Transcript
INTRO
Jamie Nolan: Welcome to Energy Empire. This is the first episode in our midterm series, Energy on the Ballot. Really excited to get started and to have Arnab Pal here with us, our friend of the pod. Welcome.
Jigar Shah: Thanks for having me. You are christening our New York recording location.
Arnab Pal: There's no better way to christen a New York recording location than with a guy from Southern California.
Jamie Nolan: We're excited. This is a brand new studio that we're in. There are still boxes out in the hallway, but it's beautiful. We're happy to be here.
Arnab Pal: Yeah, I feel like this could be a permanent location.
Jamie Nolan: I know. I love recording in person. We might have to figure this out. We might need to do this in D.C.
Okay. So this is the first of six episodes that we're calling Energy on the Ballot, running every Monday until Election Day. Jigar, you were the one who said energy used to belong to the engineers and the wonks, and now it belongs to the politicians. So what changed, and why did we decide to spend six weeks on this topic?
Jigar Shah: Well, I was as shocked as anyone last fall when Abigail Spanberger and Mikey Sherrill found themselves in a situation where electricity bills and energy were on the ballot. And I think everyone was like, wait, what? When did we become popular? Now both of them have been on Politico talking about what they've accomplished in their first six months and eight months and what they're doing. Part of what I wanted to do is see, is that carrying forward? Is that actually part of the 2026 election cycle? And who better to kick this off with than our friend Arnab?
IS ENERGY ACTUALLY ON THE BALLOT?
Jamie Nolan: Absolutely, couldn't agree more. So Arnab, you run Deploy Action, you spend your days in state capitals, and you're the person we call when we want to know what's happening on the ground. From where you sit, is energy on the ballot this year? Or is that just what people in our sector like to tell each other so that we feel relevant?
Arnab Pal: So energy is always on the ballot. I think it's a big issue in years when gas prices are up, which is this year. And it's usually been a federal issue, because people are like, oh, gas prices are up. Everyone sees it. They're so salient, and everyone knows who to blame when gas prices are up. They blame whoever's the party in power.
What you're seeing that's new is that electricity bills are on the ballot, which is something that, as Jigar was saying, is not normal. A lot of this is because you've seen rate hikes over the past four or five years. There's a general affordability issue going on. And for most people, excluding people with kids they send to school, their number one bill is their mortgage, and their number two bill is their electricity bill. Which is why, after housing, you're now seeing electricity as a top-tier issue. So it's absolutely on the ballot. Is it number one? Maybe not. But it's definitely in the top three.
Jamie Nolan: I know. It's a new age. In our industry, we've been really focused on trying to reduce the extent to which energy, and particular energy sources, become a political football. But a big thing is that most Americans didn't even know where their power came from. They've never really thought about what happens when you plug in your toaster. Where does that electricity come from? So this year, they're having to learn a lot.
They're having to learn what makes a power bill go up, what factors are at play, what parties are responsible for that, and what levers we pull to bring electricity prices down. And maybe they're also developing opinions about particular energy sources, and maybe they're surprised to find out that solar is the most affordable electricity source today. So I think it's really a moment for us as an industry to both educate consumers about the electricity industry and power generally, as well as reintroduce ourselves to a whole new generation. It's an incredible opportunity. And I love that we have this platform here on Energy Empire, where we're playing a part and bringing in new audiences who maybe weren't previously that interested in electricity, and they're finding us on YouTube.
Jigar Shah: Leave a comment. And folks are spinning. I have never seen so much spinning. It's amazing to me how many ads I've seen around data centers are not raising your bill, it's everything else. Data centers are absolutely raising your bill. I do think that folks are spun around, and they're having a hard time getting facts.
POLITICIZE IT THE RIGHT WAY
Arnab Pal: Well, Jamie, you mentioned one point which I think is really important for our listeners to hone in on. The business community, people who are entrepreneurs, they want to depoliticize everything. Even Jigar's first instinct is always, I want to depoliticize it. I want this to be bipartisan. But the truth is, to actually provoke change, you need to politicize things in the right way.
