Transcript

Walker Wildmon: American Family Radio thanks its sponsor Preborn

>> Walker Wildmon: We would like to take a moment to thank our sponsor PreBorn. When a mother meets her baby on ultrasound and hears their heartbeat, it's a divine connection. And the majority of the time she will choose life. But they can't do it without your help. Preborn needs us, the pro life community, to come alongside them. One ultrasound is just $28. To donate, dial pound250 and say the keyword baby or visit preborn.com afr. We inform religious freedom is about people of faith being able to live out their faith, live out their convictions no matter where they are. We equip sacred honor is the courage to speak truth, to live out your free speech. We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character.

>>  : This is at the core on American Family Radio.

>> Walker Wildmon: Well, welcome to The Core here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us on this edition. My name is Walker Wildmon. I'm your host today on the program. The show is hosted each week by myself and Rick Green, or to be proper, Rick Green and I were your host each week's each week here on the program. And it's good to be with you once again on the American Family Radio Network. The AFR app is up and free and on the app store and you can download it at any time by simply typing in AFR or American Family Radio on your app store, whether it's Apple, Android, Apple tv, all the various platforms. You can download the AFR app Roku as well. You can download the AFR app and get live audio of the radio programs and you can get past episodes as well through the AFR app.

Peter and other apostles were being interrogated and arrested for preaching about Jesus

Well, turning our attention, to the scripture, Acts chapter five, looking down at verses 20, six through basically 30. But if you've ever heard the phrase, obeying, we ought to obey God rather than men. Well that's not just a saying that's been developed amongst the church. That's an actual scripture passage here in Acts chapter 5. And the context here is, ah, Peter and some of the other apostles were being interrogated and arrested here in Acts chapter five. And the priests, the high priest were in essence telling, they had told the apostles not to preach, not to teach in the name of Jesus. Well of course that's not going to work. This was the early church. They were spreading the gospel as they were commanded and in fact they were teaching about Jesus as the son of God. And so this was a, wholly unreasonable request. By the high priest. And so of course, they get arrested again. And, the high priests say in verse 28 here in Acts, chapter 5, did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name? And look, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine and intend to bring this man's blood on us. Talking about Jesus and the teachings of scripture, and of the Holy Spirit. And so here's what, Peter says and the other apostles in verse 29, it says, but Peter and the other apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you murdered by hanging him on a tree. Him, God has exalted to his right hand to be prince and savior and to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are his witnesses to these things. And so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given us to those who obey him. So Peter and the apostles say, no, we're not, we're not stopping teaching about Jesus. He's our Savior. He's the Son of God. God has commanded us through his Holy Spirit to teach these things, and we're not going to stop. We're going to obey God rather than men. And so that's where that passage, that's where that saying comes from. Acts, chapter five, verses 26 through 32.

President Obama affirms Biblical teaching regarding creation

All right, looking into some of the stories I want to get to today. On today's program, to show you how far the Democrat Party has come. You know, I, talk about, and you hear people say, I mean, the Democrat Party is so, unrecognizable. They're so far left. And they are, and they are very unreasonable, lacking common sense, very radical, very anti America. but to just show you the difference of where we've gone in, let's say, the last 15 to 18 years. And I can't believe it's been this long. but this is going to be President Obama during, the campaign in 2008 when he was running for president. But this is President Obama. While he gives a somewhat nuanced and lack of confidence answer in the teachings of scripture, he nonetheless affirms, the Bible as true and the teaching specifically in Genesis regarding creation and God's created order as factual and as true. And so, we may not agree with all of this. He gets into old Earth and NewSong earth, but nonetheless, listen to President Obama in some way or fashion affirming the fact that not only is God true, but. But the Bible is true as well. This is clip one.

>> Chris Brown: If one of Your daughters asked you, and maybe they already have. Daddy, did God really create the world in six days? What would you say?

>> Barack Obama: Yeah, I'm trying to remember if we had this conversation. you know, what I, what I've said to them is that I, believe that God, created the universe and that the six days in the Bible may not be six days as we understand it, it may not be 24 hour days. and that's what I believe. I know there's always a debate between, those who read the Bible literally and those who don't, and that I think is a legitimate debate within the Christian community, of which I'm a part. you know, my belief is that the story that the Bible tells about God creating this magnificent earth on which we live, that that is, that is essentially true. That is fundamentally true. Now, whether it happened exactly as, as we might understand it reading the text of the Bible, that, you know, I don't presume to know.

>> Chris Brown: Let's go to.

