The Rebuild Conversations

The biggest barrier to cheap energy in America isn’t technology, cost, or even politics in the abstract, it’s that utilities get to decide who competes with them. That’s the throughline of this week’s conversation with Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL-06), a clean-energy engineer turned Financial Services Democrat who has spent four years co-authoring the Energy Bills Relief Act with Rep. Mike Levin.The numbers Casten lays out are startling. There are 2,000 gigawatts of new generation waiting to connect to the U.S. grid. Only 85 of them are fossil fuel. The market has already chosen clean energy; the regulatory system keeps blocking it. Meanwhile, electricity bills are up 13% in Trump’s first year, and utilities just asked for $31 billion in new rate hikes.From there the conversation widens: what the One Big Beautiful Bill’s rollback of IRA tax credits actually does to coal communities, why one Category 5 hurricane could push Florida into bankruptcy, and Casten’s central argument, that the Republican Party of his youth was pro-market, the Republican Party of today is pro-business, and Democrats have an opening to claim the difference.Tahra Hoops: Hi everyone. My name is Tahra Hoops. You are joined here at The Rebuild with my co-host Gary Winslett. Today we have a very special guest: Congressman Sean Casten, who represents Illinois’ Sixth Congressional District. It includes a lot of Chicago’s western suburbs. He was first elected in 2018, actually flipping a Republican-held seat at that time. Casten serves on the House Financial Services Committee and the Joint Economic Committee. Before joining Congress, he spent two decades in the clean energy sector, including as CEO of Turbosteam and co-founder of Recycled Energy Development. In Congress, he’s focused on energy policy, climate change, grid modernization, and helping to lower utility costs for constituents across the nation. We are very excited to have you. Representative Casten, how are you doing today?Rep. Sean Casten: Good. Thank you for having me.Tahra Hoops: I wanted to jump into the recently introduced Energy Bills Relief Act, which is the most ambitious affordability-focused energy legislation House Democrats have put forward this Congress. It comes at a moment when electricity bills are up 13% in Trump’s first year, and utilities just requested $31 billion in rate hikes. Tell us what is in this bill and why this is the moment for it.Rep. Sean Casten: It’s funny. Sometimes moments just come to you. Mike Levin and I, who came in together in 2018, have literally been working on this bill for four years, and we’ve been half joking that we were just waiting for Trump to totally botch our energy policy and invade Iran to really make it resonant, so we could run between the shackles.Somewhat more seriously: when Mike and I both got elected, the Speaker picked us to serve on the climate committee. We wrote a set of 700 recommendations, about 300 of which became law in the Inflation Reduction Act. But when we got our report done, we had a bunch of outside experts vet it, and we said: what is the biggest thing we’re missing that’s going to delay our ability to achieve these goals? And they said, without exception, that the United States has never built transmission fast enough to deploy clean energy.We’re very good at building gas pipelines, which means we build gas plants where we can run the gas to it at the load. But we try not to build transmission. And so we said, we’ve got to have a package, and we have to have a package that when the window opens, it gets there.I say this in a climate perspective, but I could just as easily say it in an affordability perspective, because if you can keep your lights on and keep your house warm and get back and forth to work every day without buying fossil fuel, that also means you can do all those things without paying for fossil fuel. Clean energy and affordable energy are completely synonymous.And candidly, that’s always been the biggest political barrier, because truly prioritizing the interests of consumers to have affordable energy is an existential threat to the fossil fuel sector.Gary Winslett: It’s funny you mention transmission. Where you are, we make tons of wind in Iowa, and Chicago’s where it needs it. You’re sitting across exactly one of those transmission corridors.Rep. Sean Casten: Yeah, and there are multiple projects that would bring that wind, that cheap power, into the area, and they’ve been consistently bedeviled by grid interconnection. Grid interconnection is one of these things. The old joke is that asking a utility to connect to their grid is like asking a man for permission to date his wife. Whether or not that’s the best outcome for all involved doesn’t really factor into the conversation.When you’re sitting there as a utility and power prices are running 90, 100, $110 a megawatt-hour, and somebody wants to build a line that would bring $20 or $30 power in, that’s a competitive threat. You don’t need to be cynical about it. That’s just a practical reality. No business wants to compete with lower-cost supply if it doesn’t have to. And so we’ve seen time and time again utilities and regulators doing a really good job of building transmission lines to bolster reliability and an objectively terrible job of building transmission lines for affordability.Gary Winslett: Has your region, PJM, been particularly tough on this?Rep. Sean Casten: Everybody’s tough in their own special way. I criticize ERCOT all the time because ERCOT has remained un-interconnected. That’s the Texas grid. On the bright side, I think PJM has done a much better job than MISO of really embracing markets as tools to solve problems. But all of the regional transmission organizations are really bedeviled by governance problems. Their governance is set by their members, and their members, because they have so much capital invested in the system, are innately lowercase-c conservative.And a lot of what Mike and I have done tries to fix those things: let’s reform the governance process, let’s compel all the RTOs to be evaluated on a consistent set of metrics over the same geography and on the same timeline, let’s give FERC the authority to permit transmission lines, which it already has for gas lines. We know that system works. We have the ability to do it. But let’s get rid of these abilities for local actors to gum this up, while still making sure that we protect consumers and the environment.Gary Winslett: Of course. That would just put green energy on the same level playing field as natural gas. What we’ve done with natural gas has been great, but green and clean electricity should be on the same playing field.Rep. Sean Casten: Look, you can see it in the numbers. We currently have about 1,300 gigawatts of generation in this country. There are 2,000 gigawatts waiting to be interconnected. Of those 2,000 gigawatts, 85 are fossil fuel-fired. Everything else is wind, solar, batteries. That’s what markets want to build. Wouldn’t you prefer to build an asset with no operating costs so you can make more margin? That’s what they want to build. But that stuff is also the competitive threat.Gary Winslett: Could I also ask you about the tax credits in this bill? What do they do and why do they help?Rep. Sean Casten: The simplest way to answer is: we simply restore all of the IRA tax credits that were taken away in the One Big Beautiful Bill that Republicans passed. The reason is a little more important from a policy perspective than just “let’s get back at those bad guys.”If we were to fully embrace affordable energy, it would be a massive wealth transfer from energy producers to energy consumers. Every single American is an energy consumer. A small number of Americans are energy producers. Do the math. All is more than some.However, for certain communities, that wealth transfer is really, really economically painful. Look at what’s happened to the West Virginia economy as markets have turned away from coal. If you’re living in a town where the mine shut down, then the power plant shut down, then the Walmart shut down, and now the school can’t afford an improvement to the football field, you might understandably not see affordable energy as your friend.And part of the reason why we wanted to bring those tax credits back in is that when we crafted them, and when I say “we,” I’m talking Mike Levin and the other members of the climate committee, we were really intentional about saying we have to put incentives in place that prioritize investments in those communities that have historically stapled their economy to yesterday’s technology. Because they’re all Americans, and we want everybody to see this as a win, not just the people who don’t depend on the oil derrick in their back 40.And so those IRA credits with those incentives were really important to put back in.Tahra Hoops: It is great to see you champion that, because there was so much progress in the prior years and it seemed like we were just starting to see results. But then we have people across the aisle who seem stuck in the past. There was a recent quote from Energy Secretary Chris Wright who said, “I am pretty confident coal will lead the world in global electricity production”. I find that mind-boggling, because if you look across the globe, coal seems like something of the past. Right now we are in an all-of-the-above energy approach, and renewables are a part of that. You’ve directly criticized the Trump administration’s energy policies. What would you say to Republicans who argue that coal or fossil fuels are still the cheapest and most reliable option?Rep. Sean Casten: Look, it’s not freaking complicated. I could tell you academically all the reasons why, if you don’t have to pay for inputs, you’re going to have a lower operating cost and therefore compete in a market. That makes me sound like a college professor. If you don’t want to treat it that way, just look at the freaking scoreboard.Coal consumption in the United States has declined over 50% in the last 15 years. That’s not because of wokeism. It’s because a coal plant is a really lousy investment. The private sector is not building coal because you can’t make any money running a coal plant. Coal plants don’t run that often because they get outcompeted by everything else on the grid.Oil consumption in the United States is exactly the same as it was 15 years ago, not because of wokeism, but because given the choice between a car that gets 10 miles to the gallon and a car that gets 30, or better yet an EV that doesn’t take any fuel, people like not paying for energy. It’s pretty awesome not to have that bill.So as I tell my Republican colleagues: shut up with your wokeism. You are just afraid of capitalism, because you are a mediocre individual who cannot compete, because you are part of that half of the population that is well below average. That is the Chris Wright story.Tahra Hoops: I cannot agree with you more. I saw that and I’m like, these are the people who lead and govern us.Rep. Sean Casten: Chris Wright testified before a science committee hearing that I was on, before he came to Trump’s office. I told him that he was a disposable human being who would be an embarrassment to his grandchildren. I stand by my words. Nobody in the energy industry took Chris Wright as a serious player. He was a guy who could say things and go on Fox TV, and he is as qualified to be Secretary of Energy as Pete Hegseth is qualified to be Secretary of Defense. These are not people who were recognized as understanding the nuance in their industry. Before they got there, they did a good TV hit, and that’s what Trump wanted, and that’s what Trump got.We have to engage with them because of their power and because they’re tied with the White House. But when you look at what markets were building, markets wanted cheap. When you look at what the rest of the world is building, those not bedeviled by this political concern, they’re making those transitions to more affordable energy.I’ll give you a statistic. If you divide US GDP by total energy use, we generate about $200 of GDP for every million BTUs of energy. The Danes generate over $500. The Swiss generate over $600. The Brits generate over $300. That means we could potentially double the size of our economy with the same amount of energy input, or cut our energy input by half and have the same standard of living. Why wouldn’t you want to do that?We invest in labor productivity all the time. We want to get the maximum return on capital. If you’re a steel manufacturer, you don’t want to throw iron away. You want to turn as much of it into steel as possible. Energy is the only place where the United States does such a terrible job relative to other first-world economies at turning inputs into useful output. We can either be depressed about that, or say: what an amazing opportunity to grow our economy.Gary Winslett: That’s exactly right. The United States has both solar and wind potential, different places, to be sure. Denmark has great wind, not ideal for solar. We actually have both. So we’re kind of just leaving a lot on the table.Rep. Sean Casten: And candidly, our challenge is that we also have a lot of coal and a lot of gas, and you’ve got a lot of communities that have built their economies on that in ways you don’t see in other countries that embraced efficiency sooner. Denmark is a little bit weird because Denmark made the commitment to efficiency before the North Sea oil discoveries, and by then it was habit. The US, I think, is still deciding whether we want to be full-on adults or whether we still like having the lack of responsibility that you have when you’re a teenager.Tahra Hoops: It seems to me, just from hearing this, that Democrats are the people who would like to succeed in a capitalistic market, and it’s the Republicans who are holding us back by trying to own the libs and arguing about culture wars from ten years ago. That’s not the narrative you see online. When you think about Democrats and how they move when it comes to innovation, somehow you’d think they’re going to be the party trapped by woke culture stories that you’ll see in the New York Post, stories that are going to harm innovation for all, and that Republicans are trying to be the serious adults. But as you can see from the work you’re doing, it is just the opposite.Rep. Sean Casten: There’s ample data, and I hate that we have to say this. The Joint Economic Committee, bipartisan and bicameral, has done research showing that going back six presidents, the economy always performs better under Democratic leadership. Not just a little better. A lot better. Eighty to ninety percent of all the jobs created under those six presidents were created under Democratic presidents. The GDP always grows more, the dollar’s always stronger.I will say there’s nothing innately Democratic or Republican about supporting competitive markets. Ronald Reagan deregulated the airlines and telecoms and led antitrust enforcement. That’s an ideology that works.I think what’s hard, and this is arguably just as hard for Democrats as Republicans, is that any business that has achieved a certain scale has a lobbying shop. Any entrepreneur with a great idea who can compete against that incumbent doesn’t spend their time on lobbying. So you hear very few voices on either side of the aisle in Washington saying, “What we need is more competition.” Competition has never really had an advocate in Washington.Gary Winslett: It’s funny you mention how bipartisan some of this is. A lot of that deregulation actually starts under Carter. Carter just doesn’t get as much credit for it as he probably should. But that goes to your point. There’s not a Democrat or Republican way to ensure competition.Rep. Sean Casten: Maybe this is just my anchor point. I was born in ‘71, I don’t remember Nixon at all, I have vague memories of Carter, but Reagan was the first president I really remember. But I do think the Republican Party of my youth was a pro-market party. The Republican Party of today is a pro-business party, and those are not synonymous terms. There’s a real opportunity for Democrats to step into that void and say: let’s be the pro-market party.Gary Winslett: I did want to ask you a little more about the Energy Bills Relief Act. If we could get it, it’d be great. How would you assess success in the first few years, if it passes?Rep. Sean Casten: Let’s make no small plans. I think the last real meaningful energy bill Congress passed was the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPAct 1992). That sounds crazy given how long ago that was. We do energy policy roughly every 15 years. We had the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA), which was transformative. We had EPAct 1992. We did one in 2005, but it was kind of small. So that’s really the last big one.When EPAct was passed, within 10 years we built 200 gigawatts of natural gas combined-cycle generation, because suddenly there was an incentive for people to build the lowest-cost source, which at the time was natural gas. Within 10 years, the nuclear fleet went from running at 60% capacity to 90%, because utilities had an incentive to dispatch their lowest-cost assets. So I think we should hold that as a minimum measure of success: within a decade, a complete transformation of the US grid.Right now you have in the queue all the generation you need to fully decarbonize. If we don’t deploy that quickly, we didn’t get the rules right. Some of what we’ve done is top-down and mandatory, but a lot of it is just changing the incentives.For example, we have provisions that say: if a utility is investing to decongest the part of the grid you’re on and bring prices down, why don’t we let them make a little more money? Instead of seeing that as a zero-sum fight. If a utility deploys what are known as grid-enhancing technologies, tools that lower line losses on their grid, why don’t they get to keep some of those savings and give some back to the ratepayers? Right now, all of those things are zero-sum fights. So a lot of what Congressman Levin and I have done is to make utilities partners in this, the way EPAct ‘92 gave utilities a pathway to preferentially build the lowest-cost assets. It’s time to update that bill.The measure of success: let’s be ambitious. Once we’re having a conversation about how zero-marginal-cost supply competes in a market awash in zero-marginal-cost supply and still gets paid to generate, that’s when I know we’ve succeeded.Tahra Hoops: That all sounds great, and I hope we can get past the gridlocked Congress. Midterms matter so much. But I want to look beyond this bill. You spent four years working on this, and it’s incredibly politically salient right now. What are the top issues you’re focused on, and where do you think you could make the biggest impact this Congress, outside of this bill?Rep. Sean Casten: The stuff we’re really focused on, and you mentioned that my committees are mostly financial regulation, I’m really increasingly concerned that our next financial crisis is either going to come from crypto or from climate change. Both are creating massive systemic risks.We spend a lot of time trying to identify where those risks are pooling in our financial connective tissue. On the climate side, here’s a little example: six of the top seven most uninsured housing markets in the country are in Florida counties. Miami-Dade is number one. Broward County is number two. I think Harris County, Texas, is number three. And then it’s a bunch more Florida counties. Twenty percent of all Florida homeowners are in the state insurer of last resort. If that insurer goes away, they have no coverage.The total value of Florida real estate is about three times total Florida GDP, which means it would only take one Category 5 hurricane to essentially force the state of Florida into bankruptcy. I’m not being hyperbolic. Just run the math on how much of a hit you’d need.The part of this I think is bipartisan: we’ve never really done a good job of monitoring systemic risks in our financial system beyond a handful of systemically important banks. As we saw with the 2008 financial crisis, if the risk goes off the bank balance sheet and onto an insurance company’s balance sheet, our regulators stop watching it. We made some changes after the financial crisis, but now you’ve got a scenario where the risk goes straight through the insurer onto the property owner, who just says, “I’m not going to get insurance because I can’t afford it.” Where does that risk start to pool? And our financial regulators, particularly in this Trumpian moment, are politically scorned if they even ask the question about climate financial risk. And yet we know those risks are there.But really the government should be, in the words of Jack Handy, I’d rather be rich than stupid.Gary Winslett: Fair enough.Tahra Hoops: I live in Los Angeles now, and for the first time in over a year, we drove down to Pacific Palisades and part of Malibu, which over a year ago was completely burnt down. To see all the structures that were so iconic, and now it’s just complete rubble with not much work having been done. A lot of it is due to the insurance problem we’ve been facing here. It was something they were trying to ignore, and then the wildfires blew it up in everyone’s faces. To see it for the first time in over a year with my own eyes was a very shocking and eerie experience.Rep. Sean Casten: This is heavy. If you haven’t read the work of Spencer Glendon, I would highly recommend it. He runs Probable Futures, a former managing director at a wealth management firm who has gotten really into climate. One of the points he’s been making for a while is that our species 10,000 years ago survived in a climate very similar to the one we have now, except we were migratory. We need to start thinking about what it looks like to survive in a climate as volatile as the one we have now, because when confronted with this before, our species thought it wasn’t a good idea to tie all your wealth up into a single fixed asset in a fixed geographical location. We didn’t build cities on rivers or along coastlines because we couldn’t count on them staying stable. That’s a really scary prospect. But read the news. There seem to be a lot more migratory people now, aren’t there?Gary Winslett: It’s funny, in a couple of different ways over the last few minutes you’ve brought up housing, and that was something I wanted to ask you about. A lot of our first pillar at The Rebuild, and all the stuff we do on the cost-of-living blueprint, is about increasing the supply of housing. From your seat on Financial Services, what do you think is the single biggest federal lever that would actually move the needle on housing supply? Is it land use? Is it something to do with Fannie and Freddie? Is it something else?Rep. Sean Casten: Historically the stuff that has worked best and been most politically durable is lowering costs for first-time homeowners. I say “politically durable” because if you’ve never owned a house, the price of housing is daunting, and we’re seeing the average age of first home purchase going up. On the other hand, 60% of American households own their own home, and the majority of people’s wealth is tied up in their home. And if you want to lose your next election, bring down the cost of 60% of Americans’ primary source of wealth.If you don’t have housing, housing is a cost. If you have a house, housing is an asset. We want assets to inflate. We want costs to go down. So where Congress has been most effective is helping that first-time buyer get into a home, whether through tax credits or through programs like what we did after World War II, where at least if you were a white American you got a lot of opportunities for discounted mortgages.The things we call “the projects” were initially built as places for people to get stable housing, and generally that was very racially mixed housing. I’m oversimplifying, but not by much. But then the incentives to lower the cost of first home ownership were applied in very racially disparate ways. And so the projects became a racial thing. That wasn’t how they were first defined, and they worked. We saw home ownership spike with those programs.I think we’re close on doing a housing bill that would have some good stuff in it. We’ve still got to work out some kinks with the Senate, particularly on what a “financial buyer” of a home looks like and how to prevent financial buyers from coming in. That sounds easy if you just say “private equity is bad.” But then you ask: does anyone have a friend with some investment properties? Would they be covered by the ban? What about a firm that owns housing to provide temporary accommodation for people relocating for a job? I think there are some structural issues that don’t work in what’s come through the Senate, but I’m hopeful we’ll have really hefty credits for first-time buyers in a lot of different structures, because it’s worked in the past, and it stays away from that politically toxic third rail of lowering the price of everybody’s assets.I represent wealthy people in the suburbs. I would absolutely lose my election if I said, “You know what we need to do is multifamily zoning on your property.”Tahra Hoops: I appreciate your candor. Trump has even said himself: the thing about building more housing is it will lower housing prices. I understand that point of view, but I’m glad you brought up making it easier for people to own homes. I critique a lot that we are very much in a boomer economy, and it’s very difficult for younger generations to feel like they can get ahead. The economy used to feel like a waiting room. Now people feel like they can’t even get into the waiting room. I would love to pick your brain more, but we’re coming short on time. Let’s do some rapid-fire questions. Low effort, nothing crazy, just the first thing that comes to mind.What is something you think is too expensive, and you can’t say housing or electricity prices?Rep. Sean Casten: Junk fees. How much stuff do you get charged for where you’re like, “I don’t even know what value I got”? Every one of those junk fees is too expensive.Gary Winslett: When I bought a house I remember title insurance. I started looking into it and I’m like, there was no reason this should be this much.Rep. Sean Casten: Like every time you fly on an airplane. What am I paying for now that I didn’t use to have to pay for?Tahra Hoops: And what is a policy or innovation that you believe is underrated?Rep. Sean Casten: The Office of Technology Assessment. It was this amazing office that provided technology assessments for every member of Congress, so robust that in my early years as an engineer and consultant, I’d read OTA reports to get smarter. I’d go in and say, “Let me tell you how paper manufacturing works. Let me tell you how steel manufacturing works. I’m investigating next-generation battery technology. How does that work?” Gingrich and the Republican Congress killed it in [ed. ‘95]. It has never been brought back. Rather than criticize Congress for not being up to speed on new technologies, I don’t think we talk enough about the fact that Congress created an agency specifically to keep us up to speed, and it was a choice of Newt Gingrich’s Republican Party to make Congress dumber. It hardly cost anything. A budget of about $10 million a year.Gary Winslett: Really Pennywise pound foolish.Rep. Sean Casten: Again, I’d rather be rich than stupid. That is a politically controversial statement.Gary Winslett: What’s something people don’t really know about your district that you find fascinating?Rep. Sean Casten: My district was the last home of Muddy Waters. Coolest guy who ever came from my district. You’d never know it. If you drive through Westmont, Illinois, right now, you wouldn’t think this is where you get the blues. But if you got the blues, got on the train, made it part of the Great Migration, came up north, inspired all these people, and finally had enough to put down a down payment and live in a little house in your final years, Westmont was the place to go. It’s a cool piece of history that runs counter to people’s stereotypes. This does not look like the heart of blues in America.Gary Winslett: That’s fascinating. I didn’t know that. I’m glad I asked.Tahra Hoops: And what is something that you think your district does really well?Rep. Sean Casten: We have really smart and thoughtful people. I’m a nerd at heart. I’m an engineer. Every time I do a town hall, or when we do polls, you realize there are soundbites that infect our public discourse that you can put on a sign. And then you go and talk to people, and they’re just very nuanced and very thoughtful and appreciate the complexities of issues. I don’t know if that’s true everywhere in the country, but I joke all the time that the smartest, most athletic, most charismatic, most talented people in America are all in Illinois’ Sixth District.Not just the 55% who vote for me, to be clear.Tahra Hoops: All of them! Well, this has been a lovely conversation. Thank you for all the work that you do. We definitely appreciate it. Thank you for taking the time to be here.Gary Winslett: Thank you.Rep. Sean Casten: Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate you guys. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.therebuild.pub

