Latest / WIXN AM 1460 - Shaw Local Radio / Talk Line 09-14-2026: Li Arellano Jr. shares state updates

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Talk Line 09-14-2026: Li Arellano Jr. shares state updates · WIXN AM 1460 - Shaw Local Radio

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Good morning, Sauk Valley. You're with The Waking Crew here
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: on FM 95.1 and AM 1460 WIXN. It's 816 on
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: your Monday morning, and it is time for Talk Line.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: And I'm joined in the booth once again by our
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: good friend all the way here from Springfield and all
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: over beyond. I don't think the frequent flyer miles or
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: road miles ever stop for State Senator Lee Arellano Jr. Sir,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: how are you?
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Good to be here. Good to be here. Yeah, I'll
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: be over. I'll be in Peoria a couple times this
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: week and Rock Island County. In summer, I actually am
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: traveling more than when we're in session because when we're
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: in Springfield, we tend to be in one complex and
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: When we're out of session, all over Northwest Illinois, which
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: is fun. Yeah.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: You got to be out amongst the land to be
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: amongst the people.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Right, right. How's that taste of Fiesta this past weekend
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: and another event in Peoria? So tasty, tasty events lately,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: which I like.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, everybody likes that. Yeah. A good flash forward of
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: some positivity as we unfortunately do start today on a
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: bit of a down note, but it definitely needs to
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: be talked about. And that's, you know, the Tyson plant
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: closing right after, pretty much right after we last talked.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: So, yeah.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: What have you been hearing since there?
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: So there's been a lot going on with that. So
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: we talked that Monday. I was on military duty that week,
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: so I was actually in the Quad Cities meeting. That
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: whole week, um, I got alerted that Thursday, which is
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: the same time roughly that the employees did as the
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: state Senator over that region. Uh, they notified me representative Spain, uh,
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: of course issued warning letters to the governor, uh, because
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: of how many jobs are going to be lost. 2,500 jobs,
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: most of them union jobs. Um, And, you know, we
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: had been in talks. They had given me updates as
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: this crazy situation unfolding in the cattle industry over the
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: past year or so, where they were closing and what
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: they were doing. And up until that moment, their plans
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: had actually included and started executing closing some other areas.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: And they were going to build up in northwest Illinois
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: in Joslin there, right on the edge, the western edge
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: of my district. And obviously they changed course. That was
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: a pretty big deal. That whole part of Illinois is
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: being hammered like a lot of the border counties have
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: been economically. We've seen the Iowa side steadily get built
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: up over the past 20 years, just like north of
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Rockford region or, you know, East St. Louis versus St. Louis.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: You see economic activity shifting over as people buy gas
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: and cigarettes and groceries, just crossing the border to get
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: the lower costs. And so every one of these job
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: hits in that region are hitting harder because they're already
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: kind of economically depressed, even more so than the rest
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: of Illinois. So that is a huge dynamic for Rock
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Island County, Whiteside County, Henry County, that whole region on
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: the edge there. And so what we're in right now
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: is a holding pattern. They're taking a period of time
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: where they take a look at the factory and decide,
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: can we retool this? Does this make any sense? doing
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: beef production, meat processing is very specific. So it's not
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: like some factories, you know, we had factory closures in
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Dixon and we had other companies scoop them up really
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: fast because if you have already built manufacturing facilities with
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: all that space, there's a lot of things you can
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: do that. But beef processing is so specific, we don't
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: know what that could be retooled into. The company doesn't
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: have any plans as of yet. They have said publicly
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: that if that period ends and they They can't find
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: a use for it. They will sell it, which I
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: know the governor has been pushing for. I would certainly
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: push for. The problem with that is they've more or
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: less said, and I think the governor has echoed this,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: that they will not sell to a foreign competitor. The
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: challenge with that is most of their main competitors are
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: foreign owned at this point. So, you know, that might
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: seem very America first, but there might be some elements
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: that are a little self-serving in that. in terms of
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: monopolizing where stuff go. And it's more than just the 2,500 jobs.
