that website into the show notes today.

And Charles, I really thank you for being here today.

Really enjoy the conversation.

Go Packers.

Charles Wah is the executive director and founder of PowerLines, an organization that aims to lower utility bills while growing the economy.

Again, thank you for your time.

Have a wonderful holiday.

And stay safe, stay warm.

We'll talk to you hopefully sooner than later, my friend.

Thanks, Craig.

Take care.

When we come back, we'll be talking to State Senator Jody Habash-Sinneken about data centers.

Don't go anywhere.

Stay close.

Stay tuned.

You're listening to Matt and Air on Air on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Good.

Good morning.

Welcome.

Welcome back to Matt and air on air.

My name is Greg Bach.

I am your host and you are listening to us on the civic media radio network.

You can always get in touch by calling or texting.

The number is the same.

It's 855-752-4842 855-75 civic or you can leave a comment on the live stream.

We're on Facebook, YouTube and the site that we in this house still call Twitter.

Coming up after the 10 o'clock news, we're going to be talking about waterways.

We're going to talk about the cleanup of waterways with Evan Fineller of Clean Wisconsin.

in the 10 30 in the 10 30 block, we're going to be going back to audio Sorbet.

We're going to be lightening things up a bit.

We're going to be talking about movies.

We're going to be talking about how you watch movies.

And we're going to pay some more tribute to Rob Reiner, who we tragically lost this past weekend, but we'll talk more about that in the second hour.

Don't go anywhere for that.

We're going to keep the conversation though, going on energy and the, the, you know, keeping

keeping the businesses transparent to the people.

We've been talking a lot about data centers just the past couple of days, and we're going to keep this discussion going with our next guest.

It is our democratic state senator, Jody Habersenekin, who is the state senator for the fight in district eight, which is Menominee Falls in Port Washington.

State senators, thank you so much for being here this morning.

We really appreciate your time.

Thank you very much for having me here today, Greg.

Now, we were talking to Charles earlier, just Charles who off from PowerLines, and we lightly touched on the real impact that data centers

are going to be having and are having on Wisconsin and across the country.

They're not going anywhere.

But one of the things state senator we're seeing from citizens is a call to action for transparency and more information.

And you are working towards that with legislation.

Can you tell us more about that?

Yeah, absolutely.

On November 6th, I introduced the Data Center Accountability Bill.

It was a many month process of research and coalition building with environmental groups, labor, workforce, utilities to come up with a responsible regulatory framework for data centers, which you are right, are very much proliferating across Wisconsin and other parts of the country.

What we have in Wisconsin right now is an absolute regulatory void or vacuum.

There's nothing on the books.

And what this legislation aims to do is exactly what you and your prior guest were talking about, which is the need for transparency and accountability with regard to electricity use, water usage, workforce benefits, as well as renewable energy going forward.

Now I want to ask you this too because as you said it was a many month long process Which means you heard from many many people, but I'm sure one of the Probably the biggest group you probably heard from where the people were your voters were concerned citizens and what is it that made you aware or made you give you give you pause about what's going on as far as

how these data centers are kind of just coming about.

They're walking into these municipalities and they have their paperwork, they have their plans.

And from what I'm hearing, it seems like they're, they're not doing it in a, in a nefarious, illegal way, but they're doing it in a way that kind of leaves the voters out of the conversation and then it's done.

Is that what you're hearing from the people?

Well, what's important for folks to understand is that because of the absence of state,

regulations or laws, the development of data centers in Senate District 8 and around the state is happening at the local level.

And what I am hearing from my constituents and others is the priority on transparency and accountability with regard to what will be happening.

And whether they receive information in a timely way or not, the main

issue is that they want information and they do not want nondisclosure agreements or other ways that information is suppressed.

So that is why it is so important to have a state

law in place like the data center accountability bill so people can be guaranteed that knowledge and information because every local community is going to do it differently with how they pull out that information and as good as their intentions are people are still going to want to have the maximum amount of information possible because that is very much a Wisconsin value.

Now, with regard to the legislation and where they stand, what are the next actions that are happening?

Like they've been introduced, what's going on from there?

And it seems like you have a lot of people on board.

Are we seeing bipartisanship?

Are we seeing people coming together to have a good conversation about what's happening?

I'm so glad you asked that question, because yes, there has been so much work in coalition building across communities, across the state, across interest groups.

But because the legislature is still controlled by the Republican majority, a slim majority, but it is there, they decide which bills advance.

And most importantly, which bills receive a public hearing?

Yes.

This data center accountability bill has been assigned to the Senate Committee on Utilities Technology and Tourism and we need a public hearing and this is really where your listeners and others in Wisconsin can make their voices heard.

by reaching out to their legislators, reaching out to Senator Bradley, who's the chair of that committee, and demanding a public hearing so that voices across the state at the local and level and beyond can be heard in this process.

And that's where I'm going to take a moment to direct people.

We've talked about this many, many, many times.

And we're going to keep discussing this matter.

If you want to find out more about who represents you and calling those local leaders, go to myvote.wi.gov.

Put in your information.

It will give you a list of

everybody from the president down to the dog catcher, if you still vote for them, but you can call them and tell them that this is an important issue for you.

And you can go right, you can go right to Google and you can Google state Senator Julian Bradley and it will come up with his information on how to be contact and tell them that you want to see transparency because this is something a state senator, this doesn't affect.

one side or the other.

This is not, you know, your bills aren't going to be hiked if you voted for a Democrat and they're not going to go down if you voted for Republican.

This is a matter that affects all the folks who live in these communities.