>> Barack Obama: Let me just make one last point on this. I do believe in evolution. I don't think that is incompatible with Christian faith, just as I don't think science generally is incompatible with Christian faith. And I think that this is something that you know, we get bogged down in. there are those who suggest that if you have a scientific bent of mind, then somehow you should reject, religion. And I fundamentally disagree with that. In fact, the more I, learn about the world, the more I know about science, the more I'm amazed about the mystery of this planet and this universe and, and it strengthens my faith as opposed to weakens it.

>> Walker Wildmon: Well, there you have it. And we could spend a couple segments with some apologetics going on here about Young Earth and Old Earth and all of that and evolution, and evolution is technically not compatible with scripture. but nonetheless, m. The point here, all right, is not to get sidetracked on picking apart President Obama's ah, statement there. The point here is that President Obama, not only acknowledged God, but also said he believes in the entirety of scripture as true and that he's part of the Christian community, the Christian faith. He said that on multiple occasions. So, this is. President Obama is a very good example in modern American history, especially in the political realm of what you call a wolf in sheep's clothing. All right, and there's so much we could talk about here, but let me just give you one example and I'll give you two examples, but one, Directly associated with President Obama. President Obama wanted, to actually come out in an affirmation of so called in air quotes, same sex marriage. We know that's not really a thing, but people try to claim that it is. So it's in air quotes, right? It's fake, but that's what they call it, same sex marriage. God defines marriage. That's between a man and a woman. But man tries to alter it. And so that's why we put it in air quotes. So President Obama, wanted to come out during the 08 campaign, his first run, and affirm so called same sex marriage. Remember, there was all the litigation going on, there was the marriage resolutions going on in all the states, 30 plus states passed one man, one woman marriage constitutional amendments. But David Axelrod, his senior campaign advisor at the time, and I'm summarizing this, I'm paraphrasing, David Axelrod actually came to President Obama and he said, basically, look, Barack, Hussein, you can't come out in favor of homosexual marriage, so called, because the public isn't there yet. That's in essence what Axelrod said, not a quote. And so President Obama, begrudgingly went along with Axelrod's advice and did not come out, in favor of same sex, so called marriage. Well, quickly after he was elected president, Obama immediately began showing his true colors and embracing the LGBTQ agenda so much that, he notoriously lit up the White House in rainbow colors, symbolizing their deviancy, lit up the White House in rainbow colors the evening of the supreme court ruling in 2015. And let's not forget, before 2015, during, the second go at his presidency in 2012, the Democrat National Convention notoriously booed God at their, national convention. And this came about because, it looks like North Carolina delegates, this was a context. North Carolina delegates audibly booed after convention leadership abruptly forced a vote to reinsert God and the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital into the party platform. So that was the context in which they booed, when they tried to insert God back into the party platform. but President Obama, I, don't believe was that genuine in his Christian faith that it ever existed or was. I don't know. I'm not a reader of the heart, but I can tell you by his actions, there's very little fruit here. but he was kind of talking the talk and you can tell listening to somebody. President Obama was very uncomfortable and very non confident in his answer that I displayed there because it was really not a very hard question. And he kind of ummed, and ahded and took a few rabbit trails along the way. but nonetheless, he was basically, President Obama was basically coerced into holding a more Western orthodox viewpoint of human sexuality and creation and things of that matter during the 2008 campaign just for the sake of getting elected. I mean this is what this was about. I mean, Axelrod's advice was just purely political advice. Here's what you gotta do to get elected. And President Obama went along with it. He played the game. And as most unfortunately as most politicians do, they play the game whether they genuinely believe it or not. That's still up for debate. but President Obama is and was a wolf in sheep's clothing. And his true colors sure enough came out over time. And this is an example that believers ought to have. Much better, much better, discretion, much better, wisdom when it comes to looking at the works of people, looking at the fruit of people's lives. And you know, we cannot, we cannot just take people at their word saying, well, I'm a Christian or I'm going to do this or I'm going to do that. we ought to look at their record, look at their words that they say, look at their actions. Now I will say President Obama had a not quite controversial background in the Illinois legislature. And so, it wasn't as if there was this insurmountable evidence that President Obama was a wolf in sheep's clothing. I think he was really the perfect kind of dark horse candidate in that there just wasn't a whole lot there. There was some things, but just not a whole lot. And boy, did he sneak in there and to use his own words, brought about fundamental change to America is what he said he wanted to do. Well, wasn't quite the change you and I were imagining. A lot of change for a lot of bad is what happened during the Obama presidency. But to show you how far the Democrat party has come, President Obama at the time candidate in 08 said he believes in God. He believes in the Bible. It's true. He said now the Democrats don't even know God at all. Never heard of him. I don't know who you're talking about. We'll be back in a few.