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  Speaker 2: There's a lot of beef agriculture in Iowa, Northwest Illinois,
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  Speaker 2: that feeds into that, that now has a lot more
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: logistical and transportation costs associated with Kansas City or whatever else.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: And that's been a question in the ag community. So
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: there are a lot of ripple effects. Obviously, anytime you
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: remove 2,500 jobs, there's a lot of retail impact and
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: restaurant impact and sales impact, all those kind of things.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Even more challenging, beef industry, there's like 14 languages spoken
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: in that industry. I think the top three were English, Spanish,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: and French. A lot of work visas, things of that nature,
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: which can make resource identification a little challenging. So, you know,
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: a very complex challenge. It's, you know, I'm building off
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: some of the knowledge I learned as a mayor as
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: things like that happened. And this is kind of scaling
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: up a little bit more. And that's where we are
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: right now. We're at a holding pattern. We've done some
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: job fairs. We've brought in some resources to help get
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: families put in touch with employers. Because, you know, we
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: have a lot of employers looking for people as well.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: So we're trying to make sure we've had a couple
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: waves of that. I know the city of Geneseo and
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: the Geneseo Chamber of Commerce, which is right in that
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: region as well. They hosted one that was successful. The
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Illinois State's Rapid Response Economic Force, in conjunction with the
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Quad Cities Chamber and some other entities, put one on.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: And we've been supportive of that. And then Representative Spain
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: and I will be doing one right at the end
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: of the 60 days. So they're getting paid for 60 days.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: They're getting health insurance for 60 days. And as that
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: runs out, we're going to do another one there towards
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: the end. For anybody still looking, we've already got a
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: really good response from employers needing employees. Continuing to try
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: to put that economy back together as best we can.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: But the underlying damage, which I've talked about very publicly
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: with you and others, Tyson was one of the biggest
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: electronic users, if not the biggest, for that supplier in
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Northwest Illinois. And they haven't said publicly how much that
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: weighed into that decision. I know that supplier is going through,
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: like so many are in Illinois, going through rate adjustment
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: approval through the state's approval board. And that's all part
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: of the future here in Illinois, is those rising energy costs.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: We're outpacing surrounding states. So we We can't control the
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: beef industry screwworm issues down on the Mexico border. We
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: can control when these big companies choose to or are
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: forced to consolidate or change their business model. We want
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: them coming into Illinois instead of consolidating out of Illinois.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: And we've seen that with Boeing. We've seen that with Tyson.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: We've seen that with Caterpillar in the southern end of
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: my district. We've seen that all over the place. And
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: there's enough of these happening that, you know, a few
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: of them, if we had a stronger economy, if we weren't,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: you know, a bottom five, bottom 10 growth state every year,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: they would start swinging our way. And that kind of
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: compounds the problems. So our posture right now is first
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: focus on the families impacted, the workers impacted, take care
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: of them. But as we go back into session, I'm
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: going to, when we switch gears, I'm going to continue
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: trumpeting those broader economic policy and financial challenges we have
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: in Illinois and Because we didn't save this one, and
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: we've not saved a lot of them, but we can
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: in the future if we start getting these policies turned around.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Because companies don't just look at the now. Even little companies,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: like when I was doing very small-scale development, you're looking
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: at the future. When I expanded into the Sterling Rock
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Falls market, I was looking at what they were doing
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: with the riverfront, and I saw their plans for the
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: next 10, 20 years, and I saw what they were
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: putting into it as I was making my decision of
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: where do I want to go. And big companies do
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  Speaker 2: the same thing on a much grander scale. It's just
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: their spreadsheets include tens of millions and hundreds of millions,
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: you know, instead of thousands and tens of thousands like
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: mine did. But that's where we are now. Right now,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: we're still in the take care of the families, take
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: care of the workers, take care of the nearby employers
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: and economy response. And then as that simmers down, we're
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: going to do our after action report and continue to say,
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: what can we change in Illinois? We can't control industries.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: We can control our own economic policies and how much
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: we are supporting workers and employers and making that happen
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  Speaker 2: in Illinois.
