ICE Bills, Cannabis Markets, and Solar Energy

From Red Oak to Greenville, Bluefield to Orange, and Gold Vein to Silver Beach, the Virginia Press Room features the voices of Virginia's press corps from every corner of Virginia. The podcast is a joint production of the Virginia Public Access Project and VPM News. Now, here's the host of the press room, Michael Pope. In the press room this week, we are joined by an all-star panel of journalists from the Virginia press corps first up is the environment and energy reporter for the virginia mercury shannon hecht thanks for joining us hey pope thanks for having me we are also joined by the richmond bureau chief for radio iq brad cuttner thanks for joining us hey thanks for having me pope rounding out our all-star panel is the general assignment reporter for vpm news dean marsha he thanks for joining us great to be here michael thank you all right let's get right into it with our headlines of the week Brad Kuttner of Radio IQ, you're first with us. What's your headline of the week? So I guess first up, Abigail Spanberger undid one of Glenn Youngkin's, former Governor Glenn Youngkin's last maneuvers in office the day before her inauguration. He sent a memo to Department of General Services that manages the sale of state land, ordering, asking them to affirm a contract for the, uh, shuttered prison Augusta correctional center out in Craigsville, Virginia. Um, the understanding from the Spanberger admin is that the sale did not go through. Um, and so in a memo Thursday, last Thursday, uh, she asked, uh, DGS to, uh, undo any recent maneuvers, I can't remember the language specifically, but stop all sales and order a review of all bids for all state land. In addition, in explicitly the Augusta project, I believe. So that's a big deal because the ACLU of Virginia last week revealed some documents from a FOIA that showed that ICE has a number of locations they're looking at in the Commonwealth. Obviously, the Hanover one, the locality said they disapprove of the project. We'll see what happens there. But out among the listed locations was reopening of Augusta Correctional as a ICE detention center. That's crazy for a lot of reasons. In addition to Republican Delegate Runyon, Chris Runyon, I spoke to him on the House chamber floor and he said he was opposed to the project for a number of reasons. And it was actually kind of funny because I guess they closed the prison and people were worried about the economic impacts of that. but he made it sound like the community didn't really want it anymore. And closure of the prison also opened up more water. So like he was, he was like, Hey, let's build houses and stuff, uh, economic development. And as I was speaking to delegate Runyon, Speaker Scott walked by and he, uh, uh, like many of us probably thought that Runyon would say, yeah, put ice there, but was grateful to hear Runyon disapprove. And in a minute of live action legislation, the two appeared to agree to get some money to Craigsville to do some economic development down there. So check out my story from last week on that. I've been hitting the ice beat real hard. I've been monitoring how Spanberger is interacting with the federal agency since taking office just over two weeks ago. Among her first actions was an executive order that empowered her to remove, well, it removed a quote unquote mandate from Youngkin that required or asked every possible agency in the state to join a 287g agreement with the federal agency, which involves the detention and transfer of those without citizenship. Only 34 agencies in the state out of what, like a possible 260 are in the agreement with ICE, and notably Spanberger, while giving herself the authority to relieve the agreement, has so far not decided to do so. That further made her undoing of the sale of Augusta interesting to me because I asked specifically if the next bit of the project involved the opening of an ICE detention center, if she as governor would block that project. And I was told no comment. So there's just been a really interesting dance from the Spanberger side about how to handle ICE as obviously they make headlines for their actions in Minnesota. And then over in the legislature, there has been some surprising movement on a 287G specific bill. Salim in the Senate has a bill that puts guardrails on any future 287G agreements, which in all the rumors I heard did not sound likely at the start of session. But after the incidents in Minnesota, you had Majority Leader Scott Cerevelle cheering on the effort in subcommittee. I don't know if it's gone to the floor yet because I don't track the Senate. That's your beat, Pope. And then over in the House, there's been some similar talk efforts around 287G wrangling. But arguably more importantly, Simon Lopez and Maldonado actually missed the press conference, announced several bills last week. And from my understanding is if if majority or if speaker allowed them to present the bills so forward and publicly, that likely means speaker is interested in seeing them get out of the chamber. So that's the likely successful ICE bills in the House and the Senate. Yeah, there's just a lot going on. Dean Mursahi, what's your headline of the week? So a lot of focus and attention has gotten on cannabis. Obviously, in 2021, Virginia lawmakers passed decriminalization, essentially allowing small