And as I made mentioned to Charles earlier, that a lot of these data centers are going into communities that are maybe, you know,

They saw it manufacturing leave a long time ago.

And there's not a lot of oomph to that community.

These data centers are being proposed as, well, we'll bring jobs.

We'll bring this and we'll bring that.

But it doesn't always seem to have that package deal for the voters.

It's more about what's going to benefit these huge businesses.

and then leave us on the on the hook to pay, which is our taxes and our higher taxes because they get sweetheart deals.

Businesses always get these tax breaks.

And I think that through what you're doing with transparency, we can understand what kind of deals are being struck because that's what's going to affect us the most.

Absolutely.

And it's very important that these big tech data centers that come in deliver community value and value

is seen from all different ways by folks, but certainly economically and for our future renewable energy independence.

Those are community values that really matter to people, but so do family supporting jobs, which is why this bill emphasizes the requirement of prevailing wages and jobs coming from Wisconsin workers.

So creating that

opportunity and the accountability to those community values of transparency, protecting consumers and citizens where they're needed for utility rates, water usage, jobs.

That is really what we are trying to accomplish here.

And I'm glad you brought up the water usage point because that's a huge topic.

And I know that your background is in environmental law.

You are a lawyer.

And what for you

as a lawyer and a person who cares about the environment, what was the thing that got you involved in this topic because of, you know, its environmental impact?

How do you saw it?

How it can create, you know, new ways that we can, I don't know, let me put it a better ways.

Like, how did you see the impact on the environment and what gave you pause on that to do something about it?

Yeah, really, it's like so many other people.

It was the unknown.

It's a Great Lakes advocate involved with the Great Lakes Compact and other groundwater concerns through my career.

One of my first questions was, gosh, these big tech data centers are coming to Wisconsin.

How do we make sure that our natural resources are protected?

And they will be, but we need laws and regulations to ensure and to give

families and folks in Wisconsin that assurance that that information will be made available to them.

It's really trying to lift the veil on what people don't know and understand with regard to water usage and of course electricity usage as your prior guest was talking.

These entities use enormous amount of energy.

So people naturally think in the environmental realm or otherwise,

What's that going to mean for accelerating global climate change?

How can we at the same time mitigate those effects?

And one way is provided in this bill would be to create the incentive for these big data centers to invest in Wisconsin's ability to have renewable energy going forward.

It's that carrot that if they can demonstrate 70% of their electricity use came from renewable sources, guess what?

They then can receive the sales and use tax exemption.

Otherwise, no.

Trying to create incentives for them to contribute community value to Wisconsin.

If you're just joining us, we're speaking to state Senator Jody Haberson, who can hear about data centers and legislation that she has authored, put forth and introduced about creating transparency in the data center, a data center economy that we're in across the nation.

If you go and you look, there are thousands of them all over the nation and Wisconsin has become a huge issue in the past few years with folks kind of waking up to realizing what these data centers have as far as an impact on our water and our electric bills and just on our life.

in general.

And one of the, you know, you bring up the carrot.

I guess the question I would ask is how receptive have these businesses been to the carrot?

How are they working with us?

Are they saying, we'll look at this?

Or are they just, you know, I don't want to say ignoring, but just pushing forward without any sort of, without any, not really listening to the people, essentially.

Yes, that's really what we need to discern is going to be project by project and working that out currently is taking place at the local level.

Obviously state legislators like myself can have conversations and try to move and motivate community values as we've discussed in the workforce, in the environment, in energy consumption, utility rates.

But right now is at the local level in the absence of a state law like the one that we are proposing.

If you want to call or text, ask us any questions.

If you are someone who lives in an area that's being affected by these kinds of projects and you have concerns, call text 855-752-484-2855-757.

You can also leave a comment on the live stream.

This, as I said before, is something that really has

popped up over the, really in popularity as far as a topic in the last year or two.

And we're trying to get as much information out there.

And, and state Senator, we really thank you for putting forth that legislation.

We're going to keep the conversation going about it on the other side of the break, but I don't want you to go anywhere.

I want you to stay close, stay tuned.

We are speaking again with state Senator Jody Habash-Sinneken from the great district eight here.

And we are discussing data centers.

Don't go anywhere.

You're listening to Matt Nair on air on the civic media radio network.

Good morning.

Welcome back to Matt and air on air.

My name is Greg Bach.

I'm your host and you're listening to us on the civic media radio network.

You can always get in touch with us by calling 855-752-4842.

eight, five, five, seven, five civic leave a comment on the live stream.

We are on Facebook, YouTube and the platform.

We still call Twitter.

We are talking to state Senator Jody Haberson, a kin from the eighth district right here in Wisconsin, which is Menominee Falls.

And if I am not mistaken, that is also my mistake.

There we go.

Menominee Falls in Port Washington, wonderful places.

And we're talking about data centers as with regard to legislation that state Senator sitting in has put forth.

to help create more transparency on it.

And something that I read in an article, state senator is, you know, and I want to thank you for this because this is something we're not seeing from a lot of leaders right now.

And it says that you have had dozens of conversations with stakeholders, but you've heard hundreds of questions and concerns from constituents.

And I think I just want to say thank you for that because that is, I think, the most important thing.

The people who

pay the taxes, vote for the leaders.

We want to be heard and we want to know that we're being heard.

And what would you say are probably the most concerning things you're hearing from them as far as data centers and how they will impact the communities?

Just maybe if there's a through line of ideas that you're hearing.

Yeah, thank you, Greg.