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  Speaker 1: What kind of policy do you think, if we could
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: get one coming through, and I don't even mean to
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: say as soon as fall, but if we could really
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: get one kind of change or one kind of policy
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  Speaker 1: going in relation to that, what do you think would
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: be the most help to Illinois workers?
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: I'll give you two. I'll give you... short-term and long-term.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: The short-term is energy policy. That is something that hits
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: every family every month. It hits entrepreneurs every month, all
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: the way up to mega users like Tyson. And we
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: have intentionally killed our energy supply in Illinois. We are
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: now buying from other states in the southern part of
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  Speaker 2: my district, places, buying from Kentucky, buying from places, frankly,
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: that don't have nearly as many environmental standards as we do.
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  Speaker 2: And so they're saying they're doing it for environmental reasons,
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  Speaker 2: but really we're being forced to buy off the grid
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  Speaker 2: from other states that don't have close to our environmental regs.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Dirty power, so to speak. And It's happening at the
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: same time that demand is spiking because of AI and
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: data centers, hyperscale data centers specifically. So you're killing supply
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: and growing demand through tax incentives at the same time.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: And consumers get hit by both of those. They get
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: hit by supply side and demand side. When you limit supply,
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: you increase pressure on prices. When you grow demand, you
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: increase pressure on prices. And that's a huge deal for
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: any large energy user or even regular families. Uh, grocers
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: are an especially big example at the small business level
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: because your local grocers have some of the highest electric
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: costs in the small business world because of all the
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: fridges and freezers on top of the lighting and all
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: the other stuff that a normal business would have. So
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: a restaurant like my Jimmy John's, we had a pretty big,
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: impressive bill. I mean, easily over a thousand dollars a month. Um,
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Grocers are on another level even from restaurants, right? So
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: you would start to see triple effects. Now you're dealing
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: with food deserts and grocery deserts, which has been a
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: hot topic in Illinois. And as you start some of those,
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: a community becomes more livable. There's all these little ripple
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: effects that pop off of energy pricing. So that would
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: be the short-term one. I think we could solve the
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: energy trajectory in the state with one good year of
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: changes and dealing with mathematical reality of what wind and
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: solar can actually produce. versus what we need to be
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: investing in natural gas and even clean coal at this point,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: because we're economically desperate. I think the governor should even
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: look at that. And we've already taken a look at nuclear,
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: but nuclear is more of a long-term play, right? So
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: natural gas and some of those policy changes need to happen. Long-term,
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: we need to get more aggressive about paying down pensions
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: so we can tackle property taxes. And that is a
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: 10 to 25-year game plan, depending on how aggressive we
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: are about it. But we need to get serious about
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: paying more into pensions as opposed to growing spending. As
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: pensions go down, tying that into school funding and tying
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: some percentage of that school funding directly into property tax relief.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: So that way, every level from schools to property owners
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: to a first-time home buyer to small businesses and manufacturers
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: see a trajectory in Illinois that is positive instead of negative.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Now, do you see Illinois realistically being able to reduce
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: property taxes without simply just shifting that cost somewhere else?
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Sales tax, local fees, things like that that are going
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: to hit folks back at home?