This week on The Rebuild, Gary and I sat down with Rep. Josh Harder for a second time, and I’m so glad we did. Rep. Harder chairs the Bipartisan Build America Caucus and has been one of the loudest voices in Congress pushing the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bill that, if passed cleanly, would be the most significant federal housing legislation in 50 years.The catch: an 11th-hour amendment called Section 901. It was designed to push institutional investors out of single-family housing, which sounds good on paper and polls well. In practice, as Josh walked us through, it sweeps in the entire build-to-rent category, 72,000 new rental units a year, and forces a seven-year divestiture timeline that would effectively kill the market.We talked about why Blackstone isn’t actually the villain people think it is, why the best way to punish corporate landlords is to build more housing, and what it’s going to take to fix Section 901 before the bill crosses the finish line. Josh and his co-chairs just released a letter with 76 bipartisan signatures trying to do exactly that– the largest bipartisan push on any substantive policy this Congress.If you care about housing, cost of living, or just want to understand how a good bill almost gets fumbled at the five-yard line, this one’s for you.IntroductionTahra Hoops: Hi everyone. My name is Tahra Hoops. I’m one of the co-hosts of The Rebuild, joined with our other host, Gary Winslett. Today we have a very special repeat guest with us: Representative Josh Harder. He’s a Democratic congressman representing California’s 9th District. He was first elected in 2018, flipping a Republican-held seat, and in May 2025 Harder launched the Bipartisan Build America Caucus, which focuses on reducing regulatory barriers to accelerate housing, energy, and infrastructure development. He serves as its chair.Harder has been active in pushing for federal housing reform, including the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a major housing package currently under consideration, with a lot of debate around provisions like Section 901. That’s going to be the ongoing theme of this conversation, so we’ll dive right in.Representative Harder, how are you today?Rep. Josh Harder: I’m doing great. It’s good to be with you.Tahra Hoops: For listeners who haven’t tracked every single twist and turn of this bill (and there have been many), would you give us the quick spiel on what the now-amended 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act actually does, and why we’re calling it the most significant federal housing bill in decades?Overview of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing ActRep. Josh Harder: This bill is a little bit of a franken-bill that combines about 27 other bills into one whole. But I really break it down into a couple of different categories.First, this creates incentives for cities and counties, local leaders across the country, to build more housing. If they build more, they’re going to get more money from the federal government.It also repeals a lot of red tape in things like the HUD building code. The big thing there is the repeal of the chassis rule, which is preventing us from building manufactured housing. As you and your listeners probably know, we’ve had very little, if any, construction productivity growth for many decades. So this repeal is a chance to actually lower housing costs by building more homes in factories, a really exciting move in the right direction.And third, it also expands categorical exemptions from federal permit review so we can actually build housing faster. This is the same sort of thing you’ve seen in states like California and others that have passed real pro-housing legislation over the last couple of years, the federal complement to that.It does a lot of great things, and that’s one of the reasons we’ve been pushing for it for the last couple of months. We’re hoping we can fix a couple of the last provisions and get this across the finish line for good.Gary Winslett: Before some of these provisions that we’re going to talk about got added, this was something to be really excited about. The first iteration that went through the House, I was just amazed at how good of a bill this was.Rep. Josh Harder: That’s right. This is our first chance to pass a federal housing bill in 50 years, so I think it’s really an exciting moment. It’s turned bittersweet, unfortunately, but that shouldn’t cause us to lose hope. We’ve come to this because of such a huge grassroots mobilization across the country to finally bring up housing as a federal issue.There’s been so much growth at a state and local level over the last decade or two. This is the first time we really have a moment at the federal level, and there are so many good ideas in this bill that are going to do a ton of good.One thing I’m really excited about is that this helps build more pro-growth zoning practices for cities that actually want to grow. We’re very consumed sometimes with cities that don’t want to do anything, but there’s a whole section of cities out there that really want to build more housing. They just don’t know how. This bill is going to have a lot of support to make sure those folks can actually pass pro-growth measures that accelerate more housing construction. So yes, there’s a whole lot of good things in here, and it’s the result of years of hard work.The Build America Caucus & Energy PermittingGary Winslett: I’d love to talk about how it fits into your broader political trajectory. You launched the Build America Caucus last year to cut red tape, to get federal housing, energy, and infrastructure projects actually built. Where does ROAD fit into that broader project?Rep. Josh Harder: This is our top priority this Congress. It’s the reason we created the caucus, because there really was not a hub for this type of work. This work spans a lot of different congressional committees, and we wanted something that would be a little more collaborative. Frankly, there are also a lot of folks who weren’t on the main committee that manages housing (the Financial Services Committee in the House) who wanted to be involved in this work. We knew it was going to be bipartisan, we knew it was going to get a lot of momentum, and that’s why we created it in the first place.The second big effort we’re working on in conjunction with this housing bill is an effort to get an energy permitting bill across the finish line, to make it easier to build energy and lower costs, which I think is especially important when we’re seeing demand growth in artificial intelligence and data center construction across the country. That’s our second priority. But this housing effort is really the reason we constructed this caucus in the first place.Gary Winslett: It would be really great to see. It was so disappointing when we didn’t get EPRA across the line in the last Congress. So it would be really great to see its successor be really good and do well.Rep. Josh Harder: There’s some real momentum. There are ongoing negotiations. Ultimately, we need a lot of trust. This administration has unfortunately created a bit of a political vendetta against clean energy projects. They’ve canceled solar projects that were days away from construction and actually offering power to homes.One real precondition for getting an energy permitting bill across the line is going to be some type of guarantee that this administration is actually going to support all-of-the-above energy, not just fossil fuels, which they clearly love, but nuclear, solar, wind, and geothermal. If we can get that type of commitment, the policy here is pretty well understood, with broad bipartisan agreement behind it. Really, the limiting factor at this moment is the trust to actually get a deal.Tahra Hoops: Trust seems to be a major key when it comes to any energy infrastructure project. Before we go off on a major tangent, it is just so politically salient right now. When you’re going outside in your car and you see gas prices being screamed at you, and at the end of the month you’re getting utility bills, knowing that remains a major priority for your caucus is always reassuring for us to hear.But to shift gears a little bit and get back into the nitty gritty:Section 901 ExplainedTahra Hoops: Could you walk us through what Section 901 (which sounds very wonky as it is) actually is, how it kind of got snuck in there, and why we might have some faults with it?Rep. Josh Harder: There’s been a lot of concern over the last couple of years about institutional investment in single-family homes. Think about this as Blackstone or BlackRock (sometimes people get a little confused in the memes online) buying all the homes across the country, and that’s the reason housing prices are so high.I think most of the policy wonks who look at this issue will tell you that’s not entirely true. Institutional owners have less than 1% of the single-family housing stock across the country. But in some areas it can be a lot higher: in metro Atlanta, for instance, more than 30% of single-family homes are owned by institutional investors.So certainly it is a concern, and there’s been bipartisan agreement on it. Trump has talked about this in his State of the Union, and he’s tweeted a lot about it as well. He’s said this is something we really need to fix. We need to get large hedge funds and private equity firms out of the housing business. That’s gotten a lot of support from the left wing of the Democratic Party as well, which is always skeptical about corporate ownership.There are real concerns there, and that’s why ultimately, in this bill, there was an 11th-hour change to put in a provision that would put some real limits on institutional ownership in the housing market. I think it was well-intentioned. Unfortunately, because it was drafted at the last minute and didn’t really have time to be heavily vetted, it has some real unintended consequences.This is Section 901 (that’s the section in the bill), and effectively it’s going to halt the production of a part of the housing industry called the build-to-rent category, which right now is building 72,000 new rental units per year, especially in areas of the Sun Belt like Arizona, where these are just going up like wildfire.So this provision is going to push out renters. It’s going to destabilize housing through mandatory divestment timelines that are going to compel these owners to sell their property and ultimately displace the renters who live there right now.The way I think about this and explain it to folks: it’s like trying to solve a food shortage by banning supermarkets. You are punishing the folks who are building the housing that’s actually going to address the crisis we’re seeing all across the country.Institutional Investors & Build-to-Rent ConcernsGary Winslett: My mom actually lives in one of these rented build-to-rent houses. She’s got a family member of mine with mental illness challenges, and they just need a house. But they don’t have the money to own one, so they rent one of these build-to-rents.If the company that manages that is forced to sell it because there’s supposedly some evil landlord, she’s got to move. I just don’t think that’s the intention people have when they think about institutional investors. As you noted, it’s less than 1% of the single-family homes. How did this become such a thing people focus on?Rep. Josh Harder: Everybody looks for a villain in politics. When you’re frustrated by the state of affairs, you want to find somebody to blame. So it’s no surprise that when we’ve seen housing prices grow more than double the rate of inflation over the last couple of decades, and when most young people can’t afford a house, there’s going to be a lot of anger out there. Somebody’s going to take advantage of that and try to divert it onto somebody else. Especially at a time when people are really skeptical of Wall Street (and understandably so), there’s going to be a lot of blame thrown on private equity.I think there’s a lot of damage private equity often does. You see consolidation in markets like healthcare where it really is a problem to have so much consolidation. But transferring that to the housing market is a very different situation, where there’s so much capital out there but ultimately most homes are owned by the people who live there, or by landlords that own just a couple of properties. I think the situation here is just that people are really frustrated and they want to have somebody on the other side who’s been responsible for creating all of these problems. Because if it was that easy, we could just fix it. We could just ban institutional investment and all of a sudden tomorrow housing prices would become affordable all across the country.Of course, that’s not what’s going to happen. It’s because we haven’t built enough housing. If we need to build millions of new units, that’s what we need to be focused on.The analogy here: if you actually look at the filings of some of these companies, if you look at Blackstone’s filings, they will talk about how one of the biggest risks to their housing portfolio is the risk that we might actually build more homes. Because if we do that, it would actually lower the value of their investments. So I tell folks, if you’re really frustrated about corporate ownership, the best way to stick it to ‘em is actually to deal with the supply issues and build the homes that we can all live in.Gary Winslett: That’s exactly right. When we build more supply, you have a lot more power on the side of the buyers and renters rather than the landlords, because now it’s the landlords who have to compete to find somebody to live in the house, not the renters trying to compete with each other over a very limited stock.Rep. Josh Harder: Yeah, absolutely. You can see this time and time again. Abuses by landlords go down when we build more homes. It’s totally obvious. When you have an alternative, where you can move across the street if you don’t like the person managing your home, then you have those options. The best way to give power to the people is to build the homes for them to live in.Tahra Hoops: It’s funny that this has such strong bipartisan appeal, and why Trump has been very vocal in his Truth Social posts about it, because he’s aware that people are very upset with the economy, as much as he’ll go on TV and say otherwise. But rather than changing some of his policies, like tariffs on construction material (which won’t help) or deporting our entire construction workforce (which also won’t help), doing things like that would be actual tangible efforts to lower the price of housing. But he doesn’t want to do that, because those are his favorite pet policies.So now he can jump in on this because his team will tell him it’s going to poll well, it’s salient to voters. He can put a very tiny Band-Aid on this, and to him, he’s fixed the problem. He can point to it and say, “I signed that, I got that across.” And while we know it won’t make any meaningful difference, what’s going to happen is that by the time people start to notice, he may be out of office, and we’re still stuck with the issue, which has grown even harder.But I wanted to get back to the specifics of the bill. Obviously, as we mentioned, it kind of snuck in at the very last minute, to the point that even Senator Schatz at one point said it was a mistake. But clearly it was not: it’s something that’s been doubled down on.Problems with the Current LanguageTahra Hoops: Where do you think the current language overshoots itself? Would it be just the investor ban in general, or the fact that the text also catches net-new build-to-rent or renovate-to-rent housing?Rep. Josh Harder: I think the two biggest problems are the overly wide definition of what actually constitutes institutional ownership, and the divestiture timelines.It’d be a very different situation if you were saying there was a 30-year investment window for you to actually build a home, rent it out, and then maybe someday down the road you had to sell it, maybe to the person who lived there. Right now, the seven-year window that exists, given how long it actually takes to build a home, get all the permits, and do the construction, is just way too short. It would functionally completely kill this market.And then of course, as Gary said, you’re including a lot of folks, like the entire build-to-rent category, that just don’t belong here. This isn’t what people have a problem with. This isn’t some Wall Street billionaire owning a home and then doubling rents the next day. These are people actually building new homes.I think it’s unbelievably ironic that a bill all about trying to build more homes could very well have the opposite impact, which would be an absolute catastrophe. It would break my heart if we spent all this work trying to get something across the line, and it actually had the unintended consequence opposite of what we’ve all been working for.This is actually a very easy problem to solve if we want to solve it. The challenge is that there’s just so much desire from the White House and from folks in the Senate who are pretty wedded to an anti-corporate position that it’s going to be a little challenging getting folks to get to yes here.But we released a letter yesterday that had 76 signatures of members of Congress. That is a big deal. Just to put that in context, that is the largest bipartisan push for any substantive bill this Congress, for the last year and a half. And it was more than half Democrats, half Republicans, actually a few more Republicans than Democrats in the end. That tells you there is a huge groundswell of feeling that we can get this fixed while retaining the momentum and passing the bill.Worst-Case ScenariosGary Winslett: You told The Dispatch that you’re worried about fumbling at the five-yard line. If 901 stays in there as currently drafted, as you say fumbling at the five-yard line, what do you think the worst-case scenario is if that actually comes to pass?Rep. Josh Harder: The two worst-case scenarios are passing this bill as-is, or not passing the bill at all. Neither of those are acceptable, and that’s why we have to thread the needle here. We want to keep this momentum. The fact that we could pass the first housing bill in 50 years is a really important moment. This 11th-hour change that unfortunately has gotten a lot of bipartisan support has a real risk of pushing us in the wrong direction.But the second big risk: we pass this bill as-is, and the benefits turn out to be less than we’re hoping. The chassis rule doesn’t actually produce more manufactured housing. The incentives might not be enough money to cause cities to change their behavior. But the bans are pretty well defined. So unfortunately, one big consequence could be that this bill stops more housing than it actually stimulates. The reason that’s such a big deal is that 72,000 homes a year, over a 10-year timeframe, is a lot of homes.Blue State Exodus & Political MessagingTahra Hoops: All of this is coming to a head while we’re having conversations on the side and noticing the data is showing us we’re facing a blue-state and blue-city exodus. It’s an immediate problem because it shows that people are looking around at the places they live in and the elected leaders they believe in, and they just don’t find it worthwhile to live there. It will also become an electoral problem: if we lose that, it’s going to make races that much harder to win.I think we have to come to a whole stop as a Democratic Party and look within ourselves and understand: people are leaving for a reason. If you look under the hood, you do see housing is going to be the largest driver of it all. So it would be a logical next step to make it easier to build.It gets to the point where it almost sounds a little boring to keep saying the same thing over and over, “build, baby, build,” but it keeps refraining from happening. And circling back to the seven-year timeline you gave: that is incredibly short in the period of getting to permits, getting to actual building, getting someone into a home. By the time that happens, it absolutely makes no sense to just build that home.There is a popular show right now called Euphoria. The main subplot is a lot of crime, drugs, crazy stuff. And then there’s one subplot of one of the developers: he just became a developer, he took over his dad’s business, and he’s trying to build in California. Every other scene is like, “Have you tried getting permits here?” I find it so funny that it’s worked its way into a very popular show. No one has any clue how important this is to me as a policy wonk, and it is really hard to get permitting over the line here.So what I ask you is: we are in a midterm year, and we do know that not having Wall Street in homes polls well. How do we make this message more politically feasible to the average voter who’s not going to spend as much time on this?Rep. Josh Harder: You’re totally right on the exodus from blue states. I saw just last week that California is going to lose a million school-age children, which is a challenge to our public school system. We’re just seeing a shrinking in blue states because people can’t afford to live there. It’s not that they don’t want to. I talk to folks all the time whose kids are moving out of state because they just can’t find a home to buy.But I actually think the two bigger reasons are even more important. One is just the economic opportunity that is limited when you can’t actually buy homes. The best way to see it: with the AI boom in the Bay Area, so many folks are concerned about what AI is going to do to jobs. This is clearly a very productive moment. There are a lot of millionaires and billionaires being minted in San Francisco. Every other time we’ve had a virtual gold rush like that, we’ve seen a huge flood of folks from across the country going into that area to make sure that economic opportunity is shared by all.That was quite literally the Gold Rush. That’s how my family got to California. My great-great-grandfather got on a wagon train in 1850, and I think if it was a million dollars to buy a home in California, he probably would not have pushed that wagon train all the way into the state. The fact that we’re not able to build housing essentially means we’re not going to make sure that the economic opportunity created by any of these superstar cities is actually shared by enough people.The second issue I really care about is just the enormous amount of cynicism and apathy about our political process, and life itself, when you can’t actually afford to buy a home. People are really angry out there, and that’s one of the reasons we have to fight back some of the provisions that might not actually make people happier, like banning build-to-rent housing. That cynicism is so potent because people don’t believe they’re actually going to have a life better than their parents. The most important reason for that is they don’t think they’re ever going to own their own home.There are so many negative effects that come from this housing crisis. This is probably one of the most important policy issues we have across the country, and we are right at the moment where we can actually get this solved.To your question of how we do it: I think we have to work on people’s minds instead of their hearts. In their hearts, everybody gets this. But the analytical part of our brain sometimes shuts down when we think about housing. We have to persuade people that, on this issue where everybody wants to make it more affordable to own a home, the best way to do it is actually not by banning some of the folks who are doing that right now. It feels like it should be more intuitive than it is, but unfortunately that’s clearly not the case. If we can actually show folks that what they’re trying to do would do the opposite, we can hopefully get a little more momentum.Gary Winslett: On working with where people are, I’ve found the analogy that works for me the best is asking people: what do you think would happen to the price of used cars if you banned new cars? Any used car that was still in really good working condition, now that’s what rich people are going to want to buy up. That’s just going to jack up the prices of all the used cars underneath them. You’ve got to be able to break it down in those kinds of ways that people get.Rep. Josh Harder: Absolutely. That’s a great analogy. It’s odd that people understand supply and demand in so many different ways, but when it comes to housing there’s often a little bit of a blind spot. I think that blind spot is just: people don’t believe it’s going to happen. They see the cost, but they’re very skeptical the benefits are ever going to be shared.The only antidote to that skepticism is reality itself. When people visit a city like Austin, where rents have fallen, they start to say, “Hey, it is possible to live in a city that a lot of people want to live in and not pay through the nose,” although it’s still pretty expensive there. If we can get out of the unfortunate loop we’re in right now, back to a virtuous cycle where people actually see the housing being built, they see prices fall. My hope is that virtuous cycle can be sustained. But we have to force ourselves back onto it first.Tahra Hoops: Yeah, I think once people start to actually see results is when the tides will change. A lot of people are just acting from a place of scarcity and financial nihilism. People don’t believe it can get any better, so they don’t want anyone to get let in, because right now they already feel like it’s not even enough for them.That’s why JD Vance has been so popular in putting the narrative that it’s just an immigration issue: it’s not that we don’t have housing, we just have too many people here. But to me, that’s anti-liberalism in itself, to instead say, “No, we’re closed, we can’t welcome you anymore.” And that’s why we have the housing crisis we have now.It just is mind-boggling to me, because a wealthy country would instead look and say, “Let’s build more so we can welcome more people in and have a better future for all.” To me, that is the most American ideal you could have.Rep. Josh Harder: Not only is it nihilistic. Go to any housing construction site and you’re going to see immigrants. I mean, those are literally the people building our housing. Not only is it anti-liberal. If you are super anti-immigrant and conservative, you still should want to make sure we have more immigration to actually build the homes that people live in. Because let me tell you: if you walk around the construction sites I see, you’re going to hear a lot of Spanish.Closing ThoughtsTahra Hoops: Well, I think that is all the time we have. Thank you so much, Representative Harder, for being on here and for doing the work that you’re doing. I did not know that was the largest bipartisan signage you have on that letter, so just seeing what an incredible feat is happening behind the scenes here, it’s very encouraging for us to see and hear, and I’m sure for the readers and watchers as well. So thank you again.Rep. Josh Harder: Thank you for the work you’re doing. Now let’s go out and get it done.Gary Winslett: Thanks. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.therebuild.pub

California’s affordability crisis isn’t slowing down — so we brought on Tom Steyer to talk about what it would actually take to fix it. In this episode, we dig into his plan to build a million homes in four years, why your electricity bill is so high and who profits from it, and whether California can lead a clean energy revolution that’s already underway around the world. Housing, energy, food costs — it’s all on the table. These are the questions Californians are asking every month when the bills come due.IntroductionTahra Hoops: Welcome to the Rebuild. I’m one of your hosts, Tahra Hoops, joined with Gary Winslett, and today we have an incredible guest. We are joined by Tom Steyer, investor, climate activist, and candidate for Governor of California. Tom is the founder of Farallon Capital and the progressive nonprofit NextGen America.He’s spent the last 15 years putting his own resources towards California ballot fights on climate, taxes, and economic fairness. Now he’s running on the most urgent issue facing the state: the cost of living. We’re thrilled to have him here to talk housing, energy costs, and what it would take to actually make California affordable.Tom, welcome to the show.Tom Steyer: Thank you very much for having me.Housing Crisis & Building 1 Million HomesTahra Hoops: One of the reasons I was so interested to have you on is that I attended one of your housing talks a couple weeks ago in Los Angeles, where housing activists and yourself discussed ways to actually make housing affordable. It’s now one of the major promises of your campaign, to build one million homes in four years.That’s a huge promise. So what does the Governor’s office actually control that could help make those numbers achievable?Tom Steyer: There are a number of issues that have to be dealt with urgently, permitting, zoning, cost per square foot, and relationships with local cities and counties. In every one of these areas, we have to move with urgency.And let me say, this is an urgent issue because Californians cannot afford to live here anymore. The number one bill they have every month is housing. Getting this right is not a nice to have, it’s a have to have. We are in a crisis.There was CEQA reform last year — the California Environmental Quality Act — to try and improve permitting. I supported that publicly. There was a lot of opposition, but it got passed in the legislature. There was zoning reform last year too, which also faced opposition but got done. But there’s a lot more to go in terms of making the timing and regulation of house building as fast and cheap as possible.In some places in California, the fee to build a house is 20% of the cost of the house. That means the price goes up by 25% just because of fees.We also need to dramatically drop the cost per square foot of building. There are tens of thousands of permitted, zoned units in California that aren’t being built because they can’t get built to a price people can afford. There are technologies to build offsite and assemble onsite that are about a third cheaper right now, and people think the price could drop by half.Just to give everyone a sense of how harsh this is: the average first-time home buyer has gone from 28 years old to 42 years old. There are many people in California who think they’ll never be able to buy a house. And a house is not just some asset, it’s the place where you live, where you build a family, where you build your life.The last issue on the table is opposition from cities and counties. To a large extent, they feel that building houses is an unfunded mandate. When they permit units, they expect people to live there, and those people require education and health services that cities don’t have money for. So they push back hard.On that score, I think I’m the only person running for governor talking about this: I will call a special election right away to close a corporate real estate tax loophole that brings in $22 billion a year to localities for education and health. That should dramatically reduce their reluctance. There’s a carrot and stick here, if we’re providing this for you, we’re going to ask something in return.Modular & Offsite ConstructionGary Winslett: Can I follow up on the modular points? We’re huge fans of that here at the Rebuild, we love technological solutions to the challenges we face. I had a whole piece last week on the American Housing Corporation doing offsite building and assembling on site. As you say, it saves a ton on development cost per foot. How exactly would the state help with that as governor? Is that procurement standards?Tom Steyer: I think it’s procurement standards, permitting standards, and regulations. But it’s also that people are reluctant to try new things, and this is something whose time has come.When you talk about modularization, I think we’re actually at a stage beyond that. When I think about modular technology, I think about building rooms offsite, putting them on trucks, and taking a wide load down the highway. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about technologies that can easily build nine to twelve stories, the ability to build apartments much cheaper, as well as houses.Gary Winslett: So you’re talking mass timber, that kind of thing?Tom Steyer: Yes, we’ve looked at that for a long time. But a lot of this is about building walls and floors offsite and assembling them on site. It’s been done very successfully with some of the biggest builders and homeowners in the world. The technology is here. The question is how we get it moving, and making sure the jobs that come out of this are good-paying, organized jobs.Tahra Hoops: This all sounds like a no-brainer to me. I’m originally from New York City, which did a lot of building in the past. I grew up in a row home, everything was quite vertical. I’ve been in Los Angeles for two years now, and the first thing I noticed was just how flat everything is. I’d go on walks with my dog and think, we could be doing so much more here. Why do you think Los Angeles and California as a whole have been so slow to build?Tom Steyer: I think there are a couple of reasons. One is cultural. When people are used to low-rise, they can’t imagine high-rise. They find it unpleasant to think about. But if you build it, that was true in New York. Before they built apartment buildings, everyone said, “I’ve never lived in an apartment.” Then they built some really nice ones and people said, “It’s great living in an apartment.”The other thing is there are reasons in terms of liability for developers as to why we never build condos in California. We only build rental apartments and houses, and it has to do with differential liability laws. There are a bunch of things we need to change.But the biggest issue is there has been no sense of urgency. I went down to LA to look at a low-income housing site with the person who developed it, and they said it took three to four months after the building was fully built to get hooked up to the grid. No one can move into a building with no electricity. So that’s three to four months where you’re paying interest on your loan, paying all your costs, with absolutely no revenue.That’s outrageous. We need to stop saying “let’s have the meeting in three months” and start saying “we’re having the meeting this afternoon.” There has to be a sense of urgency. Including ADUs, let’s get going, get units built, and make them at a price point people can actually afford.Tahra Hoops: The process isn’t working.Tom Steyer: We have decades of knowing the process is not working. So let’s stop that attitude. Affordability is at the center of our campaign. The ability to pay your bills at the end of the month is the biggest issue in California, and this government in DC is crushing us. I know it’s just one station, but $8 gas, what does that do to your monthly budget?Energy Costs & Electricity ReformGary Winslett: California has some of the highest electricity bills in the country, and you’ve made bringing those costs down a centerpiece of your campaign. Your pledge is to lower energy costs by 25%. How are you going to get that done?Tom Steyer: I know everybody feels like that’s impossible. Let’s be clear: California pays twice the average cost of electricity in the United States. If we drop rates by 25%, we’ll still be 50% over the national average. So when people say that’s a big cut, yes, it’s a big drop to a still-terrible place.The three big utilities in this state are legal monopolies. You’re not allowed to compete with them. And monopolies always overcharge and always produce terrible service. They always explain that nothing else is possible, that without them, we go back to burning trees.Here’s how utility economics actually work. Most people think electricity companies charge you for electricity, have costs, and the difference is profits. That’s not true. What they do is get a capital expenditure accepted by the Public Utilities Commission into what’s called the rate base, and they get a guaranteed return on that rate base. So their incentive is to get capital expenditures into the rate base.If you and I are running an electric utility, we could put $200 million into the rate base and make $20 million, or do the same project for $100 million and make $10 million. It’s very much in our interest to choose $200 million. There’s no incentive, in fact, there’s a huge negative incentive, to do things cheaply. That’s a perverse incentive. I’m not angry at these people; that is what the state set up.And meanwhile, there is a gigantic electricity revolution going on in the world. The cost of clean energy is incredibly cheap and getting much cheaper. The cost of batteries is incredibly cheap and getting much cheaper. It is much, much cheaper than fossil fuels. Several countries last year increased their electricity supply by 50% in one year. We’re talking about increasing ours by 2%. A ton of this technology is coming out of California. We need to be adopting it, not avoiding it.No one’s walking into a utility and saying, “There’s this great new technology that’s going to reduce our earnings, we should adopt it immediately.” We need a different system. Part of it is changing how we oversee the PUC. We also need to introduce competition.To put some numbers on it: solar and wind cost one to two cents per kilowatt hour. Batteries are a couple cents per kilowatt hour and dropped 80% last decade, with similar drops expected this decade. At PG&E, we pay 48 cents per