American Family Resource Center helps you strengthen your Christian worldview and relationship with God

>>  : How do you find the tools you need to help you strengthen your Christian worldview or deepen your relationship with God? Of course you can scour the Internet for them, but even when you find something, you'll probably have to do more research to know if their Theology is trustworthy. There's an easier way that eliminates the hassle and saves you time. Head to the AFA Resource Center. You'll find a great selection of learning and information tools produced by AFA so you know it's biblically sound. That alone saves lots of time, but that's just part of what's available. You'll also find apparel to let others know about AFA or to help open the door for you to share your faith. We've even got American Family Coffee to give you a boost for those study sessions or to sit and enjoy a cup of java with someone as you share the gospel. There's so much more than that, and I don't want to bore you by trying to list everything. So stop by to today or whenever you can and take a look at all that's [email protected] resources.afa.net

>> Jeff Chamblee: At the Core podcast are available at afr.net now back to at the Core on American Family Radio.

Walker Wildmon welcomes back Oklahoma Representative Toni Hasenbeck

>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome, back to the program here on American Family Radio. I'm, Walker Wildmon. Glad to be with you. On today's edition of the program. We do have the video up on Facebook, all the major AFR social media handles. You got the live video up also. Stream.afa.net stream.afa.net well, welcoming back to the program and a friend of the ministry, Representative Tony Hassenbach from the state of Oklahoma. She represents District 65. She's also running for the, essentially the education head position there in Oklahoma as well. Representative Hasenbach, welcome to the program.

>> Toni Hasenbeck: Good afternoon. Thank you so much for having me back. It's fun.

>> Walker Wildmon: Yes, absolutely. Glad to talk to you.

You're running for state superintendent of public instruction in Oklahoma

And before we jump into some of the work you've done in the state legislature, remind me the position you're currently running for the statewide position, there in Oklahoma.

>> Toni Hasenbeck: In Oklahoma, we call it the state Superintendent of Public Instruction.

>> Walker Wildmon: Excellent. Now, this is the seat that Ryan Walters vacated. Is that correct?

>> Toni Hasenbeck: That is correct.

>> Walker Wildmon: Okay, excellent. Well, you would be a good fit for that. well, thank you. Following in the footsteps of Ryan. he did some good things while he was there. Representative, Hasenbeck let me ask, let's, let's talk about education. Obviously, you're running for the position, but you've also done some stuff in the legislature on this. A lot of things, in Mississippi specifically, and this is the one I'm most familiar with. the per capita spend on children is not exorbitant when you look at Like NewSong York, I think, is the highest. And NewSong York City is astronomical. It's insane what they're spending per pupil, if you will, in NewSong York City proper. but there's this persistent narrative from either the unions or even just the administrators that, hey, we just got to have more money, more money, more, teacher, pay got to go up, up, up. Yeah. And so, but that doesn't, per the data, that doesn't necessarily equate to better outcomes, for the students. So talk about your experience in this realm. and some. Some things other than just spending more money that can help teachers and students do better.

>> Toni Hasenbeck: Okay. Boy, that you just, like, opened up the candy store and said, when you get all the candy you want, you can have ice cream. So. Thank you. well, the first thing that I always like to say when I'm talking about teacher pay is the state sets a minimum salary scale, and every superintendent and every school board in the state of Oklahoma can look at that, and they can look at the resources allocated to their own school via local dollars and state appropriated dollars and make a decision on how much they want to pay their teachers. And some teachers pay, or, some teachers get paid between 3 and $12,000 over the minimum salary scale. And so that's. That's up to different, different school districts. another thing that has been my experience since we've been in the legislature is if I went back to the classroom that I was teaching in when I got elected, I'd be making 17,000 more dollars a year. And so I think that's a significant amount of money to increase. It's actually about $14,000 that I make in the legislature. So that might have been a bad move to not stay in the classroom. and so, I've also been in the room over the last eight years when we put $1.3 billion. Billion with a B billion dollars more money in our state funding formula that is, you know, the majority of that should, be going to classrooms. What we know is 41% of that is spent on instruction. And the other thing I know, which is kind of way out in the weed patch, is the system that we use to measure those dollars is weighed very heavily to allow you to count as many things as possible for instruction. And so, and I've always said this, like, some of our state dollars, we push it through that fund funding formula, and really, our districts can roll it up and smoke it. There's not that much accountability. Like, what are you doing with this money? And so, some schools do amazing things and no one wants and needs anything that they don't have access to. And other schools are not doing, that good of a job. And so the things in education that we can do for free is building principles, can, this summer, right now, today, if they're not this way already, they can learn how to be, they can teach themselves how to be, they can reach out to other people, how to be site based instructional leaders, they can walk in classrooms and recognize things going well and going right. And I will tell you, as a, a public school teacher for 19 years, when somebody recognized something that I was doing, that's really, I didn't need much. I could shut my door and teach. I once wanted to quit my job and a second grader wrote me a note on a bookmark that said, Mrs. Hasenbeck, you're doing a good job. Love, Garrett. And I have that in a frame. Sometimes I remind myself that, you know, 20 years ago, Garrett thought I was doing a good job. And so, teachers are just going to go do the things they need to do. We need to have people embedded in their environment who recognize it and do the hard things that keep them from doing what they need to do as students.