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. The problem is, like I said, it would
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: be a longer-term timeline. And I'll give the example of
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: the work we did in Dixon with pensions. I took
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: office as the local mayor in 2015. By the time
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: I left, we were scheduled to have all of our
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: pensions paid off, fire pension, police pension. I mean, fire
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: was below 50% funded when I took office. It was
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: in terrible shape. And that's all scheduled to be done
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: by 2038. And so in 2038, you get the biggest gains,
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: about 20% of the city of Dixon's budget just gets
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: released to do whatever they want to do. You want
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: property tax relief, you want arts and culture. Whoever's mayors
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: and council that year will have very important jobs because
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: the cities can shift trajectory. But even in the years
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: in between, you're starting to see hundreds of thousands annually
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: that are freed up as the city moved ahead on
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: pensions that they can put into whatever they want. And
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: that's where you saw some of the battles at the
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: local level of some of us, well, I'd like to
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: see some property tax relief. Obviously, we invested a lot
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: in economic development, building economic development team and starting to
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: do grant matching and The state of Illinois could do
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: the same thing, but you'd have to be willing to
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: look at that longer timeline. You can't, say, run for whatever,
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Senate even, and say, I'm going to fix property tax
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: in five years. That's a lie. That's impossible. You might
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: see some improvements, but it'll be really start between the 10, 15,
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: and 20-year mark that you'll see incredible gains. And by
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: the end of 20 to 25 years, we could have
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: a state that is completely average or even slightly below
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: average in property taxes and while still continuing to fund
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: schools and other key things. But it has to be
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: over that long timeline. And the one example I'll give
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: you is when the governor during COVID declared the immigrant
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: crisis and started funding billions of dollars into immigration, both
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: legal and illegal immigration. Homelessness in Chicago tripled because people
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: who were pre-existing there were getting kicked out. There's all
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: these dynamics happening, so they spent even more money in
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: there trying to solve it. They didn't appropriate any of that.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: They just said, this is an emergency. We're going to
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: get serious about it. And they spent billions of dollars.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: So regardless of whether you think that was right or wrong,
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: and I've been very public in my position on that,
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: we could have been doing the same thing with pensions
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: all of these years. We could have been saying, this
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: is a financial emergency. It is killing our state. People
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: are leaving their state. Our young people are going off
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: to college in other states and never coming back because
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: of the cost ratio of higher education in Illinois. Small
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: businesses are closing. Major employers are leaving. This is an emergency.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: We are going to start aggressively tackling our pensions. We
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: could have been doing that for the last five years
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: with the extra COVID monies and some of that emergency
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: response stuff, and we had the money to do it.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: We could have changed the directory already, and we still could.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: It is getting harder now because the feds finished all
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: their debt-fueled spending around COVID, and we missed one of
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: the windows of opportunity. There are still other ones And
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: we just got to get serious about taking them. Instead,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: every year, we're setting record budgets, and we're finding new
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: spending instead of paying off our existing debt. And in
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: the business world, that leads to bankruptcy. In the government land,
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: that leads to some of the highest taxes in the nation.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Well, the long-term solution is never the sexy sell.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: That's for certain. No, especially when you're saying, you know,
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: give me two more years. Obviously, the House is up
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: for election every two more years, and our system is
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: kind of predicated on at least half of the legislator
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: being demanded, what have you done for me lately? And
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: for a lot of them, they're just not going to
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: talk about those long-term fixes because they're focused on the now.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: But those of us in the Senate, at least, and
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: certainly the administrative level, we should be talking about the
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: long-term because Illinois is so deeply in debt. We're such
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: a bizarre state. Worst pension funding out of all 50 states.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: Worst fiscal stability out of all 50 states. That we
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: have to look long-term in a way most states don't
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: have to because they're not as damaged. And that's the
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: kind of leadership we need right now. We need to
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: be looking at these long-term fixes and putting them in
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: play regardless of the political implications for us.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Well, we are going to take a short break. When
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: we come back, we'll look at more long-term issues facing
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: the state with State Senator Lee Arnn.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Lee Arellano, Jr.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: and I will have your show local news right after
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: this message. Hey there, Sauk Valley, and welcome back to
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: The Waking Crew here on FM 95.1 and AM 1460 WIXN.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: We're continuing our talk line conversation with State Senator Lee Arellano, Jr.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: this morning. And before we get to our next point
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: on the Inspector General resignation, I did want to ask
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: because you had brought up a good point a couple
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: of times before we went to break about the rising
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: energy cost concerns here in the state, amongst so many
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: other concerns. And something that's been getting a much bigger,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: or I should say closer look, you know, Dixon, Sterling
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: having town city council meetings on this. is data centers,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: battery stores, the governor having paused new state data center
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: tax incentives beginning July 1st, calling for lawmakers to address
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: data center energy and water impacts. Again, we're seeing much
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: more of this here. What do you think the state
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: should be doing to give communities more control over these projects?