kilowatt hour at retail. Think about that.We’re moving to a world where local renewable energy generation with batteries is overtaking everything. But we have a monopoly here, it’s illegal to compete. We need to introduce microgrids, local competition. I’m not trying to destroy these companies. I’m saying you’re going to have to adopt the new technology. We’ll give you different incentives and pay you to do the right thing. But 48 cents versus four cents, that’s too big a gap.Natural Gas & the Clean Energy RevolutionTom Steyer: Everybody can see the cost of oil because you go fill up your car and get a different cost per gallon. It’s in your face daily. But nobody understands the economics of natural gas.Traditionally, natural gas is a local market because it’s hard to ship, you can’t send it overseas easily. Oil is a completely global market. Even though nothing changed in the United States, we’re paying dramatically more at the pump because something happened in the Middle East. We’re a net exporter of oil, but the global market immediately changes everything at the pump.Natural gas has been different. In the United States, we pay approximately three dollars per thousand cubic feet. In Europe, they pay $19 to $21 for the exact same amount. Why is that relevant? In Louisiana and Texas, they’re building multiple LNG terminals to export our cheap natural gas to Europe. And they’ve told us it won’t change domestic prices.Really? You more than double the demand and it doesn’t change the price? In what fantasy world does that happen? Renewables are already way cheaper than natural gas for everything. Once we have a global market, which the United States is determined to create, to fatten the coffers of fossil fuel companies, everything that happens around the world affects us.What we’re looking at with fossil fuels is a world that is already more expensive, already much dirtier, and already subject to supply shocks. And we’re saying, “That’s our future”? It’s incredibly dumb.Tahra Hoops: It reminds me of that joke tweet, typically the average person is wrong to say the president has a lever to make gas prices go up or down. But right now is the only time where that’s actually true, because he did pull that lever.California as a National ModelTahra Hoops: How can we actually ensure California is a model for a national cost-of-living agenda? We started the Rebuild because we thought Democrats weren’t doing enough. What’s your vision as governor to make that possible?Tom Steyer: Affordability is at the center of our campaign because it’s at the center of the mind of every Californian, all the time. If we solve affordability and also deliver the services people need, education, healthcare, home care, we actually become the model for the world.This is what the 21st century is supposed to look like: entrepreneurial, innovative, growth-oriented, and bringing everyone along. Working people have been getting the shaft for 45 years, and that’s why the affordability crisis is exploding.We absolutely have the ability to create the best society in the history of the planet. Literally. We are rich enough and smart enough to deliver everything we’re talking about. We just need to drive down costs and be smart. If we do that, we restore the California dream, and we show what a society is supposed to look like: inclusive, dynamic, entrepreneurial, and forward-thinking. California invents the future. This is our chance to invent a really bright one.Tahra Hoops: From the top of our coast to the bottom, we have been lead innovators. There’s been a lot of talk about people leaving California, saying it’s not the place to build and imagine anymore. I reject that.Tom Steyer: The thing a lot of people don’t seem aware of is that young people are enduring, not living. They feel like their chances don’t look bright. Many think they’ll never buy a home. Many think great public schools are beyond them. That is not okay. Restoring that dream in a new time, with a new vision, that’s honestly what this campaign is about.Tahra Hoops: As someone who is 27, I don’t think I’m buying a house next year— don’t have that in my plans anytime soon.Rapid Fire QuestionsGary Winslett: Other than housing, what is something that you think is too expensive?Tom Steyer: Food. Electricity’s too expensive, housing’s too expensive, and food’s too expensive. We need to deliver delicious, healthy food to our citizens, and we can do that. We grow the greatest food in the world in this state.Gary Winslett: Food at the grocery store is right in your face, like gas prices. And people don’t feel like they can substitute down. You can try to do without something else, but you can’t not go to the grocery store.Tom Steyer: What people do is substitute unhealthy food for healthy food. That’s the real issue. People can buy food, but the food that’s affordable has been designed to addict them to it, and it’s terrible from a health standpoint.Gary Winslett: Last question, what is a policy or innovation that you think is underrated?Tom Steyer: Batteries. Batteries are going to change the world. The ability to have a long-duration, cheap battery solves all the problems, because the only issue with wind and solar is when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. With the right batteries, they’re not intermittent fuels anymore. They’re baseload. That’s where we’re going.But the second issue is cars. What is an electric vehicle? It’s a battery with a car built around it. This week, BYD, the biggest EV maker in the world, announced a $26,000 car that goes 440 miles on a charge, with one in development that goes 600 miles. Game over.The technology is here for an electricity revolution. When you burn fossil fuels, you lose about a third of the energy, and for a whole bunch of reasons, you really end up with only about a third. We’re going to electricity on a massive level.I wrote a book called Cheaper, Faster, Better: How We Win the Climate War. We’re not saying to people, “Buy a crummy, expensive car because it’s good for everyone else.” We’re saying, “Buy the cheapest car on the planet, and it’s amazing. And by the way, the pickup is fantastic.”Tahra Hoops: From a competitive standpoint, we are dragging behind. China has understood the power of batteries for a long time and has built a monopoly around them. We’re slowly catching up, and we’re shooting ourselves in the foot if we don’t get to a united front.Tom Steyer: The tech is coming out of California. But look, China doesn’t have any oil and gas. They have absolutely no political reason to prolong fossil fuel energy. And if you look at the history of the world, the country that dominates in energy runs the world. England dominated in coal. We dominated in oil. It’s over. The costs have crossed forever.Battery costs are going to go down 80% this decade. Fossil fuels aren’t going down. They’re subject to interruption. They’re dirty. And they aren’t even paying their actual costs, they’re turning those costs into the bill paid by the people in Altadena and Pacific Palisades, saying: you want to know the tax on our emissions? Your house.Tahra Hoops: I want to end on a positive note.Tom Steyer: If I sounded negative about energy, I’m actually sensing something completely different. We are absolutely going to win this. We are at the point where there’s no doubt who the winner is. The faster we get on that train as a state, the faster everybody benefits. Cheaper, faster, better. Why don’t we lead the world and produce the technology, much of which is unique to California, that we can use to create huge companies and world markets?Tahra Hoops: I love hearing that. Again, thank you so much for being on here. We wish you luck and can’t wait to see how far you’ll go.Tom Steyer: Thank you very much. I appreciate it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.therebuild.pub

In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court struck down the Trump Administration’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs — a decision with sweeping implications for trade policy, consumer costs, and the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches. In this episode of The Rebuild Conversations, Tahra Hoops is joined by co-host Gary Winslett and special guest Ed Gresser, Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at the Progressive Policy Institute, to break down what the Court decided, why it matters, and what comes next as the Administration scrambles to find new legal footing for its tariff agenda.SCOTUS Breaking News: Trump’s IEEPA Tariffs Struck DownTahra Hoops: Given the breaking news that came out today. SCOTUS ruled against Trump’s IEEPA tariffs. This is something that many of us were hopeful was going to happen even though it took many months, many weeks to get this opinion to come out, which was worrying many people. But as you look into the document and see that it is over a hundred, just about 170 pages, you see that the opinions were quite long. And Supreme Court justices such as Gorsuch really wanted to take his time understanding why he was filing his concurrences and why he was striking this down.So you were able to gain a further understanding of. How it took this amount of time.Ed Gresser Joins to Explain the RulingTahra Hoops: I’m joined today by my co-host Gary Winslett and special guest Ed Gresser. He is the Vice President and director for Trade in Global Markets at the Progressive Policy Institute. Ed is a leading expert on US trade policy.He’s worked at US Trade Representatives offices, and he has been following this case quite closely. We’re thrilled to have him here to explain the court’s decision. It means what might happen next and Trump’s recent press conference. So Ed, thank you for being hereEd Gresser: Thanks so much for inviting me. I’m thrilled to be here.Tahra Hoops: So I’m gonna kick it off with you.Top-Line Takeaways: Why IEEPA Can’t Be Used for TariffsTahra Hoops: If you could just go through like headlines, like what exactly just happened, what are the top lines that we should be pulling from this 170 page opinion and what is going to happen next?Ed Gresser: Okay, well the headlines are: Over the last year, the Trump Administration has put in about 15 decrees of various sorts, tariffs on all kinds of things, from lots of things from Brazil to, you know, cars and parts to whipped cream, claiming it’s made out of steel to… most things in the world. About two thirds of the tariff money has come from decrees on using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, IEEPA. The dates to the 1970s meant basically to allow presidents to act quickly in, in the event there’s an outbreak of a war or a pandemic where you really don’t have time for Congress to legislate. The President can act fast and Congress can fill in and legalize things. In the succeeding weeks, which is actually how the Biden Administration used it at the outbreak of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.First to ban some imports, and then to have Congress put things in law, nobody’s ever used to be behind this, and it has proven to be an unconstitutional use. You’re not allowed to take the IEEPA law, which is pretty expansive, and override the actual congressionally authorized tariff system. Over the past year, IEEPA has brought in about $175 billion worth of tariff money. $5 billion from telephones, a billion dollars from makeup, $3 billion from clothes, $3 billion from toys, a billion dollars from fresh fruits and vegetables. So I think it’s kind of come home for a lot of Americans and where they live and where they eat and all that sort of stuff. The Supreme Court has now said, you can’t do this. So all of those decrees are now struck down.What Gets Reversed: De Minimis Rule, Consumer Fees & $175B at StakeEd Gresser: One final example, he used it to cancel the de minimis tariff waiver. So that led to many, many...Tahra Hoops: just to stop you there, in case people might not be familiar, would you be able to walk us through what that rule is?Ed Gresser: Yeah, the de minimis tariff wave, de minimis meaning very little tariffs on purchases of $800 or less, So lots of people used it to shop online.In July they declared an urgency to cancel that privilege. So people are getting fees of $50 and $200 when they buy something from overseas and have it delivered to their home. All those are not canceled. The government will be responsible to pay back the money that it wrongfully collected— all this $175 billion. The Trump Administration obviously is very, very dedicated to tariffs, believes in them, wants to keep them.Trump’s Response & Next Moves: Section 122 Stopgap, Section 301 PlansEd Gresser: Mr. Trump this afternoon responding to this said he thought the Supreme Court justices were bribed or someone influenced governments to do this.Tahra Hoops: Oh, he stated they should be ashamed.Ed Gresser: Yeah I doubt they’re ashamed. He said that he’s now gonna try to replace this set of arrangements, both the 10% worldwide tariff, the 15% tariff, and anything from the European Union or Japan. The 50% tariff on lots of things from Brazil and India. First with a kind of stopgap measure using an old law called Section 122 that allows you to impose emergency tariffs for five months which I think will be 10% or that’s what he said, and then try to replace it with country by tariffs using yet another law called Section 301.So I think basically you can expect one: a lot of turmoil over repayment of this money that the government wrongfully is holding.And two: much more sort of chaos and upheavals in US trading tariff policy and relationships with our neighbors and our allies and other countries as we get up toward the midterm election.Tahra Hoops: Okay. So just to summarize what this opinion details and what it is exactly targeting, as you mentioned it is the IEEPA tariffs and those are going to cover the 10% baseline on all liberation day partners. That’s kind of the liberation day tariffs, the higher reciprocal tariffs on dozens of countries, the drug trafficking tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China.And the about 145% effective rate on most Chinese goods. Gary, did you wanna dive into what tariffs remain right now?Separation of Powers: ‘Regulate’ Isn’t ‘Tax’Gary Winslett: So one thing I wanted to add on some of Ed’s points is that the court went out of its way to make sure that this was understood as the decision that was also about separation of powers. So if you go into the decision, they make very clear that IEEPA gives the President power to regulate in emergency ways, but that does not include the power to tax.That is an unlawful usurpation of Congressional authority. And it doesn’t make sense in the statute anyway because if you had some sort of true economic emergency, you know right after Japan bombs, Pearl Harbor or a pandemic or something like that, you’re not just gonna add a little tax to the issue that doesn’t do what you need to do.And nowhere in IEEPA, as it was written, do they discuss taxation at all. So you would have to imagine somehow that Congress had included it. This unwritten down power of taxation that they had secretly handed to the President in order to follow the Administration’s line of logic. And so for the court, this isn’t just about the economics of tariffs, as dumb as they are, and as much as you and I would point out they are unhelpful for the courts, this is also about pushing back against an imperial presidency. So it is not just that these tariffs do not make sense, they exceed presidential authority and that is why they were unlawful. So it’s not just that Trump has been taxing your groceries idiotically, he has been taxing your groceries idiotically and unlawfully. It’s this separation of powers thing that’s really important.Tahra Hoops: A key quote from the opinion is that there are nine things that the President can do under IEEPA is investigate, block, regulate, direct and comply, nullify, void, prevent, or prohibit. As you mentioned not a single one of those words is tax. None of them say tariffs. None of them say duties and they really try to pull apart the word regulate and its definitions, and clearly it felt irresponsible and was not able to convince the majority of the court because as you’ve mentioned, it is just unlawful to accept that definition, that interpretation that the Trump Administration was looking to do.Ed Gresser: That’s an important point, that constitutionally tariffs are congressional power and they are not the same as regulating commerce with foreign nations. The first enumerated power, number one: Congress shall have power to lay, collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises. And then five lines further down, Congress also has the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations.So the people, the Constitution, definitely felt regulation and tax were two different things. And the Administration’s argument in the case was taxation is a form of regulation, and the court didn’t buy into that.Tahra Hoops: I had a chuckle myself this morning seeing that the Court went straight to the founding: there is no taxation without representation. I’m like, wow. They are really giving you the basics here, and you guys are completely failing. As horrible as it is to read some of this, seeing that just gave me a little dark chuckle.How Far Trump Claimed the Power Went: Gorsuch’s Warning ExamplesTahra Hoops: One of the quotes that I found from one of the concurrences through Gorsuch was just eye-opening because this is something that I have seen and called out for many times as both of you I’m sure have as well, is a quote that Gorsuch said that before us, the President says he may use IEEPA to equalize foreign domestic duties, or not. He may use it to negotiate with foreign countries, or not. He may set tariffs at 1% or a million percent. He may target one nation, one product, or every and nearly every product. It is the idea that he could do whatever he wanted and believes that that was the right of law. And obviously there are several examples that we’ve seen in recent times.The one that comes to mind is his recent call with the Prime Minister of Switzerland, where they had a conversation. He was not fond of the quote-unquote attitude that she gave, and he maybe thought about lowering the tariff rate, but because he did not like her attitude, he instead upped it.So I’ll open it up to both of you, your thoughts and findings on that.Congress on the Hook: Limits of 122/232/301 and GOP/Dem SilenceGary Winslett: I mean, he’s still gonna reach for whatever tariff authority he thinks he can get. They already went with 122 today. The thing about it is though, 122 is supposed to be about balance of payments and the trade deficit. 232 is about the national security implications in particular. 301 is about unfair trade practices.All of the other authorities he would use are at least circumscribed in certain ways. That is at least as long as Congress will step up and actually care about its own prerogatives. So with the 122 tariffs that he just promised, not an hour ago, those have a 150 day window and then they lapse unless Congress extends it.Well, now the ball is even more in Congressional Republicans’ court on this, and all along they’ve had the ability to fight back against this and haven’t. And so it’s just likely gonna be yet another iteration of Republicans pretending not to read the news that day, you can’t find them right now on this tariff matter.And it’s just really frustrating to see the Supreme Court take separation of power seriously, and Congressional Republicans doing everything they can to give a president more taxation authority, which is sort of one of the interesting things today. You would think normally Republicans would love seeing the Supreme Court say that the President actually has more constrained taxation powers than he thinks, and politics are just running in the total opposite direction of that.Tahra Hoops: I mean, I’m sure there have been few, very very few members of the GOP who came out such as Massie and Rand Paul, who understood that this is not a power that the President should be overextending. But you’re right, I have been asking myself: where is Congress? And the fact that he noted the use of 122 to be the one lever that he is going to fall on for, as he mentioned, is going to be much higher than what we have had in recent times.He is putting the blame on you guys. He understands that we are in a midterm election year and the very Congress that has been silent on the sidelines, even on the Democratic side, you now have a lot of eyes on you. Ed, I would love to get your thoughts on this. I know that you’re at PPI, but CNL has also put out a really great tariff tracker.Seeing the messaging, the policies, and the framework of the Senate and the House side for Democrats and how they have been responding to this and how you think they’re going to respond to this newfound light on the next steps of the tariff war.Public Opinion & Midterm Politics: Why Tariffs Are Becoming a LiabilityEd Gresser: Thanks for mentioning CNL, They’re great.There’s probably been more polling on trade and tariffs in the last year than probably in the last 50 years put together. So we know a lot about what the public thinks, and you can sort of see why Republicans are so anxious and so unwilling to say anything. The public in general really doesn’t like this. They’ve thought about it for a year. It’s about 62% to 38% negative. That was the initial reaction in March and April of 2025. And that is exactly what people think about it today. Democrats almost universally oppose 90% to 5% typically. Independents about 75, 25% negative.Republicans mostly hung in there with Trump. So Congressional Republicans are under pressure from the public in general to break with Trump and from their core voters to stay with him. And so what they’ve tried to do is shrink into the background and say nothing and stay away from the issue. And up till a week and a half ago, House Republicans had in fact passed a kind of resolutionary house rule to declare all of 2025 is a single day. The reason for that is that you have a special right to challenge IEEPA measures through privileged resolutions that you can only offer once in a legislated day. So they declared the whole year a single day.That year, or that day, came to an end at the beginning of February, and you then did see people start to peel off. The House last week voted to terminate the tariff on Canada. They’re going to be voting for more of these things. So Republicans are kind of in a bind. They don’t wanna talk about this, they’re gonna have to talk about it. If Trump comes up to the midterm elections and says: we want you to be authorizing war tariffs, that’s a bad place for them to be. That’s not what they wanna be talking about right now.Tahra Hoops: So I, you, we all notice that a lot of the drop is happening because of the economic impacts that consumers are facing. Again, as we enter into a midterm year the economy is going to yet again be a number one priority with how people are voting. They’re voting with their wallet yet again. The tax foundation has noted that over the past year it’s been an added annual $1,300 extra expense on households. With IEEPA tariffs removed that is probably going to drop to around $400 per family, which is still a lot of money that people would like to keep to themselves because they don’t believe that their wages are being stretched as much.Real-World Impacts: Small Businesses, Uncertainty, and Farmers Hit HardTahra Hoops: So I would love to hear about, perhaps Gary, you’d be a great person to answer this, on how small businesses are going to be dealing with this now that one, they’ve gotten a little bit of relief for I guess the hour in between the announcement and the presser, and then also how they’re going to be prepping and planning for these upcoming tariffs that are going to be added on yet again from the consumer side, the company side, and the worker side.Gary Winslett: Well, so they’re getting hit in a couple of different directions. One is that the Supreme Court didn’t really land any sort of mechanism for businesses to get the money back, that they were illegally taxed this whole time. So there’s just no mechanism for them to do that. And the Trump Administration is gonna drag that out as much as it can. They’re not gonna get the money back that they were illegally taxed. But then also, you don’t quite know exactly what shape these new tariffs are gonna take. And it’s very clear that the Trump Administration so believes in these things that they’re going to do everything they can to impose new tariffs.I mean, it’s very predictable that they are doing this, but it’s not their only option. Like what Donald Trump could have done is say, well, I was gonna revive American Manufacturing, but the Supreme Court stopped me. And they would just end there and he could take credit for any good thing that happened, any bad thing is on the Supreme Court. But they’re just so dug in, Donald Trump loves these things and the coalition around him doesn’t know how to tell him no. And so they’re not just gonna pocket the gift that SCOTUS gave them. They’re gonna be trying these other tariffs, section 122, section 232, 301, all these different legal routes to more tariffs, but that means you don’t actually know exactly what is being tariffed and how much, which introduces yet more business uncertainty.And that’s extra problematic if you’re a small business. ‘cause you don’t have the inventory, you don’t have the ability to lobby for exemptions. You don’t have the kind of access to finance that a bigger business has. So all of the problems that this generates. For larger businesses is not great, but it’s extra harmful for smaller businesses, and so that’s just a couple of different ways they’re getting hit all at once in various ways for no reason.Ed Gresser: The farmers are really among the hardest hit groups in the United States. They are both paying more money for fertilizers and for implements, and for fences, for all sorts of tariff impacts. They’re losing their export markets to Canada, to China, to you, and the government or Administration is trying to compensate for that.We’ve reopened soybean sales to Bangladesh and we’ve done X with Guatemala, and it’s just not landing. Those aren’t substitutes. The other thing I would say is that as compared to a year ago… if they’re starting fresh. A year ago, this was all hypothetical and abstract. We had not had a big increase in 96 years.No one in living memory knew what it was like, and they were kind of skeptical about what Trump said. Now they have a year of experience and what has happened is trade balance said it was an emergency. It’s exactly the same as it was a year ago. Manufacturing, large slowdown in manufacturing hires and contraction as share of GDP growth.Now 2.2% last year, not terrible, but lower than every year during the Biden Administration. This has just not been a productive experiment, and I think the public has kind of internalized that. So, the challenge of persuading them to go through another year of this is much bigger than it was in April and February of 2025.Tahra Hoops: I mean, I just think back to after Trump was first elected and then you just saw Google search trends immediately skyrocketed to people like searching what is a tariff? So, you’re right, it has been so long for the nation to even understand what a tariff is, let alone to even conceptualize what the impacts would be as even though he was constantly saying during his campaign: “I am going to tariff this going to save the nation,” and just repeated it every single time he could.It was his number one economic tool. He says the only reason why he did not do so in Trump one was because COVID came around and he thought he was being too nice about it. If anything, he started off his presser today by saying he’s been pretty mild with how he’s been using tariffs, and now he’s just going to kick things into gear and just up what he has been doing before.Refunds Fight: Can Importers Get Their Money Back?Tahra Hoops: But I did wanna touch on one thing that was talked about a bit during the press conference. Is the whole idea of refunds when people had the idealized thought that this would come out and then we would start getting refunds from the tariffs that were illegally put onto US consumers and companies.Kind of like their own version of tariff rebate checks that they have been floating around that were never going to happen. Kavanaugh noted in his dissent. That the United States may be required to refund billions of dollars to importers who already paid the IEEPA tariffs, even though some of the importers may have already passed it on to consumers.He called the refund process a mess, and notes that, as he says, consumers were paying some of that. When that was brought up to Trump during the press about Peter Ducey. He goes, yeah, you think the opinion would’ve included something on how we could do so? Looks like it’s going to have to be litigated from anywhere to two to five years, meaning that the Administration has no intent to refund the people back.So I would love to hear both of your takes on that.Gary Winslett: I mean, just as a factual matter, it’s not true that there’s no technical mechanism to pay people back. Virtually all the payments get done electronically. You could pay them back very quickly. It is a choice not to pay them back, not just some law of nature, like the money disappeared or something.Ed Gresser: Yeah, that’s absolutely true. And it is not unusual for the US government to do this. Last year the Internal Revenue Service paid back over $100 million in extra withholding penalty to a number of $328 billion. They do this routinely every year. The CBP knows exactly how much money it’s collected in tariffs and who paid and when and what law they came under.So it’s not difficult to do there’s no mess involved.Tahra Hoops: I just found that to be funny, the language that they were quickly going to use and something they might continue to fall back on. They would love to litigate their way out of this mess. They have been taking in so much tariff revenue, the idea to give it back somehow, as Trump has been saying, would be an economic disaster.That is why he has to rely on other avenues, such as section 122.Wrap-Up: Trade ‘Deals,’ Ongoing Uncertainty, and the Midterm MessageTahra Hoops: We’re coming close to time and I wanted to end with one quote again from the dissent that I, again, found laughable as I was reading it. From Kavanaugh, as he stated that the court’s decision could generate uncertainty regarding those trade agreements.This is referring to the ongoing trade agreements that Trump has made with other countries regarding IEEPA. Now that they’re reversed, we are now stuck in an environment of uncertainty, something we have clearly not been through before in the world of tariffs.Ed Gresser: I’ll only say that, just to use one example last year, the Administration put America’s European allies through miserable negotiation rounds and wound up with a so-called deal, but legally, flimsy, they’re not very stable. But then within weeks, Trump was threatening to put tariffs of 25% on Denmark and Finland and UK and many other European countries because he got upset over Greenland. So the idea that there’s some stability or seriousness to these agreements is not realistic.Tahra Hoops: Are there any last things to add on there?Gary Winslett: I think one thing that this does at least domestically is it does make it even easier for Democrats to rally around being opposed to these because you have this wing in the Democratic party that’s always kind of liked tariffs, but Trump’s tariffs put them in an awkward spot. They still tried to kind of fudge their way through it.But now that the tariffs are obviously illegal and an illegal usurpation of Congressional authority, then I think that really should be the last thing to bring on all of the Democratic party into these are bad and we need to oppose them and that Trump has been illegally tariffing your groceries a key message line from now through to midterms.Ed Gresser: There is a lot of, at least among Congressional Democrats, there’s a lot of unity among on the idea that you can’t have a situation where a single person is able to create whatever taxes he wants on whatever given day, and that they will hold together on that, the tariff issue until Trump is gone at least.Gary Winslett: Yeah.Tahra Hoops: Well, Ed and Gary, thank you so much for joining me on a Friday afternoon. I think we can all agree that in the midterm election is going to be focused on affordability. Trump has given them a really good message line. He has been illegally taxing your groceries, your goods for quite some time, and we should fight back by voting for Democrats this year. Thank you guys. Have a good one.Ed Gresser: Thank you.Gary Winslett: Bye. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.therebuild.pub