And I also just want to clarify that my Senate district runs from Whitefish Bay in the south.

all the way up to Port Washington and then west through a number of communities including um Menominee Falls Germantown and it's quite a large district but because of that breadth of communities I have been hearing from so many individual constituents and people actually around the state because this

explosion or proliferation of data centers in Wisconsin and regionally and nationally is really concerning to them.

And what I keep hearing loud and clear again and again, and it doesn't matter if it's from a Democrat or a Republican, this is not a partisan issue.

People are equally affected and concerned is the need

and their request for transparency and for information on areas that will affect their lives.

On the water usage, as we discussed, on utility rates and how that will affect their families, literally how they're financially will be affected, concerns about climate change, concerns about community value for family supporting jobs, unions, and the like.

So all of this comes together in what is on

people's minds, but most of all, they want information.

And I want to, uh, another great thing that this article had that, and I also wanted to make sure we're going to put this in the show notes.

This is, uh, Wisconsin lawmakers proposed data center, water and energy use transparency bill.

Claudia Levins has the byline in the Milwaukee journal Sentinel.

I also want to just, so people understand when they hear data centers and they hear these terms, there's another term, hyperscalers, which is if you hear about

companies like Amazon, Meta, which owns Facebook, Apple, Google, IBM, and Microsoft.

Those are the companies we're also talking about.

So when you hear people discussing, oh, Microsoft is coming into town, that is what we are discussing, the fact that they would like to use the space and use our resources.

And we want to make sure that they're being transparent and they're also working with the communities.

Is that right by saying that, state senator?

Yes.

If these big hyperscale

tech companies, data centers are coming into Wisconsin and into our local communities.

We need to ensure that they are delivering community benefits in the ways that I've discussed.

Yeah.

And I think that's, again, my vote.wi.gov to find out who represents you, call, write.

Visit if you can always be polite, but let them know about these concerns about what's going on in your community now before we go It is your first term as state senator.

I just want to get an overview.

How's it going?

Are you are you comfy?

Have you hung all the pictures?

Are you you know, you know, we're all the good spaces to get away are located.

I

Have hunkered in for sure Very hard find this to be

a very meaningful experience, interesting.

I have a great Senate team, a great Senate office, and I'm very much prioritizing my outreach with my constituents and hearing from them and working as I promise to work across the aisle to create a sense of community.

to move Wisconsin forward.

And that is very much what this bill is also trying to do, is to represent people and to allow us to be part of this economy, but do it in a way, again, that makes people feel informed and delivers those benefits, not just now, but into the future for Wisconsin.

And I think that's a great takeaway as well.

These are the topics that are great conversations to have with family.

because they cross all aisles, they cross all things, because they directly, they affect you, your neighbor, people down the street, people across the city, and it doesn't matter who you voted for, it matters that we all understand.

how these moves are affecting us because that is ultimately we need to be here for each other as a community and I cannot thank you enough state senator for being here today and sharing your time and talking about this legislation and we'd love to have you back on the show when you have more to share going forward again please if this is something that's important to you.

Call State Senator Bradley and tell him that you want him to call for a hearing to discuss this and make this go further because we need to hold these companies accountable because what they are doing has a direct impact on you, your kids, and generations.

And that's the important topic.

I feel like that won't cause fights at the holiday dinner.

No, I agree.

And thank you for summing it up that way.

The bottom line is this bill

is filling a regulatory vacuum, but we need action by our legislature to move the conversation forward so it doesn't just exist.

without any action.

So thank you for your part in letting people know about how important their engagement will be.

Wonderful.

State Senator Jody Habashenakin has been our guest and I'm going to put your put your information in the show notes if people want to call you and thank you as well.

I encourage people to do that.

On the other side of the break after the top of the hour news we're going to be talking to Evan Fineauer who is from Clean Wisconsin and we're going to be talking about securing and protecting our waterways.

Don't go anywhere you're listening to Matt Nair on there on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Good morning.

Welcome.

Welcome back to Matt and they're on air.

My name is Greg Bach.

I am your host and you are listening to us on the civic media radio network.

You can always get in touch with us by calling or texting.

The number is the same 855-752-484-285575 civic.

You can leave a comment on the live stream.

We are currently streaming on Facebook.

YouTube and the platform.

We still call Twitter.

Lots of great show ahead of you in the second hour, including after the 10 30 news.

We're going to be talking about, uh, the loss of Rob Reiner tragically lost this weekend.

Uh, and we're going to talk more about his movies.

We're going to talk about the movies that mean something to you.

And we're also going to discuss how are you watching movies right now in the age of streaming?

Are you still going?

I can't believe I'm about to say this.

Are you going retro?

with DVDs.

That's a retro thing now.

I don't know if you know that, Calvin.

Calvin, by the way, is our producer on the boards right now.

We appreciate him doing all the great work.

And we're going to talk about that.

And we might even do a tizbap.

This shouldn't be a thing.

I don't know.

I don't know, Calvin.

What are you feeling?

You feeling like a tizbap this morning?

He's putting on his cans right now.

He's getting ready.

And, you know, I'm a very go with the flow guy, Greg.

I think, I think we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Gotcha.

Okay.

It will be a fun one if we do it.

All right.

Okay.

Cool.

We'll stick around and find out.

Like I said, you can always be part of the conversation.

And as far as conversation going, we're going to keep the conversation going with regard to the environment.

We were talking about data centers.

We were talking about utility bills.

We're going to discuss.

water protections, waterways protections.

And we're going to do that with our next guest, Evan Finauer of Clean Wisconsin.

He is a staff attorney.

It's an organization pushing for stronger environmental laws and policy in the state of Wisconsin.

