From WXXI news.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

This is the third in our series of conversations with your elected leaders, talking about the recently passed New York state budget.

The budget of more than $270 billion passed just before the end of May.

It was nearly two months late.

That made for a very short legislative session for your lawmakers.

Some of the most contentious fights happened during the budget season within the Democratic Party, but there were plenty of issues that had lawmakers attention on all sides.

And my guest this hour has the sometimes lonely task of legislating from the minority party in Albany.

Josh Jensen is a Republican representing the 134th New York State Assembly district.

This hour, we'll discuss a range of issues, from the moratorium on data centers to health care spending and really, anything you want to talk about in between.

As listeners hear, this is your show as well.

Assembly member Josh Jensen, welcome back to the program.

Nice to.

Have you.

Happy to be back, Evan.

And, I see that there's now a TV in here so I can watch myself speak directly on the YouTube live stream.

So this.

How uncomfortable is.

That?

It's a little trippy.

Yeah, I trust me.

Trippy is a good word for it.

It is sort of uncomfortable.

You get used to it.

Yeah, you'll get used to it.

So why were you so late with the budget?

What did you do wrong?

Well, you know, I guess, I drive a hard bargain with the governor and, the, you know, it's, No, I think certainly.

I mean, that's one of the dangers.

You know, everybody thinks when you have one party control of government, whether it's all Democrat, all Republican, that that means things are going to go smoothly.

But instead of Partizan fights the left versus the right, just becomes a fight of institutions.

And certainly with New York State having one of the strongest executive branches in the nation, if not the strongest, Governor Hochul was very set on the policy she wanted to see in the budget.

And the legislature exerted its right to not just, sign off in rubberstamp it, but wanted to negotiate and wanted some concessions for those things.

And I think that's, when you have two sides that, aren't in the mood to compromise, close to the everyone divine.

You're going to see a, six week delay like we did.

Does this state have too strong of an executive?

Is does the governor have too much power?

Yes.

Okay, that was easy for you, but what would you do about it?

Well, I think I think the executive branch has too much power because one, I think, you know, this is not exclusive to Governor Hochul.

I think you could go back to Governor Cuomo and Governor Spitzer.

Is that, they have driven very hard policy bargains, an unwillingness to sometimes compromise.

But I think the legislature also does not fulfill its obligation as a co-equal branch of government.

So it's hard for the legislature to say, treat us as an equal if we don't exert our constitutional powers to push back on executive power.

This is the debate in Washington, of course, right now, it's whether there's too much power in the executive.

And it's not just about this presidency.

I mean, certainly President Obama flexed a lot of executive power, executive order muscle.

And, and I'm not trying to both sides.

I'm just observing that over time, there's been more concentrated power and the presidency.

And you've got a Congress that's kind of, abrogating a lot of its duty in what you're describing in Albany is a powerful executive, but at least a legislature that is trying to push back is trying to check or challenge.

You think?

I think, I think, you see, I think you see when the pushback comes, it doesn't really come out in the open.

I mean, I think a great example is, you know, we're in a situation where we do have supermajorities at least in the Assembly, the Democratic majority does, 103 members out of 150.

And, and they have enough votes to override a gubernatorial veto.

And there has been things that either have passed with every Democratic, majority member voting for a bill or the entire chamber or, you know, 120 some odd plus members voting for something.

And the governor then vetoed, and we all thought it was very commonsense policy, but there's been no push to ever push back and override a veto and exercise that constitutional right.

We every year we spend the first two months of session passing chapter amendments.

Now, as a minority member who the biggest policy impact we have is on debate, helping to make some of those amendments possible.

There are certainly some of those where you have the sponsor of the bill staying on the floor to be like, I didn't want to do this, but there was the condition on getting my bill passed.

And in world they could vote against those things they choose not to.

So I think sometimes it's the legislature's prerogative to live, to fight another day.

And in six years I've been in the Assembly and in the legislature.

That day is still yet to come.

I mean, I think certainly you look at this year's budget, there were, a lot of changes from what the governor proposed in her executive budget, especially if you look at the auto insurance reforms or that is not close to what she originally intended, where the legislature used its power, to push back.

But I think we could do more.

Okay.

So and we're going to get into individual issues here.

But overall here, a two month late budget.

A couple of your colleagues have already been on this program.

One Democrat, one Republican did describe not only their frustration with a late budget, but a budget that was so late.

It comes in after school districts are voting.

Voters are trying to figure out what their school board members and superintendents are trying to deal with this problem, but also it leaves you very little time to have a legislative session to get things done.

Right.

I mean.

Yeah, that's I mean, I think I use with one of your, your Albany based, press colleagues, he asked me about, the last two weeks of budget from a policy perspective.

And I said, you know, we're trying to we gotta we we're trying to pass 100 pounds of policy in a in a 5 pound period.

I sometimes use an expletive when I talk about some of the, the poor bills that are in there, but I don't want to get, the FCC fined for.

Please don't.

Act sexy.

That'll be on the YouTube version.

But it'll be.

But that's one of those things where you have to, you know, you've got two weeks, and certainly there's local bills that are important to both majority and minority members.

There's bipartisan legislation that that may run out because it may need questions on the floor.