amounts of marijuana possession, but without setting up any sort of retail market for recreational sales. Obviously, there's a medical market available, but now with Spanberger in office and Democrats controlling both chambers, the plan to go ahead with the retail market is pushing forward. There are changes made from the bill that Youngkin vetoed last year in terms of the timeline and the taxes. I think that the House bill is moving towards a Paul Krizak, the delegate who proposed the bill last year. He's proposing a November 1, 2026 start. the Senate version. I just changed now. Senator LaStruz aired changing it to January 1. There's been a lot of questions about this timeline. I think a lot of people have been kind of focused on when this is going to be available for people. But a lot of discussions I've had with farmers, with small business owners, with, you know, cannabis market, you know, advocates and other people, especially Chelsea Higgs-Wise for Marijuana Justice, a lot of them are pushing for an even further delay past January 1, even into May. Why do they want the delay? A lot of them are concerned about being, I guess, pushed out of the market or not being able to compete with big boys who have already kind of settled in, medical companies, medicinal companies, other companies that have kind of a foot in already who can kind of set up the market and be ready for recreational sales. The quick turnaround would benefit the big business and not the small business person. Yeah. Because local farmers, the farmers I've spoken to have just talked about kind of the logistics of putting everything together. If licenses or applications come out and open up in September, August, if there's a November start, it kind of forces them to do all of that regulatory stuff, get the process done, and then also grow the plant so it can be sold. So it's such a narrow window for them that they're just worried that on day one, if November one is the day, they're just going to essentially a bunch of large corporations are going to be the ones that are benefiting from Virginia opening up the legal market. So that's why they want to push it back. I see that a small business group, a small cannabis business group wants to actually push back to May even further. They want to lower the tax rate, possibly the 10%. I know that lawmakers are pushing for an up to 3.5% sales tax for localities. I think that's kind of an additional kind of provision that they wanted to put forward because of the removing of the opt out, because there was a lot of discussion whether or not local governments should be allowed to decide what or whether they should have cannabis shops in their in their areas. But, you know, I know that Democrats are pushing for that not to happen. They don't feel like that is something that should be should be allowed to happening. So that that is definitely something that I'm watching. Yeah, Dina, I'm originally from Washington State, which was one of the earlier states to legalize marijuana. And so that legalization was around the time I entered college. Sorry, Brad, in 2014. And it was fascinating going from my freshman year where, you know, weed was still, you know, everyone had their dealer and things like that. And by the time I graduated from Washington State in a college town of like around 30,000 people, we had six weed shops that everyone went to. And so I've seen how quickly this business can really start up and start making money for our state. So I am curious about, like you said, especially with these other states that have the big conglomerates, they could just move into Virginia So with these debates that we seeing on the legislation what kind of parameters are there if any to protect these small businesses that want to start up here in Virginia for the marijuana business? Well, a lot of those businesses are already kind of set up in Virginia. That's kind of the big concern. I think that there are parts and provisions in the bill that do allow for smaller businesses, you know, to get a leg up, to get funding, to get kind of, you know, help it during the process. But I know that it's limited, at least right now in the bill to, I think, 100 licenses. So there are kind of concerns about whether or not it's, I guess, enough for all of them. I did speak with Delegate Krizak, who is carrying the bill. I spoke with him last week about kind of where he's expecting this deadline to open and when we can see retail sales. he says it's still up in the air he's still pushing for november one but he can see a chance for it to be even further into 2027 so and then there's the question with the farmers of how fast can you even grow marijuana to get it done call it a weed for a reason though yeah that's the that's that is the big issue shannon hecht of the virginia mercury you're next on this what's your headline of the week. Yeah, so I have a story that came out this morning about a bill that passed out of the Senate on Friday that has to do with solar siding. So a big issue, obviously, that we have in the Commonwealth is that we need more energy, we need more power for the data centers for our electrification of our vehicles, you know, for our homes, anything. And so with the Virginia Clean Economy Act, there is an incentive to have more solar energy. But one of the challenges that the utilities and companies are seeing