Evan, good morning.

Thank you so much for being here.

How are you today?

I'm doing great.

It's good to be invited to be here.

I'm looking forward to this conversation.

Thanks.

And I must say, Evan, that you're, this is an invitation to the live stream right now because you are going to see very festive.

background for Evan is very nice Christmas tree got behind you.

I gotta say that's very, very nice.

Thank you so much for being a part of the show today.

Thank you for coming on and talking about, you know, as I said, just now this has been a very environmentally conscious show today.

We're talking about the, the data centers we're talking about how it impacts waterways.

We're talking about people's utilities bills going utility bills going up and

You at Clean Wisconsin are doing something and that is, it's called CR 23010, the clearinghouse rule.

Can you tell us more about what that seeks to do?

Yeah, so the rule you're referencing, we can call it the anti-degradation rule, which is a little bit, it's pretty descriptive because it's a rule that's supposed to stop degradation.

So anti-degradation is an easy way to remember what it does.

It's a little bit of a, I don't want to say,

you know, backwater, maybe that's an intentional pun of the Clean Water Act, but it's a lesser known part

of the Clean

Water Act, but it's very important.

So what it does is it says, hey, we've got these high quality waters, these waters we can use for all kinds of great things, fishing, swimming, drinking, go on, you know, so on and so forth.

Let's keep them that way.

Because we've learned the hard way, it's a whole lot easier to keep clean waters clean than to try to clean them up after we've messed them up.

You know, I grew up in the Fox Valley and on the Fox River there, and there's all the legacy pollution.

You can't do anything with those waters.

So what this rule does is try to get Wisconsin up to date with the federal minimums.

So this is part of the Clean Water Act infrastructure.

The way this works is we got this big federal statute, the Clean Water Act, and then through cooperative federalism, the states and the federal government work together to implement it at the state level.

And that benefits everybody because the states get some discretion about how to implement it, but the fed still set kind of a floor and a ceiling that they get to work between.

And Wisconsin, unfortunately, we haven't been meeting the floor.

We've been in the basement with regards to our anti-degradation policy for a while.

We haven't updated our implementing procedures since 2006.

They were outdated even before 2015 when the Obama administration updated the federal standards and said, hey, it states you got to do this now.

Minnesota did it.

Illinois did it.

Minnesota, they're

always doing the good things.

Well, and we like to point out to people, we don't want to be behind our neighbor states.

When it comes to protecting our waterways, you know, we have our beef with Minnesota and who has more lakes and we just, you know, we got to come out on top on that.

It is important.

But what the rule does is it says, Hey, if you've got high quality waters and you want a newer increased discharge of pollution to one of those waters, we're going to say no.

unless you go through this process where you can show that it's truly, truly necessary.

And so it's an important aspect of conservation because it says, hey, we've got these really great waters.

Let's keep them that way.

That benefits everybody over the long term.

But this has been a long time coming.

And there's been a lot of hard work that's taken just to get to the point of getting this rule in place now.

I guess the question I would have is that, you know,

What has been the hold up?

I mean, it seems like nearly 20 years of hold up but with the Obama administration coming in 2015 saying Let's do this.

You've got to do this and it kind of goes to what we've been talking about all morning, which is transparency on how you know various activities affect our waterways and making sure we protect our waterways because It's their conservation.

It's Wisconsin.

We love our environment, but what has been the hold up?

What has been the problem?

Yeah, so I think this rule that now is going to go into effect in the coming year was I believe the third attempt by DNR to promulgate a rule to come into compliance with the federal requirements.

The first two kind of died on the vine in the legislative review process.

So for those

folks who don't know, which hopefully is everybody except for environmental lawyers because it's very technical and boring.

What happens is the agency drafts a rule and then it goes to the legislature where there's a committee that would have reviewed the rule and give it sort of thumbs up, thumbs down.

That has now changed with this big Supreme Court case, which I can talk about in a minute.

But historically, what stymied this was the department would draft a rule.

and it would get to the legislative review process and it would just get stuck there.

The legislature would never let it get through that gate.

One way or another, either the department would draw as the rule or it's affirmatively blocked or whatever, it's kind of the same impact, which is we don't get our standards updated.

And the reason for that was the folks who were in control of the relevant committee, it's called the Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules, were very...

keen on following the wishes of certain interest groups.

Yes.

The folks who represent the businesses that wanted more lax environmental standards.

So you can see this is kind of like an irresistible force to moveable object problem.

The federal government says you have to do this, but we have a law that says DNR can't promulgate rules unless the legislature lets them.

So it's kind of like hitting this.

And the way the Clean Water Act deals with that is EPA could come in and say, hey, hey, hey, you know, federalism is great, but you state have to come into compliance.

Otherwise there's going to be a consequence.

But that's a big stick.

And the EPA doesn't like using it.

They

want the states to play ball.

They don't want to have to be the bad guy all the time.

And it's a lot of work for EPA to be the bad guy.

But that was where we were headed until we had this Supreme Court decision, Evers versus Mark Klein this year that took away a lot of that power.

for that legislative committee to say, no DNR, you can't do this.

So with that power gone out, DNR says, okay, we don't need your sign off.

So we're going to proceed with the rule that we think is the best rule to come into compliance with the federal standards and protect Wisconsin's waters.

If you're just joining us right now, I'm Matt Naranair.

We're speaking to Evan Fineller, who is a staff attorney for Clean Wisconsin.

And we're talking about

a rule that's going, being put forth to make sure our waterways stay clean, make sure that we just, you know, I think what I'm hearing is the same thing.