This week on The Rebuild, Gary and I talked with Representatives Nikki Budzinski of Illinois and Amelia Sykes of Ohio to talk about something that’s affecting every family in America: affordability. From housing supply and grocery prices to energy costs, childcare, elder care, and even tariffs, we dug into the New Democrat Coalition’s newly released Affordability Agenda and what it would actually take to lower costs in red, blue, and purple districts alike.The ConversationTahra HoopsHi, everyone. Welcome to The Rebuild. I’m one of your hosts, Tahra Hoops, along with Gary Winslett. And today we have not one, but two incredible guests joining us: Representative Nikki Budzinski of Illinois and Representative Emilia Sykes of Ohio.Rep. Budzinski is the Vice Chair for Policy of the New Democrat Coalition. She represents Illinois’s 13th Congressional District, where she leads on issues like trade policy, keeping groceries affordable, and supporting childcare and elder care, with prior experience working closely with labor and manufacturing stakeholders to support domestic production and local economies.Representative Sykes represents Ohio’s 13th District, centered in Akron, and chairs the New Dems Housing Task Force, where she works on housing affordability. She was just tapped to chair a bipartisan Problem Solvers working group on tariffs, trade, and competition. So she’s at the forefront of efforts to ensure fair trade and lower costs for our communities.Representative Budzinski, Representative Sykes, welcome to The Rebuild. How are you both doing today?Rep. BudzinskiGreat, thanks for having me.Rep. SykesFantastic. Thank you for having us. Looking forward to the conversation.The Affordability Agenda OverviewGary WinslettYeah, we’ve been looking forward to it. Both of you have been working on what the New Democratic Coalition is calling the Affordability Agenda. It’s basically a set of policies to lower costs for everyday people. Representative Budzinski, can you give us the big picture? What’s this agenda all about?Rep. BudzinskiYeah, thanks for that question. This was a real member-driven process. I want to first start out by saying the New Dem Coalition—we’re the center-left coalition in the House Democratic Caucus, 115 members strong. We all take on different kinds of roles within our policy platform. And as Congresswoman Sykes mentioned, she leads our housing effort.The Affordability Agenda, which includes housing, actually has five pillars to it. And we’re really proud of this, as it was a member-driven process that puts forward policy prescriptions that, on day one when we take back the House majority in November and in January, we can lead on and make happen to bring down costs in this country for working people.As you all know, this was a commitment that President Trump made on day one, and he has failed at doing that every day ever since then. The New Dems have put forward our Affordability Agenda in five key areas: housing, healthcare, utility prices, goods and groceries. And fifth, we address issues around family care, whether that’s childcare or elder care, that need to be addressed as core affordability issues.What we’ve outlined in our plan—we really believe these are winning messages and winning policies in red, blue, and purple districts. So it’s been a real team effort from our coalition, and we’re very excited that tomorrow we’re going to be rolling out those policies.Tahra HoopsWe’re super excited for the release to come out. I love how you mentioned “when we win the House” because I’m like you — I’m going to be optimistic about these midterms. I believe Democrats are finally centering on messaging, and the policies you’ve highlighted in this agenda will help us get there.Housing AffordabilityI’d love to dive into specifics. Representative Sykes, as chair of the Housing Task Force, you’ve released the housing affordability agenda. Would you talk about that? What policies interest you the most? What might be overlooked?Tahra HoopsWould you be able to talk a bit about that? What policies interest you the most? What are some that might be overlooked to others?Rep. SykesWell, it has been a great pleasure working with Rep. Budzinski and the New Dems to put together this task force and a group of policy proposals that, when we take the House, we can introduce and start working on day one because we have been working on it now. So we are the definition of prepared and ready to lead.When you think about housing, it is the majority of most families’ budgets. Some financial advisors and planners will say that your housing should only be about 30% of your total budget. But many people are seeing it upwards of 50 to 60% because prices continue to rise.So what we’ve been focusing on are a couple of things. We narrow our provisions into buckets of affordability, accessibility, and getting rid of red tape.Affordability is about supply. There is just not enough housing to meet the need. So we have to make sure that there are single-family homes, multi-family homes, apartments, high-rises, mobile homes—whatever people want to live in—we need to start building it and putting it out so folks can live there.Now, that’s a more long-term solution, but in the meantime, we look at down payment assistance, tax incentives that allow people to want to sell their homes and get other people into homes, and the Homes Act, which I introduced. It looks at things like how many parking spaces you need, what the permitting process looks like—things that slow down the process to get to our main issue, which is supply.We were very comprehensive and thoughtful when putting this together to address supply, affordability, cutting red tape, and getting people into homes they can afford and like being in.Gary WinslettCan I just say, Representative Sykes, how much I appreciate that you are so involved in this? Sometimes there’s this narrative in housing discourse that it’s only coastal cities having affordability problems. And they are—but it’s not only them. Ohio is too expensive. Where I live in Vermont is too expensive.Rep. SykesThat’s such a great point, Gary. Sorry to interrupt you. And I know Rep. Budzinski knows this because we’re Midwestern cities. And one of the best parts about the Midwest is that we have a lower cost of living. But even with that, the amount of money that people are making and taking home is starting to become very challenging for them to enjoy the low cost of living that most people enjoy in the Midwest, which makes us so favorable. Even if you don’t get a beach or sun all year round, we can at least help you afford where you live, and now once that’s a problem it becomes very difficult to attract and keep people in our communities.Energy Independence & Utility CostsGary WinslettI agree. So next, I’d kind of like to turn to energy, which is another area where it hits families really hard when the electricity bill is higher than you’re used to or gas prices at the pump are too high. Representative Budzinski, I know you’ve been involved in energy policy for a while, and the New Dems have put out this new energy independence and security framework. What do you see as the key to making energy more affordable?Rep. BudzinskiWell, energy and generating more energy is one of the five key pillars in our Affordability Agenda. It’s how we bring down utility costs. I would tell you, in my district alone, since this last summer, I’ve heard from constituents that they’ve seen their utility prices spike by up to 24 to 25%. So this becomes a very critical affordability issue.For the New Dems, we think a couple of things. And I’d highlight two points that are in our agenda in particular. One, this administration—the Trump administration—eliminated a lot of the really critical clean energy tax credits that communities all across the country were taking advantage of to build a new clean energy economy, to generate more energy, to get it on the grid, to bring down costs. So the Trump administration, by eliminating those investments in clean energy tax credits, actually hurt our ability to address affordability and bring down utility prices, something we as New Democrats would like to see brought back when we take back the majority.The second is exactly what Congresswoman Sykes said about housing. We’re for cutting red tape. We’re for cutting bureaucracy. We’re for building faster and bigger, and doing that now. And I think as it applies to addressing our housing challenges, it equally applies to energy projects.I am an all-of-the-above energy supporter, which means that we need to bring and build all types of energy, including renewable and clean energy. Obviously, as a coalition, we believe we want to get to a 100% clean energy transition. That’s going to take time. But in order to accomplish that goal, we’ve got to get out of the way and allow these bigger projects to be built.The other thing I would say, as it relates to building these clean energy projects, that’s been challenging is you see the Trump administration actually cut off projects that are almost 80% built. It makes absolutely no sense. So you look at Rhode Island and the offshore wind project, Revolution Wind. The Trump administration, even though this project had been 80% built to generate more energy, to get it on the grid, to bring down utility prices, tried to cut and eliminate that project before completion. It was challenged in court, and now they’re back to building it.But this is common sense. We should allow energy projects, once they’ve been permitted, to be fully built. And we need to make it easier in the permitting process for these projects to come online.I think another point I want to make, as we’re talking about affordability and bringing down utility prices, is that by doing this, we’re creating a lot of good-paying jobs, a lot of good-paying union jobs in particular. Union members, building and construction trade workers, are building the clean energy economy. So when we’re investing in energy projects, when we’re bringing down utility prices by generating more energy, we’re also creating new jobs in our economy.It’s really win-win-win, and it’s something that the New Dems are leaning into as part of our Affordability Agenda.Gary WinslettYeah, I mean, to your point on wind, this is something that’s really frustrating about the Trump administration, which is that this is an American energy resource that they’re strangling for seemingly no reason. Texas has oil. Iowa’s got wind. Illinois has wind. This is American energy that provides good jobs, and it’s just baffling to watch them.Right, it is. And you look at a state like Texas, Gary, where now over 50% of their energy that is generated is renewable energy. I mean, this is the future, but it’s also the present. It’s right here. We need more projects like that to come online, and that will then help us bring down utility prices.Tahra HoopsIt’s funny that you said “for no reason,” Gary, because Trump has stated the reason why he does not want wind projects. He doesn’t like the way they look when he goes golfing. He is putting aesthetic preferences over jobs for Americans and modernizing our grid, which has been faltering for quite some time.We’re reaching energy scarcity. And when it comes to scarcity, you can’t just redistribute your way out of that. It becomes a supply issue. So the fact that we are stopping these projects is self-inflicted. I’m grateful for the courts—it’s five-zero, he’s losing these cases, and wind projects are going back to being built—but time is money, and we’re dragging our feet.As a Zoomer, it worries me about our future as we continue to see energy prices rise while rent is going up and food costs are going up. So I’m very glad to see you working on an Affordability Agenda with a focus on energy because it’s clearly impacting all Americans.Family Care & ChildcareOne other area that affects people’s wallets is the care economy—the cost of childcare, the cost of elder care. That’s not a sector you can automate. Costs will continue to rise, so we need to figure it out. Gary and I hear from many guests that childcare is one of the number one straining costs when building a family. For some, it’s almost as much as college tuition, which is mind-boggling.How are you thinking about lowering costs for families during this time?Rep. SykesAgain, when we talk about the affordability, it’s always easy to say this one is so high, this one is so high, they’re all too high and every family is trying to make everything make sense and they’re juggling and they’re doing a great job, but they shouldn’t have to because there’s a lot that we could do. Now, child care is one of those areas, as you mentioned, is also eating a lot of people’s budgets and it’s making people make really different decisions about their life choices because if people want to start a family, they want to be able to care for their family and have a comfortable way of life.Tahra HoopsMm-hmm.Rep. Emilia SykesThere is no way to keep that child cared for with quality daycare or early childhood education. It’s going to delay or prohibit people from even engaging in family planning and building a family. And that’s something that we need to be mindful of, especially as our population doesn’t seem to be keeping up with other countries. One of the things that I’ve always admired was the information I got from constituents and one constituent back when I was in the state house always said to me that people don’t need more programs, people need more money. And so the bill that I’ve introduced that I’m really excited about multiple times is the Lower Your Taxes Act and it expands the Earned Income Tax Credit which allows for people to get more money when they earn money, get it, earned income tax credit, right? So this is an incentive to get people to work and they can keep of their money and then also that bill expands the Child Tax Credit to what we saw during the pandemic where folks got the money directly paid to them and it is paid for because it increases corporate tax rates and make sure that those really greedy corporate profiteers are paying their fair share and as we know many of them are paying fewer and a lower percentage than any of us on this on this call or who are listening to it even pay. So the Child Tax Credit was really remarkable because it helped lower child poverty by half. And once it was gone, those numbers went right back up. But it also gave families the ability to decide how they needed to spend that money. If it was for housing, if it was for school supplies, if it was for a new appliance, it allowed the families to decide what they needed to do. And it gave them the money to have the agency over, which is again, people don’t need the programs, they need more money. And so that is a way to get people their money back. And the Lower Your Taxes Act is a great way to help support folks.But the final thing I’ll say here is you probably all heard the big fight around the one big beautiful bill, the One Big Ugly Bill, the reconciliation bill, whatever you want to call it. It was a disaster. And the trillion dollars that it is taking out of Medicaid is so problematic because half of the children in this country are born via Medicaid program and so many children across this country use Medicaid to get their health care. And with a trillion dollars of cuts across the program, It’s going to hit children’s hospitals and doctors offices who care for children as well as those women and families who are relying on it to pay for their birth care and Extended care and then when we want to get to the other end of the spectrum It is also the leading payer for long-term care. And so again, we’re still not fully aware about how this is going to impact people because Some of these rules haven’t gone out yet. Some of the states haven’t quite figured it out. And then because of the Paygo Act, is a $500 million cut to Medicare. These are for older adults. These compounding effects are just too much for Americans to bear. And it is why we thought it was so important as New Dems to get ahead of this affordability crisis, to start sharing with the American public what we are going to do in order to make their lives easier and better and more affordable. And we are ready on day one to roll these things out. And we are going to keep our promises, like what we heard from this administration because we have the ideas, we’re ready to roll them out, all we need are the gavels.Gary WinslettSo I wanted to highlight one thing you said there about the Medicaid cuts and we still don’t really know I know a lot of the rural hospitals in Vermont are really worried because there’s this like extra money that got given to rural hospitals, but it’s totally swamped by all of the Medicaid cuts and it’s like it’s really bad like, you know a lot of rural areas like like where I live like Healthcare access is a challenge and losing rural hospitals is like a big deal so I, I kind of wanted to just highlight that. The other thing that you mentioned that I really wanted to underline is one of the great things about the Child Tax Credit is, you say, families can use it how they want. Like some families want two people in the workforce and they use it at a center daycare. Some people want one of the parents working part-time and then they use a daycare two days a week. Some stay at home. And the great thing about the CTC is that it’s all good. Like your family gets to decide like how you want to use that.Rep. SykesAnd they know better than we do. They know how they need to spend the money much better than we do. And we need to give them that opportunity.Tahra HoopsYeah.Gary Winslett100%.Rep. BudzinskiI was just gonna add in addition to helping families keep what they’ve earned. I also just wanna mention as a part of the family care kind of platform we have, we do support Universal Pre-K and I also think Paid Family Medical Leave is just two policy points. So I just wanted to add in addition to what Congresswoman Spikes shared that is a part of it as well that I thought would be invaluable tools. We also speak a little bit to elderly care. We talk a lot about childcare and the importance of that, but I also just want to emphasize our plan includes elderly care as well, because that’s also when we talk about caregivers. And I know in the state of Illinois, one in six adults is actually a family caregiver. They’re juggling a job, maybe childcare, and maybe a parent living in their home. It’s a lot of pressure. So I just want to just lastly quickly mention we do address that in our plan too.Grocery Prices & TariffsGary WinslettOh, for sure. When I talk to my friends and relatives about the cost of living, rising cost, one of the things that I noticed that people are just really consistently frustrated by is high grocery prices. You have to eat, not like you can do without, you know. We’ve touched on this a bit, but with Congresswoman Sykes, since you’re working on this with the Problem Solvers Caucus, what do you think we need to fix to help bring down high grocery prices?Rep. BudzinskiMm.Rep. Emilia SykesTariffs! Our farmers are screaming at us about how the markets have closed for them, how it’s so much more expensive to get product for themselves and their farms, and those costs are being spread out. I mean, you name it, it has some type of foreign component, whether people like it or not, it is the reality of where we are. and in a state like Ohio where we trade back and forth with Canada, sometimes some of these raw materials go back and forth across the border five, six, seven, eight times. They’re getting taxed because that’s what a tariff is, tax each time they cross the border. And they’re not absorbing. They, as in these corporations, are not absorbing the cost. They were able to earlier in the year, but now that the inventory is not there, they have to pass it off. So if you already felt like your costs were high, they’re only getting higher because these tariffs are withstanding. and our farmers are struggling, our manufacturers are struggling, and when you think about grocery, it’s not just the food product, it’s the packaging, it’s the transport, it’s all of the parts and access that is required in order for you to get your food. So the grocery store, every time I leave the grocery store, am... with how much everything costs and everything just keeps going up and up and up and I appreciate the grocery stores trying to put little yellow and red stickers to lower the cost. It’s just not working. I mean I think they’re trying but you know they’re not it’s just not working and so the the net cost that it is to produce all these different products They just keep going higher and higher and higher and people are saying the tariffs are creating untenable situations, unaffordability, but for some reason Trump is just holding on to those things for dear life and it is making all of our communities suffer.Rapid Fire QuestionsGary WinslettI would love nothing more than for that to be the party line on tariffs from now through November. That is just perfect. We like to wrap up with a couple of rapid fire questions. Just a little lighthearted thing if you don’t mind. So I guess we’ll start with representative Basinski. Outside of housing, what is something that you think is too expensive?Rep. BudzinskiBeef, I would say just adding what Congresswoman Sykes said at the grocery store. mean beef alone has gone up by over 15%. You know, I serve on the House Agriculture Committee and we’re always trying to figure out how we help families get healthy foods, fresh fruits and vegetables. We don’t grow bananas here. Those costs are going up, beef is going up and we have a president who would rather allow more Argentinian beef to be imported into the United States and to support our cattle ranchers. And so I just, I’d say beef would be my answer.Tahra HoopsI agree with you there. Why tariff bananas? Why do we do these things? It just makes no sense at all. As you mentioned, this is just something he has refused to let go of. One of Powell’s recent meeting statements said, inflation should only go up once if there are no more tariff increments. I’m like, that’s a big if you are holding onto. I would not rely on that. Representatives, I’ll pass that same question to you, and we’ll jump in for our last couple of ones.Rep. SykesI’m gonna stick with dairy, but a little bit different because I have a sweet tooth. Ice cream. Our dairy farmers are struggling big time. Many of them are family farms and beyond just the tariffs, just many of the policies. But I love ice cream. I love all things that are sweet and sugary. But we’re also seeing the cost of dairy, the milk, the eggs. That’s not dairy, obviously, but it’s a part of the ice cream and it is one of those things. I wish ice cream was a little less expensive.Gary WinslettAre you sure you represent Ohio? Cause I feel like you would fit in with the Vermont caucus right now really well.Rep. Emilia SykesDairy farm in my district, so I’ve got to think about those kinds of things too.Gary WinslettThat’s great. So I want to ask you about maybe some more unorthodox policy ideas. So I got this idea that I would love Patriots Day, which is the day that commemorates the Battle of Lexington and Concord. It’s in April. Every year, the whole of Massachusetts gets the day off. It’s Marathon Monday. It’s great. I would love for that to be like a federal holiday. So I’m curious, do you have any of your own sort of unorthodox ideas that you think would actually be really great that people would like?Rep. BudzinskiI don’t know if it’s totally unorthodox, but I know in the Midwest, I’m sure Congresswoman Sykes agrees, like getting a year-round E15, you’re getting that done is something that would help us in the Midwest. I think a lot of people don’t know what that is, but we grow a lot of corn, which means we create a lot of ethanol. And there’s a way for us to increase the amount of ethanol that is within our, at the gas pump, which actually supports our growers and does bring down costs at the gas pump. It also has a lower carbon emissions. So again, it’s one of those like triple wins. We talk a lot about it in the Midwest, but on the coast, they talk about it a little less, but it’s something that’s a policy initiative that would make a real difference, I think, for our growers.Rep. SykesSo my policy is food as medicine and instituting food pharmacies where you go to your health care provider and if you have a chronic disease or something that you’re trying to manage, you get a prescription for food so that you can get a... fresh produce. when I was in the state house and even now I’ve been working on increasing food pharmacies. And so work I’ve done has created food pharmacies in three of the hospitals that I represent and patients get a prescription, they go downstairs to the fruit pantry, there’s fresh produce, there’s grains, there’s rice, there’s flour. And sometimes if it’s really robust, they’ll have toiletries. And it allows people to get the food that they need that helps them with their health journeys and helps increase better healthier lifestyles and also just creates, you know, an opportunity for folks to feel well and whole. We know kids don’t learn well if they’re hungry, they don’t go to school if they’re sick, so it’s a way to combine everything in a low impact, low barrier, but also it is very welcoming and a really interesting way to make sure wellness is incorporated into the health care system.Tahra HoopsFood is literally fuel and nutrition is such a big part of your health. So I really do love that idea. This will be our final one, but what is your policy or innovation that you guys believe is underrated, is not discussed enough? Representative Bitsudski will start with you.Rep. BudzinskiI rolled out with End Citizens United, an anti-corruption agenda. I think what’s happening in the White House right now is completely outrageous. There’s a number of really good pieces of legislation to clean up Washington, but the one that I’m working on introducing is on what they call the prediction markets. So right now it’s legal on different prediction market platforms like Polymarket for myself or any of my staff to take wagers on bets that could mean questions that are currently on Polymarket is “Will the United States bomb Iran again?” Like there are questions that because of the work that we do on Capitol Hill, we might be privy to information that would affect a wager or a bet. I’m looking at legislation to eliminate and make that illegal for basically members or our staff to take advantage of those types of polymarket betting with insider information. And I think those are the kind of things that while they sound wonky, actually I think would demonstrate to voters that, you know, we’re trying to clean up Washington and that we really need to be doing that. I think people, at least I know I do, see what’s happening in the White House, the fact that Donald Trump has profited by about 1.5 billion since coming into office on different investments. It’s shady and we need to clean it up and I think the prediction markets could be one area that would be interesting to lookTahra HoopsI completely agree. I live in Los Angeles and the amount of billboards here are horrendous. It’s a different story. But one that blows my mind is one from a prediction market company where it asks you to download the app and bet on when the car in front of you will move. I’m like, that is just asking for a traffic accident. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it. Representative Sykes we will end the last one with you. Something you might think is a bit underrated for a policy or innovation.Rep. SykesYes, I’m certainly going to give you one. So I had a past career as a law clerk for a bankruptcy judge and bankruptcy law is very underrated. Now, most people don’t want anything to do with it and that’s fair. But the system as it’s set up right now allows for large corporations to take advantage of significant and gaping loopholes so that they can avoid liability when they do harm. Think of the Purdue family with opioid settlements and Johnson and Johnson with the tap powder. They’ve been able to try to mitigate their liability to harming their customers through these bankruptcy loopholes. Meanwhile, individual debtors have so many barriers to actually using the bankruptcy code and they can’t do things like discharge their student loan debt, which continues to keep people unable to be financially free. So the bankruptcy code needs 2026 touches to address what’s going on in real life and meet the needs of individual debtors, not just the rich, wealthy corporations who’ve been using it. to avoid liability and keep themselves wealthy.Tahra HoopsThat’s amazing. And thank you for shedding light on that because bankruptcy law is something that is so incredibly niche. My husband clerked for a bankruptcy judge a while ago. So he will be very happy to listen to that. So I appreciate that. Thank you both for making the time to be here with us. This has been a great episode. Everyone watching, please ensure that you are reading this agenda. It will be linked. We will post it. And we are just very excited to take on the midterms. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.therebuild.pub