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we talked about this a little last time,
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: so it's a good thing to pick up. I'll list
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: some really obvious ones that I think we should have
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: been discussing in the spring and knew and for whatever
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: reasons didn't. the leaders didn't want to call it at
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: that time. I suspect to keep it a political issue
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: for the summer, but I think they underestimated the bipartisan
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: at the grassroots level pushback they'd get. So I think
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: that was a mistake on their part. But first, we
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: have to have environmental regs. That means noise pollution for
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: the hyperscale ones that are loud. That means water regulations
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: for those that are using a lot of water or
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: potentially contaminating water. I think that tech is getting better
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: and better in terms of internalizing the cooling systems and
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: finding that. But we still need to put the rules
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: in place, right? So better environmental regulations, better zoning regulations
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: in terms of noise pollution and location and what it's around.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: One of the big ones is power. They need to
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: be required to build up the grid around them instead
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: of passing that off onto rate payers. And they need
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: to be required to help source power in Illinois. So
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: a good example is we just unshackled nuclear after a
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: 30-year moratorium. If data centers want to come into Illinois,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: they should help us build up the nuclear footprint and
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: lock in some of that power. So they're not using
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: existing power, and they're actually helping us build up the
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: grid and provide more power. There are states, not many,
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: in my opinion, that have done it right, but there
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: are some, and every one of them that have actually
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: lowered energy prices around them as one of the dynamics
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: and data centers have required those companies to build up
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: the grid, that's the poles, the transmission lines, all that
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: other stuff around them, and start sourcing their own power. Otherwise,
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: one or both of those things will end up on
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: rate payers. And we see that with wind and solar.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Wind and solar incentives in Illinois get passed to consumers
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: in their rate processes when Illinois incentivizes wind and solar.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: And we're going to see that with the new battery
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: storage bill that was passed during the last veto session.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: They lifted the consumer caps that had been on wind
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: and solar. There was a limit in Illinois to how
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: much your suppliers could charge you in your bill to
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: incentivize wind and solar. And for battery, they were so
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: desperate for battery power because we don't have enough power
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: and wind and solar aren't always producing at the right time.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: They need to be able to... shifted in time and
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: stored in a battery and then released it on the
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: grid during peak usage. So they're so desperate for that
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: that they removed the consumer caps. And we're predicting anywhere
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: from $ 8 billion over the course of this battery buildup
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: will be shifted to consumers because they guaranteed the profits
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: of these companies building battery storage on rate payers.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Whereas Texas did battery storage, but they said, you investors
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: have to pay your own way in. That is what
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Illinois should be doing. But this goes back to what
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: we were talking about in Tyson. The reason Illinois failed
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: or the governor and those leaders feel they need to
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: incentivize these things so much is because our economy is poor,
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: unlike Texas's, and it's harder to get investors, energy investors,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: beef industry investors, whoever, to outlay that capital. We're seeing
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: the opposite problem. We are seeing Investors rip out, say,
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: natural gas equipment, millions of dollars of equipment and move
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: it to other states like Texas and take the loss
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: on the short end to get out of Illinois and
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: stop producing power. So if we had data centers coming in,
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: paying for some of that and suddenly providing new consumers
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: for these things, we would start turning around energy policy
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: and turning around costs for consumers. So those are all
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: the things. We need more environmental regulations and control. We
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: need to make sure locals have some level of zoning
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: control as well as meeting statewide standards. We need to
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: be requiring them to build up the electrical grid as
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: well as help sourcing new power for all of Illinois,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: for themselves and everybody as we build it up. And
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: then you actually get a net gain because the individual
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: consumer's portion of, say, replacing the power lines goes down
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: because there's a mega user, right? And going back to
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: my time as mayor, we had a similar instance, but
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: it had to do with water utility. A lot of