I'm actually hearing from Charles and I'm hearing from state Senator Habersonakin is that this is about the transparency of making sure the process is taken care of.

So we are protecting what's, what is one of the most important resources, which is our water and

I'm not, I don't really like enjoy doing this.

I don't want to throw shade.

It's hard for people probably to believe this, but it feels like we're seeing a lot of this happen.

Whenever there's any sort of environmental accountability, we see pushback in the form of, well, we can't, we can't basically allow polluters to take the blame.

If there's polluters out there, we don't want to bother them.

They're busy.

They're big businesses.

And that's what I feel like we're seeing is that every time an environmental, either law, bill, anything comes up, we see pushback from folks who say, this will destroy business.

And I don't think it will.

I think it's just about holding them accountable for what they are doing to our environment.

Am I wrong?

No, I think that's broadly speaking correct.

And there's a couple of points that I think are important to emphasize for this rule specifically.

The way the rule functions is it doesn't say you can't have a newer increased discharge of a pollutant to high quality water.

It says you can't do that unless you make a showing that your newer increased discharge is necessary for an important social or economic development and that you don't have some alternative that you could do.

So you can still get to pollute more.

You just got to meet some hurdle that shows that you really need to do

this.

Yeah.

So that economic, the balance of economic and developmental considerations with environmental ones is already baked into the law.

It's not like this is something that says no new development ever, it's accounted for, it's built into the process

that

you can sometimes still get your new or increased discharge.

The other thing in terms of the process, which I think is what your question was getting into is, I was on an advisory committee that DNR convened, all the,

consultants and attorneys representing these interest groups that opposed the rule.

They were there, they were in the meetings.

Oftentimes they didn't raise any of these objections that they ultimately had later on in the process.

They, we had so many meetings and so many hours and hours, it was an open door for comments from DNR.

DNR made a bunch of changes to the rule in response to those and then moved forward with the rule.

This wasn't some thing that they cooked up in the dead of night in a

you know, unlit basement and then unleashed on the world.

There was a big transparent public process where stakeholders were invited to put in their two cents.

And then DNR did what it thought it had to do in order to balance those interests while also adhering to the federal requirements.

Because DNR is in between two, you know, a rock and hard place too

on

this, is they have to do what the feds say they have to do.

And then they also want to use their discretion to balance interest between environmentalists, business community, whatever.

So

I actually think this was an awesome example of the process working great until it got to the point where a really small sliver of the interest groups could go to a really small sliver of elected legislators and have them stop a rule that was broadly had gotten through a very public and transparent process.

So it was about kind of a small group being able to dictate an outcome in a way that frustrated good governance in my

opinion.

I think that's the most frustrating.

If I'm hearing the description correctly, it's you're doing what you are, you and your group and all the people involved are doing all the right things, transparency, sitting down, come on in, let's talk.

No question is dumb.

We'll get it all on the table and let's figure something out.

And then when it's all done, someone goes, I don't like that.

And you say, well, where were you?

Why were

you not?

Why are you not bringing up the important, your important arguments?

And you're just saying now to the, I'm reading in the paper, they don't like that.

Evan, they don't like it.

They don't like it.

Well, and to be fair, they had little incentive to go to DNR and to tell DNR, change the rule because they knew at that time that they could go to certain legislators and have them kill the rule if they ultimately didn't like it.

So they didn't really have much incentive to try to improve the rule because at that time they thought they could stop it if they didn't like it.

And that's what such a big deal about the Evers versus Markline decision is now they don't have that avenue for stopping regulations that they're opposed to.

And to be clear, sometimes they would go and they'd say, hey, please stop this regulation.

the committee would say, no, it's fine.

So

it's not like it was a one to one correspondence.

I don't want to imply that, but, you know, they had a lot of, um, influence with certain legislators and that the Supreme court case decision really changed that.

And so we're looking at, hopefully, an easier path to regulations like this going through in the future.

We're going to keep the conversation going with Evan Finauer of Clean Wisconsin, talking about cleaning up and protecting our waterways here in the state.

Don't go anywhere.

If you have any questions, feel free.

Give us a call 855-752-4842-855-75 Civic.

Leave them on the live stream, and we'd love to hear from you.

But don't go anywhere.

You're listening to Matt Nair on air on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Stay tuned.

Stay close.

Good.

Good morning.

Welcome back to Matt and air on air.

My name is Greg Bach.

I am your host and you were listening to us on the civic media radio network.

You can always get in touch with us by calling or texting.

It's the same phone number 855752.

4842 leave a comment on the live stream.

We're currently live streaming on Facebook, YouTube and the platform.

We still call Twitter and after the 10 30 news, we're going to be remembering Rob Reiner, his movies and asking the question.

Are you watching movies in a retro format?

And we're not talking VHS.

We're talking even newer for our older folks out there.

Yeah, I know it's retro to watch DVDs again, I guess, but we're going to be talking about that.

We want to hear from you.

And if I'm not mistaken, I think there might be a tis bat down the down the road, but you want to stick around for that after the 1030 news.

But right now we are talking to Evan Fine hour, who is the staff attorney for clean Wisconsin and they are an organization that's pushing for stronger environmental laws and policy in the state of Wisconsin.

And we're talking about the anti degradation rule, which we were discussing earlier as being put into effect.

Uh, and it seeks basically to protect high quality lakes and rivers from significant pollution and.

Really, Evan, when I'm reading the, when I'm reading about this, it's pretty simple.

It's not like if this isn't no offense, but this isn't sexy legislation.

This isn't sexy stuff.

This is, this is stuff to protect our waterways.