is that when they go to localities and they pitch to the board of supervisors, hey, we want to build a solar farm of X amount of megawatts, you know, what do you say? And they're often met with a lot of community pushback. And part of that is because of political ideologies or maybe misinformation, or people simply just don't want this in their backyard. And the state is trying to find ways to, you know, ease the concerns of local governments, of residents to help them understand what a good project could look like. Because there certainly are bad actors in every industry. There are solar projects that have been built in Virginia that were just not done well and have caused issues for the localities. But this legislation, SB 347 by Senator Schuyler von Valkenberg, looks to essentially ban bans on solar. So it would keep localities from not allowing even permits to be heard for solar projects. But they could still deny them all they want. They still just have to allow them to even be considered. And then there's also kind of a framework of standards of what a good solar project could look like. according to the industry and the stakeholders that he consulted for this bill. So there's setbacks from how far away it should be from homes and away from roads and fences and all these things that when these things are proposed to be built in your backyard that you really, really care about because you don't want them shining in your eyes or taking up your backyard and your farm and things like that. But the localities don't have to follow that standard. It's just a general good practice because the localities that don't have the ordinances or plans for these types of projects, it can be really stressful when you're facing down 100 commenters at a board of supervisors meeting to determine, is 200 feet enough? Is 100 feet enough? And so, you know, they still have the power within the locals to approve or deny. But this is the hope is to help encourage more projects to get through, to have a baseline to look at. Because we're seeing certain cases. I've seen Delegate Rip Sullivan and Senator Van Valkenburg talk about there are counties out there that in one meeting will approve a data center but deny a solar project. project. And, you know, that's their right to do that, to determine on, like, you know, the tax incentives and everything that they want to get. But we need power for all these things. And so I sat down with Vin Valkenberg about this before the Senate floor vote to talk about it. And, you know, there are some concerns from the Farm Bureau about losing ag land. Some of the local municipalities are always hesitant to see the state, you know, try to impede on local decisions, Even if this isn't necessarily, you know, they're getting nervous about it. And he said, well, you know, we have to do something. We need more power. And we can't just keep denying all these projects. And the utilities have to build solar because they have been mandated by the law to do so. And he said, this is a first step to keep it so they don't have to eventually do a mandate, basically. And go ahead. so last week the Republican the Senate Republicans had a press conference and this bill came up one of the reporters asked about it I guess this is the danger of doing press conferences you you actually get questions and you have to respond to them one of the reporters asked we're very grateful when they do the reporters me you Shannon Act of the Virginia Mercury asked about this particular bill and Mark Obenshain said well you know that's great for Van Valkenburg he can put up all the solar panels he wants in Henrico but local governments should have traditional zoning authority and their local government should be able to do whatever they want to do. So Van Valkenburg says, well, my bill just says you can't ban them outright. You have to consider them each and every time. But what would you, I mean, what would Van Valkenburg say to the criticism that what if the local government should have the power to ban them? Right. I mean, like I'm sure local governments are probably saying, you know, we want more power to do what we want to do. You know, basically what he has said in his defense of the bill when it was in subcommittee and when I was listening to Delegate Herring when she was carrying the House version of this in subcommittee this week is that localities can still deny every single application that comes through to them under this bill. You know, it just requires that they have to allow it to even be applied for. So even if, you know, say Louisa County never wants to have a solar project, they don't have to under this bill. They could say, no way, no matter what standards you set up, we don't want it. We want to stay rural, ag, what have you. And so that's been kind of the main defense. But, you know, the Association of Counties and the Farm Bureau, you know, they are all a little nervous about this bill because they want to have the locals to have that ultimate say no matter what, especially because each project is different, whether it's one megawatt or 100 megawatts. you know, there, you, it doesn't one size fit all for solar projects. Which I think was the line from Spanberger's Commonwealth address, state of the Commonwealth, right? It's the one size fits all has been repeated a few times. I can't remember which Senator said