Oklahoma has been adding administrators and not hiring new teachers

>> Walker Wildmon: Recently, you and I talked, we did a Facebook Live event last week and we were talking about the same topic and the subject of, admin caps, administrative caps, administrative hiring caps, things like that came up, or maybe even just administrative budget caps. But nonetheless, is that something that any state has done where you, where you tell districts, hey, you can only hire this many administrators, or at a minimum, here's your budget for administrators. So to control this, this continual adding admin positions and not hiring new teachers, has any state actually gone down that path yet?

>> Toni Hasenbeck: Oh, that is one. I don't think I could answer that accurately. I will say this, when we start talking about that particular issue in the state of Oklahoma, I have a few superintendents who are running small rural schools and they utilize every dollar to the very best that they can. And I know a superintendent, and there's many like this, but there's one I know personally and I've known him well for a long time. But if he needs to be a math teacher, he will be a math teacher for the whole year. If he needs to be the middle school principal, if he needs to drive a bus, whatever he needs to do to make sure that school functions for that community and those children and those teachers, he'll do it. And so I don't ever want to cap the salary on a man or a woman who's doing that type of job in their community. But I will tell you, when we look at these giant districts that have eight layers of administration that don't ever talk to kids, that worries me because, administrators, we need to have more administrators deal with kids, and not just dealing with stuff. And when schools are focused on that, you know, eight layers of administration, they're not as focused on kids. And so, I don't know, I don't know if I could say we need to cap that, but I certainly, certainly think we could spend more money on instruction and making sure that kids get what they need and teachers get what they need. I mean, yes, I'll say that.

>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah. And obviously every state's different and even every. To your point, every district's different. but it just seems when you look at some of the stats on the number of hires, the teacher hires have pretty much flatlined, maybe a moderate increase. and once again these are per capita per student type numbers. But the administrative hires have just like straight up line. And when you talk to people in these districts, the narrative is very consistent about how large central office has become, and the varying positions that have been added to so called manage the district. and I know every state has their own term on what they call a district. Texas has the, I think the independent school district isds how they go by. but nonetheless, what, what are just one or two kind of things, in this position in Oklahoma, that you're running for in the education position? What are, what are one or two things that are, that are like day one, no brainer. This is what we're going to do. should you get elected there?

>> Toni Hasenbeck: Well, I want to put a system in place to identify the. I hope there's 1000, maybe 1500. But I want to identify the very best possible principals in the state of Oklahoma. And I want to reach out to superintendents who are outliers. Like, like we have a couple of school districts that outlawed cell, phone use in the classroom 10 and 12 years ago. So I, I want those guys to be on my advisory team to find these, these principles. And I want to talk to the principals who are making phone calls to parents when kids are bad or when kids are choosing, alternative behaviors.

>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah.

>> Toni Hasenbeck: or don't know how to, don't know how to be told no and regulate themselves. And that's typically what it is. I want to talk to those Superintendents who have plans in place to deal with kids like that in their school, other than the teacher just going back, going back into the teacher. And so when we can start to identify some of those outliers, then I want those outliers to find me the 1000 best building principles in the state of Oklahoma. And I want to take those building principals and I want to connect them in a direct mentorship program with the 1000 newest principals in the state of Oklahoma and just have this army of site based instructional leaders that meet the needs of teachers, meet the needs of students. Because that is the missing link in I think education all over the country is somewhere, about the same time I think we stopped telling kids, no, we stopped reminding building principles, of how important and how beautiful their job is to make sure that teachers have their needs met too. and so that is such a pivotal thing. That's one of, that's the first thing I want to do.