And I know that in, in today's media diet, we hear a lot about things being put forward, the back and forth, the fighting, but this is happening.

This will be done.

Correct?

Yeah.

So the, the rule now, uh,

has been published and it'll be implemented starting in 2026.

So it's kind of through this long process of steps that has to get through to become law, but the regulation now will go into effect next year.

Okay.

And in this, I want to go back to something too.

You said earlier when you described it, this has to do with the Clean Water Act, which is decades old, 50 plus years old, correct?

Yeah, around 1970.

So

the Clean Water Act has got a bunch of parts to it.

And

as I was mentioning earlier, this is a part of it that a lot of people don't know about, even folks who know a little about the Clean Water Act.

And I think it's because it applies in a relatively narrow set of circumstances where you're talking about high quality waters, newer increased discharges, are all these kind of things that have to be hit for it to come into play.

But it's nonetheless really important.

It's one that's kind of close to my heart because it's something I've been focused on for a number of years now.

And I'm a big proponent of

of avoiding harm rather than having to go back and fix harms who've already caused.

I think a lot of what I do as an environmentalist is think about how we avoid short termism and

think

about the medium to long term, the multiple generations you hear people talk about.

And this is a good example of how to operationalize that.

Let's take things that are nature made that are beautiful and wonderful and let's try to leave them that way and not mess them up because we'll regret it down the road.

And I think that's, you know, that is something we've discussed for so long as far as, you know, if you want to succeed or if you want your family to be successful, you want to, you know, grow as whatever you're doing, it all, it all involves long-term planning, you know, looking at, all right, where do we want to be in five years, 10 years, 15 years, so on, so forth.

And when we talk about our waterways and we talk about our environment, I mean, that is absolutely part of the conversation because

It's something we want to leave our later generations.

We want to make sure they can enjoy the same things we did.

And we want to make sure that the protections that are in place stay in place so they don't have to worry about that down the road.

And I think what you said is absolutely perfect is that it's about looking at the long term and saying, okay, this is how we do it and being proactive.

Yeah, exactly.

And that means doing what we just got done finally, which is updating our standards to comply with the Clean Water Act, implementing it in a meaningful way, making sure the department has the staff and the resources to actually turn the words on paper into outcomes in the real world, and also just making sure that people understand and doing what we're doing here today is to talk about how all this stuff doesn't just happen.

It takes a lot of work from a lot of people to create the outcomes that

we often take for granted.

The example people use is you go to your tap and for the most part, people can drink their water.

And it's the same thing with our lakes.

You go up north or to other parts of the state and you've got opportunities to fish and swim and boat and do all these things.

And it can be easy to take for granted,

but it

takes a lot of long-term planning and thinking and say no sometimes to ideas that folks have to have these nice things.

And that's going to lead me to the question.

I actually asked Charles earlier in the first hour, which is, you know, people have a lot going on.

Their kitchen table is full of a lot of things, their bills, their lives and whatnot.

And how do they stay on top of these issues?

If this is something that concerns them, if the water, if environment is something that concerns them, how do they stay involved without having to, I mean, you know, they don't, they can't do it as a full-time job.

They have to do other things.

what is something they can do to involve themselves in the process?

So they're aware of these types of, you know, rules or legislation coming forth.

Well, my colleagues at Clean Wisconsin would be really frustrated me if I didn't say you can follow Clean Wisconsin across most

of

your social media.

We have a thing you can go and sign up and get email alerts from us about opportunities, not just to receive information, but also to get involved.

If there's a public comment periods, a lot of the state level stuff.

Including this have public comment periods.

You don't have to be a lawyer or somebody special or get permission You can just send in your comments about whether you think something's a good idea or a bad idea and you can do that as part of a group You can do it as an individual.

You can

tell

your story and talk to you talk about why the environment is important to you The other thing is don't forget to act locally County level government municipal level government.

These are people that

they're going to see you as real people because they live down the street from you.

And there are important actors in this as well because there's a lot of local government stuff that happens.

And so people don't need to be intimidated into thinking, well, there's this thing that's happening in DC or maybe in Madison that I'm not a part of.

I'm a bystander.

You can

get involved in your own communities.

And I think that's a great place to start.

And I think you'll be surprised by how quickly you can go from there.

I understand that people are busy and this is one of

many

important issues going on in the world.

But again, it's one of these things.

We take our eye off the ball.

We're going to come to regret it real fast with our environment.

So get involved.

Follow Clean Wisconsin.

Voice your opinion when you can, folks.

They give us the ability, so don't miss the opportunity.

Evan Finauer has been our guest.

He is from Clean Wisconsin.

Thank you so much for coming in and sharing your time and sharing this information with us and how we are keeping our resources safe and secure for future generations.

Thanks again, Evan.

We appreciate you.

Thanks.

It was great.

All right.

After the 10 30 news, we're going to be talking about the wonderful historic legendary Rob Reiner as well as what movies are you watching and how are you watching them?

Don't go anywhere.

You are listening to Matt and Aaron air on the civic media radio network.

Stay tuned.

They were so much in love

with life.

Happy in every way.

Good, good morning.

Welcome.

Welcome back to Matt and Air on Air.

My name is Greg Bach.

I'm your host.

And if you're hearing the intro music, it's just very light and nice and fluffy and whatnot.

So I just want to come in with that.

soft voice, but we're here.

We're happy to have you here.

My name is Greg Bach.

You're a host on the civic media radio network.

You can always get in touch, call or text.

The number is the same, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two, eight, five, five, seven, five civic.

You can leave a comment on the live stream.