it, but proposing alternative. The path to hell is paved with permissive language. Now Vaco is never going to respond to my press request. They shall respond. All right. This podcast is quickly descending downhill. So let's move on to our next segment and get some insider info. This is when our top reporters reveal the story behind the story, giving us an inside scoop on Virginia politics. Dean Mershahi of EPM News, your first with us. What's your insider info? I actually got to work on the story that I've been pitching for years now with another station I worked at. But I got to work on kind of the hidden faces or the unfamiliar faces in the artwork at the Capitol, at Virginia State's Capitol. I think we all know kind of the Washingtons, the Jefferson, the statues. But walking through the halls and having moments to just sit and kind of take in these portraits and looking at them always make me think about who these people are and what stories they have. and why are they so close to obviously very important people in meetings and stuff. And what really got my attention was the portrait of Peter Francisco outside of the House of Delegates chambers. I really had no clue who this person was when I first saw him, and I keep on looking at him. So I did research on him, and then I realized he's from Portugal, Portuguese descent. It was found orphaned in Hopeville area and then eventually became, you know, the House of Delegates Sergeant of Arms and was eventually kind of in the Revolutionary War working, you know, doing so many kind of things in terms of his battle exploits. And he has kind of a larger than life kind of figure in terms of he was allegedly 6'6 at the age of 15. There's a short film about him that I was able to find on Amazon. There's a lot of different things about him that just really caught my eye. But this essentially led me down a path of finding different things in the Capitol that kind of stood out and doesn't get a lot of attention. So people like that, I really think that visitors of the Capitol could definitely come in here and obviously see a lot of lobbyists and lawmakers and doing a lot of kind of the legislative work. But looking at and seeing kind of the faces on the walls to see kind of the history that this place has. And it's something that really interests me. So I know that you are really interested in artwork as well, Michael. So the art around the Capitol building is one of my favorite topics to talk about. And I love giving tours and talking about all the portraits There two things that come to mind One is the you know for many years there were two different portraits of Harry Byrd There was on the third floor, there is old man Harry Byrd from the 1960s, and he's wearing a white outfit, and you can almost smell fried chicken in the background, right? And then on the second floor, there was the official governor's portrait. As you walked up the stairwell heading into the Senate chamber, there was the Harry Byrd's official gubernatorial portrait from the 1920s until it was removed and it's no longer in the Capitol. And now Dick Saslaw is there giving the fist bump to you as you walk up the stairwell. So that's one important change in recent years in the artwork. The other thing that I find really interesting about portraits is if you look on the third floor, they've got all the governors, the recent governors in chronological order. And so you can walk around and learn about the governors. This is an interesting trivia question. There is one governor that has two portraits on the third floor. Y'all know who the... Of course we don't. Yeah, I do. Godwin. Mills Godwin. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah. Pod Virginia used to have a trivia contest, but you just won the Pod Virginia Emeritus trivia question because there's the portrait of Democratic Governor Mills Godwin. And then the non-consecutive term, there's the portrait of Republican and Mills Godwin. Is the vibe different? Totally. What are the key differences? This is your homework assignment. Go up to the third floor and check out the two different Mills Godwin and let us know on social media what you learn. I was going to say the Sazla one is funny because he was the big advocate for keeping Embar and he always used to say no saloons in Virginia. And so when I did my Embar story, I was talking to Stanley outside of the Senate chamber and he's anti-Embar filing a lawsuit. And I said, hey, can I get a picture? of you standing in front of Sasslaw when you talk about this. And he said, no. Well, important point. Dick Sasslaw replaced Harry Berg. Yeah. And that's why I was excited when you said Sasslaw. Because I was like, oh, I have a thing. Shed an heck to the Virginia Mercury. You're next on this. What's your insider info? Yeah. So I am still pretty new to Virginia. I've been here for about eight months. And so I like learning about what maybe some of the more hyper local issues are. And one for Nova that I learned watching one of the subcommittees is that gas powered leaf blowers are very controversial. There was a bill being carried by Delegate Rip Sullivan to allow municipalities to pass ordinances to ban them and so forth. And they're noisy. Yeah, they're very. People don't like them. It's an annoying noise in Northern Virginia. I was listening to some of the testimony and these these poor folks were