In this episode of The Rebuild, hosts Tahra Hoops and Gary Winslett sit down with Aaron Shroyer, former Special Assistant to President Biden for Housing Policy on the White House National Economic Council. Shroyer shares insights from his journey through city government, the Urban Institute, HUD, and the White House — revealing how local, research, and federal perspectives shape better housing policy.The conversation dives deep into the future of housing affordability, from reforming NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) and unlocking modular construction, to rethinking how federal, state, and local governments can build smarter, faster, and fairer. Shroyer also discusses his recent work with the Searchlight Institute and a forthcoming paper from Brookings, tackling urgent housing supply and infrastructure challenges ahead of the 2030 census.Whether you’re a housing policy wonk, a YIMBY advocate, or just curious about how Washington can help (or hinder) new construction, tune in to hear an unfiltered look at the policies, politics, and practicalities of fixing America’s housing crisis.Tahra Hoops: Hi everyone. Welcome to the Rebuild. I’m one of your hosts, Tahra Hoops, alongside Gary Winslett, and today we are joined by Aaron Shroyer, who most recently served as special assistant to President Biden for housing policy, the White House National Economic Council. That’s a mouthful earlier in the Biden administration.He also worked as a senior advisor at HUD and a policy advisor at the White House Domestic Policy Council. Before his time in the federal government, Aaron worked at the Urban Institute and for the city of Kansas City, Missouri. Aaron, thanks for being here.Aaron Shroyer: Thank you.Tahra Hoops: So you’ve had a fascinating career path in the housing policy world from working on housing and economic development in Kansas City to advising on housing research at the national level, and then also serving in the White House on various initiatives.How have those varied experiences at the city think tank and federal level shaped the way that you approach housing issues? Are there any lessons or perspectives from your time here that you found especially valuable in crafting policy at the national level?Aaron Shroyer: Sure. Well, first of all, I’d like to just thank, thank you both for ha, for having me on. Uh, and I’ll say that your new newsletter has quickly become one of my, uh, go-to reads in, in the morning. So thanks for all for all the work that you’re doing there.Tahra Hoops: We love that.Aaron Shroyer: And Gary, I especially liked your Scrooge McDuck mention from a few weeks ago, so we’ll have to find some way to work that into the conversations. Tahra, as you said, really those past experiences influenced how I approached my job in government at the White House. So my time at Urban exposed me to a lot of people ideas. It was really really helpful once I got into government to have relationships with those folks. Whether at the eviction lab or Zillow or a Federal Reserve Bank, or other places that I worked with while at Urban. One of the biggest challenges that we had in the early days of the admin is that we had really incomplete information from the ECS and census sources. So we were trying to make choices about the eviction, moratorium, emergency parental assistance and things like that, and getting the insight and just, having that ability to tap into the network that I had, from Urban was super helpful.And then, going back to my local experience, that gave me a real perspective on how so much of the federal funding that we put out lands in place. As both of you know, much of the federal funds are passed through to local governments. So it’s super important to design programs with the end user being the local government in mind. A good example of that was the state and local funds from the rescue plan, which were block grants, but they didn’t include the typical strings that you see from a federal program. And I think it is no surprise jurisdictions found those much easier to use than, let’s say, a typical HUD block grant. Just to bring that to the present day, what I’m doing now is writing about the ideas that were things I had hoped to do if I got the chance to stick around at the White House, but that I think are nonetheless important to get out in the world.And I’m excited to talk about some of them with you all.Gary Winslett: I wanted to ask you about that, Aaron. You were just talking about how the local governments like these grants that don’t have 84 strings attached to them, right? I think Ezra Klein had the most famous metaphor here, which was the everything bagel. I kind of prefer this metaphor of nine birds, one stone.Like you’re trying to hit nine birds with one stone and like if you try to do that, you just don’t hit anything. So I’m just curious, what are some of your thoughts on ways in which we can help policy makers focus and prioritize in terms of housing policy instead of treating housing policy like a thing that should also accomplish 18 other policy priorities?Aaron Shroyer: I think that it’s super important to, as you said, make sure that the programs that have a core purpose to build more housing are doing so. That seems obvious, but I think sometimes that gets lost. So one of the first papers that I put out followed the Abundance book, which I think was a great framework to think about these issues and it, um my paper focused on NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] reform. So essentially if there’s new housing or renovation that’s funded with federal funds, with HUD funds, in most cases before the parcel can be purchased, before a building can be built, the entity that’s sponsoring the has to go through a NEPA review and it seems nonsensical in a bunch of circumstances where it’s going to support infill development and building in exactly the sorts of places that we want to build. So I think that’s just one good example of how the government can really get out of its own way to focus more on the outcomes that we want to see and not the process to get there.Gary Winslett: I think that’s totally right. Something else I wanted to ask you about is, one of the things that happened during the Biden administration out in the market is that we got these really cool technological developments around modular construction, around offsite construction.Mass timber is a good example, but it’s not the only one. I would just be curious what your thoughts are on what the federal government or state governments can do to accelerate the rollout of these new kinds of building technologies?Aaron Shroyer: Sure. So I think it helps to just kind of put some numbers behind it. Right now, each year we build somewhere in the range of 1.3, 1.5 million in new units. Of that, roughly a million are single family homes and then the rest are multifamily. Of that combined total, less than 10% of those units are built with offsite construction. So if we’re going to dig ourselves out of this supply shortage in let’s say five years, we would need to build something like 2 million homes each year for several years, which would be an increase of 33% over the baseline that we’re at right now. And given the construction worker crunch that we’re seeing, it’s reasonable to say that if we are going to dig ourselves out of that shortage, then techniques like offsite construction are gonna be a bigger piece of the puzzle than they are nowGary Winslett: Mm-hmm.Aaron Shroyer: They are more efficient in the workers that they take to build a given type of housing.Gary Winslett: Yep.Aaron Shroyer: But it’s risky to invest in the factories to build that housing. There’s a lot of upfront investment and the demand for the housing produced is uncertain. So one of the ideas that’s out there is for local and state governments to invest more of their own money or passthrough funds in actually constructing those factories. And then trying to figure out some way, knowing the production schedule that’s out there through LIHTC [Low-Income Housing Tax Credit] or production subsidies or financing, figure out some way to purchase the demand for those factories as a way to de-risk those investments.Gary Winslett: Smart. I like the model of doing the purchase agreement to get the investment to be de-risked. I mean, it’s basically what we do in pharmaceuticals a lot, right? Like the government will guarantee we will bulk purchase all this stuff. And so then that makes it, obviously, a better investment for the business.Tahra Hoops: A lot of this kind of brings me back to your recent paper that you have out with the Searchlight Institute on Winning the Census, and I was so excited to see this paper come out because it really does have the political framing and urgency that we need right now to understand why the housing undersupply is such an issue.Because one, we should be building more houses on merit alone. Everyone should have a place to live, and housing costs are going up, but we’re not really focusing on the political ramifications of this. For example, your paper starts off with mentioning how over 1 million residents have left California in just four years alone.And obviously a lot of that started during the COVID Pandemic, but high housing costs was one of the main factors that they cited for why they left and they went over to red states like Texas, or you have people fleeing New York and they’re going down to Florida. It’s something Republican governors are even bragging about.So how should policy-makers respond to these kinds of affordability driven migration trends? Do you see this to be kind of like a state by state competition? Do you think it’s going to be a more coordinated national solution? I myself am more pessimistic on that side, and that’s why I like that your paper focused on governors in the near future solving this issue instead.Aaron Shroyer: Yeah, so I think first it is important to mention the LIHTC investments that are in the OBBBA [One Big Beautiful Bill] or whatever we’re calling that bill these days. And so those will add up to essentially one extra year’s worth of units produced over the next decade. So while I think that there’s much more that the Federal government should do, getting that investment is a big deal, but also it’s not sufficient on its own and I think that’s where states come in. And I think that there’s been a lot written on how Democrats are looking forward with current trends they can’t rely on what’s called the blue wall to win the presidency beyond 2028, given the trends and the likelihood of the places that are gonna gain and lose electoral votes. So I hope that governors realize that if they want to retain and to attract residents before the 2030 census that they need to take action... well, really yesterday, but they need to take action now because decisions that they make and laws that they pass in the next year translate to shovels in the ground in 2027 and 2028, and residents who move in in 2029, 2030. So with that piece at Searchlight, I was trying to convey the urgency and with that I hope that there’s a friendly competition between governors to see how much they can do on their own and with their legislatures to build housing because I think besides LIHTC Reform, they’re not gonna get much help from the from the Trump Administration. I think they’re only gonna face headwinds from the Trump Administration.Tahra Hoops: Mm-hmm.Gary Winslett: I would love to see that be the format of competition between red and blue states. Who can out-YIMBY the other one? Like who can actually do better at delivering affordability for residents? I would love that to be the field the two parties are competing on.Aaron Shroyer: I think with that piece that I put out, as you saw, you know there are a lot of states doing a thing or two things.Tahra Hoops: Mm-hmm.Aaron Shroyer: My piece focused mostly on what governors can do on their own. There’s been good executive orders that have touched on certain facets, but I think that the oomph behind the piece was saying that it’s not enough to do one thing, we have to do all of the things and do them now.Gary Winslett: Yeah. You had mentioned shovels in the ground and spending based on the census. I wanna ask you about infrastructure, because we’ve seen the federal government laws, the various initiatives to help cities add housing around new transit lines. And that’s important, right?At least in my view, if you don’t get the transit right, that really adds fuel to a lot of NIMBYism. If people are terrified that they’re gonna lose their parking or traffic’s gonna get so much worse then it turns a lot of otherwise not YIMBY people a little skeptical of housing. And so you gotta get the infrastructure and the transit right.So how do you think we can better integrate housing policy with infrastructure and transit planning? Do you think we need new policy tools or is there some other mechanism of getting these two to work together a little better?Aaron Shroyer: Sure. I think first, as you said, it needs to be legal to build more housing near transit, and it is not in a lot of places and reforms like [California’s] SB79 that just passed are great steps forward. So we should recognize that. But I think that a big theme of my work is tha beyond the zoning reform to make it legal, that there’s more that we need to do to ensure that buildings get built.And so there’s a twp programs at DOT [Department of Transportation] TIFIA [Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act] and RRIF [Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing] that provide below market rates for loans to residential projects, near transit stops. These were a big focus of my time at the White House— trying to figure out how we could make them work because to date they have not closed a residential loan because these programs essentially weren’t set to do so. They were set up for things like toll roads. So if you look at the process to get loans approved, they sort of mirror what that process looks like.You need things like investment-grade credit, credit ratings and things that are just not part of the underwriting process for housing. Then in recent years there have been different bills that expanded what those loans could go towards that include residential, but they didn’t change what you need to do to get a loan. So there’s a mismatch there.Tahra Hoops: Gosh…Aaron Shroyer: And so a bunch of my work at the White House was working with DOT to do all that we could without changing the statute to make it so that we could potentially close loans, really make the program work. It has potentially tens of billions in loan authority that it can do. You really need Congress to make some changes. So with that in mind I have a paper that’s gonna come out tomorrow at Brookings.Tahra Hoops: I was going to say, I want to hear more about this. I feel like this should have been its own chapter in the Abundance book. This is just an insane thing to hear.Aaron Shroyer: So we have this surface transportation re-auth that needs to pass a year from now, essentially. Now is a great moment to get the ideas out there for how to make funding sources like these work better. And I know that a bunch of that work is ongoing by various think tanks and friends of ours in DC.So the hope is that the ideas in this paper to make it so that this program is actually better set up to make residential loans can encourage the construction of homes near transit. And then I think that the second thing, to your question of how to coordinate these investments better.I think, Gary, you’re going to appreciate this being in Vermont, is that there’s a lot of projects that don’t occur because the potential parcels that they’re on are not linked up with water and sewer and that the jurisdictions put the cost of doing that on the developers make it so that those deals…Gary Winslett: Yes. I’ve even seen towns in Vermont turn down free water and sewer investment from the state because they don’t want new housing near them. Under this like totally bananas idea of like… it’s like the reverse Field of Dreams. You know that movie? It’s like if you build it, they will come.Well there’s this super NIMBY idea of like, well, if we don’t build it, maybe they won’t come. It’s just crazy to watch water and sewer be intentionally turned down for the purposes of no new housing.Aaron Shroyer: if we don’t build it, they won’t come and our existing residents will get priced out. That’s a horror film, not a field of dreams type of movie.Gary Winslett: Yeah.Tahra Hoops: I mean I’m just hearing all of this and I’m just like, these are very niche, wonky issues that hold up so much housing development. But unless you yourself are in the weeds, the average person is like not going to hear this, and then they’re just going to be like Scrooge McDuck, they’re going to go find a random villain and blame it on it.It’s like, no, it’s so much more. Okay, wait for anyone who has not read the Scrooge [post], Gary, can you please give us an overview of your piece?Gary Winslett: Sure. The piece is just arguing that some Democrats have this really bad habit on cost of living issues, where they always wanna find some Scrooge McDuck somewhere to blame the high costs on when actually it’s usually a supply problem. But that doesn’t feel as emotionally powerful as blaming some sort of greedy rich person somewhere like a Scrooge McDuck swimming in the coins.Rich people don’t have class solidarity, like the rich developer is getting rich by building housing, whereas like the rich NIMBY is protecting their views because they just like theTahra Hoops: Property values.Gary Winslett: Right, or property values they just don’t like change. There’s not a class solidarity between them. And so it’s like an analytic mistake to approach a lot of these cost of living policy challenges from a position of find somebody to blame versus a position of, well, how do we build more so that everybody has part of the good life.Tahra Hoops: Aaron, in your line of work, have you seen opposition similar to what Gary is describing pop up, have you seen any direct opposition from the initiatives that we worked on that has kinda taken you aback.Aaron Shroyer: Yeah, so I think that you see this within the polling that’s done in this space.Tahra Hoops: Mm-hmm.Aaron Shroyer: I’m not sure if this is specific to housing, but when you ask people what they think is to blame for high prices or sort of who to blame? The econ 101 of supply and demand is not very high in their mind.It is the corporate landlords or other things like that. Those make for effective villains, potentially, to Gary’s point. But I think that they’re more the symptom of the problem than the cause. And I think that they’re… I’m not sure if you’ve seen this series on TikTok that, Chi Ossé does in New York CityTahra Hoops: Yeah.Aaron Shroyer: He has this great framing where he is like, the best way that we can stick it to the landlords is to build more so they don’t have more profit. And I think that there’s more that needs to be done with the messaging to convey that and make the economics for people, or the rationale for people resonate in a way that I just don’t think it does now.Tahra Hoops: I love that you brought up Chi Ossé because I love the work that he does, even if sometimes I think some of his policies are a bit to the left of mine. I appreciate what he is doing in order to explain to his constituents why he’s spending so much time on a wonky bill that people might at face value… like you agree, would not even kind of agree with him on, and it’s something that I..I think Democrats are complete losers right now. And when you are the losers you should be focused on coalition building. So if the polling is telling us that voters are not understanding why housing is so expensive and they are retreating back to an emotionally charged response, that means we need to be better at persuasion and messaging on why these policies are actually going to re achieve the progressive values that we all want.It’s pretty progressive to want landlords to have more competition, like you are fully sticking it to the man by having so much housing out there. Landlords are gonna be like, well, I have to lower my rent in order to catch up with everything.It’s the same thing in New York City and how they have so many bodegas everywhere. They’re all so cheap because they know they have to compete…Aaron Shroyer: Yeah, and this is more of a question for potentially the listeners, but one of the things that I think has not really been a focus of the YIMBY or the abundance movement for housing is, you know, let’s just say you’re a mayor or a governor who runs on a pro supply to lower cost platform and you make some changes within your first year to make it easier to build, to unlock supply. It’s likely based on how long it takes to build that supply, that the impact from that won’t be felt until the end of your first term, if you have a four year term.So I think that it is important and you’ve seen more folks talk about this and sort of get credit for being caught trying. But I do think that there is more that these electeds are gonna need to do to deliver for people in the short run to lower costs and to do so in such a way that is not, you know, rent control, for instance, that could undermine their core mission to boost the supply.So I don’t quite know what the perfect complement of those short term wins and ways to fight is, but I think it’s a really important thing for electeds to figure out, not just how to message, but also how to produce for people for these longer term supply boosts can take hold.Tahra Hoops: I think... Especially at the state level, people have to be okay with smaller bills being passed at times. I remember there was this very small housing bill a couple of months ago, and forgive me because I cannot remember the exact name of it, it mainly was increasing the amount that people could take out pre-tax in order to go buy their first home.And someone posted about it online. I said, this is great stuff. Moving on. It’s like, this is not gonna do much to solve the affordability crisis. I was like, not all bills are going to be one stop shots to solve the affordability crisis. Sometimes you have bills because you need to work in the system that you have and your constituents need relief now.Like that is just the way the world works. And we should applaud elected leaders for operating in the sense that they can.Gary Winslett: Right. I totally agree. Like I grew up playing football, so I always think of it on a football framework of like, if it’s third and four, a five yard gain is good. Like you got a first down. You don’t have to score a touchdown with every play, and it’s bad to adopt a mentality of, well, if it isn’t a touchdown this play what were you doing? Well, it’s like, no, no, no. You march forward over time and like that’s how you get incremental wins that stack up.Aaron Shroyer: Yeah. And, and I think to that point, you know, if it took us a decade plus to get into this mess, it’s gonna take us... I hope not that long, but it’s gonna take time and we’re gonna have to hit singles or, you know, gain four yards. To your point, Gary, you know, there is no one simple fix to solve housing...Gary Winslett: Right.Aaron Shroyer: What’s exciting about the space right now is that I think there’s energy behind it. There’s a lot of people trying new things, and I think what’s gonna be important for the movement in the next few years is to get a better sense of what works and where, and then do more of that.Gary Winslett: Yeah. No, I totally agree. I mean, that was why when we had our big report last year, we focused on a bunch of success stories. You know… Buffalo removes parking minimums, they get a thousand new units of housing over the next couple years, two thirds of which would’ve been illegal under the old parking minimums...So just like a bunch of these like positive examples, I think could actually be really helpful for helping people see that actually these supply side policy reforms really do work.Tahra Hoops: It’s showing that we need to go back to being the party that focuses on results and goals being achieved, instead of just having a lot of rhetoric saying like, maybe we can do this one day if we try really hard. Like it’s just, it’s going to fail, like it’s going to fall deaf on voters’ ears.Rapid-FireTahra Hoops: But in the essence of time we’re gonna wrap up here with some rapid response questions.What is something that you think is too expensive and don’t say housing.Aaron Shroyer: Oh, well, I was gonna say rent.Tahra Hoops: Yeah.Aaron Shroyer: If I can’t say housing, I’ll say food.Tahra Hoops: Okay. That, I mean, that is always a good one. Tariffs are increasing the price of that by the day, so Thank you Trump.Okay. Next one is: what’s an innovation or a recent advancement that you believe is just kind of overweight, like people are overestimating it.Aaron Shroyer: All right. This may be a potential hot take late in the podcast, but I think zoning reform without some financing reform to accompany it. And what I mean by that, and I kind of touched on this before, is just because something is legal to build, doesn’t mean that it gets built and given how long it takes to build something, it’s in the interest of the officials that are passing zoning reforms to make sure that the reforms that they enact turn to units built.So I think it is at times, and especially in where the demand isn’t crazy, it is insufficient to just pass zoning reform and, you know, wipe your hands of that. I think that there needs to be more done to pair that with tax abatements, with building on public land and other things like that.Tahra Hoops: I love that. I feel like the YIMBY movement is hitting like a turn where we are all finally agreeing for the most part, outside for a couple of outliers that yes, zoning reform needs to happen, needs to be done, but financing is the next bucket that we need to be focusing on. And shout out to CPE [Center for Public Enterprise], I saw you did your infill paper with them.They are starting an affordable housing series and a focus on financing. I will be attending tomorrow. I’m very excited about it. And it’s to give one-on-one intro to policymakers, other people in this sphere to understand how large of a part the financing part is because of their work that they’ve had directly with developers.So I’m glad that’s becoming an emerging conversation because I agree we haven’t spent much time doing so, and I’m happy to sharpen my senses and knowledge on this issue as well.Gary Winslett: All right. What is a policy or innovation that you think is underrated?Aaron Shroyer: So I am gonna tease something that I am working on now. I’ve got a report that’s focused on the potential for housing on USPS owned land. And that’s also potentially because it is exempt from local zoning. And those parcels tend to be located, back to your question before, Gary, in the sorts of places where we wanna build more. So I think that there is potential there to build on USPS land to generate revenue for a postal service that needs it desperately. I may have to come back on the podcast once that comes out to talk through it.Tahra Hoops: Yeah.Gary Winslett: Mm-hmm, that would be great. I would love to hear more about this ‘cause I know that that had gotten floated and discussed with an EO in the Biden administration, but it sort of needed more than that to get going. So I would love to hear more about that at some point.Aaron Shroyer: Stay tuned.Gary Winslett: Will do. Last question. We’d like to know if you have any sort of… off the wall policy ideas that you favor.So I would be a big fan of having sort of a federal moratorium on localities subsidizing sports stadiums because the economics of it are terrible. It’s awful for taxpayers, but localities feel like they’re hamstrung because if they don’t say yes, the team will leave for somewhere else. Like that stinks for everybody. Whereas if the federal government just said, nope, you’re not allowed to do that, that would actually be tying the hands of the localities in ways the localities would actually really like. So I’m just curious if you have any of these other sort of unorthodox ideas.Tahra Hoops: We won’t hold you to them. Don’t worry.Aaron Shroyer: I am gonna be boring and just stick with what I know for housing and say... One idea that’s a bit off the wall would be to require places to hit production thresholds in order to make their residents eligible for SALT [state and local tax] deductions.Gary Winslett: I like this. I like this a lot.Aaron Shroyer: So saying, sure, you can deduct state and local taxes, but only if you build sufficiently and just... I don’t think it would ever stand a chance of getting passed, but like what that would do to the NIMBY folks that own their homes in jurisdictions would be fascinating.Tahra Hoops: You have at least two supporters here on that if it ever goes somewhere.Aaron Shroyer: Great. Okay. Well, we can build that movement.Tahra Hoops: Love that. Okay. Well thank you so much for being here. We’ve really enjoyed thisGary Winslett: Yeah, this is fun.Tahra Hoops: It’s been great and hopefully we’ll see you soon when you come out with that new paper. That will be out by the time this episode is out. You said it’s going to be in the Brookings Institute?Aaron Shroyer: That’s right. Yep.Tahra Hoops: Amazing. We can’t wait to read it. Thank you.Aaron Shroyer: Thank you.Gary Winslett: Thanks, Aaron.​ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.therebuild.pub

In this episode of The Rebuild, we spoke with Congresswoman Brittany Pettersen of Colorado’s Seventh District about the economic and structural challenges facing young families today and what it will take to make America more family-friendly. Our conversation explored how rising costs of childcare, housing, and everyday necessities are shaping family decisions, why stronger federal support for working parents is urgently needed, and how Congress itself should evolve to reflect the realities of modern family life. We also discussed the broader need to rebuild public trust, invest in affordability, and restore stability to our political system so that future generations can thrive.Tahra Hoops: Hi everyone. Welcome to the Rebuild. I’m one of your hosts, Tara Hoops, joined with Gary Winslet, and today we have an incredible guest joining us, Representative Brittany Pettersen.She represents Colorado’s seventh district, elected to Congress in 2022, and previously served in both the Colorado House and State Senate where she led on issues like education, mental health, equal pay and support for working families. She’s also one of the few young moms in Congress, bringing a deeply personal perspective to the challenges of raising a family today.We’re so excited to have you. How are you?Rep. Brittany Pettersen: Yes. I’m so excited to be here. I’m doing as good as you can be in these crazy times. How are you doing?Tahra Hoops: You just summed it up. Every day I am just like: just get through the end of the day.Rep. Brittany Pettersen: I know. I’m like, focus on the issues we wish we were working on at the federal level.Tahra Hoops: Exactly. Yeah. That’s the importance of having state reps and even on the local level, so you’ve completely nailed it. But, I wanted to start us off on a recent piece that I wrote this week on our Substack talking about young families and how they’re actually delaying expanding their families.Some people on the right are saying people are not having kids anymore because this is a cultural issue. My argument was more so that it is financial. Of course, there are always many circumstances that add to the issue, but for me, affordability seems central… housing costs, student debt, healthcare, especially childcare.Do you think these economic pressures are the big reasons why family formation is slowing, or do you think there might be larger factors at play? And what can we do to make it feel possible for people to feel secure, to have a family?Rep. Brittany Pettersen: Yeah. fundamentally this is a choice that people should have. They should have access to birth control and reproductive healthcare to be able to choose if and when they wanna start a family. And then we should have childcare and make sure that we’re paid for doing the same job as our male counterparts and that we can actually afford as women, and as families, to take on having children.So I think that they just look at this fundamentally in all of the wrong ways. And this is about giving us that choice, economic freedom, reproductive healthcare, and making sure that we can actually afford and have a place to send our kids where they’re safe, where they can go for childcare in early childhood education, and then education at large.Gary Winslett: So you’ve talked pretty candidly about your own experiences bringing your newborn to Congress because there’s no real accommodations for new parents. I super sympathize with that ‘cause I have a 6-year-old and so I just remember always like juggling the work and family stuff.My kid is actually watching Odd Squad on the other side of the room right now. Totally get it. I’m just curious, what reforms would you like to see both in congress and in workplaces more broadly to make America more family friendly? Does it mean baby bonuses or paid family leave, or a bigger child tax credit or something else?What do you think would help make this easier for parents?Rep. Brittany Pettersen: First of all, in order to actually pass policies that are gonna address the challenges that families face, we need people in Congress who understand what families are going through. Oftentimes so many people are out of touch because of the money and background that they come from that is not reflective of most Americans. Especially not currently going through the difficulties that so many families face with lack of access to affordable childcare, with rising costs of housing, groceries, and everything else. I think it’s really changing the systems so that it is more accessible. Part of that is making sure of the very small step that we were trying to make when I was pregnant… passing a resolution to update our rules so that if you recently gave birth or if there’s a medical reason while you’re pregnant— because you can’t fly close to your due date, for example, so if you have reasons for being away you still have your vote represented remotely. That was a small step that we couldn’t, we had overwhelming bipartisan support and the speaker shut us down every step of the way, even though we forced a vote through a discharge petition. That was a small step forward.But we need to change the way Congress is set up. Our schedule is not accessible for families. If you’re expected to be in your district and also in DC to vote... there are ways that you can set that up where you can maximize your time in DC and not be away from your family as much. There’s a lot of things that you can do to support people there that make it much more family friendly. Fundamentally though, there are just people that don’t think that individuals like me should serve in congress. I should be home taking care of children. I can’t believe the backlash that I got online from right wing folks. You know this ‘cause you have gone through it, but nobody will take your kid when they’re under three months old because of the liability issue.Plus, we were on a wait list for over 13 months as soon as I knew I was pregnant until my son, Sam, finally had a slot. So he had to go to Washington with me. Whatever I was doing, he was with me. Whether that was spending 24 hours at the Capitol and sleeping overnight there to not miss votes. Sam was in it with me because there were no other options. And while I had unique challenges as a member of Congress, this is what families are going through every day. I don’t even live in a childcare desert and it still took me that long to have a spot open up. We need system changes in Congress. We need to pass paid family leave for folks. We need to make sure that women are paid their value. There’s so much that we can do to invest in our kids, to invest in regular people and reduce costs for working families that makes it more attainable to pursue starting a family.Gary Winslett: I wanted to ask you about those slot constraints. ‘Cause like every new parent I know goes through this. We went through it, you clearly went through it. Everybody has this thing where it’s like… you apply to like nine daycares and you may get into one of them. You may be on a long wait list.So I’m just curious, what do you think we could do to maybe alleviate that a little bit?Rep. Brittany Pettersen: Oh, there’s a lot that we can do. So… pandemic dollars when they were coming down federally, thank goodness Democrats were in charge during that crisis… When I was in the State Senate, we were able to oversee massive amounts of federal dollars that were trying to keep services and businesses afloat through such a challenging time. I was part of a bipartisan group that invested in the infrastructure and upfront costs of creating childcare facilities and meeting our regulatory standards, investing in workforce and loan forgiveness programs.We have really high standards for people who are going into early childhood education. They have to come out with a degree and then we pay them nothing when they’re there. So we need to incentivize people to go into these fields and we need to also help support the education process and the cost of that. We also need to diversify in, and I’m getting a little in the weeds I know, but... we need to diversify the types of opportunities that we’re creating. So, the United Way in Colorado, a nonprofit, goes in and actually trains women in child desert areas on how to start their own childcare center at their house and how to do that safely. You’re changing generations of opportunity. You’re not only filling a local gap, you’re creating these small business owners, you’re changing the opportunities for their kids. So we need to look at friends, family and neighbor programs and how we actually develop that and that support system.But then we also need to invest in a big way. When you talked about the child tax credit, that