>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah. And to your point, there are. We talk about what's wrong with education, but you can find these outliers and these outlying districts or principals that are just doing things very, very well and you talk to parents and students and everybody's very satisfied with the district. those are the ones to your point that you want to point out and replicate as much. Absolutely, as much as possible.

Toni Hasenbeck is running for Oklahoma education head position

Hey, we've been talking to Oklahoma State Representative Toni Hasenbeck She represents District 65. She's running for the education head position in the state of Oklahoma. Ah, Representative Hasenbeck thanks so much for your work for coming on the program. Program and we wish you the best of luck.

>> Toni Hasenbeck: Absolutely. Walker, thank you so much. Have a great day.

>> Walker Wildmon: Absolutely. Thanks so much.

Peter Thiel was questioned about the amount of screen time he allows his children

That's Representative Hasenbeck from m, the state of Oklahoma. She's running for the essentially the head of education in the state there in Oklahoma. So good to speak with her. And she's as she mentioned, has nearly two decades in the classroom, a lot of experience in the education world and can actually talk about it in firsthand, ways unlike myself and others who just read reports and talk to people in education. So good to talk to Representative Hassenbach, on a similar topic related to children and their well being and things like that. I wanted to play this clip that I found over the weekend. real quick. This is Peter Thiel was being interviewed at a conference, and he's obviously a tech executive, multi billionaire, but he was questioned about the amount of time he allows his own children to spend on screens. This is pretty telling. listen to this interaction. This is going to be clip 3.

>> Chris Brown: The Surgeon General was here in Aspen. and I think you've probably seen in the last, couple weeks that he came out and genuinely believes that social, media and the Facebooks of the world really have done a real disservice to young people in the country. And I just wonder what you think of that as somebody who invested early in Facebook. man, there's I think, you know, I can't say that he's 100% wrong. the place where I always push back on is that I feel it's it's too easy to turn tech or the social media companies into the scapegoat for all of our problems. And there is some kind of a, interesting critique one can make of the tech companies. and if you ask how many of the executives in those companies, how m. Much screen time do they let their kids use? And there's probably sort of an interesting critique one could make. What do you do? not very much. And I think that's very.

>> Chris Brown: What's not very much?

>> Peter Thiel: An hour and a half a week. I want a half a week. Something like that.

>> Chris Brown: How old are, how old are your kids?

>> Peter Thiel: Three and a half, Five years.

>> Chris Brown: Three and a half and five years old. Okay.

>> Peter Thiel: But, but, but, and I think that that is sort of, if I had to do the, if I, if I were to make the anti tech argument, it's that there are probably a, lot of people in tech who do something quite similar for their own families and that, and there's some questions that, that might lead you to ask. And then on the, on the other hand, it, you know, I don't think this is, you know, the main cause for all of the different types of social dysfunction we have. And it's maybe it's a 15%, 20% cause. You know, there's, you know, there's, there's sort of a lot of other things that have gone super haywire in our society. And, and and by, by putting all the blame onto, you know, this, this onto tech or onto one company, you are, you know, really ignoring a lot of other stuff.

>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, I actually agree with him pretty much on everything he said there. the, the first thing is that he, he admitted or he, he let everybody know there at the conference and they all gasped that he only allows his kids 90 minutes of screen time. Not per day, per week. 90 minutes per week of Screen time. That's coming from a technology executive, that knows the effects of the technology on the human brain. Very fascinating there, and I think we can learn a lot from it. also the, his last statement there about, hey, there's other problems than just screen time in our society. And he's exactly right. Look, we don't need to spend all of our time blaming these far off major companies like a meta, like an X, etc. there's problems that we have that we're directly responsible for in our own household. All right? So we don't need to constantly shift blame to these far off major companies and just blame them for all the societal ills. yes, some of the technology is a problem. A lot of these platforms are very private, problematic, and we write legislation as such to hold them accountable. But at the same time, we've got to have parents and caregivers that are, conscientious of these measures, of these boundaries that we ought to have for our children so that, we don't have to rely on some technology company for setting some boundary. we've got to set our own boundaries to start off. And then from there, obviously there's expectations for products. We'll be back in a few minutes.