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Dixonites don't know this. Maybe they did if they were
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: watching council meetings when I was mayor. We have one
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: water user in Dixon that uses over a fourth of
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: all of the water in the city. a manufacturer and
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: they do food processing, very water intensive food processing. And
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: so we got into a big discussion when I was mayor,
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: mostly friendly. I'm not here to knock them or anything,
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: but I was very adamant that I wasn't going to
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: build new water wells or sewer, uh, you know, sewer
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: tanks or all of these other things and charge my
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: normal citizens for this one mega user. They needed to
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: carry their own weight. Um, And so on the one hand,
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: we had to be sensitive to the fact that if
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: they left town, we'd have all the infrastructure and just
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: lose almost a third of our revenue, which would also
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: get hit to the consumers, right? To my rate payers
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: in Dixon, my citizens. But I didn't want to subsidize
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: this company's growth as a matter of practice. So we
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: had to find a balance. We were able to do that,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: but it's because we approach it with very intentionality, a
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: lot of intentionality. We did a lot of research. We
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: had a lot of negotiations with the company, and then
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: we set new citywide ordinance for how super users worked
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: in the city and how they would help fund some
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: of the water utility needs. None of that has happened
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: with data centers at the state level. The state of
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Illinois is not that proactive. We have not thought that
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: far ahead. We were actually incentivizing them with tax cuts,
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: which is one of the incentives or one of the
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: benefits they should, in theory, bring to a community because
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: they don't have a lot of long-term jobs. They have
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: a lot of short-term jobs. And we gave away some
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: of the benefits of data centers. So those are the
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: things I would hit. Environmental regulations, zoning, noise pollution, local
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: control and setbacks all need to be discussed. And then
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: we need to talk about the power grid and power
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: users and building up the power supply. And the bottom
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: line should be citizens shouldn't be subsidizing the development of
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: data centers or battery storage or any of these things.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Everybody needs to be carrying their share of the grid.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: And data centers have not been doing that. The hyperscale
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: ones specifically have not been doing that. They have been
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: net takers. And then we were throwing incentives at them
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: on top of that, giving away some of the benefits
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: they did bring. And we need to turn that around.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: And I think at the local level, you're seeing across
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: the political spectrum, including people not even usually in the
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: political spectrum, recognizing that as they are feeling the hit
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: to their power bills. And in some cases, living next
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: to them, these hyperscale ones, and realizing this is a
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: bit different than the data centers of 10 years ago
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: that were storing funny cat videos for YouTube. These hyperscale
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: ones use about 100 times the power as those old
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: data centers. And government has not reacted to that difference.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: We treat them the same. They are not the same.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, man.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Way, way too much to be able to even start
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: to crack this one. Like so many things, not a
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: black and white issue. I can at least simply say
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: as a rate payer, yeah.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: I would agree.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: I don't think any of us want to carry the
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: burden for something like that, let alone even get into
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: what it would look like to.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: Welcome those.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: It's certainly a hot issue.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: And one thing I'll add real quick, because we do
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: need to talk about the Inspector General, is You know,
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: there's some folks that say ban them altogether forever. Here's
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: the problem. Power grids are multi-state grids. So, you know,
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: my northern part of my district, there's two power grids
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: in Illinois. My district covers both of them, PGM. I forget,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: I should know off the top of my head, 14,
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: 15 states. So if we ban them and other states
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: allow them with more control, then we would get all
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: of the negative effects on the grid and the cost
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: without any of the benefits of property tax generation or
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: or job generation, or any of that stuff, or helping
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: them build up our local grid. So there is a
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: fine line. We don't want to see them built up elsewhere,
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: and then we absorb the cost in Illinois. That's a
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: danger as well. So for anybody wondering, Lee, why don't
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: you just support banning them all together? On top of