But I think the solution to that will want to pass a budget.

More on time or more timely.

But also start passing bills earlier in the session.

Don't hold everything to the last 2 or 3 weeks of the scheduled session and then say, well, I guess we ran out of time.

It's like, well, we could be passing budget or passing policy bills earlier in the year, which would mean we get more debates public, would know more of what the policies are that their representatives are, considering making law.

And I think that would be good, not just from a policy perspective, but for public representation.

So, sure.

So I take your point that says we could still have been taking up legislation.

Anyway, I get that one thing that can't happen is school districts don't really have a choice here.

Right?

They're voting.

Yeah.

In May.

Right.

Yep.

And so one of the things I said to your colleague Andrea Bailey was, you know, top of my head, I mean, I would be furious if I were on a school board or superintendent's office trying to craft a budget, not knowing exactly what the state aid is going to be.

You probably have an idea, and I suspect maybe somebody calls you once in a while and says, what are we getting here?

Yeah.

You know, and you hope to give them the right answer, but it's still really tough.

So I said, well, if you're if you're two weeks out of the May voting for school districts, just say that's a it's an austerity budget.

You didn't get it done on time.

I mean, make a legal mechanism tells the governor and the legislature, this is your actual hard and fast deadline.

It's firm.

School districts need it.

Why not?

Well, I think that I think the easy answer is, well, if we did our job in the first place, we wouldn't have to be at that point.

But the way it's always said, and I've said this to superintend the six districts that I represent is, when the governor proposes her executive budget, the enacted budget amount for the school aid is never going to be less than what the governor initially proposed.

We never see that number go down.

So I always tell them whatever was in the executive budget, count that as your break glass amount.

That's your austerity.

That's right.

You know that that's going to be the bare minimum you could get because all six years I've been in office, the total budget has always increased.

Now, is that a is that a is set in stone?

I know Andrea Bailey.

She had a few school districts that had they still got more money, I think it was than they were in the executive budget, but it was less than what they had the year before because there were some formulaic changes.

You know, and that can have a real impact.

100%, 100%.

And that's more of a formula problem, than it is necessarily a timing problem.

All six of the school districts I represent Greece, Hilton, Spencer, Port Brockport, Churchill, Chile, they all saw increases not just over last year's budget increase or budget amount, but from the governor's proposed budget.

So they they're essentially going to get found money because whatever they calculated in their budget vote, they're going to get a little additional money on top of that.

But this is not a good way to run the government.

I mean, I think the entire budget process is a bad way, to run government.

And we can blame, Robert Moses for all of that.

Nobody likes Robert Moses.

He's getting a lot, why Robert Moses?

Because when he worked, when he worked for, Why am I breaking down the governor?

He worked for, Al Smith.

He, he was in charge of, reforming the government or the state operations.

So he defined the government, the budget process.

We, reorganized all the state agencies.

So essentially, the government we have now is based from Al Smith.

Government reforms spearheaded by Robert Moses.

So give me give me something that's actually realistic that is going to change and make things more efficient and run better.

What good could happen?

Well, I think you could do, I think there could be a mechanism where the governor, you know, the governor takes a lot of power, especially once the budget is laid.

I think if you put there are some sort of whether it's constitutional or statute, that there can't be policy mechanisms in the budget once it's late.

I think that would have a large scale, because that is what holds the budget up every year.

It's not the dollars and cents, it's the policy.

And so if the policy gets taken out of the budget process, which I think every legislator would probably agree until one of their pieces of policy ends up in the budget.

I think that would make the lateness go down, because now you're just having to negotiate dollars and cents, and any outstanding legislation or public policy would be done outside of the budget process.

This is something that your colleague Andrea Bailey talked about last week on this program.

She said there's way too much policy legislating through the budget itself.

Yeah.

And that's and that's the, the that's a side effect of not just the governor's office exerting executive power, but also because the way our budget structured is that we have to pass appropriation bills in article seven, bills which the article seven bills are the statutory requirement to say how you're going to spend all the money you appropriated.

So and in a sense, that is the budget policy.

So any time that's the murky gray area of is it budget, is it policy.

Is it something in between.

Talking to Josh Jensen, a member of the New York State Assembly, and district number 134.

So we've established that the process was messy.

But, we're going to get back to what was in it in just a second.

I'm actually going to start, on the individual issue side with an email from a listener named Charles who sent this this morning.

Charles said the last time there was a one year moratorium on an emerging technology that could have helped New York, it ended up being banned permanently.

How do we know history isn't repeating?

And then he said he wanted to thank you in your office.

You were the one elected representative who posted on your socials about the Flower City Warriors hockey team that Charles has been part of, and he wanted to thank you for.

That is my pleasure.

But when it comes to a moratorium.

So he's winking at fracking?

Yes, of course, from 2014, but he's saying a moratorium on an emerging technology like data centers is is going to lead, first of all, to a permanent ban.

And it's also, I think he thinks is a bad idea.

What do you.

Think?

I, I agree with him.

I voted against the legislation that, enact that would have enacted the legislatures, piece of legislation doing the one year moratorium.

I'm against the governor's executive order.

I debated against the bill on the floor.