We are on Facebook, YouTube and the site that we still call Twitter.

And we had Calvin.

I think we had a wonderful morning of conversations.

Don't you think?

Yeah.

Fantastic.

Yes.

Really came together in a cohesive subject.

Yeah.

It was really good.

Yeah.

Very much about environmentalism today.

I would say environmentalism and transparency.

I almost said transportation there, Calvin, but you know, I'm just, you know, enjoying the morning.

But yeah, environmentalism and transparency, I believe two topics that

They don't matter who you voted for.

They don't matter who you like in the, at the polls.

It's about how these topics affect you.

And if you missed any of the show, you can always go back and listen.

You can go to civicmedia.us slash shows, look for Matt and Aaron air, you can download the shows, listen to them anytime you want.

You can also subscribe to the show as a podcast, go to wherever you get your podcast and you can subscribe.

And that way it's delivered to your pocket.

or your device, wherever that may be.

Every day we have a show and you can always catch up and get in touch with us and be part of the conversation.

So again, great conversations.

Really, really enjoy having Charles Hwa as well as say Senator Jody have a syndicate and Evan find our just discussing great topics on environmentalism, transparency and how as always we can raise our voice.

You can always raise your voice.

You can, you can, I want to say raise your voice.

Let your voice be heard Calvin.

I'm gonna raise your voice.

I don't want you yelling.

Don't yell at me Calvin

You know sometimes it feels like you might have to yell at somebody, but it's not productive get Call what is it my vote dot w i dot gov?

Thank you very much Calvin.

You brought that up.

Yeah, go my vote dot w i dot gov Find out who represents you call them write them a letter

Visit their offices if they're around.

As we said, always be polite.

When you're calling the number, you're not talking to the representative.

You're talking to an intern, an aide, someone who is trying to make a living.

So just be polite and voice your opinions.

We know lots of our listeners call on a regular basis and we love that.

And if you want to call right now, call us.

855-752-4842 because we're talking about

the movie, specifically Mr. Rob Reiner, who we tragically lost this weekend along with his wife, Michelle Reiner, taken away too soon.

We don't know a lot about what's going on.

And I don't really want to focus on that part of the story because that's a lot of tragedy and that's a lot of that, you know, we're not here to do that right now.

What I want to do is I want to celebrate Rob Reiner.

I want to celebrate the work he has done.

And it's not just, it was in front of the camera.

It was behind the camera.

And it was also about

what he did as an activist, as a person who encouraged free speech, who stood staunch for democracy.

And I want to know from you, you can text us, you can call us, you can get on the live stream, tell us what your favorite Rob Reiner project is, what's a movie he directed, or whether it is a show that he was on.

If you aren't all in the family and you just love Meathead, I want to hear from you.

And also, what are you watching?

your movies on now.

Are you strictly streaming?

Are you going back to DVDs?

Are you cracking open that box full of DVDs and saying, you know, I just want to watch it.

I just, I just want to open a cool DVD and watch that.

Or are you still on VHS cassettes?

Cause I know some of you are.

I may be one of them as well from time to time.

Calvin, do you have any VHS cassettes at all?

Not anymore.

Not anymore.

I will say as a young child, like four or five years old, we did use VHS tapes, mostly at my grandma's house, but

we had

a couple at my house.

I want to say we had, the big one I remember watching a lot on VHS was probably Return of the Jedi we had on VHS.

If you had that on VHS, I'm imagining that, so you are, I'm trying to think, it may be pre-special edition, so therefore you got the original, which means you got the good stuff, I think.

Did you, do you know if it was special edition or not?

I can't tell you, I know for sure.

Calvin, you were three years old, you can tell me this.

Remember the Ewok party and all versions I've seen.

So I want to say that's the specialty.

All right.

Well, I mean, that's the thing too is like, you know, my, I don't know if I've ever said this to you.

I know I've said it off air, but my wife and I enjoy a great deal of DVDs.

We own a lot of DVDs and we will be in probably the new year being.

selling some of them off, getting, making some more room in the house.

We have a lot of them.

And, uh, because we're mainly on streaming, but it does, here's what the people need to understand is that just because you buy a streaming movie doesn't mean that you actually own that movie because the way things go now, the streaming services, they may own a movie, but then they don't own the movie.

And you're like, Hey, I paid $20.

Like, I'm sorry.

You don't, you don't own empire strikes back anymore, but you don't have to own anyways.

He's watching on Disney plus.

I mean, come on, it's not going anywhere, but, uh,

Apparently, according to the Washington Post, DVDs and CDs are becoming cool again, thanks mostly to Gen Z. Now Calvin, you are Gen Z, right?

Yes, I consider myself on the older side of Gen Z.

Okay.

I was born in 98, so I think I relate to some, a small amount, but some 90s kids things.

Don't get it really why the CDs in particular.

I'm just not sure what it's I Mean, I guess maybe the Walkman is more of like a fashion statement and I figure if you're gonna be making a fashion statement with retro Headphones and a CD player.

You might as well have CDs in it Wait, are you telling me that the Walkman is cool again?

When did this happen?

I'm just

You're telling me CDs are cool.

So

I'm trying to connect pieces.

I don't know.

Okay.

So that would be a disc man, which I had at least two, because, you know, I was not good with technology and not losing it.

But according to this article, young people in Gen Z are starting up collections of DVDs and CDs, VHS tapes.

Vinyl is, you know, we understand that vinyl is a thing that's never really gone away, but it's very popular now, but.

I feel like people who are Gen Z are actually celebrating things like that, the CD, the DVD, and some of them even the flip phone.