That may not be true for most businesses, but in our world, where the electricity sector is heavily regulated by state utility commissions, in order to see action being taken, it has to become a political issue. It doesn't have to become a partisan issue, but it has to become a political one. So I actually think in some ways this is really good, because it's shedding light on how electricity bills are put together and who approves a rate increase.
Nobody knows these things. They just get a bill from Con Edison or PG&E or whoever it is. And now people are starting to realize, oh, there are these commissioners that approve the rate hikes that the utilities propose, and I have a say in that, because I get to elect a commissioner or I get to elect a governor.
$45 MILLION IN DATA CENTER ADS
Jamie Nolan: Totally agree. And I think this year, there's no way you can talk about electricity prices without talking about data centers, as you mentioned. Campaigns have spent more than $45 million this year on ads that mention data centers, which is astonishing to me. That's $22 million from the Republican side and $21 million from the Democratic side, including 164 separate ads in the month of August alone. So when do you think data centers became something that both parties are running against, Arnab? Is this new? Have we seen this before with other topics?
Arnab Pal: So first off, I think data centers are the ultimate political but nonpartisan issue, because everyone has concerns about them, Republicans or Democrats. I think it's new in that, from an energy perspective, this is such a big deal. I think it is, from a policy perspective, because this has a huge impact on your energy bill. But I actually don't think that's why people are anti-data center. I think the reason people are anti-data center is just a general AI backlash.
This is what they feel they can control, which is approving or disapproving a data center. And the byproduct of that is, if they do it the wrong way, the energy bills also go up. I think fewer people know about that. It's our job to tell them, hey, you want these under these specific circumstances where your bills can be lowered. The problem the technology companies ran into, and Jigar knows this quite well, is they're not used to waging public campaigns the way real estate developers and energy developers are, who always need community buy-in. They're used to, we built a software platform.
Jamie Nolan: It feels almost like the hyperscalers sleepwalked right into this problem. They were like, well, we don't know how to do community benefits agreements, and we don't know how to do community relations. We just build things, and we go in, and no one says anything, and no one complains. And then they were taken aback. They're living through a PR nightmare.
Arnab Pal: They don't learn.
Jigar Shah: They don't learn. This is the same thing that Bill Gates faced when he was being taken to task for embedding Internet Explorer into every single thing. He was like, what? You guys don't like my monopoly power? I just feel like they don't learn. But they're going to learn fast now, and they're going to catch up.
Arnab Pal: A lot of this is cultural. The people who make the decisions on these data centers, where do they live? Palo Alto, San Francisco. There aren't questions of, can you afford your energy bill this month? They have small data centers, but not huge data center buildouts like you see in Ohio. So they don't directly feel what these other communities are feeling.
And this is true all across the spectrum in politics. You have politicians in the Democratic Party and the Republican Party who live in big cities or live in wealthy neighborhoods. And they oftentimes are one step behind the public. So that's just what happened here, I think.
HOW VIRGINIA TURNED ON DATA CENTERS
Jigar Shah: So let's drill down into Virginia, data center capital of the world. Spanberger gets elected. She gets a backlash on data centers. And she's now signed what she called the most aggressive data center accountability framework in the country. You guys actually ran a poll that came out the same day. 77% of Virginians oppose a data center near them, and 46% blame growing demand for their bill. How did the data center capital turn against data centers?
Arnab Pal: I think when there's a backlash, there's a backlash everywhere. To think that Virginia would be immune, that's not realistic. I do think that same poll, and I think we'll get into this, so I won't get into the specifics, shows that a majority of Virginians also want data centers to bring down their energy bills. So what I think we see here is an opportunity. Hey, look, this is a way to improve your life. I don't think the backlash is specifically against the data center, because Virginia's had data centers for decades. I think the backlash is against AI, and this is the byproduct of that.
Jigar Shah: Well, the other line that we use is, stop doing data centers the dumb way.
Arnab Pal: And look, I think what Governor Spanberger did last week is a perfect example of how to do data centers the right way. I'll give you a great example, because I spend the majority of my time in California. California had a really good bill, SB 886, that was amended with a bunch of negotiations, and there's a couple of bills on the governor's desk. The California bills don't go as far as the Virginia initiative does to help consumers. It's not even close. The California bills are, do no harm. And if you know Californians, they think they're always ahead of everyone.