was the number one most effective thing that congress has done to reduce childhood poverty, so we need to make sure that that is permanent. They just cut a bunch of taxes for the most wealthy individuals on the backs of working families. We need to make sure we’re investing in regular people and [the child tax credit] would help families address rising costs, it would help them address childcare costs. And then I think we could get into what we’ve done in Colorado through taxes, and I think that we could do this as well. You would qualify universally to help with some assistance, so you could have a match at the federal level, for example, to help people in the most vulnerable time when their family is the most likely to struggle financially and when it is the most expensive to support your needs to get your kid in a safe place and then you being able to actually go into the workforce.Tahra Hoops: You mentioned the one big beautiful bill, which, I still can’t get over that name, but I really do find it shocking that it was just like a reverse robin hood, like you just cut our social safety net— taking away healthcare and SNAP benefits. These are kids who are just hungry and yet the idea is that we need to lessen that so that the top 1% can get a larger tax break was like so shocking to me that to this day, I was—Gary Winslett: While raising taxes on imports.Tahra Hoops: Yeah. Exactly. All while having tariff-palooza every single day since April 2nd. And I sometimes worry that our messaging there, because it wasn’t so concise and strict, it felt like it fell deaf on people’s ears.Like I wanted to ask you like. Obviously passing affordability policies is something that we’re always going, and need, to do, and it should be a priority. I’m a big proponent of the child tax credit, that should be a no brainer. But what do we do to make sure families actually trust the results they’re going to feel in their daily lives? What is the messaging that can reach the average person to say Hey, we Democrats did X, Y, and Z, and we want to be there to protect that while the GOP was off doing god knows what.Rep. Brittany Pettersen: Yeah, I think it’s the biggest challenge right now because these are, when it comes to issues, things that we represent and fight for are very popular. When I was in the legislature, the bread and butter issues that we worked on, the things that we would point to when we had split chambers that the Republicans would kill, we would point to [and say] Hey, this is what we would do for you if we were in charge. And ultimately we were able to do that and we delivered in very meaningful ways.I think that it’s difficult because at the federal level these are complicated issues. We were talking about the things that we wanna do to make a difference in people’s lives, but we haven’t had the opportunity to be in power for enough time to get enough done. I think that people could feel it. And then, during the Biden administration, we infused dollars that saved our small businesses, that saved our economy… the quickest, strongest recovery in the world. And instead of hearing that— all [people] heard were Democrats: rising costs. Democrats: inflation. It was just consistent. They have very simple messages and it stuck and people forgot where we had come from and what we had overcome and how we got here. So we definitely have to do a better job at messaging.I think the thing that I get the most frustrated about is we talk a lot about [people] paying their fair share of taxes. Okay, sure. But it’s not just that. It is about what that means for people. It’s not just about fairness, it’s about what you do when you tax people. When you have a fair tax system, people like Elon Musk do not exist because the amount of wealth that one person holds should be impossible if you have a fair tax system that’s investing back in each other, and what it means to reduce costs and increase opportunities for regular people. We’ve seen every single decade, the opportunities that I had growing up continue to dwindle and it’s because of the priorities of the most wealthy individuals on the backs of working families, and it’s going to get even worse. The big ugly bill is the largest wealth transfer from working class families to the most wealthy individuals in the history of the United States.It is unfathomable. So we need to talk about what it means to level the playing field, what it means when you have access to high quality schools, when you can send your kids to childcare at an affordable rate, when you don’t have rising costs on groceries and everything else, when you’re actually investing back in each other… it reduces costs, it increases opportunity, and it is about investing in housing and the things that you all talk about. So, we need to get back to connecting why fair taxes matter to people’s lives and how that reduces costs.Gary Winslett: So you just mentioned housing and earlier you had mentioned your time in the state legislature in Colorado. I wanted to ask you about that, because we all know we need new housing, but anytime you try to do that, you get local opposition. I’ve read about some of these Colorado ski towns where the workers have to live 45 minutes, an hour away, because the locals with money don’t wanna see any new housing go up around them. And so I’m just curious, like what are your thoughts on how we streamline housing production and get around some of these red tape barriers in Nimbyism to actually get more affordable housing built?Rep. Brittany Pettersen: The picture that you just painted couldn’t exemplify more the growing inequality in this country. We have people throughout the rural parts of my district and throughout Colorado where they have enormous homes that they might be in only two weeks out of the year. And it stays vacant.People can’t afford to put a roof over their head and live in that community where they work. and you have many people who are holding homes that they barely visit, couldn’t be more reflective of how far off we are in this country. But I think that it’s about bringing the incentives at the local level. It’s about trying to build houses and invest in new technologies that can build them quicker and cheaper. I visited the first 3D printed home in Chaffee County. It’s the first one in Colorado that was printed and it’s an example of what’s possible as we’re in this new technological age and how we take advantage of that. But we also have a housing facility that tries to build houses like we do cars and they do it inside a warehouse. They do it so you’re not restricted by the weather and what’s happening outside.And they can actually do mass production of homes at a much cheaper rate, but they have regional restrictions ‘cause you can’t take ‘em over highways, you can’t take ‘em through mountain ranges. You have to build these things regionally and they’re very expensive to start. So we need to invest in things like that that are going to bring massive amounts of houses across the United States, the tax incentives for builders to build the type of homes that we need.And then we need carrots and sticks for local communities who don’t wanna address the needs of their community. So, we’re trying to work on legislation at the federal level, but we’re definitely not doing enough at the federal level.Tahra Hoops: You mentioned manufactured housing and Gary’s eyes lit up. He recently had a paper on manufactured housing. So Gary, if you’d love to give us an overview…Gary Winslett: So it’s funny ‘cause Mass Timber works this way too, where you mostly do the manufacturing offsite and then onsite you almost put it together like a Lego set. So there’s a new mass timber apartment building that went up in Minneapolis last year that went up in under three months, which is just lightning compared to traditional construction techniques.So yeah, I’m actually really excited about some of these new housing technologies. Technology makes everything better over time, why can’t it do the same thing to housing? Our cars are better than they used to be, why can’t our houses also be better and cheaper to build?Rep. Brittany Pettersen: The place I was referring to in Chaffee County, Fading West as a company, their houses, they don’t look like manufactured homes, they’re beautiful. I would love to live in one of those. I think that’s a perception of what they would be in your community and being resistant to that. But, they definitely don’t have to be.Tahra Hoops: As we’re being forward looking discussing the future, it’s something that comes to mind. We’ve talked about your son, I think you might have two sons. Is that correct?Rep. Brittany Pettersen: Yes. I have a five-year-old who just started kindergarten and I have an eight month old. So Sam is the one that, my eight month old, that everybody saw me on the house floor with.Tahra Hoops: The star of the show. Yeah. I wanted to ask you, as you’re a freshman in Congress, you’re seeing the inner workings like no one like constituents don’t ever see. What is something that you would like to see, you would want your son to see in the way that government works by the time he’s grown up?What changes structurally, maybe even small, would you like to see happen in the next 20 years or so?Rep. Brittany Pettersen: Oh my gosh. Everything changing? I sometimes feel like I should be doing videos for constituents on trying to educate people about what’s happening in Washington... ‘Cause the conversations I have with [my five year-old] to update him about what’s happening and why, and, I feel like people need that one-on-one back to basics again, because it is just such a disaster. I think that we’re on the brink of another government shutdown right now. This is not the way that a superpower can continue to lead the world, continue to keep our country safe, and address our urgent needs.My hope is that one day we can have a functioning government that no matter who is in charge, we don’t have these enormous pendulum swings and we can agree that there are functions of government that are very important— like keeping us safe, our national security, clean air, clean water, addressing rising healthcare costs, creating the incentives at the federal level to reduce costs for folks. I mean, I’m so shocked every day at the amount of damage that is caused where it’s not like during the pandemic where we were dealing with something that we couldn’t control, it was this terrible global pandemic that we had to get through, keep our country afloat, what we do to ourselves because of the dysfunction at the federal level, the amount of money that is invested elsewhere because the United States doesn’t look stable anymore. The standing that we’ve lost in the world and the economic impacts that the Republican chaos is gonna cause, has already caused. We already lost over a million jobs since January across the United States, and it’s only going to get worse. These are all things that we did to ourselves. So I hope we can do the basic functions of our jobs, and I hope that it takes much less than 20 years, and I have, of course, bigger aspirations, but if we could do that, we could actually focus on addressing those long-term challenges.Tahra Hoops: That’s something that we joke about on The Rebuild is like getting the basics to work again. It sometimes it feels like it’s gone a bit too awry where we just wanna stop and make sure that our foundations are stable because right now it doesn’t seem so. And as you keep building on unstable foundations, everything starts to crack even larger.Now you just have like this big muddled mess around you. So, for the sake of our future generations, for the sake of my future life, I hope that some of the things that you said could actually come to fruition.Rep. Brittany Pettersen: Yeah, I mean, I can’t believe what a disaster we’re seeing at the federal level and the impact that the economic pain it’s gonna cause. When I look back at my life during the nineties— we had no debt, we were doing pretty well. I look back at my childhood and no matter what individual struggles I had, our country was in a pretty good spot. I hope that we get to rebuild the middle class again. It’s with people who are struggling economically and with the lack of opportunity where you start to be ripe for extremism. And that’s what we’re seeing on the right and the left.Gary Winslett: Yeah. I think we have time for one more question. So as our listeners are aware, The Rebuild is a Substack that focuses on how Democrats can get back to being the party that focuses on cost of living to help people who are struggling. So we always like to wrap up with a couple rapid fire questions.What is something you think is too expensive?Tahra Hoops: Don’t say housing.Rep. Brittany Pettersen: Diapers... formula... definitely housing.Gary Winslett: Yeah I totally get it on the diapers and formula. I just remember how absurdly expensive a new baby felt. It was unbelievable.Rep. Brittany Pettersen: Oh my gosh. And yeah, childcare. Our childcare costs almost as much as our mortgage.Gary Winslett: It’s incredible. I think people who don’t have kids in daycare just don’t [understand]. It’s incredible.What’s an innovation that you believe is overrated?Rep. Brittany Pettersen: An innovation that is overrated... social media? I don’t know. When I look at the damage being done with algorithms and extremism and the radicalization of individuals... I am really concerned about social media.Gary Winslett: And then the last one. So I have this kind of unorthodox idea that it would be really great to get the federal government to put a moratorium on local localities subsidizing big sports stadiums. ‘Cause we know that the economics of it are terrible, but you feel stuck that the team’s gonna leave if you don’t hand over all this money for a billionaires’ sports stadium. So I’m just wondering if you have any of those kinds of unorthodox policy ideas.Rep. Brittany Pettersen: I don’t know. I’ll have to think about that more.Tahra Hoops: It could be an absurd one, like nothing that you actually have to pass. We won’t know you do it…Rep. Brittany Pettersen: Nothing’s coming to mind at the moment.Tahra Hoops: My absurd policy idea is that when it comes to concert ticket sales— I think they should have access to either your Apple Music or your Spotify, and the people who listen to that artist the most should get priority in buying those tickets. This is someone who has PTSD of trying to go to the Eras tour, and it was a bloodbath out there.Rep. Brittany Pettersen: Oh, I bet. Something that we passed in Colorado… when we connect taxes to services, is that if you’re asking to reduce taxes you have to identify the top things that will be hit… top services, and it has people think about that tax cut. So I think that we should do that at every level of government: if you want a tax cut, you have to be able to communicate on the ballot about what that means for constituents when they’re voting on it.Tahra Hoops: Oh, I like that. It leads to more transparency as well.Well thank you again for meeting with us. This has been a great conversation. We’re loving the work that you’re doing and we hope to see more of you. Thanks for making the time to be here.Rep. Brittany Pettersen: Yes. Thanks so much for having me. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.therebuild.pub

In this episode of 'The Rebuild,' hosts Tahra Hoops and Gary Winslett are joined by Representative Laura Friedman to discuss her bipartisan bill, the Cut Red Tape for Housing Act, which aims to reduce housing costs by removing outdated federal hurdles. The conversation delves into the specifics of the bill, the need for streamlining approvals for housing projects on infill properties, and the broader challenges of addressing NIMBY opposition and improving mass transit infrastructure in California. Representative Friedman also shares insights on balancing environmental reviews with the urgency of the housing and climate crises.Tahra Hoops (00:05)Hi everyone, welcome to the Rebuild. I'm one of your hosts, Tahra Hoops. I'm joined by Gary Winslet. Today we have an incredible guest joining us, Representative Laura Friedman, who represents California's 30th district. It includes Burbank, Glendale, West Hollywood, and parts of LA and Pasadena. She was elected to Congress in 2024 and previously served in the State Assembly, where she led on issues like housing, transportation, climate, and more. We are very excited to have her here today. Representative Friedman, how are you doing?Laura Friedman (00:33)I'm doing great, thanks for inviting me.Tahra Hoops (00:36)Of course. So I recently attended the announcement of the Cut Red Tape for Housing Act. It was a great ceremony, a great announcement. It was something that I personally was very excited to see. It was a bipartisan bill that you introduced to help lower housing costs. In your announcement, I remember you said this legislation is going to remove outdated federal hurdles that add time and cost to building. Can you tell us more about what this bill does and why you felt like it was needed?Laura Friedman (01:01)Sure. So right now, certain housing projects have to go through a process called NEPA, which is the National Environmental Policy Act. This is a process that for housing is completely duplicative of many state laws and environmental criteria. We also found that for housing projects that go through NEPA, almost 100% of them end up getting declared to be categorically exempt from the act.However, just getting through the process costs sometimes as much as $200,000 and can take over a year. So you're talking about an unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle that housing projects go through that adds time and adds money. So by setting the standard once and for all that these projects that infill housing does not have to go through NEPA will reduce the cost to build housing, which of course is money that comes out of rents for the units. Sometimes it makes projects not pencil or it comes out of the quality of the materials that are put into the building. We've heard from developers who lost their financing because of the NEPA-related delays. If it takes a year longer to build housing, that's a year that someone's out of an apartment, that someone has not got a roof over their heads that they can afford.So there's really no reason to have these projects go through NEPA. We're talking about projects that are on infill properties that have already been developed. We're talking about former strip malls that are obsolete and are blighted. We're talking about old office buildings that no one's using anymore. We're talking about open air parking lots. We're talking about land that is not environmentally sensitive and is the perfect location to build new housing.So I'm really excited that this bill is bipartisan, like you said. My goal is to make the cost of housing less expensive and removing this kind of unnecessary red tape is a big first step.Gary Winslett (03:10)No, this is great. One of things that I really liked about this act is it's just like common sense. Like a lot of times voters just want you to make it make sense, and it makes no sense to look at a derelict strip mall and some developer wants them to turn it into housing and then there's this whole bureaucracy. It's like, “no, no, wait, wait, wait, we've got to make sure that this is environmentally friendly to do.” It's like, well, of course it is. It's infill housing where it's already developed. It's not like you're like paving Yosemite or something.Laura Friedman (03:44)Right, and in the bill, we are defining what infill housing is, and that'll be the first time that's been done in statute. So we'll have a nice definition of infill housing federally that we can use, and we have a lot of guardrails. So like you said, it's not gonna be in Yosemite, it's not going to be in undeveloped land, it's not gonna be in a community park, for instance, it has to have been previously developed, and it has to be in an urban context, or at least an area that that has 75 % developed area around it. So it could be in a small town, but it can't be out in nature somewhere on farmland.Tahra Hoops (04:16)That is such a big part of this bill that I feel like is not getting as much discussion as it should because when we talked about infill development before, first of all, to a lay person and somebody who's like not entrenched in housing politics, one year out the other, I've made the mistake of communicating to people about why we need more housing, discussing infill, and they're like, stop there, what are you even talking about? So the fact that you're including a statute exactly defining what it means, I feel like is a huge win from a policy perspective and also a messaging perspective.Laura Friedman (04:47)Yep, absolutely. And we also were careful to exclude things like high wildfire areas to make sure that we were really capturing, like you said, the really common sense places where having this expensive and time consuming process makes no sense.Gary Winslett (05:05)So I kind want to ask you more about this because one challenge if you want to build anything, housing, a new transit line, wind or solar projects, is you've got these really diffuse benefits that go to a whole broad area, the whole state, the whole country, the whole county, but the costs are often very local. And so if you put the decision-making at the hyper-local level, as much as that makes sense from like a Tocquevillean [perspective], people want to have a say in their local area.You do run into like local opposition that's just opposed to it. I know you served on a city council, so you've seen this “not in my backyard” dynamic. And so I wanted to ask you about that. Like, do you have some ideas about how you push past that? Is it about changing the process so that you're putting it before a wider audience or what are your thoughts on getting past some of that sort of NIMBY opposition?Laura Friedman (06:00)Yeah, we could have a whole show just about this because it is a really important topic and those discussions are real and the fear that policymakers or decision makers feel is very real. And those city council meetings, we've all seen them where the residents come up and they just sort of yell one after the other about how this project or that project is going to destroy the character of their neighborhood. And it's sort of never ending. I'd say a few things.First of all, we have to recognize that often the people who are screaming the loudest are not representative of everybody in the community. And one strategy that's effective is to also bring those other people to the forefront and make sure that their voices are being heard, not just by the decision makers like the city council members, but also by the rest of the community. Because I have found that it is that a lot of times these people who are yelling about the project really don't think there's a need. They are maybe single family homeowners, they bought their homes 20, 30 years ago. They don't understand what the housing crisis has done to younger residents. They don't understand the link or don't believe the link between street homelessness and the cost of housing. They don't see that people are leaving areas like Los Angeles to move out of state or to move to other areas because they can't afford their rent or they can't afford to buy a house.And what that means for things like traffic congestion or jobs and companies refusing to locate in areas like Burbank or Glendale, where we've heard companies say, “I wanted to move to the city and bring high paying jobs, but the cost of living is too high. The rents are too high. My employees who want to relocate here can't afford to buy a home. And they can in Texas or North Carolina.”So making sure that people understand that and bringing those people forward. What I found is powerful is when we've had people stand up and say, I was born and raised in this community and I can no longer afford to live in the community that I grew up in because of the cost of housing. That sometimes changes hearts and minds. But at the end of the day, decision makers have got to look at the actual need and they have to do what's best for everybody, not just the people who scream at them the most.And I would say that I'm perfect proof that you can live in an area where you have a lot of opposition to housing and still be bold in terms of housing creation and removing obstacles to housing and still get elected, still keep your seat and still get elected. Because there are so many people now who are profoundly impacted by the housing shortage, who are more than willing to support and vote for someone who takes this crisis on publicly and outwardly. And so I hope that other decision makers will look at the fact that I was a Glendale council member and voted to entitle over 4,000 units in downtown Glendale when we did our downtown specific plan, that I ran for state assembly on a pro housing platform, that I was very bold in the legislature on housing topics year after year after year, and I still was able to win a seat in Congress.Because the tide is turning as the housing crisis worsens and people have to do what's right.Tahra Hoops (09:24)First of all, it's very refreshing to hear you say that as someone who lives in West LA and I feel like I have never seen so much NIMBYism brought up in my face and I'm also from New York City. So I thought I had it bad there, but LA is just a different monster. Like I just remember the news from the LA city council voting down on SB 79 while it's really just like a statement for them to make it, but it's also shows like it's indicative of the current political climate in LA as it approaches housing and I often joke the one good thing coming out of the housing crisis is that we're finally starting to take it seriously. So I have guarded optimism here, but I do think we've hit a point where people realize like rent is taking up too much of someone's paycheck when it could be going to other things while it's compounded by the fact that we have tariffs going on every single good out there. So when you have all this compounded anger, you just start to realize like, okay, like we can't keep going down the same path. The same playbook is not working anymore. And though there are…Laura Friedman (10:23)I was just going to say, I totally agree. And, you know, I think the other thing is to make sure that people understand the link between not building housing and really bad things that happen, like homelessness, like overcrowding. You know, there's a lot of really negative results, like people moving out of the community who are contributors to the community, like people's kids not being able to move out of their parents' homes…Sorry, there's buzzing because we're in a congressional building and they're telling us that the session's opening up. But I apologize for that.You know, even things like traffic congestion, making people understand that the reason there's so much congestion on our highways often is because people are having to drive in to work in Los Angeles from far-flung areas, not because those areas aren't nice areas and there are wonderful places to live in communities all around Los Angeles. But there are people who have moved to those communities when they work in Los Angeles and are facing one to two hour drives each direction, who would much rather live closer to where they work.Now, I'll say one other thing, which is we also have to, though, address the real concerns that people have who oppose housing, because there are concerns that are very, very valid, but also extremely fixable. So people are usually concerned about parking and traffic impacts. And they're absolutely right to, because if you build density in areas that don't have the infrastructure to absorb that density, you're going to have real impacts on people's quality of life. But there are ways of fixing that. And that's why I always say, and I have for years, that you can't talk about the housing crisis or address the housing crisis without also addressing our mobility crisis, which means making sure that we invest more in mass transit and public transportation.We have got to stand up mass transit at the same time that we increase the density and growth in our cities so that people have a better quality of life. And the side effect is that everyone will have a better quality of life because at a certain point people are going to get to the point and some people are at the point where they can't necessarily drive a single occupancy vehicle around. Maybe they're too young or they're too old and all those people deserve or maybe it's too expensive to own and operate your own car.Well, in Los Angeles, we don't give those people a great quality of life either because we don't have a great public transportation system — It's getting better, but it could be exponentially better — and if Los Angeles and areas like it invest in the kind of high quality transit that we have in other parts of the world, or even in Washington, D.C., let's say, we can add the density that we want without negatively impacting communities.Gary Winslett (13:11)So I think that's all right, but I want to ask you about transportation then. As you say, if you want to densify people and don't want to be stuck in traffic for forever. So the solution is mass transit, right? But we all know LA traffic is terrible. And I know you were on the transportation committee in the state legislature, but a lot of big projects in California take forever and run way over budget.High-speed rail I think is the most obvious one, but even other kinds of transit are over budget and late. And so to me this is just a core part of the abundance agenda. It's like, how do we actually not have transit be over budget and late all the time? And so what are your thoughts on that? Why is it so hard to build transportation infrastructure here? It's much more expensive than it is in Europe. Why does it take so long?Laura Friedman (14:07)Yeah, well, we definitely need to streamline our systems for our approvals for transit. And we started to do that in the California legislature. You know, I was part of and I chaired the transportation committee in the assembly and we did streamline some of our processes so that you don't have to go through an environmental review to put in a bike lane, for instance. So we could do a lot more streamlining so that you're not doing needless reviews when we know that adding mass transit is going to be a net benefit for the environment, finding ways of doing the kind of common sense reform that I'm working on for housing and doing a lot more of that for transit infrastructure and for energy infrastructure, clean energy and renewables and all the other things that we know are a definite net benefit, not just for society, but for the environment.But also looking at things like bringing consultants in-house so that you're not spending so much money on outside consultants. And even more importantly, rethinking the way that we fund transit. So yes, we should be funding transit much more aggressively, we put a ton of money, the bulk of our resources go into building new highways and roads.Very little of it goes into mass transit infrastructure. And we have to flip that switch in the United States, 100%. And we also should be looking at the kind of public/private partnerships that they employ around the world, particularly in Japan. I went to Japan and rode their high speed rail and looked at their transit system, which is truly exceptional and gives everybody an amazing quality of life without, like you said, being stuck in traffic. You actually get to your destination really quickly, really safely, and in a really positive environment in Japan because of their investments.And the big way that they do that is by doing public-private partnerships where they open up the public land to private developers to build wonderful mixed-use projects that incorporate movie theaters and office space and restaurants and amenities that people want in exchange for them putting quite a lot of resources and money into transit, especially their high-speed rail system, which is privately owned and paid for by these private developers who then get to develop the hell out of the land around the transit stations. So it's a win-win for everyone. And by the way, having that wonderful mixed use around transit stations makes the system safer, gives people an actual destination right there that they wanna go to that are incorporated into the transit system and puts a lot more dollars into those systems.We don't do that in the United States. You know, when I asked California High Speed Rail a couple of years ago about exactly this, they said, well, we're gonna have a Subway sandwich shop in our train station. No, no, the train station should be a small component in a larger development. LA Live should be centered around a major transit hub, but that's not how we built it.SoFi Stadium should have had transit incorporated inside of their development, not miles away. So we need to be rethinking what we do with transit stops and rethinking what we expect of large developments and bring those together. It'll help to fund transit, but it'll also make that congestion go away because people will now be using that transit and make those transit stops much more lively and filled with choice riders, not just people who are taking transit because they have no other way of getting around.Tahra Hoops (17:33)I love