talking about how they're like, oh, we're going to have to move because it's so loud. And as someone who is very anti-leaf blower in general, that's a big sell for me. Because the whole thing is like, I know it's supposed to make it easier. So you don't have to like break your back using a rake and all that. But you're supposed to bag up the leaves and then throw it away. But people just blow it into the road. And so then it just blows back everywhere. And I see you. I see you not getting rid of them. And so I felt very like invested in this leaf blower debate. Permissive language for leaf blowers. mandates for solar panels. You know, in Arlington, the big noise complaints are always helicopters and leaf blowers. This is a big thing in Northern Virginia. Helicopter noise, leaf blower noise. All right. So what's the status of this? Has it blown over yet? Yeah, so they continued it to 2027. So that argument is done. I suggest to people going analog, using a rake. Brad Kuttner. and his Rick of Radio IQ. What's your insider info? So the redistricting fight is continuing. It's in the chamber. We had enabling language land on Spanberger's desk. She's got to sign it now. It's financial, $5 million to run the election. And then she'll eventually have to approve maps. We were supposed to get those maps on Friday, but we did not. Um, over on, so, uh, recent polling puts, uh, I think it was 51, 49 out of Watson center, uh, in favor of redistricting. However, um, independence was like 65 to 30 something, which is just bananas. Um, add to that, the, uh, use of mail voting ballots that are going to get sent, which is mostly Democrats in the state, I'm imagining it's not going to be that hard to get those on the left who are interested in redistricting to sign and send that back. So that's among obstacles for those who oppose this effort. Among those who oppose this effort, former Attorney General Jason Meares, who has been pointing to and as the judge in Tazewell County did pointed to a legal opinion before he left office, trying to poke a number of holes in Democratic leadership's plan to redistrict. And it worked in Tazewell. Now that they've got this final order that's trying to stop the process, the appeals machine gets wound up. And that means that we will see a number of arguments against the opinion striking. But notably, they might not even touch on the merits of what he says. They might just say the judge had no right to say this. Again, I'm very boring. But yeah, lots of redistricting news that we should be getting soon. And I'm looking forward to it. So last week, they set aside $5 million to pay for the April referendum. And so it feels like Democrats are pretty confident this is going to happen despite the court, the hiccup in the Tazewell surrogate court. The indie numbers on that are crazy. National money is going to flow into this. We've already heard Akeem Jeffries is very involved in the process. A question I keep asking on the right, because if I'm not mistaken, it's Eric Cantor and Jason Miyares are leading at least an independent or right-leaning independent effort to block all this. And you had two guys who did not fare too well in their most recent Virginia elections. Obviously, it's been a while for Cantor, but are national conservative groups, especially after the shellacking that Virginia Republicans took in November, are they going to be interested in spending money or giving money to people who run elections in this state? And I think that's a really big question that they're going to end up having to face and then might really hold back the no effort in the end. Hold back the effort, but they're not going to hold on our game show segment, buy, sell, or hold. I'll present a topic and our panelists will make a choice. Do they want to buy, sell or hold our topic today lawmakers as content creators you've probably seen nick freitas all over the internet now we've got jessica anderson and tim griffin making content all over the gab shannon hector first with this buy sell or hold on lawmakers as content creators all right i'm gonna do the controversial hold oh no you know what's coming right yes this is real booing going on in the press room i like at least a mix no that was incredible it's great um no so the thing is is that with the content creation there can be good avenues for that you know if a legislator wants to hop on tiktok and make a quick video say hey i had this bill today this is what i'm trying to do this was the debate and now we're gonna send it on over to the house or whatever, you know, that's a good way to get young folks engaged in the legislative process, you know, but the ones where they're lip syncing to some of the TikTok trends, the ones that age very fast, it's, uh, you know, I'm a big fan of being cringe, but you know, there, there is wait, you're a fan of being cringe. I am cringe. Uh, as a millennial, you have to be a little cringe um but wait was that a cut on me no i'm also a millennial let's chill out chill out it's just uh if they age poorly and so if there was like resurface on twitter it's just not a good look and so using it as a vehicle to educating the public great trying to be silly goofy maybe maybe check with your younger interns on that dean marsahi of epm news you're next on this buy sell or hold on lawmakers as content creators. I'm going to have to buy on