American Family Radio is raising funds to help confirm Supreme Court justices

Right now, the voices in our culture are loud. But truth is often silent. And today, preborns need you to help speak that truth. Women facing unplanned pregnancies are often pressured to act quickly before they have time to pause, breathe, or, hear the truth about life, death, dignity and hope. But I refuse to be silent. And I'm asking you to join me. At preborn network clinics, a woman is welcomed with compassion and given a free ultrasound. She sees the life growing inside her, often for the very first time. And in that sacred moment, fear gives way to clarity. And she's offered something abortion industry will never provide. The hope of Jesus Christ. This April, our goal is to have 11,000 gospel conversations in preborn network clinics, trusting God to bring the increase as we remain faithful to speak. You can help make that possible by sponsoring ultrasounds. Just $28 provides one ultrasound and $140 provides five free ultrasounds for mothers in crisis. Every dollar helps save babies and share the hope of the gospel. To donate, dial pound250 and say the keyword baby. That's pound250 and say the keyword baby'. Or visit preborn.com afr that's preborn.com afr America was founded as a nation under God. But the U.S. supreme Court has broken our national relationship with God. Many court rulings have contributed, but three stand out. In 1962, the court removed prayer from public schools. In 1963, the court removed Bible reading from public schools. And lastly, in 1980, the court removed the Ten Commandments from America's classrooms. The Supreme Court broke our relationship with God. and any restoration of that relationship must include the Supreme Court. And a vacancy on the Supreme Court could soon be coming. So please support AFA Action's urgent legal work to help President Trump select and the US Senate confirm godly constitutional justices for the Supreme Court. We put thousands of applications, hours of research into potential nominees. We use our networks of the Trump administration and the U.S. senate to promote the good nominees and oppose the bad ones. AFA Action needs the resources of supporters like you to help maximize our efforts. So please visit afaaction.net to learn more and donate today.

>>  : This is at the Core on American Family Radio with your host, Walker Wildmon.

Chris Brown is the Chairman of the Mississippi Public Service Commission

>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome back to the program. Walker Wildmon here with you on today's edition of the program. Rick Green and myself were your host each week on the program. Good to be with you on this edition of the show. Well, introducing a previous guest of the program, Chris Brown is with us. He's a public service commissioner for the Northern District in Mississippi and he's with us now to talk about energy and power and some things, things that are being done on the innovation side, to make things more efficient. representative or Commissioner Brown, welcome to the program.

>> Chris Brown: Great, thanks for having me.

>> Walker Wildmon: Well Chris tell us a little bit about your background and how long you've been in this position and then of course we'll jump into this nuclear power, phenomena. Sure.

>> Chris Brown: I'm the chairman of Mississippi Public Service Commission. I'm also president of C RUC which is the kind of the southeastern states, group a conference of regulators. It's kind of the Southeast plus Puerto Rico. so it, my background is I'm a businessman. I was ah, in manufacturing for a little while so understood the limitations of energy. So especially with solar and lithium and what you could do and really just how long you could be off grid with it and what you could power with it and what you couldn't. And that really, that with manufacturing and having five kids and a family made me get involved with the future and you know, how do we generate energy and how do we make sure it's reliable, affordable and available. And it was a very big concern which led me to run for the PSC And I've been at this position, three years. It'd be three years in January.

>> Walker Wildmon: correct me if I'm wrong, one of the primary jobs obviously is regulating the energy infrastructure. Is that correct or are there some other major areas that you guys oversee?

>> Chris Brown: Yeah, the Public Service Commission is there as kind of a firewall. So if you have a monopoly like electricity, sewer, water, natural gas, we're kind of that, that quasi judicial, position to, to guard the ratepayer against the, the monopoly and make sure that it all is working, as in synergy, as best you can.

>> Walker Wildmon: Gotcha.

Nuclear energy is making somewhat of a resurgence in the United States

the topic of nuclear is why I wanted to have you on. And you actually wrote a piece in January about this subject, was published in the Magnolia Tribune. but nuclear is obviously has been around for a long time, but is making somewhat of a resurgence. And this newer technology is a lot more efficient and honestly safe maybe compared to 50 to 70 years ago. But nonetheless, this modular nuclear, this kind of small nuclear technology that is being rapidly developed by some of these private companies and that is being tested by the federal Department of Energy has a lot of potential, with it. And so talk a little bit about it and some of the optimism that you see on this front.