And I think it's a bit hypocritical that we're we're doing a moratorium when it just last year's budget, we put in, a $500 million public private partnership to create Empire I. So we're we're for one year.

We're against the next year.

But we want to make ourselves the Silicon Valley of artificial intelligence.

But then we don't want to bring in the economic development to actually make sure that the digitalized economy, a 21st century economy, can actually work.

But let me steelman the case against that.

I hear what you're saying, but there is almost well, there is nothing that's moving as fast as AI.

And a lot changes in 12 months here.

Here's the latest Pew Research on AI.

63% of Americans say that AI is advancing too quickly.

Only 19% say it's moving at the right pace, and only 16% of Americans say that they believe I will have a positive impact on society.

So Americans don't seem to like it.

People think it's moving too fast.

What's wrong with 12 months later saying, all right, let's slow things down.

Well, we're not just the moratorium isn't just on AI, it's on data centers.

And when you have things like blockchain technology that make the ability for government to operate more efficiently, more effectively, you know, these data centers aren't just being used for cryptocurrency or AI or the things that people don't support or distrust.

They're being used for every facet of the way we live our lives.

In a 21st century society.

And when you shut off New York, even for 12 months, it's not going to stop the progress of that type of economic development.

It's just going to make it go elsewhere, which is going to cost New York investment dollars.

It's going to cost, you know, you look at our building trades, we have a very strong building trades, not just in New York, but in our community.

And those are building trades jobs that are now not going to be made to organize labor in Rochester and in Western New York.

And so what we're going to have to use all the things that data centers are going to be providing, but we're just not going to take any of the benefits of it.

Benefits being what employment.

Employment, economic development taxes do.

They employ a lot of people, these data centers, to build them, to build them.

And they take they take a while to build.

Okay.

So so you're looking at not just the permanent jobs, you're looking at construction jobs and all the different things that that lead to a permanent facility, the permanent facilities.

My understanding is, you know, it's not like a Bitcoin mining facility like Greenwich down in Seneca Lake, which has like eight people in it.

But it's it's also not a thousand people, right?

I mean, it's it's a small chunk of jobs.

Fair.

Yes.

Yes.

It's not like, you know, you gonna have 20,000 people at, at a data center.

You may have a couple hundred around there, but you're also going to have a lot of construction jobs to get them on board.

And then you're going to have to have some of those workers who are going to have to maintain it, especially because they do use a ton of power, which I understand the people are concerned, and I'm concerned about the lack of energy on the grid.

But that's also why we need to have true all the above energy solutions to make sure we have power for the grid and for every aspect of economic development.

So I would love to say to you, hey, the governor was on the show last week.

You got to listen to what she said about this.

I pressed her on this, but she's never been on the show.

I still would love to have the governor on the show.

We're working on that.

I would love to ask her about this.

And I know you haven't talked to her directly, but talking to people in Albany, talking to your colleagues across the aisle, why do you think there has been in your view, kind of a flip flop on this at 12 months later?

Well, I think one of the problems, I think one of the flip flops is going to be some of the corporate entities that are building some of the large ones, maybe not in New York, but across the country where they see, corporate entities that some Partizan views don't agree with.

And they say, well, we don't want them to invest their money in New York, or they have legitimate concerns about the lack of, the energy on the grid, which I don't disagree with.

Or they have concerns about, you know, the, the on the, on the lake that you brought up about the environmental impact and what my response is.

Well, you can do more than one thing at once.

You can make sure that we have stronger local siting, restrictions, which we want those for DNA centers, but we don't want it for renewable energy projects, which once again, hypocrisy at its finest.

We can have stronger environmental protections.

We can have certain, energy, clauses.

We could have, water uses, but you can you don't have to put a moratorium to figure all those things out.

We can chew gum and walk at the same time.

And my concern is that the 1212 month moratorium is going to turn into longer.

Or the people who are building these are going to say, you know what?

It's not worth the headache to come to New York.

We're going to go to Pennsylvania, Ohio, somewhere else.

Brief aside there.

Yeah.

You had to throw some shade at renewable energy.

Why do you think that there's not a lot of restrictions on siting for renewable energy?

Like what's an example?

So, you know, when you look at certain solar arrays that if it hits a certain amount of acreage, local communities can't use their own local code to say, no, you can't come to this community.

And predominantly those are coming to upstate farming communities, other places where the, the, the land, for whatever reason, either somebody doesn't want to farm it anymore.

The farm may not be working anymore, it may be owned by somebody else, or they're.

Going to make more money on it.

Or they're going to.

Make more.

They're getting more per acre on that.

And what my response is, is, listen, if somebody people can do what they want with their land, but why can the state come in and circumvent the local communities ability to control the direction of their community?

When if a farmer wants to come in and build a farm, they still have to go back and get local approval to do that?

Isn't it more open market, free market capitalism or libertarian to say, look, do what you want with your land.

If you want a solar array, if you can make more money on solar per acre on solar than farming and go for it, why do you want to limit what farmers can do?

Because I believe in local control, and I believe farmers have the best interests of their farms in mind.

And I don't disagree with anybody trying to make a dollar, especially if their their lands are no longer usable.

But it has to be done responsibly.