Jigar Shah: You and I like to tell them that they're not. I think I have more credibility in doing that than you do.
Arnab Pal: I was going to say, they don't receive that well from me. No, they receive it a little bit better from me because I'm from there, but they don't like it. But this is another example. Here you have the state of Virginia really being the first state to try and figure out, how do we make these things work for people? So it's a huge accomplishment. Kudos to Governor Spanberger. Kudos to her team. I hope other states follow.
Jamie Nolan: Do you think this is the act to follow? Has she established new best practices for other governors?
Arnab Pal: A lot of this stuff, the truth is in the implementation. So as much as I want to give her and her team credit, let's see how it pans out. These structures that they've created, are they going to be used? Is there a sort of trade-off where the data center hyperscalers help subsidize costs through building new batteries? And they're not really subsidizing, we're really expanding the pie. We're creating more energy value and giving that back to consumers. And in exchange, do we make it so that the projects that use that method actually get built faster? So I think it's an open question whether other states will follow.
From what we've heard from the governors we've talked to, they want to say yes to data centers. They want to find the most consumer-friendly, progressive way to say yes. And these are mostly Democratic governors. But if you look at Republican states like Texas, I think they're looking for that kind of answer too.
GAS PRICES, ELECTRICITY, AND WHO GETS BLAMED
Jigar Shah: So let's shift a little bit to utilities. Last year, rates went up by 6%, and they're still climbing. Utilities asked for $31 billion of rate increases in the last 12 months. The clean energy tax credits were largely retired in the OBBBA. So Jamie, which one do you think the voters feel?
Jamie Nolan: I think gas. I think gasoline. First of all, voters love to blame gas prices on presidents, and that will be felt down ballot. Obviously, President Trump is not on the ballot this November, yet he very much so is.
Jigar Shah: Well, the Iran conflict certainly is.
Jamie Nolan: Yep, exactly. And I think when you start to see the Republican base go quiet on gas prices, the GOP is in trouble. On social media in the past few weeks, I've seen so many memes about gas prices, like comparing diesel prices to the old Will Smith movie, I Am Legend. Was that the movie?
Jigar Shah: That was the one where he's by himself in New York City.
Jamie Nolan: Yeah. And diesel prices are between six and seven dollars a gallon, and we're literally there right now. I do think that gas prices, for some reason, are this particular tipping point for political parties, and they're going to suffer at the polls when gas prices are high. Electricity prices depend so much on the state where you sit, a lot more than gas prices do. We are seeing some states where rates are rising precipitously, and in other places they're relatively stable.
Jigar Shah: Well, in Georgia, last year, two public service commissioners lost their jobs. I think there's another one on the ballot. The chair of the commission is on the ballot.
Jamie Nolan: So I do think electricity is a growing issue in political moments like this, but gas prices historically have always been blamed on the ruling party, and unfortunately, the GOP is not sitting in a good place on that topic right now.
Arnab Pal: And to Jamie's point, it's a little bit of salience. People know where their gas comes from. They know some of it comes from America, some of it may come from the Middle East. Look, my Uber ride to the airport yesterday. I did not prompt this. I think I drove a CR-V hybrid. Within three minutes, he's like, yeah, I have to drive this hybrid because gas is ridiculous. And then he's like, I don't know what your politics are, but I know why my gas prices are high.
Jigar Shah: I'd talk to you about it anyway.
Arnab Pal: Makes everybody want to take a Waymo. And he spends the next 10 minutes ripping into Trump. And I'm excited, because I know we're doing this podcast today. I haven't said a single word at this point. I haven't told him what I do for a living.
Jamie Nolan: And you're like, I can't wait to tell this story.
Arnab Pal: I'm just like, oh, this is gold. I knew my $100 Lyft ride would make sense somehow. But yeah, it's on everyone's mind, because everyone fills up their tank and they feel it. And I still think with electricity bills, everyone's like, well, why am I being charged this? Where is it coming from? And that's changing, but I think the vagueness makes it harder to find an enemy.
Jigar Shah: Well, the triple digits also get you. If you have a 22-gallon tank, which some of these big trucks and SUVs do, and it's almost $5 a gallon, that means it's $100 for a fill-up. When you go from $99 to $100, you're like, wait, what? Why are there three digits next to that total expense?