>> Chris Brown: It's an exciting time. I tell my colleagues it's probably the most innovative time in energy since Edison discovered the light bulb. You know, it's a little bit of a stretch, but it's actually true because it's going so fast with all the demand for energy and the country that gets it right is going to win the economic development battle and the quality of life for our citizens fight, as well. So nuclear has been around a long time. Like you said, the United states currently has 96, traditional reactors. China has 55, Russia has 38 and France has 56. So we're kind of the leader, the four countries leading it. But currently the United States has zero in production because they are very expensive. China's building has 29 currently in production and Russia has two. So we need to play a little bit of catch up. And so with the new administration we are starting to move kind of that NRC regulation from, from just strictly the, the regs and how to build it. And then they're slowly moving into promoting nuclear energy. And to your point, an smr, So a traditional reactor is usually about a thousand megawatts. And that's what you see, the big towers and the those aren't, you know, those towers are cooling Towers. So nuclear heats the water, creates steam and it rises up and turns the turbine and that's what creates electricity. So the nuclear is there to create the heat. So those things are, those are very expensive propositions. We just, last two we built were completed last year in Georgia. Vogel 3 and 4. And so we, we forgot how to build them quite honestly. So in Georgia it took a longer than it, they thought to build it and cost more than they thought it was going to cost because we needed that learning curve again. But with that said, now is kind of all hands on deck. So nuclear is coming back. the exciting ones that you're talking about are the, there's SMRs and micros. An SMR is a 300 megawatt smaller footprint, smaller unit takes up less land mass and like I said it's advanced reactor so they're much safer. And I always like to remind people we've, we've been building nuclear reactors just for the navy. So the Navy, every aircraft carrier has two nuclear reactors on it and every sub has one. So they're very, very safe. And the new technology is totally different. one of our speakers actually said this week when you compare the safety of a nuclear power plant, it's like working in a library is how safe it is.

>> Walker Wildmon: Wow, that's amazing.

Everything has a lifespan on it. Even renewable energy sources

let me ask you this on the on the two, on the various forms of energy production. M. We've got your traditional you know, natural gas, coal, then we have your your more modern and of course nuclear falls into the more traditional. But then you have the the so called renewable the, the solar panels and the windmills etc. And I say so called renewable because nothing's truly renewable in that. the panels then the batteries and the wind farms, they all need equipment to be built and that equipment has a lifespan that expires. So nothing is indefinite. Ah, everything has a lifespan on it. Even the so called renewable energy sources. But when you look at, for someone who does this every day, when you look at the solar farms and the wind farms and then the battery banks and stuff, do you think with this, with this nuclear coming into the 21st century, do you think solar and wind is even going to be a thing in a decade or two or do you think the inefficiencies of it are just going to make it to where nobody wants to invest in it? I'm very interested because under Biden it was like the thing, right? They were just pumping billions of Dollars into wind and solar. But with these SMRs coming around and the safety data and the efficiency, to me as an investor, it's just really hard to get excited about wind and solar when you're looking at this new nuclear technology. But what are your thoughts?

>> Chris Brown: Yeah, exactly, exactly. That you know, there's a place for solar, it's on a utility scale. So when you start deploying solar panels, they're very cheap but their lifespan is not very long. So even, even in a 10 to 12, 15 years, that technology is usually dated and old. We're replacing solar panels in a lot of solar fields that are less than four years old. So it's a tremendous amount of investment there. Plus it takes a large amount of land. So like an AP1000 nuclear, reactor, it's a thousand megawatts. To get a thousand megawatts of solar you have to have large amounts of real estate and land. But that AP1000 is going to be producing energy 50, 60, 70 years from now without any major, major M upgrades that, that plant is going to continue to run for that long while. That solar panel field is going to be replaced within four or five, 10 years. And we ran some numbers so you have to have a dispatchable the sun only shines. So general rule of thumb solar is 25% efficient. So the sun only shines so much. It never shines at night, at least not in the continental US and never shines at night. And you, that's the power that you have to store. So by the time you add batteries to make it dispatchable so you can harness the power from the sun during the day, hold it at night and then release it to homes. And at night when there's no sun shining, that cost was what they call hardening. Solar is 40 to 80 cents per kilowatt hour to where advanced nuclear is 10 cents a kilowatt hour. So the economy is really flip when you start trying to say, okay, what is resilience important? If you want renewables without solar, natural gas and coal, it's going to be intermittent. And so you have to have natural rolling brownouts. And you know, much like California, California made some bad energy policies and they, they literally have assigned rolling brown out so people live with, with, you know, hey, they get a notice or their power goes out and it's out for eight to 12 hours and then there's nothing they can do about it because it's bad energy policy. So and to answer your question, is it, is that technology going to be around for a long time. I don't think so. Because the batteries, the batteries are the limitation. Yeah, it takes tremendous amount of money to have these battery banks. And then you talk about the human, human capital too. Cobalt mining and all these other things that, that are reportedly very immoral. Those things have to have to be gathered up and those natural resources are controlled by other countries. Nuclear we can do here and we can do it. Well like I said, we're leading the world right now with 96 reactors. the Department of Energy and the Trump administration and they're fast tracking micro reactors. that's a 50 megawatt and less. It's about the size of a shipping container. So small towns like Tupelo for example would probably be a 50, 60 megawatt city, probably maybe even 40 megawatts. So that one little nuclear reactor that's the size of a shipping container power the whole city.