And the line I always make is I'm happy to take more salaries once I see New York City, put one in Central Park or put a wind turbine on top of a building.

All our screen space can get used, but New York City is not allowed to use their green space.

I mean, I haven't been to New York City's rooftops in a while.

You don't think they've got solar arrays.

Small solar arrays, but I haven't seen a wind turbine on it.

Okay.

All right.

So I also I'm not in New York City every week.

So I don't I don't know.

All right.

So let's get back to just on the subject data centers I take the point that data centers are not just about AI.

I think some of the the backlash to data centers is AI driven right now because there's a lot of backlash against AI.

So when you see this polling again, here's what Pew says.

63% of Americans say AI is advancing too quickly.

Would you be among that group?

I have a simple question.

Yes, because I have concern about it being utilized in places where it's inappropriate.

For example.

So I don't want AI making a decision, will you?

I'll go back to health care.

I don't want AI making decision whether or not an insurance company is covering, whether or not to reimburse care for a cat, pediatric cancer patient.

I want a clinician making that decision.

So correct me if I'm wrong.

Part of your argument is we should have whether it's laws, regulations that says this is an area of society that we are going to require human decision makers control.

Yes.

And you can.

And I think there needs to be.

And whether you have AIB essentially a traffic cop and section things off and say, okay, this here, but there needs to be human eyes with human thought process reviewing things.

I, I totally understand that.

And the first thing that comes to mind for me in that realm is when you see war game planning, it's really interesting.

And now, team fact, check me on this.

This is in the last year and I was reading and I don't have it in front of me, but reading about what happens when you run war game scenarios through AI and how often AI goes to a nuclear option.

And the way that human beings have resisted since the 1940s, going to a nuclear option has saved the planet or saved our species on the planet.

I don't want, I want to require, I want laws that require human beings decide if anybody's ever using nuclear weapons.

I you go with that one.

I want like three human people to.

I want like, like 40.

Well, I think even the example not just war planning, but I don't remember when it happened.

But there's I remember reading the story numerous times about the Soviet missile silo, who literally all their indications where that, you know, the U.S.

had just launched and a bevy of.

It was a glint off a cloud or sunlight hitting a cloud in a way that looked like a nuclear strike.

And the guy handling a missile silo was like, this doesn't seem right.

Exactly right.

But all the protocols were like, well, no, you got to fire.

Moscow's gone.

Fire, fire, fire.

And he's like, I'm not.

No, this doesn't seem right.

Like we're going to wait five minutes.

But I would have been like, oh, this is what.

It sounds exactly.

Click, click, click kaboom.

And that is that's where there needs to be human decision making.

Because when you process everything through an algorithm, the algorithm can't really look at all the things that aren't in the algorithm.

And there needs to be human decision making.

Yeah, but I will say that I do think that AI, in bringing information together to present to a human review, I think is helpful.

I think it could I think there.

Sure is a human being gets the final say correct.

And isn't just rubber stamping my decision.

Yes.

By the way, I think what the Assembly member was talking about was I think it was a 1983 incident, 82 or 83.

I read about it last year, and we should all know the name of the Russian dude who saved.

The shootout, a Nobel Peace.

Prize.

Seriously.

Honestly, it's an amazing story.

But I think it's wise then to say, okay, insurance is one.

There's probably a lot of places where you and I or the average person would say, hey, this somewhere I would want human beings.

I don't I don't want AI determining somebody's innocence or guilt in a court of law.

Yes, there's another great one.

So the argument then, that I would want you to respond to says something like this.

Look, if you think there are aspects of AI that are moving too fast, they're being adopted in ways that circumvent human oversight isn't one way to force the hand of of that kind of needed change, saying, hey, we're not doing data centers.

We're not doing anything that speeds up AI, even if it's painful right now, because we've got to slow down before something catastrophic happens.

But New York's moratorium only affects the space within the borders of New York.

So you're going to have you could have, a data center in Erie, Pennsylvania, just outside Chautauqua County.

And a company could use that.

The the data that goes through that data center could come right back into New York.

So it's not like this moratorium is stopping this technology from being used in New York.

It's just saying that we don't want to have a part of the economic benefits of it, which I think that's where there's a difference between enacting policy and just saying, nope, we're going to we're going to put a pause on this and we're not going to do any of the development.

We're not putting it pause on the usage of it.

We're putting a pause on the developing the capital construction of the things that make it go.

So is this an area where if there were to be a national moratorium that would make more sense to you than state by state?

I think I think it would have to be, but I'm not.

I'm asking you, if you support a national moratorium, I'm saying, like, logically, does that make more of a sensitive.

Yeah.

And I think that's the same argument with a lot of the like the CLC stuff is that and you talk about I know some people are proponents of, you know, single payer health care.

It's I think a lot of these things don't work on a state by state model.

It has to be driven at a national level, because when you have 50 separate states with 50 separate governments and 50 separate sets of priorities, things cross over state lines.

It would have to be driven at the national level.

So, before we get into health care and health care spending, you mentioned CcpA.

Yeah.

So on the subject of climate, The New York Times described New York's budget and the actions that came out of it as fundamentally making New York State no longer a climate leader in the nation.

Do you agree or disagree with that characterization?