Jamie Nolan: I've never been so grateful to drive an EV as I have been the last six months.
Arnab Pal: I waited like 10 minutes before I told him I drove an EV. But he said that was smart.
PROMISES MADE, PROMISES BROKEN
Jamie Nolan: I don't want to rub it in people's faces, but I did get it the month that Trump came into power, because you may have been able to foresee that something like this was going to happen. Okay, let's talk about promises made and promises broken. So the president promised, and this is my favorite thing, when he said this, I was like, I can't wait to call this back, to the extent that I set an email to boomerang back to myself at the 12-month mark from when President Trump promised to cut energy bills in half within 12 months of his inauguration, which we knew he was not going to be able to do.
New York's Republican gubernatorial candidate, Bruce Blakeman, promises the same in New York. Governor Mikey Sherrill won New Jersey on a day-one rate freeze on electricity prices, and the freeze turned into a $25 credit in folks' power bills. Seven tech companies have signed a White House pledge to pay their own way on the grid, yet no one can point to a dollar that they've yet absorbed. So looking back at all of these promises that have been made, which, if any, of these promises do you predict can and will be kept?
Arnab Pal: So I think the first two cannot. I think the last one, where the tech companies are going to pay their own way, sure. That's like the bill you're seeing in California. I think even in places like Texas, they understand the politics of this, and they don't want everyday Americans subsidizing tech companies. I think the politics is strong enough for that to potentially happen. I think that's completely missing the point.
Because the whole point of this is, you're seeing this next wealth creation opportunity. And for these things to work, and for our society to continue to be stable, how do we cut everyone else in? And I think what we've been talking about is one way to cut everyone in on this deal, which is by lowering everyone's electricity prices. So just doing number three, that's unimpressive.
Jigar Shah: Well, yeah. I think people want to go beyond a rate freeze. They want to go to a rate cut.
THE $5.77 GOOGLE DIDN'T GET TO PAY
Jigar Shah: And I think the problem that we have right now is that the minutiae kind of matters. In Entergy Arkansas's territory, Google offered to pay for all of the infrastructure upgrades for their data center. And Entergy was like, wait, if you pay for it, then this doesn't go into our rate base. So we want it to actually just be a prepayment of future services, so we can still rate base it. Well, that change means that everyone's bill went up by $5.77 a month, because Entergy Arkansas refused to let Google pay for the upgrades and instead caused it to be a prepayment.
Now, that's esoteric, but the $5.77 a month that people's bills went up wasn't esoteric. And so part of this in my mind is, how many of these governors are actually going to become an expert in how these decisions are made? Because that is how the utilities run circles around the politicians. They settle it in back alleys and corners in different ways. And it kind of matters.
I was pleasantly surprised when Mikey Sherrill was on Politico this morning and she said, you know, virtual power plants. I was like, she knows what a virtual power plant is. This is amazing. And she's like, we're going to utilize the grid better. And PSE&G is one of the utility companies that's been fighting culture change for 25 years. They're like, we don't like to get regulated. We don't want anybody in our shorts. We want to do things in the best way for our shareholders. And we're tired of you guys telling us about all this rooftop solar and battery storage. And I think she's coming in hard.
BIPARTISAN CULPRITS
Arnab Pal: And look, I agree with that. I think we need to make a distinction here, because we're assigning some blame on what's going wrong. When it comes to oil and gas, that's a Trump problem. He created it. This is all because of him. When it comes to electricity, there are bipartisan culprits. And I think we need to acknowledge that there are Democratic and Republican governors that are to blame for the electricity crisis as much as it is President Trump.
And I'm going to go back to this one more time. I promised my last time. But California is a great example. There's a Stanford study that shows the grid in California is approximately 40% utilized. A little less. It was like 35, from Stanford. California has missed an opportunity to be the affordability leader. This is the state that did decoupling back in the seventies, that understands efficiency like no other. And for the past eight years, they've completely gone away from it.
Their inability to improve efficiency on the distribution system is what has led to massive rate hikes in the state. It is the number one driver. They say wildfire. They say all these other things. Those are all contributors. But Jigar, you and I know, because we did the math. We did the math at DOE. Actually, the biggest driver here is the distribution system. And Donald Trump doesn't control that.