that you mentioned SoFi Stadium because getting to SoFi is absolute hell to the point where me and my husband sometimes don't go to concerts or other events because we just don't want to travel all the way there. And for me, like I've only been in LA for like under a couple of years and I'm still getting used to the fact that when you go on the road, it might be just an hour to get to your destination when the actual distance is not that far because congestion is just terrible and there's no walkable transit by where I live. And it's just an issue that I find so frustrating because if you travel, as you said, to other countries, you see it's just such a lively place.And we also talk about the death of third places. And it's something that I became enamored with in grad school, seeing how we are on a bit of a social decline, especially in a post-pandemic world, people trying to figure out how they can actually interact with one another again. Mixed use development and having access to transit is a perfect solution to that.I remember growing up, I used to be able to just walk to an outdoor mall that we had and meet up with friends. We were in middle school and it was a safe and nice area to do so. If I had a child in middle school, I wouldn't just send them walking out in LA. I'd be scared they're gonna get hit by a car.Laura Friedman (18:42)Yeah, so you asked about NIMBYs, right? So NIMBYs in Los Angeles, we have seen growing traffic congestion over the years. Remember back, you remember the movie Clueless? There's a line in Clueless where she's stuck at a party in the Valley and [her dad] says: “you've got to come home right now. Come home right now.” And she says, “daddy, I'm in the San Fernando Valley.” They live in Beverly Hills. And he says, “everything in LA takes 20 minutes.” Well, that used to be standard thinking, anywhere you go in Los Angeles took 20 minutes. Well, now it's hard to get a few blocks because of the congestion. So it links back directly to the NIMBY question, because the NIMBY solution for this is just don't let anyone else move here. We have too much congestion. Anybody else who moves here, any apartment building that's built, you're adding more people equals more congestion, which by the way, is not even true, because a lot of these people are already here. There is still overcrowded conditions, right?But even if it were true, the solution to that is we're going to just build a better mobility system. We're going to add more mass transit so that you don't have to sit in congestion anymore. And in fact, you don't even have to drive— that as you get older, for instance, you can take a safe bus or train to get somewhere. Or like you said, if you're going to SoFi Stadium, or if you're going to the beach or the Getty Center or downtown LA, wherever you go, you're not going to have to drive there and be stuck in congestion, pay $30 to park your car if you can even find a spot.No, you're going to be able to get there much quicker by taking public transportation because we're going to provide more of it. We're going to make sure that it is absolutely safe for you to ride. We're going to put the officers that we need. We're going to put things into place to make it safe. We're going to run it a lot so that you don't have to worry about missing your train home or your bus home and grow up as a city, grow up as a community. That's the answer that will allow us to unlock the housing potential in Los Angeles and give everyone a better quality of life.Gary Winslett (20:37)So I'm a Boston guy. I can't help but toot our horns that Revere Beach is on mass transit in Boston and LA with 10 times as many awesome beaches as Boston can't quite get there on that.Laura Friedman (20:54)I was just in Boston, I used to live there. I will say they need to run more trains up to the Cape, you know? There's one a day now, which is nice and it's great... but I'm like, one a day? Really? Peak season? But Boston's great. Boston is an interesting… you know, the T is interesting in Boston, but it's great and everybody uses it. It's safe. Everyone uses it.Gary Winslett (20:58)They do.Laura Friedman (21:18)You know, when Fenway Park is going, the T is packed with people and it's like a celebration. And so, you know, that's definitely a model we should be aspiring to.Gary Winslett (21:24)Yeah I mean that could be SoFi on a big game day.Laura Friedman (21:33)Yep. Yep. It could be Dodger Stadium. Yep.Tahra Hoops (21:34)It could be, but it's not. People live in the parking lot because of it.Gary Winslett (21:49)So if we step back a bit you represent a state that often leads in a lot of really awesome ways. There's a lot about California that's amazing, but it's also a state has high costs and red tape. And so the whole theme of The Rebuild, this newsletter and interview series we're doing is like… cutting that red tape to try to get more affordability and growth. And so I just wonder what you think blue states like California need to do to get governance right that we haven't already discussed.Laura Friedman (22:29)We need to definitely get out of the way of the kinds of projects that we want to move forward, whether they're apartment buildings or renewable energy, we have to look at process that's there for processes sake that's not paying any dividends. And also look at policies that are put in place sometimes by local governments that are really impeding our progress. So I spent a couple of years doing it, but eventually I banned parking minimums near transit, which was something that I wasn't sure we'd be able to do, but it was really important to me because to me it was really— and people think parking reform, why is that important? — It's important because it actually combines what we were talking about, transportation, housing, and also climate. And those parking minimums make transit not work. They make housing unnecessarily expensive. And they're really against our climate goals all at the same time.So looking for nexuses like that where you can actually change policy at the state level or the local level that pays dividends back to get the kind of development we want, which is like you said, the train station in you know, in the SoFi stadium, the next step would have been to not require them to build thousands of parking spaces, right? To make it to where you're expecting people to use transit to get there and put parks around it instead, you know, make it green, make it sustainable and create the kind of project that we want that fills all of our goals. So I didn't ban parking minimums, but I did say developers didn't have to do them near transit because we want them to be building the apartment buildings instead, not doing giant parking lots. And we want people who live there to be self-selecting based on their desire to use transit. So there's all kinds of reasons to do it. And certainly a lot of people saying not to do it, but we did it… it was successful.So looking at everything that contributes to increasing cost. How do we bring the cost of rent down? How do we bring the cost of building down? How do we shorten the timelines? How do we make energy cheaper? We make energy cheaper by bringing more renewables online faster. How do we save our planet from climate change? By switching over from fossil fuels to renewable energy. And that means recognizing that what any environmental review that we could do palesin comparison to the harm that climate change is causing now. So it's going to always be a net benefit to build more renewable energy and to stand it up faster. So we should cut the red tape and cut the environmental reviews because we don't have time. The planet will be on fire. We are literally on fire because of climate change and we need to recognize that and put building those renewables above any other kind of environmental review.There's a lot that we should be doing to adjust our goals with our processes. And I've been working for eight years now in the assembly on that, in the California assembly and stand ready to work with anyone on a bipartisan basis to do that faster as long as it fits in with those overall environmental goals.Tahra Hoops (25:40)Yeah, there's a funny saying that always comes around is that policy outcomes don't care about your intentions. And that's where a lot of these environmental reviews came from. They came from a time where they were really needed and then they slowly morphed into a way that just stopped and stalled progress. And we as progressives need to take a stand at one point and realize if we are not achieving our goals and the results that we say matter to us, then what are we even doing? It's not progressive to stop building. It's not progressive to block housing or have to make it affordable so that a nurse or a firefighter or anyone who works a blue collar job could afford the house that lives right next to you.So it's something that angers me sometimes as I get into it and I realize how much of all this process is self-inflicted and it was by people that you considered allies. So it's a very hard job to do and like to go back and say… we overstepped in some ways, but it's not over. The fight always keeps going on and that's why I'm really glad to have leaders like you come on board who've worked in local politics. You understand it from a different lens than don't think other members of Congress do as much as they try. So I really appreciated hearing your perspective.Laura Friedman (26:48)Thanks. I've been in those fights and I will say that sometimes the knee-jerk response has been environmental reviews have slowed down X or Y projects, So let's get rid of all environmental review. But we don't have to that and we shouldn't because you certainly want environmental reviews for projects that are in in green fields. Like you said, the Yosemite projects or projects that are taking away farmland for projects that have the potential to pollute our water or pollute our air.You want all of that review, you know, review on projects that are in areas where you're doing industrial development in areas that have been the victims of environmental injustice, right? Some of our low income communities that already are filled with environmental pollution, for instance. So you do want environmental review, but what I have discovered and the reason I'm working on bills like the Cut Red Tape Act is because it is not hard to be more surgical about this and to say, yes, this box of projects still needs to go through review, but this box, we don't need to.And that's the part that we haven't been doing enough of. So, you know, I want to be clear that this should not be about pitting the environment or certain groups of people against good development. You can do both. You can be holistic about it and you can both protect the environment and streamline. And so we're going to prove that we can do that to get the results that we need.Tahra Hoops (27:54)That's why I think the definition of infill development that you had in your bill is such an important part of this because it makes it clear what you're not doing. And I remember even on your speech on the press conference day, like this isn't writing a blank check to go do whatever you want. It's extremely targeted. And as Gary said, it's just common sense. So to me, that makes me hopeful because it's on a bipartisan basis that this is something that we can get past. And that would take my cautious optimism to finally pure optimism as I continue to go through the housing politics in LA.But as we're going to end with our final one, as our listeners are no doubt aware, The Rebuild is a substack that focuses on how Democrats can get back to being the party that focuses on cost of living concerns. So we want to make sure the country is going from a pro-growth perspective. To wrap it up, we'd like to do four rapid fire questions about building, really the first thing that comes to your mind.What is something that you think is too expensive and don't say housing?Laura Friedman (29:07)Let me say two things. Electricity, number one, and number two, medical care.Tahra Hoops (29:13)Electricity is a story right now that I feel like is not being reported on enough. We are flubbing up how we are viewing solar and wind projects. And I got my electricity bill recently, as I'm sure many of you have in California. It was very high, like the highest we've seen it in some time.Laura Friedman (29:32)Yes. It's way too high. It's really hurting people.Tahra Hoops (29:38)Completely agree. I think this is something that Democrats should be getting much more loud about because people are going to continue to see it pop up in their bills.So next one, what is an innovation that you believe is overrated?Laura Friedman (29:51)I'm not sure overrated is the right word, but I think social media needs a lot more thinking about in terms of the amount of bots that have invaded that space and what it's done to the national discourse. And just the model of sort of amplifying extremes without leaving room for actual discussion and nuance. I think it can be very harmful. It's great to communicate with people. I use social media. It's a great way to communicate, but I think we need social media companies to do more to create a sort of a better sandbox for us all to be playing in.Tahra Hoops (30:30)You're talking about the decline of Twitter basically. Yeah, it's inundated with bots and the people who get online and rage bait take center stage. I was actually reading a piece in the Atlantic today about abundance and what Democrats are striving for. And I was like, I think this guy is just scrolling on Twitter for a bit too long because he's putting out all these extreme cases that I don't think is the average story. And Twitter sadly amplifies those. And there's a major bot issue where you're unsure is this something that people care about or is this from what account and they're having a thousand bots go out there and just mimic yeses.Laura Friedman (31:04)Yep, 100%.Gary Winslett (31:08)All right… So what is a policy or innovation you think is underrated or we should be more excited?Laura Friedman (31:14)Well, something that's not being deployed yet really has to do with smart appliances, which should be working with the grid so that people can program them to run when energy is the cheapest. That's what they were designed for. The whole idea, and I'm not talking about you just telling your lights to go on with Alexa. I mean that you load up your washing machine and when electricity is the cheapest, it could actually be turned on by the grid.And that's something that would be a cost saver for people, as well as a really good way to deal with the problem with power peaking and sort of flatten the grid. So we're not using our cars, our electric cars, and our smart appliances, along with our smart grids in a way that helps people reduce costs.Gary Winslett (31:56)Yeah, that'd be super helpful. All right, last one. So I have this slightly absurd policy idea: do you know what Patriots Day is?Laura Friedman (32:16)No.Gary WinslettIt's the third Monday in April in the state of Massachusetts, and it commemorates the battles of Lexington and Concord that start the Revolutionary War. Statewide holiday, everybody gets it off. That's the day they always run the Boston Marathon. Lovely. So I would love to make this a national holiday because it's right in that right spot in the calendar where we don't have any federal holidays from like President's Day all the way to Memorial Day. So I'm just curious if you have a kind of off the wall policy idea like that that's kind of your favorite.Laura Friedman (32:41)Well, I would love to end those parking mandates nationwide, you know, focus on large transit and not have not allow for parking parking mandates near major mass transit stops like your train stations. I think that some cities are already doing that. Some states like California, I was able to do it, but that would be a great thing.Other policies… well, if I was asking my 12 year old, you know, she thinks that there should be a law that if — there's a short list, but it's basically Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodriguez and Hozier and others come on the radio — that adults are not allowed to speak. It'll be a law. Yeah, like you would do it and if you sing, it's like there's mandatory minimums if you try to sing along as an adult. Kids, of course, are exempt.Gary Winslett (33:29)It’s the law. Adults gotta be quiet for Taylor.Tahra Hoops (33:38)She should run. I'd vote for her.Gary Winslett (33:39)Yeah, this 12-year-old's got a future.Tahra Hoops (33:41)I’d run her in 2028. Yeah, I'm voting for her.Laura Friedman (33:46)I'll tell you one other one that I'm actually serious about, but I would love at some point to talk about— seat pitch on airplanes and give people a little bit of room that is humane. I think all this airplane rage that we're seeing has to do with the fact that flying has become an awful experience. And when you can't move your legs on a six hour flight across the country, there's a problem. So seat pitch, it was something that I think at one point was actually a law. And I think that it may have been Donald Trump who got rid of it, but there should be some sort of standards that are to sort of average tall people for both seat width and seat pitch— the space between the seats so that people don't have to suffer on airplanes.Tahra Hoops (34:19)I'm for that. I've been flying quite a bit recently just because I go back and forth to DC and I'm small. I'm only five feet tall and I'm uncomfortable on planes. I can't imagine an average size person having to go back and forth. Like the back pain is insane. So I'm for that.Laura Friedman (34:55)It's uncomfortable and it's actually unsafe when it comes to things like blood clots. You know, you need to be able to move your legs around and not want to kill the person sitting next to you. So that's my crazy policy idea that I think would be incredibly popular in this country.Tahra Hoops (35:08)Mm-hmm.Gary Winslett (35:09)Well, thank you so much. It was really great having you on. That was super fun. We really appreciate you coming on.Laura Friedman (35:19)Thanks for having me. It was a really great conversation.Tahra Hoops (35:22)Thank you. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.therebuild.pub

Tahra Hoops: Hi everyone. Welcome to The Rebuild. I'm one of your hosts, Tahra Hoops, joined by Gary Winslett and today we have a very special guest joining us: Representative Josh Harder. He is a Democrat from California, serving Modesto and parts of the Central Valley. Harder has served in Congress since 2019 and has become a key voice in the abundance conversation.We're very excited he's joining us today. Rep. Harder, welcome to The Rebuild.Rep. Harder: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.Tahra Hoops: Of course. So one of the first questions I wanted to ask you was about your newly launched bipartisan Build America Caucus. You framed it as a Get Things Done coalition for major projects. You said it's about breaking through bottlenecks that keep everything from new roads, clean energy to housing tied up for years.For a lot of people, that's an abstract problem for them until they start to see delays in their own communities like highway expansion stuck in review. Can you walk us through the moment you decided "wow we need a whole caucus to fix this" and do you think this will change culture in Congress from debating projects to actually delivering on them?Rep. Harder: I certainly hope so. I think a lot about the famous story of Boris Yeltsin visiting the United States at the height of the Cold War in the 1980s. He met with Bush, Reagan… went to the White House. He had a lot of exciting things to do, but nothing made a bigger impression on him than visiting an American supermarket and seeing what American growth and prosperity represented... a huge contrast to the shortages and the food lines that he was seeing in the Soviet Union at the time.People sometimes say that communism fell when Boris Yeltsin first visited that American supermarket. I think today if somebody from Russia or China were airdropped into San Francisco or New York, they'd frankly be pretty underwhelmed compared to what they're seeing back home. We still have great supermarkets, but we have a housing and homelessness crisis. We're paying sky-high rates for electricity because we've made it tough to build solar and wind. We've waited 30 years for high-speed rail in California, and we still haven't gotten it. And so the goal of this caucus is trying to achieve that same wow moment for American growth and prosperity that we had in contrast to our international rivals only a few decades ago.Gary Winslett: I actually wanted to ask you about that because I also love Boris Yeltsin Day. It's amazing. It comes around every year… I think it's in March. It's just fantastic. It’s the way you brought that up that made me think about this famous chart from AEI where you've got all these lines that are moving over time and the things that get cheaper at the bottom, like TVs and toys… it's stuff you can buy at the store or on Amazon or wherever. But then there's all these red lines of everything that gets more expensive, whether it's housing or hospital services. And so I just wonder what are your thoughts about why some of these things are getting so much more expensive, even while some basic consumer goods like TVs are cheap now?Rep. Harder: I think there's a lot of takeaways from that chart which I do agree is pretty powerful as a way to both acknowledge that yes, technology has brought us superconductors or supercomputers that are in our pocket with our cell phones, cheap TVs, even cheaper and better cars… but has led to more expensive education, more expensive healthcare, and of course housing.I think there's probably two takeaways: one is that as countries get richer, services become comparatively more expensive than products and that's why service-intensive industries like healthcare and education have gotten comparatively tougher. But then also, and this is the point that AEI itself tries to push folks to with that chart, is certainly that we have overregulated some sectors and not allowed enough innovation and competition. We've seen some great improvements in healthcare delivery over the last couple years, but ultimately I don't think anybody would say the American healthcare system is a model that folks should use across the rest of the world.And on education we've been falling behind and one of my real regrets is that the intentions we had in the education reform movement decades ago have really died off, and we're not seeing any success except for a handful of states that have looked at phonics in really interesting ways like Louisiana.There’s just not that same impulse towards trying to think about what education should look like for the 21st century. So we've got a lot of work to do to try to fix that chart and to try to make sure that folks actually have that prosperity and success that they deserve.Gary Winslett: Yeah, for sure. I think it was interesting that you brought up both healthcare and education at the same time because we're both dads, and so I always think of these things as linked. How do I make sure my daughter's healthy and getting educated well at school? And I know you're part of this New Dads Caucus in Congress to highlight challenges men and dads face.It's no secret that Democrats performed poorly last year among male voters and have been doing that for a while, so I would just love to hear you say a little bit more about how Democrats can do better with men in the midterms, but also in the long term trajectory. Is that focusing on Trump's tariffs and it making everything at Home Depot more expensive or is it cuts to Medicaid?What are some of your thoughts on this?Rep. Harder: I don't think politics is all that complicated. I think folks try to slice and dice voters in lots of different ways... but I think it ultimately comes down to only one question, which is who's gonna fight for you? And I think voters in 2024, all too often, and especially in my district, did not hear about a Democratic Party that was actually going to stand up on the issues that they cared about most.Trump won my district, but I also got elected, right? Tens of thousands of people who voted for Donald Trump for president put my name down just a couple names down on their same exact ballot. A lot of those crossover voters told me that they did it because they just believed a lot in the promises of Trump.But they also understood that we were gonna highlight the issues that were most concerning to them... chief of all... affordability. Voters tell us in surveys and anecdotally that they heard more about trans kids in sports from Democrats in 2024 than they heard about what we're gonna do to make housing more affordable and healthcare better.That is not a way to win anywhere across the country, especially in a place like the Central Valley where the economy is always the first and second issue. So I don't think it's gonna be as easy as saying, "oh, this is the strategy we're gonna do to win back men, win back dads, win back young people," ultimately I think most folks share a lot of the common concerns and the issues that are most important to them and over the last couple years it has been affordability first, second, and third and the Democratic Party, I don't think, has presented enough answers to those questions.Tahra Hoops: We agree with you completely on that. That's something Gary and I have been shouting from the rooftops since before the election that it was a cost of living election. But we were not having those conversations, and you're seeing it now in smaller races pop up where affordability continues to be the number one thing, and the Democrats are having an issue, as Gary mentioned, with reaching younger men, but also younger people as a whole.I think young people are just stuck in a generalized malaise of fog, of thinking everything sucks all the time. I'm never going to be able to own a house. I'm 26. The idea of owning a house seems like a pipe dream. It just feels so far away 'cause I also live in California and I see these prices happening.And that's something I did like about the book Abundance, where you read through it and it feels like just listing every single thing wrong with the country… but I closed that book and I felt excited because we were actually getting specific on what issues need to be resolved, and then that I found to be the first step to talking about solutions.So I wanted to ask you, you've already called it... it is the cost of living issue, it's the affordability issue… but how can Democrats get better at messaging when it comes to focusing on the solution aspect of it?Rep. Harder: I think that's really powerful and I think one thing that's really important is to make sure that nothing speaks louder than reality itself. Life should be better for people in states run by Democrats and all too often the opposite is true. California and New York and Massachusetts and Illinois should be shining beacons of how great life looks like when you elect Democrats. And it doesn't, right? All too often these are cautionary tales. President Trump campaigns on how bad homelessness is in California, and a lot of people in my district and across our state agree with him. We may not agree with his solutions but we certainly agree that it's a huge problem that doesn't get enough progress from Sacramento.I think obviously a big piece of that is that folks like to live in California. We have a lot of demand for housing but obviously we haven't built that supply. And so a huge piece of what we're trying to do to fix it is trying to make sure that we have a real outcome mindset towards trying to deliver the goods that people desperately need.Chief among those: energy, healthcare, housing, infrastructure. And hopefully if we can get that right or at least start moving in that direction, we can start actually running for Congress or for President in the Democratic Party and say, We want more states to look like these shining beacons of growth and prosperity that we have in states like California and New York,” because it's hard running in a purple district, in a district that Trump won, saying “We want more folks to look like California,” because a lot of folks think differently.Editors Note: Unfortunately we had some technical difficulties and Tahra was disconnected. From here on out the conversation is between Representative Harder and Gary. Sorry about that.Gary Winslett: So I wanna follow up on that though, because sometimes you have to tell people no. There’s a line I heard recently which is that Texas isn't good at building housing... it's bad at letting people block housing. And in California that's part of the problem. If you want to build new housing, I've seen the local board meetings, people, local officials who want to build new housing, get screamed at by constituents who don't wanna see any new traffic around them.It's tough, I get it. People like their neighborhoods, they're proud of them, and so change feels scary. I just wonder…What do you think about getting past these oppositional parts that stand in the way of housing or infrastructure or whatever it is?Rep. Harder: I think one of the things that we found is that, yes, there certainly is a tyranny of the minority and that the folks that show up at those meetings are unrepresentative. And also even if they are representative, they're representative of the folks that already live in a particular area, let alone all the people that desperately wanna be able to afford that [area].We found that the larger the scope of the solution, the easier it is for folks to understand the benefits to them. And so if you're only looking at a particular city block and everybody's going to see the construction costs in terms of the noise and the congestion and all the rest and then one family's gonna get that benefit, that city block is probably going to be the most opposed.But if you scale it up to a larger city, or to a county, or to a state, or to the federal government… it's much easier to actually get political support for increasing housing supply because the costs are so much more disparate across the entire population and the benefits are actually more widely held as well because it's not just one family that's actually getting that cheaper housing cost that's actually available for everybody.And so if you buy that model then the federal government should actually be one of the greatest champions for increased housing supply across the country. And it's understandable why city councils and local city council members would be under such pressure to block one particular house in one particular housing project because their constituents are gonna feel the burden the most. The federal government should be in the opposite boat. And one of the things we're trying to do here in this caucus is trying to be able to aggregate those benefits and trying to make sure that we're all uniting the pro-growth parts of the Democratic Party.There are elements of the Democratic Party that are anti-growth, just like I think there are a lot of elements in the Trump Administration and the Republican party right now that are pushing against American growth and prosperity.But, we need a party that is actually moving towards the future.Gary Winslett: No totally agree with that. It's interesting that you brought up sort of the federal government leaning into sort of YIMBYism, if you will. I know you're on the House side, not the Senate, but the Senate just had this ROAD to Housing bill that got through the Senate Finance Committee 24-0. I'm really hoping that there's a House companion that that's gonna be...Rep. Harder: We're working on it. We're working on it. Absolutely. A great move forward, obviously, to see Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren... not exactly folks that you obviously think of as close ideological allies working together on something. I think [it] shows how far we've come. It's about time that the federal government started moving on YIMBY policy.We've seen some real gains at a state and local level, which is fantastic. We had Kamala Harris run for President on that agenda. She only had one really new policy idea, obviously a very short campaign, it was on creating 3 million new additional housing units. I thought it was really exciting that we had a [presidential candidate] actually talking about housing supply for the first time ever, but I was incredibly disappointed at the actual policy specifics.Underneath that talking point, which I think most outside observers recognize, would create very few additional housing units if any. And I see us as at a real inflection point here where it's clear that housing costs are a major problem for everybody but we still don't have enough progress on the ideas to actually accelerate housing supply.So I agree: the Senate bill is a great start. We have a couple ideas in the House that I could talk through, but I'm all for an “all of the above” approach. We have to just make sure that the federal government is doing more to make housing affordable for people.Gary Winslett: That's great! I could talk to you about housing all day, but I do wanna actually move on to infrastructure. A lot of people when they think about infrastructure, they immediately think highways and bridges, but there's all kinds of other infrastructure that we need too.It might be water, it might