I would agree with that, but I think they're important steps to recognize the fiscal and financial and affordability realities that these climate mandates are causing on families.

And I think that's why, the budget legislation that these reforms were in, I voted for, because I, you know, I'm hearing from the folks I represent in Greece, out in Parma almost every day expressing concern about all electric push, about, the state's ability to cite renewable energy without local say.

And I think a lot of these reforms make sense to address the real failings or the inability to meet a very, high aiming climate law's.

Overly ambitious, I think unrealistic, I. Think I yes, I would say both of those.

So so you end up you actually end up lining up at the governor on this particular issue.

Yes.

The governor goes against some people in her own party.

Do you think the governor ended up on your side of this issue because it's an election year?

No.

You know, I don't know because I don't think anybody who is planning on voting for County Executive Bruce Blakeman is going to look at some of the, reforms to CRC and be like, well, I didn't like Kathy Hochul yesterday, but today I think she's doing a great job.

I don't.

I want to live in a world that's that granular.

Right.

And I and I don't think this is I think it's the governor recognizing reality, and a reality that I think a lot of people who share my perspective, I know the Assembly Republican Conference have been have been driving this a lot this year and in the last year is that listen, we we want to preserve our environment.

We want to protect our environment, but we have to do in a way that is not out of step with the rest of the world and put ourselves at a disadvantage to all the other places that don't have as aspirational goals.

And when you talk about all the above, I know what you mean by that.

I mean President Obama.

Use that phrase a lot in his own administration policy.

But when you look at gas prices, which are largely driven by the war in Iran, that's ongoing, is there any part of you that thinks we need to be all of the above except fossil fuels or except oil and gas, because we're getting killed here?

Well, we that's that's when we look at all of the above.

Like, listen, I'm not saying, you know, you look at solar arrays or wind turbines that are already on line, like, oh, we need to take them out of the ground.

No, that's that's unrealistic.

But we can't try to segment off or start, lessening the uses of natural gas.

We need to ensure that we have the uses of natural gas.

We need to continue to, invest in support in which, as I support the governor's push to bring more nuclear power online, we need to invest in hydrogen.

We need to do hydropower.

You know, you look at natural gas and okay, so you want to move for natural gas.

Well, you could use natural gas as a bridge fuel until the nuclear power plants come online.

But the nice thing about the infrastructure for natural gas is it can also be used by hydrogen, and especially when the hydrogen fuel cell was invented in the city of Rochester at the GM plant, we should be a leader on hydrogen technology.

And that should be a main part of the New York's of New York's Energy Solutions.

We've had a fracking ban since 2014.

Do you think there is a viable way forward that that gets lifted in the state?

No.

You don't know.

Would you like to see it lifted?

I think when you look at that, you know, we talked about earlier in the thing, like, why should New York State tell people how to make money or use their land?

Well, we're doing that with folks who want to sell mineral rights on their property for fracking.

And I think you look at Pennsylvania, they've had Democratic governors, they've had Republican governors.

They've found a way to do it.

That benefits their energy grid, brings in economic development, but also is able to protect.

And I think that if you enact good public policy and certain protections, there would be a way to open up fracking.

But I think you do have to protect environmentally sensitive locations on where you would allow drilling.

Well, I mean, I said this last week, I thought in 2014 I really thought that the Cuomo administration was going to go with Home Rule, and they were going to sort of split the baby, which is the weirdest metaphor.

But, they were going to do that and say, look, we're not going to allow widespread fracking.

We're going to allow local municipalities to decide.

And if the locals say yes, it's a yes.

If they say no, it's a no.

Do you don't think that that door could be.

I think I think that would be a very common sense way to do it.

Like I don't think.

But you don't think politically it's going to happen.

No.

You know, okay.

No, I mean like I think home will be the best way because I don't think Ithaca is going to say, hey, let's start allowing.

But I could see areas of the Southern Tier where you do have depressed economic development, where you have job, people, jobs and people fleeing.

I think there would be an appetite to say, hey, listen, we want to allow this in, in our communities.

I think Homer will be to do it.

But you look at, you know, when the New York Times, reached the governor over the coals for very moderate levels of reform to the CcpA, if all of a sudden she announced the plan to allow for fracking.

I can't imagine what the New York Times would, would say about her in that respect, as well as, probably most members of the Assembly and Senate majorities.

Are there any solar and wind projects that you think the state should be supporting?

I think when you look at solar, one of the things that I like and I know that there's, a roster based developer and I know he's got one in Parma.

I think if you look at solar farms where the they're regenerative in nature, and I've had conversations with solar developers who say, listen, like, we know that this is a 20 to 30 year energy solution.

That's all this is going to be here.

So we're going to put it on this land.

But we also know that we're we're going to give this farmland a break, allow it to regenerate its nutrients.

We're going to plant topsoil and seed it, and we're going to have sheep come and graze and be able to give the land a break, so that when we take the solar array off the soil, the soil is stronger than it was when we put these in the ground.

And I think that's the type of responsible development when you look at solar arrays, and I think it makes sense.

But people just clear cut farmland, vacant land, and all of a sudden put on a solar array.

They don't care about the soil and allow it just to be dirt.