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: the tech war with China and other issues, there is
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: the simple economic fact that we're going to get hit
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: with some of the negatives no matter what, So let's
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: try to control it. Anyway, go on. Sorry.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: No, no. I completely get what you're saying. Unfortunately, again,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the unsexy side of the AI story is that it's
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: not going away. Right. AI is the new space race
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: of our generation.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: There are some disadvantages to falling behind in that. That's, again,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: not me saying that I want a massive data center
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: in my community or wishing it upon others. Right. it
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: is still the reality that we are in competition for
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: the good and the bad of what this brings with
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: it so that we're not left behind in the dust
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: and left to whatever gets left at the end of it.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: And man, how that shakes out is just, it's going
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: to be one for the ages, man. This is one
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: of our pages in the history books.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: It absolutely is. And, you know, the scope of what's
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: happening in human history is both very dangerous, very powerful,
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: has a lot of potential, all of those things. There's
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: going to be Need to be a lot of thoughtful
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: leadership on this. Pandora's box is open, and you can't
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: close it once it opens, man. That's a great description.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right. We're not reclosing this.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. While we've got the time, let's shift over, because, yeah,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: we can't close it. The Inspector General Michael McKuski resigned.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Or, well, yeah. Resigned, was forced out, whatever you want
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: to call it. And this is another thing we've talked
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: about in the past. You know, I talked about how
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: former now, now former State Representative Benton resigned under a
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: cloud of kind of... accusations of sexual harassment. There is
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: a state rep right to my east, uh, Murray Briel,
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: who has multiple accusers, uh, from her own staff of
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: things she was doing to, uh, accuse, you know, supposedly
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: to a woman on her staff. And then, uh, a man,
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: there's been multiple investigations where there was concerns the IG
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: wasn't handling them well and wasn't handling the victims well.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: And then was being a little flippant about, uh, his
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: position in media interviews in the aftermath and pushing back
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: on that. And so finally, there was pressure for him
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: to resign. Now, he was put there mainly by the
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Senate president. He was not, ironically, the pick of either
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Democrats or Republicans during the ethics hiring process. And they
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: kind of went at loggerheads, and the Senate president swooped in,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: and here's this guy. And he had a great reputation,
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: federal judge, state judge. I'm not here to necessarily throw
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: him under the bus, but I do think it was
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: time for a change. The inspector general before him, she
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: quit angry at the legislature and the Illinois government saying
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: this position is a farce. She didn't have the authority
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: or ability to truly investigate legislators. We in the Republican
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: caucus still take that position. And as you know, I'm
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: a diehard reformer. To me, this is an opportunity to
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: take some of those concerns that the last inspector general
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: that she had And that Republicans and some Democrats have
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: been saying for a long time, which is you need
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: a more independent inspector general. We need to change laws
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: in Illinois. So you have a more independent inspector general
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: who is empowered to initiate investigations, not just react to
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: a complaint from another legislator. who is powered with bigger scope,
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: so if he, in the course of an investigation, sees
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: something else that's a problem, is allowed to investigate it.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: Previous one couldn't do that. There were things she undoubtedly
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: saw that she couldn't talk about, but she also wasn't
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: legally allowed to investigate, and ethically, she couldn't continue doing
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: the job. That's basically what she said. She refused to
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: be part of a farce. which is what the IG's
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: position is in Illinois. It's a band-aid to say, look,
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: we're controlling the legislature and the General Assembly, but it's
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: not really. And so now we have an opportunity as
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: we're doing this hiring to get one that's a little
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: bit independent of the majority Democrats who they control the
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: whole process for hiring right now because they have the
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: supermajority and put pressure on them to say, It is
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: time for a little bit of ethics reform in Illinois,
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: and it starts within the government.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: And we will get more updates from State Senator Lee
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Arellano Jr. about that, especially as we move closer to
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: the fall veto session.