So if you know anybody, let me know.

I want, I absolutely want to know this.

I want to hear this because I personally got rid of my CD collection probably 20 years ago because I was tired of moving them.

If you move CDs, you know, it's like moving books.

It's just a box of heavy things that you don't really want to box up and take out.

And it's just

Put it all on my phone.

That's all I say.

Greg on the live stream says, he says, I remember renting VHS movies from the Waukesha Public Library back in the day and also remembers renting CDs or compact discs.

I didn't return some of them.

I've just kept them.

Sorry, I'm a bad human.

Well, Greg, I just want to let you know that Kelvin is currently calling the Waukesha Public Library and reporting you to the proper authorities of that facility.

And they will be knocking on your door soon to reclaim either the materials or a financial reward.

So yeah, I, uh, I remember going to the video store, I remember doing all, I remember, you know, I worked out of, I worked at a popular, popular video store back in the day as well, but.

I don't personally, I mean, I guess I get it, you know, is that something that you guys do?

It's like, you see the media or the things that we used to use that we now see as completely inconvenient and you're like, I want to get that in my life.

Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I will admit, I was just talking crap about CDs.

I do have like 16 or 17 vinyl records.

Okay.

I didn't, and this is going to sound bad.

Didn't get them to listen to the records.

I know what the records sound like.

I like them.

I have them on my phone.

I Got them because I like the artwork and thought it would be cool to hang up the actual album And

and that's the thing too is like we you know I grew up with that the album cover frames You can put that in your house and you can have like all these cool album covers.

I don't think they're making CD frame CD like

Jewel box frames because I don't think we're doing that.

But yeah, I understand I understand why you want to buy a record It's art.

It's a piece of art and you may or may not listen to it, but it's I get that I have albums at home I don't have a lot anymore, but absolutely I I understand why you would buy the album But the CD thing just absolutely escapes me.

It's just I know thank you if you have if you have a large CD collection I'm never gonna help you move period but One of the things we did want to talk about too was just remembering

Rob Reiner who was a magnificent director.

He was an actor producer activist According to his IMDB page.

He was nominated for an Oscar He's got 24 awards and 36 nominations total between all of the awards and he is responsible for creating those really you know Iconic movies, you know, we're talking about when Harry Met Sally we're talking about spinal tap

a few good men stand by me and I think the thing that I love about him so much is the fact that all of those movies are different styles and he was such an eclectic director.

He wasn't a horror genre.

He wasn't an action genre.

He picked the story he wanted to tell and he put it out there and he, oh, I mean really just his movies are part of the fabric of American culture and his loss for me personally was a huge shock.

Like I saw it as I was going to bed on Sunday and I remember saying to my wife across the way, I just said, Rob Reiner and his wife have passed.

And I just heard the loudest, what?

Like incredulous, absolutely could not believe it.

And it really is about the fact that we're going to be missing a voice.

It's a great voice.

And as I said, not just about creating wonderful art,

But also activism and standing up for democracy and standing up for the right to free speech and standing up for just being a people together and Fighting for what this country stands for and he will be missed and Al from Campbell's board is on the air is on the line right now Al Thank you so much for calling in.

What do you what are your thoughts on is it Rob Reiner?

We talking about are we talking about old?

Old media mediums what what's going on Al?

Rest in peace Rob.

Yes, indeed

I've seen him on a cameo on the Partridge family.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, he was in love with Lori and I think he called him Snake.

Well,

he, I mean, that's the thing is like, I've watched a, I watched a compilation video of him, Al, and like he was on an episode of Batman and he, you know, he did a lot of acting as a young guy because he was, he's the son of Carl Reiner, who is one of the absolute kings of American comedy.

And so he really came up really, really well.

And, and, you know, when we talk about that era, we're talking about all in the family and meathead.

And then we go into this amazing directorial career that is

Just going to be with us forever and it's going to be what we these movies we share with young people Throughout the years because it's great storytelling great stories and just I mean the princess bride come on Can you get much better than the princess?

Is there a more quotable movie out than the princess bride?

Yes

I feel like I saw the movie way too young, but I still enjoyed seeing it out.

Thank you so much for calling in.

We appreciate you being on with us today.

And we just want to send all our love and support to anyone in that family who, who are going through a tough, horrible moment right now.

And we will remember Mr. Reiner always and our condolences for his and his wife's loss.

But we really impressed upon you.

Watch a Rob Reiner film this weekend.

Feel good.

Share it with friends and family.

And when we come back, we're going to be talking.

Taxes for dogs?

Is that really what we're doing?

Okay, all right, I guess that's what we're doing.

That's what Calvin just told me.

He said taxes for dogs, apparently.

Don't go anywhere.

This shouldn't be a thing coming up after the break.

You're listening to Matt Nair on air on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Stay tuned.

Stay

close.

Ch-ch-ch-changes.

Turn and face the strange.

Ch-ch-changes.

You want to be a richer man.

good morning.

Welcome back to Matt and Aaron air.

My name is Greg Bach, and I'm your host here on the civic media radio network.

You can always get in touch with us by calling 855-752-4842-855-75 civic.

Leave a comment on the live stream.

You can always get in touch with us there.

Love to hear from you.

Love having you here today.

Really, really appreciate you.

And yeah, we're just we're going through.

We had a really honestly, Calvin, I think we had a really great show today.

Yeah, it was fantastic.

You're fantastic.

You don't probably hear that enough, right?

I thought so.

You're fantastic.

Thanks, Greg.

We all are the same on the show.

We're not very good at accepting

compliments.

No, not one bit.