I think that's problematic.

I think you think.

That should be illegal.

I think there should be greater control and local control in determining whether or not those things, like if a community wants to say, hey, listen for X amount of, you know, acreage that you're going to put a solar array, part of our town code is going to be that you have to put topsoil, it has to be generative.

You have to make sure that you're not creating a barren landscape.

I also think you look at brownfield sites where you have pollution.

Those should be sites where, listen, if there's not, economic development to build something and remediate the land in the land can't be used for anything else.

Well, let's put a solar array on it.

You look at landfills where you're not going to be adding more soil to or more, waste into that area.

Well, let's put a solar array on those things because we're not going to use the land for anything else.

Why don't we have it generate power?

I think that's where there is more a logical sense to place those things and necessarily taking farmland out of service.

Than it would be just to use it otherwise.

We're late for our only break.

Let's take it.

We're going to come back.

We're going to talk health care spending and work.

And some feedback from the audience is we're talking to Assembly member Josh Jensen from district number 134.

We're right back on connections.

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This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Thank you team for fact checking me producer Megan Mack sends me this I mentioned earlier I thought I like Lex to go to the nuclear option.

Artificial intelligence models used for a simulated war game escalated conflicts by threatening nuclear strikes in 95% of scenarios, according to new research from King's College of London.

And it must be British, I not American and.

I don't know, man, I don't know.

And, the reference that some member Jensen had to the mistaken weather phenomenon that looked like a nuclear launch.

September 26th, 1983.

It was Soviet Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov.

That's a name we should all know.

Who said we're standing down here.

I don't think this is an incoming nuclear.

I wish I would have known that before, because eight years ago, I would need my son Stanislav and I. I mean, really, that's way to go, Stan.

Good job.

That's why we're all sitting here happy, healthy and happy today.

Okay.

Here.

So before I jump into some emails here.

Well, actually, because we just talked about alternative energy, at least I can get this one out of the way.

There was a question from Theresa.

So didn't President Trump, step in on turbines and stop them from being used or built on Long Island?

That's part of New York City, is that correct?

Yeah.

So there was, and there was actually a big fight on the floor a couple of years ago.

There was a plan to build wind turbines, in the Atlantic Ocean off the south shore of, Long Island.

But the fight turned into, typically when you want to alienate parkland, the person who sponsors that community has to be the one to sponsor the bill.

And in the city of Long Beach, where the transmission line would have came, offshore, going in and then going back underground to New York City, the Republican Assembly member didn't want to sponsor because he didn't support it.

So they, they, they brought somebody in who represented New York City to alienate parkland in the city of Long Beach over the wishes of the local representative.

And I think that's where there are, you know, they are invasive, a divisive thing in long Island and Long Island and Long Island.

But to get yelled at, by my my colleagues from Suffolk in Nassau, but they are decisive.

But that is, you know, the president used the power of his office to stop those.

Dallas says you always hear Democrats tout construction jobs, construction jobs, but not for data centers.

And then he says all of this is just related to whether or not we beat China.

What do you think?

I mean, I think that's, I think that's a huge deal is that we don't want, especially as more of a digitalized economy, becomes ubiquitous in society.

I don't want China to be the ones who control whether or not the the outlet has a plug in it.

When it comes to all the things we need to make our economy work.

And so we have to have, U.S based operational control.

Okay.

Dallas.

Thank you.

And by the way, Dallas is saying that Democrats always tout construction jobs for projects in the final tally of economic development, and they're denying it for data centers.

Is that a fair critique?

I think so.

Okay.

We get no Democrats here to defend themselves.

But I and I would say probably Republicans I'm sure would do the same thing.

I'm sure when.

You know, when it's a project you like, right?

When you know, when when that awful Maggie Brooks were the county executive and we did construction jobs, I'm sure they counted those just like an umbrella or Kathy Hochul would.

So I think it's I think that crosses Partizan deviation.

And Owen is emailing asking if we will ask about the ice masking ban.

We talked about that in the last couple of shows with your colleagues briefly.

My understanding is New York State has attempted to pass or passed a ban on Ice agents or law enforcement generally wearing masks while performing their duties.

And the Trump administration has intervened in various ways trying to ask the courts to to block this.

I don't exactly know fully where this stands right now.

If there has been any progress from the Trump administration.

I don't know if if I don't know if the federal administration have sued in federal court.

One of the things that was talked about when this came up in the budget is, how can New York State tell federal law enforcement how they're allowed to conduct themselves when it comes to their uniform, or how they're dressed?

Certainly.

You know, I've never been a member of law enforcement, and I, I want to defer to them about what's appropriate when they should be masked.

It's it's something that I think it's.

So you think this was the wrong call?

I don't think was the wrong call, but I think it's I think a lot I think a lot of it is performative.

You've been you spent a lot of time this hour talking about home rule and deferring to the locals.

Isn't this an example where we say, hey, in our state, we have an expectation that if you're in law enforcement, we're going to see your badge number and we're going to see your face.

And I think there's a difference between saying that the Rochester Police Department, the Monroe County Sheriff's Office, the Fairport Village police can't wear masks and telling federal law enforcement whether it's Ice, whether it's the FBI, ATF, Customs and Border Patrol, that when they're in New York, they can't do a thing.