There are two bills in front of the governor: SB 905, which we've championed, that would increase utilization, and SB 913, which would give credit for distributed batteries. These would bring down costs. The governor has about 10 days left to sign it. He still has it. So there are Democratic governors, and if they don't do the right thing, they will be at fault here, too.
Jigar Shah: And likely won't be president as a result. Well, I don't know about that, but we'll see. I'm just saying, if you don't care about affordability for your people, well, then you get judged later.
THE GRID IS 35% USED
Jamie Nolan: Grid utilization seems like such an easy idea to implement, given that voters especially love it. Your poll that just came out, Arnab, 78% of Virginians want utilities to fully utilize the grid they have before building more. And I know that we've seen this issue poll at incredible rates nationwide. Why isn't every candidate running on these ideas when they're so popular?
Arnab Pal: They're super popular. I think the problem with grid utilization is, for this audience, it makes total sense. It's a little wonky, I think, for the general public, which is why it's hard to make that a top-tier issue.
Jamie Nolan: But when you explain it in plain language to people, they get it, and they support it.
Arnab Pal: Yeah. And look, I think this is one of those things that everyone supports. It just takes force. It takes advocacy groups and people pushing it like, hey, this is a priority. And it's slowly happening. We signed that law in Virginia this past year. We've had numerous other states approach us to do something similar. Some of them don't even really want our help. They're just like, we want the idea. We'll go run with it ourselves. So I think it's a simple solution. It's not going to solve the entire affordability crisis, but I think it's going to solve the low-hanging fruit part of it. I think it's tough because it requires the utilities to rethink how they do business a little bit.
Jigar Shah: They have to install software. Some of their stuff was built on COBOL, which was invented in the 1960s. And they have 70-year-old programmers they have to keep on the payroll to keep that stuff updated. At some point, I got it, just retire it and put in new stuff. Because ultimately, building a new natural gas peaker plant costs a hundred dollars. Paying people to be more flexible is $20. It's 80% cheaper just to pay people to be more flexible.
And some people will choose to do it. Some people will say, screw you, I don't want the money to be more flexible. I'd like to use electricity whenever I want to. You get to choose. But that utilizes the grid more. A lot of utilities aren't even giving people an offer to be flexible. They're not saying, we will allow you to be flexible. You have that battery in your basement. We would like to pay you to be able to use it in an emergency situation. They don't even have the program.
WHAT THIS SERIES IS FOR
Jamie Nolan: And so hopefully, after this election cycle, we are going to see more people sitting in elected seats of power who have the ability to implement these common-sense ideas. So I want to zoom out a little bit. Jigar, what do you think this series is for, a midterm series? What should someone who isn't an energy nerd be able to understand or do by November 3rd, if that's when they're heading to the ballot? Hopefully they're voting early, but tell us.
Jigar Shah: Well, I think the part that people don't really understand is that the Strait of Hormuz crisis really is a larger disruption than the 1973 Arab oil embargo. And yes, I get the fact that the Treasury Secretary has been manipulating markets, and the president's been very smartly talking down markets. But we're now at tank bottoms. Physics is physics. We can't run refineries, because we don't have enough refinery capacity to make enough diesel to keep everyone going. And so, as a result, diesel prices have gone way up.
And so you're in a situation where you're in this energy crisis, and data centers are part of that energy crisis, because load growth has come back. Electric vehicles, heat pumps, new manufacturing facilities, many of which we provided loans to when we were in the Loan Programs Office, are now fully up and running. I saw the Qcells factory is fully up and running. Now some of the battery manufacturing facilities are fully up and running. They all need power.
And you can't just outsource this to ChatGPT. You can't just be like, hey, tell me how to be smart on this thing. There's physics involved. There's stuff involved. And so politicians don't want to be experts in this. I get it. But it's hitting people right in the wallet. You can't have people on a fixed income and Social Security and rates going up at 7% a year. That eats into their Social Security every single month. And then they'd have less to spend on other stuff. Same thing is true with gasoline. Same thing is true with your Amazon deliveries, because diesel prices are up, and diesel is what gets burned to get your Amazon deliveries to your house.