this. I get Shannon's point. I totally agree with all the cringe stuff. Also a millennial. So very cringe. But just... Sorry, millennials. I feel like it's just, I guess, a necessary part of, at least for some of them, part of the job. Now, I spoke with actually Delegate Anderson before she took office. I went to Williamsburg and spoke with her. And she talked about how it just helps her connect with people and connect with voters and get her name out and make sure people understand like what's going on, the issues. Obviously, there are other things being talked about on these videos besides the issues that we know. But I feel like anything in this day and age to actually get the word out and to get people to know in your area that, hey, you're working for them or, hey, you're focused on passing laws for them. I feel like that's just an important kind of part of the job now. I feel like maybe some kind of veteran lawmakers don't have to do that. but I feel like is if you have to kind of, you know, stake in, you know, your name moving forward, I feel like it's just a necessary part of the job. Brad Kuttner of Radio IQ by Solar Hold on lawmakers as content creators. Oh yeah Big by uh if anybody wants to film a Charlie XCX cover um I usually in the building by 9am Found Fork found in kitchen once again Yeah no just absolutely yeah Let make the worst cringe stuff You're gonna make the legislature brat? Yeah. And as a millennial, I'm a year, no, I was on it then, but I'm still on it because I'm a millennial and I can't let go of things. No, yeah, do it, why not? I mean, plus it makes my job a lot easier. I've been having conversations with people in every form of leadership. one of Glenn Youngkin's most successful endeavors when it came to the press was the streaming and availability of everything, every public appearance he did. And it was masterful and really appreciated it. As a journalist, if I couldn't make an event, I could almost always get a copy of it online as it was happening. And while that might sound more formal than maybe the fun content we're describing, in the end, I think it's all about making your words available, putting yourself in front of the public and making sure that your constituents know that you're around. And I think that's super powerful. And also, if you want to do Charlie XCX stuff, just call me. All right, let's close the books on our content creators and open up our reporter's notebook. This is when our top journalists tell us what to be on the lookout for this week. Shannon Hick to the Virginia Mercury, your first with us. What's in your reporter's notebook? Yeah, so this week I am looking forward to a bill that is dear to my heart on an issue that I've covered a good bit in my time at the Virginia Mercury. And it's about biosolids and potentially having forever chemicals in them. All right, so we're talking about poop. Yeah, so it's wastewater sludge and it's treated. Don't laugh. Wastewater sludge sounds like the name of a really depressing jazz band. Welcome to the stage, wastewater sludge. I made that joke last week and I didn't think it would land. I don't know why I made the joke. Famous Richmond metal band called Municipal Waste. I don't know if any of us have mentioned that yet. No, but so this Municipal Waste is treated and made into a sludge. And then it could be then made into a product called biosolids, which is often used as a fertilizer, a very cheap option for fertilizer for farmers. And it's used all across the Commonwealth. But the thing is, is that in our wastewater, from the things that we eat, the stuff that we wear, and also from manufacturing runoff and everything, there are forever chemicals in these things. And those chemicals are naturally going to end up in the waste, and it ends up in these biosolids. And they're then spread across our farmland and our ranch land and everything. And so it's getting into our foods, it's getting into our animals, our waterways. And it's something that conservationists are very concerned about. And part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed agreement, Virginia needs to try to reduce the amount of chemicals that we're letting get into the bay. And so this bill by Senator Richard Stewart looks to essentially ban the use of biosolids that have traces of PFAS in them, these forever chemicals. And the thing is, is that Virginia currently does not test the biosolids that we are using on our farms to see if they even have PFAS in them. They test the waterways and things of that nature. And we have a lot of waterways that have forever chemicals in them, but we're not testing the biosolids. And it is a concern that a lot of farmers and a lot of environmental groups have that at least the farmers should have the right to know what they're putting on their land. It could be getting into their well water. And in places like Maine where they've banned the use of biosolids, there are farmers who have these forever chemicals found in their blood. And that's how much it's spreading everywhere. And so this bill is pretty extreme in the sense of fully banning it. I've talked to him about it before the session. He said he knew it was pretty far, but we'll see if it gets potentially watered down or, you know, gets out of committee. So I'm looking forward to hearing the debate on that one. Brad Kuttner of Radio IQ, what's in your