I think there's a difference between federal law enforcement, local law enforcement.

When there's a good argument that I should be allowed to wear masks.

I've not talked to somebody, but.

Can you imagine a good reason I cannot?

I think that when I think that law enforcement have been dox before, I think I talked about this last time we were on the show.

I think it's one of those things where, you know, you're in a protest or something like that.

It's, you know, you may want to, but I, I do agree your badge number should be visible.

There should be a recourse for, for the citizenry that's to know what the authority is, whether they're federal police, local police, state police, whatever the case may be.

So you at least agree that there should be some identification for the citizens to know who they're dealing with.

And then and that's already New York state law, that if you ask a member of law enforcement for their badge number and their name, they have to give it to you.

And I think there already are protections, for the system in that case.

But I think, you know, saying we're going to ban, I think two, it's performative.

But do you have any sense of where that's going to go?

I don't okay.

All right.

I want to talk about something that was near the top of your list, which was, not only health care, but health care spending.

Yeah.

So the floor is yours.

Yeah.

I mean, you look at our budgets 200, $277 billion.

Which, you know, sounds like a lot of money, and it is, but we're also the 12th largest GDP in the world.

I don't have fact checkers to fact check me on that.

So let's just assume I'm right on that 1/12.

Largest GDP in the world.

New York state, I. Think so, but we're we're larger than most countries on Earth.

But you look at that $277 billion.

And when you look at the Medicaid spend between the state resources, the federal resources, we're at just under $135 billion.

So almost half of our state spend, in the budget is spent on Medicaid.

But we continue to be in a place where as a state, we don't have an efficient or effective health care system.

And I think that's one of those things where we're missing an opportunity as a state to say, let's make sure that we can create a mechanism where no matter who you are, where you live, that you can get health care coverage no matter you're.

Thinking like single payer.

Not single.

Payer.

Okay.

But I think there are opportunities to make it more efficient, more effective.

And I think when you look at we have, a ubiquitous where we cover almost everything, but nothing 200% the cost of coverage.

And we've essentially got to a place where we allow providers to discriminate based on payer source.

You have entire counties where there's not a single dentist who takes a medicaid, who takes Medicaid as a peer.

So there are entire counties where that's happening.

And that's a problem.

So I think we need to really look at how we spend our Medicaid dollars and make sure that we can make it actually work.

Now, certainly there are going to be complications with, the implementation of H.R.

one from last year, the reconciliation bill there, they're going to add certain, work requirements for Medicaid coverage, just like it is for Snap, which I don't think we've done enough to make sure that we're on the front foot for that, to make sure we're satisfying the federal requirements, but allowing people to have access.

But at the end of the day, we have to find a way to make health care work better.

The answer is not the New York Health Act, which would be the most socialized version of medicine in the world.

That's the single payer base.

Which would be about a $350 billion increase to our state budget.

It's not the answer.

Okay, setting aside a systemic change, just on the subject of Medicaid itself, if roughly half the budget is Medicaid, how much of that is simply covering things that you don't think should be covered?

It's it's not the I don't think it's necessarily covering things that shouldn't be covered.

It's that we don't have the infrastructure in place to make it work.

Where even if you look at and we've talked about this, I think last year, maybe two years ago, where you don't have true eligibility screening, where it's essentially Scout's honor.

I think we could do more to help incentivize New Yorkers to accept employer sponsored plans, purchase on the marketplace.

In last year's state of the state, the governor introduced or announced that she was going to pursue, premium assistance.

And then we never heard about it again.

I think New York should support premium assistance up to, you know, something like 400% of the federal poverty level to help incentivize people to say, hey, listen, we know it's going to be difficult for you to purchase on the marketplace, but we're going to help you get there.

And I think when you take less people off the Medicaid rolls who aren't necessarily appropriate to be there, the folks who remain can access that part of the social safety net in a way that allows them to be better covered.

It also allows for providers to be on solid financial footing to treat them, because we're making providers make a fiscal decision whether or not to treat Medicaid payers or private payers for the.

Well, it sounds to me that you think that there's at least some level of fraud.

That is fraud, the wrong word.

People who are accessing Medicaid shouldn't be accessed.

I think.

I think you look at anything that spends $140 billion, there's going to be waste, fraud.

There's gonna be some fraud.

Right.

And but I think there is a difference between when when you say that, oh, it spends a lot of money.

What?

We must be spending all this money because of fraud.

Now, I'm sure there is fraud, but I think there's probably fraud in everything that you look at.

Do I think that fraud is the single driver of wasted Medicaid dollars?

Absolutely not.

I think abuse is probably higher than it should be.

I think waste is tremendous.

I mean, we have a medicaid inspector general who doesn't really fulfill their obligations to go after people who may be abusing the system and not people entities.

Well, so who's in charge of that?

Because Department of health.

Department of health, this isn't a comptroller's office issue.

They're not involved in any of this stuff.

No.

Okay.

It's a it's a power given to the Department of Health.

Okay.

But if what you're saying is correct that they're not going after entities the way they can, why aren't they?

I mean, I think that's a very good question.

That's something that I brought up on budget hearings and.