Arnab Pal: So look, I think this midterm series is about, A, explaining what the problem is, which I think we're doing, and B, talking to decision-makers, which we'll be doing with Senator Whitehouse, Senator Heinrich, and others, about how this is impacting the elections. Because I think this is a very unique time. To combat Jigar's point about oil and gas, I actually think we've gotten lucky. I think there have been dramatic decreases in demand from China, which has prevented this from being an even worse crisis. And if this continues, it could get worse. Well, it is continuing.
Jigar Shah: He should have solved it last month.
Jamie Nolan: We're still in a conflict. The Chinese are preventing us from feeling the full consequences of our decisions.
BLAME THE PARTY IN POWER, THEN WHAT?
Arnab Pal: So we're going to get to hear from them, but I would love to see what's our plan. Because when it's an election cycle, especially midterm elections, it's just about blaming the party in power if things aren't going well. It's a very simple proposition. You don't have to stand for anything. You really don't. You just blame the other side. Democrats do it. Republicans do it. But then you win. And if you win, I want to hear what Senator Heinrich's plans are, because he's going to potentially be the next Senate energy chair.
Jigar Shah: God willing.
Arnab Pal: And look, I can say two things about Senator Heinrich. One, I think he might be the most technically sound person in the United States Senate to understand these issues. And I don't know, Jigar, I think he's the best-looking guy in the Senate. What do you think?
Jigar Shah: I think I can give him both those titles. Is there someone else on this panel that should weigh in on that?
Jamie Nolan: No comment.
WHAT VOTERS SHOULD LISTEN FOR
Jamie Nolan: All right. So we're obviously not going to tell anyone who to vote for. But as people decide and they follow this election, what should they be paying attention to when it comes to energy? It sounds like, from both of you, I'm hearing a lot of frustration. It's easy for us to default into our hyperscalers, utilities, data center developers. But what should they be looking to hear from someone who is pursuing their vote when it comes to energy? What do they need to be hearing?
Jigar Shah: I just think that when you think about the 1970s, and how we had persistent inflation, and the cost of everything went up, you had gas lines and all this other stuff. That affected people in a visceral way. And we're in that place now. If you go to the grocery store, which I do, I'm like, wait, what? How much did that cost? What are we doing? Those groceries got more expensive because diesel's at $7 a gallon in some places.
Someone needs a coherent, coordinated plan to make people's lives better. Do they have to become experts in every single technocratic thing? No. But you have to know how the world works and what acupuncture you can do to make things more abundant. Right now, you could put batteries everywhere. There is not a supply chain shortage of batteries anywhere in the world. You could put solar panels everywhere. There is no shortage of solar panels available in the world. We have a crapload of electric vehicle manufacturing capacity in this country, because we provided the loans to build it. So you could double electric vehicle sales right now, and it would not raise the price of vehicles.
These are all things that we, as the United States of America, invented here. And now we have entrepreneurs who built manufacturing plants here, and now they need to figure out how to rise to the occasion. And government can't be this bottleneck for all of it. Not at the federal level, certainly not at the state level, and they shouldn't be at the county and city level either.
Arnab Pal: There's a couple of things to think about. One is, there's what people say, and then there's what they're going to do. When I see the DSA candidates this year, I see a lot of similarities to the Tea Party folks from 2010. They are saying all the right things, and they are talking to consumers. And I think the key in times like this, and I learned this from a great politician, is you go through the consumer to get to the voter.
And that means you have to help them bring down their costs. What's it going to take for them to buy a house? What's it going to take for them to put food on the table? What's it going to take to send their kids to school? What's it going to take for them to get health care? That is always the most effective political strategy. And I think the reason the DSA candidates are talking about that right now is, they're not talking about impeaching Trump. They've gotten smarter. They're talking about, we're going to bring down your costs. And they're on message. And I think the Democrats in general are on message. And I think the Republicans realize that, and they're like, oh, this is not good.
VOTE FOR YOUR STATE LEGISLATOR
Arnab Pal: On this affordability thing, I think the part that you have to look for is, who's got the plans to actually solve the issue? Because the solution to higher prices isn't price controls. Although the president seems to be threatening to do an export ban of diesel right now. But we've lived through this era. And I think there's a contingency on the right and the left who think that the sole answer to this will be government intervention.