>> Walker Wildmon: That's fascinating.

>> Chris Brown: They're saying that they're going to have the first one, the first concept ready to go by July 4th of this year to celebrate our 250th year. So if that happens, get ready, the micros are going to come really fast after that.

>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah. And to your point, once they get, once you get the first concept proven and tested and all that and online, actually I would get it online whether it's on a military base or some government facilities, probably where they'll do the first runner. They're doing some out in Utah on the department of Energy land now. But once you get the first one deployed to your point, the private sector will just pump them out rapidly. and the cost, the consumer cost, we're talking about energy costs going down if this scales like it's supposed to and assuming there's no surprises on the investment front where it costs more than they thought. but if everything pans out, we could even have energy costs that at a minimum flat line. But you could also see some reductions in energy cost, where these are deployed over the long haul.

Commissioner Brown: For running municipalities, wind and solar make little economic sense

but that is interesting to hear from you on the solar and wind because the way it has been leaned into, and I do agree there are places for deployment that makes sense. Like if you're setting up, you know, a house in remote Alaska, or you know, somewhere off the grid and you just need power and there's literally no other option other than running a generator 24,7 then that might make sense in the long haul. But for running municipalities, these, wind and solar just don't make much economic sense. And that's not even talking about efficiency, just purely from an economic standpoint. Rep. Commissioner, Brown, last word on this and what do you think on what's the timeline on actually seeing one in a town? We're probably talking a couple years down the road, road minimum. Right before you see a municipality being run off of these modular reactors.

>> Chris Brown: You know, the micro is going to come first and I think we'll see those in a couple, three years. The SMR is going to be the 300 megawatts, probably four or five years. It may fast track, but that's a short live, a short time in energy. And I will tell you this, I'll try to get this in real quick, but energy policy matters. So you look at Germany. Germany was bragging at the first quarter of last year, year before that, that 50% of their energy was renewable. So wind, solar and other renewables. But they didn't tell you they had the second highest per kilowatt hour energy cost of any country in the world. So they've lost a lot of their economic development base and their standard of living has, has gone down. There's a recent report that showed that if Germany joined the United States, their per capita production per citizen is less than Mississippi. So we're more productive as a state than they are. So they made some bad energy choices, now they're paying for it and their citizens are suffering. And I tell people that's why Alabama's are built. I mean Mercedes are built in Alabama, BMWs in South Carolina and Volkswagen's in Tennessee. So let's not make the mistakes of other countries. We can do better. And if we win this economic development fight, we get energy right. We build it. If we build it, they'll come. We will win the economic development war and we will dominate the world economically for years and years to come. So it's very incumbent we get this right.

>> Walker Wildmon: Absolutely. Yep. We got to get it right. We cannot repeat the mistakes of the past. even in our past, this neglecting of nuclear for so long, was a big, big mistake. Looking in hindsight. Commissioner Brown, thanks so much for coming on. We appreciate your work.

>> Chris Brown: Thanks Walker. Have a good day.

>> Walker Wildmon: Yep, absolutely. God bless.

Chris Brown: Everybody is now recognizing that wind and solar are unsustainable

Yes sir, that's Chris Brown. He's Northern District of Mississippi Public service commissioner there. He's the chairman of the Public Service Commission and doing excellent work on the energy side and bringing us into the 21st century on the energy front with an effect on everyone's lives. When you look at the cost of energy, every American in some way, is affected by that, whether it's their home or their business, or even the business they work for. These energy costs are spread across the board and affect the lives of everyone. And this is going to be, you talk about a very rapid change in, mindset and in narrative, how quickly the wind and solar is taking a back seat. My friends, this is, this is quite scandalous. and what I mean by that is you had the entire federal government under President Biden and even the entirety in some way of the private sector. Not all, but you had the majority of the private sector energy just leaning into this wind and solar as if it was the next gospel, as if it was the next great economic development or innovation, when in reality I've told you and the experts have told you over and over again, look, this is not sustainable, this is not good, it's not efficient, it doesn't last. There's a lot of problems with this wind and solar. We've been saying this for years. And finally it's actually bearing itself out, it's being borne out. And even the, government and the private sector, everybody is now recognizing that long term wind and solar is unsustainable and nuclear is the way of the future.

>>  : The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.