They not have the resources.

And I actually I we've given them more allocation and small.

We've given them try to give them more money.

I think they got like a half $1 million increase in this year's budget.

But there's just no appetite because they don't want to be seen going after.

Entities.

And what my response was like, okay.

Well, based on what was passed in H.R.

one, we're obviously the federal government has a concern about this.

Why don't we act proactively to show that New York is trying to address these things and go after the bad actors who paid everybody else?

That's a bad apple.

And I think that's would be the responsible public policy perspective for New York State to take, because I don't think there's rampant waste, fraud and abuse, but there's definitely waste, fraud and abuse.

But is there a bill out there that would address, in the same way that the New York Health Act is a bill that existed for a couple decades now, and some on the left are hoping some day gets enough votes to go through?

Is there a bill on the right that you're like, this would be the reform that we need?

I mean, I have a handful of bills, half a dozen bills that would do this.

I think, you know, a lot of the things, you know, when we pass.

Health care coverage, mandate bills.

And the interesting thing is, if it's on private insurance, it goes to the insurance committee.

If it's Medicaid, it goes through the health committee.

So you have to do a you have a, you know, you're essentially putting private insurance versus public coverage, that some things are covered if you're on Medicaid, but not on not if you're on MVP, your Exo+, and vice versa.

And there's no when these bills come up, there is no cost benefit analysis or ROI category or even knowing how many people would access this level of care if we mandated the coverage.

And I think that would be an important part when these bills come before us, like, okay, well, what's what's the total cost to cover these folks?

How many people would access it?

How many of these providers do we have?

Because that's the thing.

Like they come up and they sound great.

I usually vote for them.

I probably I think I voted for every single one of them.

And then every day, every week I'm like, I'm not voting for the next one.

And then the next one comes.

I'm like, well, this seems like a really good idea.

I'm going to vote for this one.

But if we knew the dollars and cents and the true impact, I think that would be an important thing for legislators to know before they they pass some of these things.

All right.

A little bit more feedback.

Robert in Waterloo says if Assembly member Jensen believes in local control over fracking, solar farms and data centers, why did he vote against the 2026 Sonny Act, a bill that would allow both citizens of New York City and citizens of Greece to generate a modicum of solar power themselves without red tape and high install costs.

Do you know.

I. I don't mean to be Springer.

No, no they don't.

I'm gonna be honest.

I don't know the bill off the top of my head.

I think we passed something like seven, 800 bills this year and an equivalent amount last year.

So this wasn't something high on your radar?

No.

And and I've supported and I have supported in the past, and I may have voted against that bill.

I don't I don't remember it off the top of my head, but I've also supported other bills and voted for other bills that would allow, people to put solar array on, a condo in, a private development to say, like, listen, you own your, you own your roof and you want to put a solar array on it.

The HOA says you can't.

Well, the HOA can go suck lemon.

So there I have supported things in the past.

I just don't know the mechanism for when that bill came up.

And it could have been one of those things where it came up on the floor.

And then and I was in committee, I was in rules committee off the floor.

I just I'm not familiar.

Yeah.

So, Robert, we're not an apology.

I'm sure Robert's not trying to give you.

Got you either.

Well, it's not meant to be a gun.

I think it's a little bit of a gotcha, but that's okay.

I don't I don't hold it against Robert.

Robert emailed me separately so I can at least send the office more information.

Because I don't know.

I don't know that story either.

Last minute you worked in the assembly with Mamdani?

Yes.

You had a little fun at a comedy event there.

Which I wish there were videotape of, But apparently you're a very funny guy.

When you look at New York City, what are you most curious about?

To see whether something works or doesn't work with what Mamdani is trying to do.

I mean, I, I am very curious about the city run grocery stores.

You know, I think we are blessed in this community that we are the home of Wegmans.

You know, in Greece, we have three of them alone.

We could probably use a fourth.

So I think we are very, at least suburban.

Lee, we are very blessed to have, you know, a lot of different food options.

You know, obviously in the city of Rochester, it's a little bit different where there's, you know, there's more, gaps in being apples access, fresh, fresh produce.

So I'm curious to see how the city run grocery stores work.

Do I think it's the job of government to run a grocery store?

Not necessarily, but it's also where there are gaps in the ability for people to access certain things.

And the government wants to take on a larger role.

As you know, maybe it's not a city run grocery store, but it's public private partnerships or something like that.

I'm curious to see how that works, especially in the areas where there is a lack of fresh produce.

Are you a skeptic that it will work?

Yes.

But you still want to see it.

And I'm.

Curious.

Okay.

I always appreciate the time, and I want to thank you for coming in here.

We referred to your comedy routine here.

Where was that?

It was at the Legislative Correspondents Association.

Somehow it didn't get recorded, which I don't believe I this is we talked conspiracy theories yesterday.

I've got a conspiracy that this exists in here.

You are trying to smother the tape I want.

No, that's.

I'd be happy to see it because I still would like to do some self assessment.

I'm gonna see if I can find it.

If I find it, I'll send it to you.

Thank you.

Assembly member Josh Jensen from district number 134, as part of our series of conversations with elected leaders following the passage of the state budget.

More connections coming up in a moment.

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