The best piece of government intervention to fix our energy problem is to remove these tariffs and to find the right solution in Iran. Those are the two things the government can do. After that, you're going to have to let the states change the way they regulate, so we can do more of this utilization work, so we can actually have public utilities commissions that focus on consumers.
That all comes at the governor's level. When you are voting for governor in your state, demand that this is an issue. When you talk to your state legislator. Because everyone says, call your member of Congress. Your member of Congress represents a million people. It's hard to get through. Your senator can represent anywhere between one and 40 million people.
Jigar Shah: Some as low as 400,000.
Arnab Pal: Yeah, that's true.
Jamie Nolan: We're looking at you, Wyoming.
Arnab Pal: But your state legislator actually is on the ground. And if they're hearing people being like, oh, everyone's talking about utility prices, state legislators respond. They have to. So when we're thinking about who you vote for, make sure your state legislator, your state rep, knows energy issues are top of mind, because they will respond, even if your congressman is working at a more macro level.
WHAT'S THE PLAN?
Jigar Shah: I'll just back up what Arnab just said. There are a lot of people who are going to say, I feel your pain. But I think what they should be listening for is, do you have a plan to turn that pain into a solution? Like pain medication. Because right now we're in a place where people are feeling a lot of pain, and I appreciate the empathy. But at some point, what's your plan to make it better?
Arnab Pal: I go back to the two senators you guys are going to be interviewing, Senator Whitehouse and Senator Heinrich. Both would potentially be up for the two chairmanships in the Senate committees that would pretty much control all of energy and environmental policy. I want to hear from them, what's their plan? And I guarantee you they have a plan, because these are not political hacks. They are serious policy thinkers. And I'm sure they've been thinking about this for two years. So I want to hear from them what they have to say. And I think they'll be comfortable knowing that they're going to have an audience that's going to understand all their wonky details, for the most part. So I think that's going to be a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to listening to both those episodes.
Jamie Nolan: All right. So thank you for this note for our run of show. The question is, what's the plan? Give it to me. That's all we've got to ask.
Arnab Pal: That's what I do.
Jigar Shah: I do the hard stuff for you. Bumper sticker or politics? What's the plan?
Jamie Nolan: It's really funny, because you both will appreciate this, but one of my friends actually would joke and call me, Jamie, what's the plan, Nolan? Gotta have a plan. So you're speaking my language.
Arnab Pal: You are quite the planner.
Jamie Nolan: I will give you that. Jamie, what's the plan, Nolan? All right, so I'm going to put it to them. Might have to open the interviews that way.
Jigar Shah: So what's the plan? Yeah, put it to me. You will have those in the merch store soon.
Arnab Pal: No, I mean, the reason why I harp on that is because if there is a change in power, there are going to be so many demands. We're going to want to investigate members of the administration who've broken the law. I think there's a couple. They're going to want to figure out health care. They're going to want to figure out, what do we do with the Supreme Court?
Jamie Nolan: But here's the thing about energy. Energy is a primary input into our economy. It drives the cost of everything else. If you were going to pull one thread to bring costs down for the average American consumer, the card to play is energy.
Jigar Shah: Right. And Trump was doing so well on it in February of this year. I think gas prices were down to like $3 a gallon.
Jamie Nolan: Was he doing well, though?
Jigar Shah: I mean, gas prices were down. And then he was like, you know what? Let's have a war of choice.
Arnab Pal: But to Jamie's point, I agree with you. Energy is the number one input. But you're going to have 50, 52, I don't know how many senators, if there's a change in power, and I'm not assuming that there is going to be. And they're all going to have different priorities. Senator Whitehouse and Senator Heinrich will have the priorities we care about. But then another senator will have health care. Senator Padilla is going to talk about immigration. That's going to be a top-tier issue too. There are so many things. So part of what's the plan is, how do we rank the plan? How do we put all these things together? Because no matter how important our issues are, they are competing against others.
Jigar Shah: That's the good enough bumper sticker. How do we rank the plan? No, no. Stick to the talking points. What's the plan?