reporter's notebook? I've been talking to legislators and everybody's kind of in a mood. Everybody's just kind of stressed. There's a lot going on. It's so cold. The ice has been a real bummer for everybody. um, reporters notebook this week. Uh, I'm looking forward to, uh, if you're in the know meeting up on Thursday evenings with, uh, all of their staffers and then, um, imbibing. And then afterward, uh, meeting up with all the legislators at a well-known location in town. I think everybody just kind of needs to take a moment and, uh, do a pickleback shot and just kind of, you know, appreciate the the grandeur the glory of uh the longest oh gosh i'm gonna mess this up the longest running um the longest running say it one more time it's the longest running representative body no it's no the native american is the longest yeah so it's do you remember what the term is pope yeah so we had for our listeners because he's not miked jet that's jad khalil in the background who is piping in with the answer which is oldest democratically elected something something in the new world exactly there it is and that was cam yeah well our listeners didn't hear that okay it was the oldest he's talking again oldest english speaking democracy representative legislature in the northern, in the American, North American hemisphere? Okay, well, keep an eye out for the incredible for Cam Scoops Thompson to get back to us on that. But yeah, so all I'm saying is this is a shout out to legislators, staffers and lobbyists who are burnt out after two and a half weeks of this. Let's all get it. It's only been two and a half weeks. Let's all get a drink, y'all let's let's do this the virginia way the face pope just wow okay i'm not gonna go there instead peace in the valley closing out our podcast with a strong finish dean marsha he of epm news what's in your reporter's notebook yeah i'm going to be following along a bunch of ai related bills coming up in a lot of different ways that lawmakers want to regulate artificial intelligence. I know that there's been a lot of talk about the executive order that President Trump issued, you know, threatening lawsuits, threatening, you know, losing a funding for broadband. I spoke with Senate Democrats and House Democrats overall about kind of their concerns. Obviously, A lot of them feel as if the executive order is illegal or not really enforceable, but they are concerned just overall about potentially losing funding because you never know what, I guess, the Trump administration can do. But they are moving ahead with a bunch of AI-related bills. There is a proposed ban for K-12 students to not use AI for schoolwork, and there's a bunch of other guardrails moving forward. it's just something that I feel like a lot of focus is kind of talked about the harms of AI and what chatbots can do and you know encouraging manipulating people to do self-harm and the idea of regulating that technology as we try to get used to it is something that I'm wondering how Virginia lawmakers are actually going to be able to do I know that there's a lot of considerations about energy use and data centers so just overall I feel like that is something that I will be following and I'm looking forward to see what actually gets through and what may die on the community floor. And there's a wide variety of different kinds of AI legislation. I remember looking at some before the session started about limiting how AI bots can buy tickets because oftentimes like a concert, the date will arrive when you can start buying tickets. And these AI bots buy up all the seats and then there's a resale market. So there's that. But then other things about like, you know, what is a mental health counselor, right? I mean, like, do you need to go to someone who, a human who has a license or can chat GPT be a counselor and creating some limits there? Yeah, there is, there are bills that would only allow chatbots used for those kinds of uses to be used with some sort of health expert, mental health expert there to supervise. now whether or not those are one of the bills that pass and are signing the law is one thing I I feel like a lot of lawmakers are moving forward kind of cautiously to see kind of where they can narrow out some sort of regulation I know that the executive order from Trump does allow child safety rules to get passed and I know a lot of lawmakers are focused mainly on that so it'll be interested to see kind of what plays out and what gets passed. This is the press room. We're busy. That's it for this episode of the Virginia press room, a joint production of the Virginia public access project and VPM news. If you enjoyed the show, please consider supporting VPAP and supporting VPM. Hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcasting app. And Hey, write a review on Apple podcasts and we'll be back next week for the next episode of the Virginia press room. Yay! I'm Danny Noakes, and here's a look at some exciting things happening at VPM. This month, VPM is excited to expand its When Then 90 by 5 Children's Education Initiative into the Charlottesville region. A collaboration with the Robbins Foundation and Thrive Birth to 5, the 90 by 5 initiative provides parents and caregivers who have children under the age of 5 with resources that encourage positive daily interactions to influence future learning. Learn more at vpm.org.