be electricity lines… What do you think is the biggest hurdle here? Is it permitting? Is it workforce? Is it something else? What is actually getting in the way of building infrastructure the way we need it?Rep. Harder: I think it is at the very foundation [of] the philosophy of how we actually build infrastructure across the United States. This model of sort of... design... bid... build... that can take decades for these mega projects and is just structurally flawed at the very beginning. One important point that a lot of people bring up, [which] I think is really important to just talk about, is that other countries that face similar environmental and labor protections, if not even higher than the United States, build infrastructure much more affordably. You can look at the expansions of the Paris Metro versus the Second Avenue Subway. We're talking about $2.2 billion per kilometer in New York City to build versus $230 million… a 10th of the cost in Paris, and I don't think anybody will tell you that France is not a country that believes in environmental and labor protections. So I really think this is a structural problem.There isn't one silver bullet we're gonna be able to fix…What we need is more experimentation. We need to be able to double down on projects that actually get it right. We need more accountability and ultimately I think we just need to make sure that we are keeping folks focused on those outcomes, which is making sure that the infrastructure gets built and not in the decades and thousands of pages of paperwork that end up keeping us from the process…because it's pretty embarrassing to me as an American that Europe is doing this better than we are. We have to figure it out.Gary Winslett: No I think that's right. I remember seeing an infographic on, I believe it was outta Seattle, how long it took to build a bike lane. And it was just unbelievable. It was a six year process to build a bike lane. This isn't even a high tech, super expensive thing and it was just layer after layer of process. It just made no sense.Rep. Harder: My favorite example here is the city of Pasadena, which recently [is] working to underground all of their power lines in the city because of wildfire risk... makes a lot of sense.... a great thing to do. They just sent out an estimate to the city on how long it's going to take. It's not gonna take them five years to do this or even 50 years, they told the city residents that it's going to take them 500 years to put power lines underground across the entire city. That's their project timeline, right? That sounds completely laughable. But that's the state we're in. Think about how much credibility you lose walking in front of somebody and saying, “we're absolutely gonna fix this pothole in front of your street. We're gonna fix this problem for you. It's just gonna take us 500 years to get it done.”Gary Winslett: I want to ask you some of the questions we like to ask everybody, which are a couple rapid fires. The first is something you think is too expensive. So I just recently bought a house. We get to move in a couple weeks, which we're really excited about. But the closing costs were insane. Like the actual not even going into equity, but just like you pay almost what a basic car would cost in terms of taxes and fees and this and that, and it's just incredibly expensive. And in a way that's hard to explain. And I just wonder what is something that you think is too expensive?Rep. Harder: Everything... but at this moment, especially energy prices. PG&E the local utility in Northern California, has doubled its prices over the past 10 years, and there are seniors across our area who are paying more in their AC bill every month than they're paying in their rent or their mortgage. Some folks are paying a thousand dollars or more just to keep the lights on and the air conditioning running.And that is the clear result of the fact that we have not actually fixed generation, transmission.. and trying to make sure that probably one of the most essential needs for folks is affordable. [The] impact that has on economic growth cannot be overstated. When we're looking at technology developments and artificial intelligence, one of the biggest risks that we have moving forward on AI is that electricity is way too expensive and it's way too tough to build those projects.That is a direct result of federal policies that have made it more complicated and tougher to actually get these projects built. And over the last couple months under the Trump Administration, it has actually, unfortunately gotten worse.Gary Winslett: When the Trump Administration was taking over I had a hope that self-interest would actually beat out culture wars. There was so much money going to red districts for solar and wind, I hoped that they would be, verbally or rhetorically anti those things but still leave some of the projects in their current state, and it's been really disappointing to see them put culture war stuff even ahead of their own constituents’ electricity bills.Rep. Harder: Yeah I agree. The disconnect between reality and rhetoric is huge. We have heard a lot about American energy dominance and independence from this Administration, where the results are exactly the opposite. Not just taking money away from solar and wind projects, but actually requiring the Secretary of the Interior to certify a lot of these projects, creating more process and more red tape when they've said they're trying to do exactly the opposite.Ultimately it's just going to result in higher bills for folks.Gary Winslett: Another one I wanted to ask you about is innovation that you think is overrated.So one of the ones that drives me crazy is it seems like all the Gen Z kids today watch their videos with words on the video and it just drives me absolutely nuts. And so I'm just curious, what's an innovation that you think is overrated?Rep. Harder: Frankly, the doom scrolling videos that I think almost all kids are addicted to. The entire social media era had so much promise and has resulted in, I think, so many costs. I, as a dad of two kids, think a lot about how to be intentional about their technology use which I think is just gonna be harder as they grow up.But the root issue of it is we have gotten really good at giving folks those dopamine hits through social media. And I think we probably need some public policy as well as all of the phone bans in schools and the rest which are moving forward in many school districts, to try to make sure that we're freeing folks back up because people that do it often regret the fact that they have done it and that I think is a real loss.Gary Winslett: I also wanna ask you about policies or innovations that you think are underrated. I drive a Subaru and there's this cool computer system in my car where if I'm sliding in the snow in Vermont in January, it'll take over so you don't slip and slide everywhere. It doesn't kick in too often, but every now and then it'll happen going downhill in the snow. It'll just straighten you out real quick. It's this dynamic control system and I just think it's amazing. I'm just curious, what is a policy or invention or innovation that you think is underrated?Rep. Harder: Something that I'm really excited about that I don't think most folks really appreciate is how important clinical trials are for American innovation. It's great that we have these GLP-1's, Ozempic and the rest that are now on the market, but we make it really hard to test cancer and Alzheimer's drugs that can prolong people's life and improve their health, and this is a real problem.We're having great science done in labs, but it can be really hard to actually translate that into medical breakthroughs that can help. People live the lives that they need. And one area that I am really working on that I'm optimistic will be very bipartisan, something I actually agree with some of the things the Trump Administration has set on, is that we need to make this process of testing new medicines much cheaper, much faster.And I think we can do that... especially given some of the drug discovery developments that are happening with artificial intelligence and technology...we have an opportunity to really prolong people's health and make their lives much better if we can get this right. But if we can't, then the bottleneck of actually testing this is just going to overwhelm our ability and we're not gonna be able to actually have those real breakthroughs that people need.Gary Winslett: I totally hear it. I remember during the COVID-19 pandemic I was signed up with this thing called One Day Sooner, and a bunch of us who had volunteered basically to be the guinea pigs because if you could get these vaccines on the market even one day sooner, that would save thousands of lives.And we just all got told no. Even though we were healthy young adults, really wanted to help out in whatever way we could, thought that these things were probably safe but were willing to be like the first wave of it, we just weren't allowed. And I just remember that being very frustrating. So yeah I'm totally with it on the clinical trials.Rep. Harder: I think the FDA puts its credibility at a very high level, which is important. You wanna make sure that people have trust. That when the FDA says something is safe, that everybody accepts it. But there needs to be more progress here because this bottleneck is costing us a ton of money.People don't realize how much progress China has made on biopharma. It's a huge portion of their inputs. And even countries like Australia do clinical trials at the exact same safety standards as in the United States for a fraction of the cost at much greater speed. So we can learn a lot from other countries here.And a big piece of it is making sure that folks actually have an incentive to actually join these clinical trials and try to discover if these drugs can actually work. Because if they can, it'll be better for all of us.Gary Winslett: Totally agree. Okay, last question because I know we're running out of time. I wanted to ask you about your favorite sort of unusual or unorthodox policy idea. So one that I have on this is Pat, do you know what Patriots Day is?Rep. Harder: No.Gary Winslett: It's the third Monday in April in Boston, Massachusetts, the whole state, and it's always when they run the Boston Marathon, and it's a state holiday and it commemorates the battles of Lexington and Concord that started the Revolutionary War.I would love to see that turned into a national federal holiday because we have this long stretch from President's Day in February, all through Memorial Day with no federal holidays. And so Patriots Day in April would just be a primo three day weekend for the spring. So I'm just curious, do you have any of these other kinds of unusual policy ideas?Rep. Harder: When I was a kid I actually wrote an op-ed for my school newspaper about how we should abolish summer vacation and actually just give everybody three-day weekends…year round…so very similar. My teachers hated it because they all got second jobs over the summer to make extra money.But to me, you actually get sick of the summer in the last month or two, right? You're enjoying it, you have fun, but it gets a little bit boring over time versus a three day weekend you enjoy every single week. It's better to have a little bit less time and you'd be more focused during the four days that you actually have school or for work.So obviously not good for all parents, but I think it would be a game changer for kids that sit the last couple weeks of summer vacation and feel like they have nothing to do.Gary Winslett: Yeah I think that's great. Congressman, thank you so much for your time. It was great having you on today. We really appreciate it.Rep. Harder: Thank you. Thanks for all the work you do.Gary Winslett: Yeah, have a great day. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.therebuild.pub

In this episode of The Rebuild, Tahra Hoops and Gary Winslett sit down with Congressman Ritchie Torres to unpack what “abundance politics” really means in practice. From dismantling self-inflicted scarcities in housing, energy, and infrastructure to rethinking outdated policies like the Jones Act, Torres argues for a progressivism that actually delivers progress. The conversation spans the importance of place-based policy, the pitfalls of bureaucratic red tape, and the need for regional planning that meets communities where they are; whether in the South Bronx or rural America. Along the way, they dive into the promise and hype of AI, the transformative potential of biotech and GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, and more. It’s a candid, idea-rich discussion about how to make growth, equity, and tangible improvements a reality for all.Tahra Hoops: Congressman Ritchie Torres, thank you so much for being here on the rebuild. We are super excited to have you. we can go ahead and get things started. I do have a question to start off with. I want to start off with the idea of abundance politics. You have been a city council member in the Bronx and now you're in Congress, so you've seen both how city and federal governance can either build things or bog them down. So what does an abundance agenda mean to you in practice? How can we take the technocratic conversations outside of those private conference rooms and have Washington help cities like New York actually build more, whether it's housing or infrastructure?Ritchie Torres: At core of the abundance movement is a recognition that many of the scarcities in our society. The shortage of housing, the shortage of energy, the shortage of infrastructure, the shortage of essential public goods on which all of us depend. Those scarcities tend to be self-inflicted. It tends to be the product of public policy. So when it comes to an area like housing, have zoning and land use policies that artificially restrict the supply of housing in cities like New York and DC. We have lending restrictions that artificially restrict the supply of credit available for the financing of housing, including first term home ownership. You see it with energy. Why is it that Texas is building more clean energy than New York? It's not because Texas is more ideologically committed to the clean energy transition. It's not because Texas has solved the problem of white supremacy. It's because Texas has less bureaucracy, less bureaucratic red tape. One of the cruel ironies of our society is that it is easier to build clean energy infrastructure in the states that deny climate change than it is in the states that consider it an emergency. And so I think the abundance agenda is an attempt to confront the cognitive dissonance at the core of modern progressivism, which is quite different from the progressivism of FDR, which was a progressivism that could build and build big and build boldly.And, that's the spirit, that's the tradition of progressivism that the abundance movement seeks to restore.Gary Winslett: It's really interesting you bring up FDR there because in many ways, the new deal is about taking the politics of New York as it existed at the time and expanding it out and being like, okay, what lessons can we learn from New York's politics and apply it during the Great Depression?I just think it's really interesting that you bring up FDR because sometimes abundance critics from the left like to take the mantle of FDR and, to me, this whole abundance agenda is about doing that creation of more that he was all about.Ritchie Torres: And look, conservatives historically advocate for the deregulation of the market. And I'm the kind of Democrat who supports deregulation under the right conditions— but abundance is about the deregulation of government. It's about enabling the government to govern, to build energy, food and healthcare and housing and, that just strikes me as common sense. I find it confounding that abundance is controversial. We should all want abundant, affordable public goods.Gary Winslett: Absolutely.Tahra Hoops: We completely agree with you there. That is a lot of the work that we're doing at The Rebuild because to us, this is how you achieve the progressive goals that we can all agree on. So it always confuses us when people who should be allies are the ones who actually step in the way or creating the obstacles and it's like, no, we're on your side. We all want affordable housing. We've all seen how the housing crisis gets around.Ritchie Torres: If you're anti-government then I could understand why you cripple the ability of the government to govern. But if you claim to be progressive, then how could you possibly oppose the abundance movement, like what good is a progressivism that does not result in actual progress? The central value of progressivism should be progress, which is measurable in the real world.Gary Winslett: A hundred percent. If you want more good things for everyone, you have to start with the more good things. And that's how you get there.One of the things I wanted to ask you about is the Jones Act. Because it's one of these really extreme examples of a policy that economists will tell you is terrible. But it has these really concentrated special interests behind it, and they drive up costs for everybody else, but that everybody else is really diffuse. And so this is why a lot of policymakers who know better know it's bad, won't touch it, but then you have this bill to amend the Jones Act to reduce energy cost in Alaska and HawaiI and Puerto Rico. And so I'm just curious, like what made you lean into this fight?Ritchie Torres: It strikes close to home because I'm Puerto Rican, and Puerto Rico has the single worst electric grid in the country, and the Jones Act is a hidden tax on the energy needs of an energy poor island, an island that's struggling to survive. The tragic story of Puerto Rico is one in which the lowest income rate payers are paying among the highest electricity bills for a failing grid. I think rate payers in Puerto Rico pay about 26 cents per kilowatt hour, which is 53% higher than the national average of 17 cents. So think about that for a moment.The people of Puerto Rico who are among the lowest income in the United States are paying 53% more than the rest of the country for a grid that is failing them catastrophically. And one of the causes of energy poverty in Puerto Rico is the Jones Act. It is objectively the case that the Jones Act raises the cost of energy and artificially restricts the supply of energy in the most energy poor island in the United States. And that to me is wrong. That to me is not progressivism. It's a perversion of progressivism, and it's a classic case study in concentrated benefits and dispersed costs. There's a powerful lobby for concentrated benefits. But the lobby against dispersed costs is not so powerful.Gary Winslett: No, it's just the people.Ritchie Torres: Yeah, it's the people.I'm a college dropout, so I'm not an intellectual. I do not pretend to be the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but if a policy is producing an absurd result, we should rethink the policy. If there's a policy that makes it more expensive for Puerto Rico to get energy from within the mainland United States than to get it from Qatar… maybe we should rethink that policy. If it is cheaper for the United States to send energy to a foreign country like the Dominican Republic than it is to a territory, a US territory like Puerto Rico… that is an absurd result, a perverse result that should have us rethinking the underlying policy.Tahra Hoops: I completely agree with that frame of thinking and I apply that to policy in general. It's part of the policy feedback process. No matter how well intentioned your goal might be, no matter how progressive you think this is going to help us… if it's not working... on the real ground... if the reality is that people are actually getting a massive disadvantage as we were seeing in Puerto Rico, in the case of the Jones Act, it is okay to understand and admit like "hey, we messed up here. How can we go back and not just put like a bandaid over a dam over here, but actually overhaul and create a system where everyone is on the same level.”Ritchie Torres: And also it fails to live up to its purported national security rationale, right? Like the argument for the Jones Act is that it will maintain a ship industry here in the United States. Ship building in the United States has all but collapsed. It's a shell of its former self. The difference between the United States and China is orders of magnitude and the irony is that the Jones Act compliant ships are themselves dangerously dependent on China’s manufacturing base.Tahra Hoops: An incredible lose/lose situation there.Ritchie Torres: I saw a brilliant posting on Twitter, I forget who said it, but someone said: if protectionism was so effective at re-industrializing America, then why hasn't the Jones Act led to a burst of shipbuilding domestically here at home? The Jones Act really makes a mockery of Trump's whole theory of trade.Tahra Hoops: We completely agree with you. Gary, I really wanted to get to your question on the idea of places. I think you had a great framework there.Gary Winslett: Okay, so one of the other things, Congressman Torres, that I wanted to ask you about is the importance of place, like people don't just live out nowhere.They live in places. You represent the South Bronx, which is one of the poorest congressional districts in New York City, so you've seen that even while there's been a lot of solid national economic growth, there's a lot of places that can feel like they're not coming along with that. I grew up in rural America, so I have a lot of sympathy for these kinds of frustrations. What do you think is the key to making sure that growth and new investment also goes to these kinds of places? So we get less geographic inequality.Ritchie Torres: I feel we need to have more regional planning, more county level planning, more zip code level planning. America is a highly variated continental republic. No two counties are alike, and so we should be suspicious of one size fits all policy proposals. Each community has its own needs, its own unique assets and challenges, and we should be creating plans that speak to the particularities of every county and community in America.The Bronx is often described as the lowest income county in America, but it has real institutional assets like the New York Botanical Gardens, the Bronx Zoo, Fordham University, and the Montefiore Health Center— which is the largest provider of healthcare in the Bronx. It has vibrant commercial districts like Arthur Avenue, Little Italy, and Fordham Road. You cannot create a plan for the Bronx from the Ivory Tower of Washington, DC right? You have to know the facts on the ground in the Bronx, and you can harness those institutional assets to create wealth in the communities that have historically been left behind.The Bronx has come far despite the stereotype that the Bronx is burning. It has risen from the scenes of arson and abandonment in the 1970s. It’s experiencing something of a renaissance, whether it's the radical reductions in crime or the rejuvenation of the Bronx River, or, even the staying power of a community like Arthur Ave/Little Italy.Arthur Ave has one of the highest concentrations of small businesses that have been owned by the same family for more than a hundred years, and has the same essential Italian identity that it had a century ago. It's the Bronx. It's more than the stereotype that it's the poorest county. It's actually a pretty remarkable place with deeply rooted people. And it's important for those of us at public office to understand the particularities of the communities on whose behalf we're legislating.Tahra Hoops: As a native New Yorker I was raised in Queens. You mention Arthur Avenue and it just made me so happy because some of my fondest memories of going up to visit my friends in the Bronx was going to these small Italian shops.I think it was Casa Mozzarella—Ritchie Torres: Casa Della Mozzarella! I love Casa Della Mozzarella! Yes.Tahra Hoops: Yes, yeah you said it perfectly.Ritchie Torres: No question. Yes.Tahra Hoops: They're amazing! I love the people who own it.Ritchie Torres: I love it.Tahra Hoops: It's funny that you knew it. That shows how small…Ritchie Torres: No, no, I go there often. It’s too many calories, but I go there often.Gary Winslett: This is why I had to ask about place because when you talk to people about places, this is when they light up. People are really proud where they're from and where they know.Ritchie Torres: And the Bronx even more. Look, I'll be honest, there are parts of New York City that are undergoing gentrification and feel, to me, no offense, like amusement parks, like there's something artificial about them. The Bronx is essentially the same as it was 10 or 20 or 30 years ago. And the people are deeply rooted and the businesses have been around for a long time. And I just love the authenticity of the Bronx compared to the amusement parks that are emerging elsewhere in the city of New York South. That's maybe that's unfair of me to say that…Tahra Hoops: I grew up grew up in Ridgewood. Can you imagine how I feel? Ridgewood is not what it used to be… I completely agree with you there.I know we have around 10 minutes left. We have a rapid fire question section that we would love to get in. As our listeners are no doubt aware, The Rebuild is a substack that focuses on how Democrats can get back to being the party that focuses on cost of living and pro-growth ideologies. We want to focus on how the country can move forward from a pro-growth perspective.Ritchie Torres: Can I just make one point? Who can possibly oppose growth? I can tell you who doesn't oppose growth— the people who don't have growth, the people who live in poverty want growthGary Winslett: A hundred percent.Ritchie Torres: It's the people who have the luxury of opposing growth, who actually oppose it, and those people tend to have growth.Tahra Hoops: It's the people who shift conversations from material conversations to… once they are set and safe in material, they focus on post material and they don't understand. There are many average Americans who are still focused on the basics and don't have enough, and they are the ones who want to have growth to be the center of conversation.Ritchie Torres: when you are reaping the benefits... I'm just obsessed about this… it's just when you're reaping the benefits of growth and have a level of material comfort, you have the luxury of philosophizing about degrowth.Gary Winslett: Yep.Tahra Hoops: I completely agree with you. It's something I always make sure to check back in with because I'm a daughter of immigrants. My parents came here from Morocco to Queens. My parents came here and had to struggle a lot when I was younger. I will have conversations with them about politics and they hate it when I do because my dad is like… I don't care. I have bills to pay. Get out of my face with this. And I respect him so much because that man does have bills to pay. So how dare I waste his time after he's worked 12 hours? Try and discuss theory at the dinner table…Ritchie Torres: I don't know if you ever saw the Keenan Thompson SNL skit about Columbia University, about all these parents who were participating in an interview with New York One about their children protesting, and then Kenan Thompson said, “it's so wonderful that these children protesting” until he found out it was his daughter. And he said, “free this, free that... you know what ain't free? Columbia.”Tahra Hoops: That's like literally my parents and I accept it. I want them to humble me. It's because I am privileged because they came here and they worked so hard and I didn't have to go through the trials and tribulations that they did. I was poor when I was a child, so I don't understand that and I'm grateful that they made those sacrifices. Having those constant conversations with them allows me to understand I can't keep having very ivory tower conversations because then you lose sight of what people actually care about.Back to the rapid fire.So what is one thing that you think is too expensive?Ritchie Torres: Housing.Tahra Hoops: Everyone says that it's too…Ritchie Torres: The rent. The rent is too damn high!Tahra Hoops: Okay. Something outside of that. Something very random that you think is just too expensive.Ritchie Torres: Insurance is out of control. Utilities are outta control, healthcare is outta control. The list is long.Tahra Hoops: It is. Okay. Next one. What is an innovation that you believe is overrated?Ritchie Torres: That's a great question. I am a great admirer of AI. I feel like AI will transform our society, but some of the pronouncements about AI are either too apocalyptic or too optimistic… and so I feel like I have a measured optimism about the impact of AI, but I do think when I see some of the valuations in the stock market, there's evidence of over-hype.Gary Winslett: I think it's gonna be largely very positive, but one of the things I do worry about is AI girlfriends and boyfriends. For the lonely that's gotta be really tempting, but just social poison and I really worry about the consequences of that.Ritchie Torres: When the CEO of Anthropic says it's gonna lead to mass unemployment in a matter of years… he doesn't know that, that's speculation. But also when the head of Google DeepMind says we're gonna cure every disease in 10 years… both of those pronouncements strike me as implausible.Gary Winslett: Yeah.Tahra Hoops: I definitely agree with you. Noah Smith has a good article that came out this week and his title says it all: "Stop pretending you know what AI does to the economy"Similar to that question, what is the policy innovation that you believe is underrated?Ritchie Torres: I do feel blockchain is underrated.Tahra Hoops: I can agree with you there.Ritchie Torres: I feel like blockchain has transformative potential in any realm of human activity that requires coordination. Like it is the great coordinator of human activity, and where there is coordination is potential for transformative use of blockchain. And so the universe of possible uses is infinite. The critics of blockchain misunderstand the transformative potential of the technology.I also feel as a society we pay too little attention to biotech. I feel like biotech is gonna be as revolutionary as AI. All of these technologies are intersectional, like blockchain, AI, quantum network technologies, all of it is going to be mutually reinforcing.Tahra Hoops: Yeah, bio innovation is a policy area that even I think we should focus more on here at The Rebuild because it is something that is going to have tangible impacts on everyone's lives. You start to see all these little stories start to pop up and it's mind boggling and it's something I try hard to wrap my head around because I don't have a background in science. I want to make sure I'm reading the literature correctly.Ritchie Torres: I saw a stat indicating that there's potential to biologically grow as many as 60% of the inputs that we presently manufacture. If that's true, that's a transformative shift in American society.Gary Winslett: Yeah. This is one of those areas where I think we're just at the dawn of some really cool stuff. Three or four years ago, if you would try to predict, hey, we're gonna have these things called GLP-1's like Wegovy and Ozempic. Somebody would've said, that's a wonder drug that's 20 years off, and now they're here.Ritchie Torres: And here's why I know my point about AI being overhyped, if you were to ask me what is the most transformative innovation of our time, I would not say AI. I would actually say Ozempic.Tahra Hoops: Oh, I am ready for the Ozempic for all policy ideas to actually start making movement. Like the studies that are coming out, how it's helping people with addiction… and like just all these like neuro{psychiatric] disorders that people are suffering with and going on Ozempic and you have one possibility like "yep! Gonna help me with my weight" and now you are having a positive impact in all these different facets of your life you didn't think about?Ritchie Torres: And look, during the global pandemic we saw correlation between chronic disease and infectious disease and noticed most of the COVID fatalities… the most common COVID comorbidities were obesity, diabetes, hypertension. If you radically reduce the rate of obesity in our society, you're gonna solve a much wider range of problems. There are even cancers that are closely connected to obesity.Tahra Hoops: Not just, cardiovascular diseases.Gary Winslett: Yeah.Tahra Hoops: It’s just so crazy to see how normalized and like mainstream this has become in only a couple of years. It's why I try not to fall into the AI…Ritchie Torres: I do worry some of the uses are cosmetic and some of the uses are unequal. There’s a genuine equity concern, but we should be subsidizing Ozempic so that the lowest income communities that have the highest rates of chronic disease can benefit from the ultimate form of preventative medicine.Tahra Hoops: Yeah, I completely agree with you. I can also see the negative impacts of GLPs also forming with… all of these women like... health brands coming out to create all these new gummies. I am the perfect demographic for it so I get all the ads and it terrifies me. I don't want to lose weight and see that ad everywhere I go.Ritchie Torres: That's one concern I have about biotech with gene editing.It's one thing to harness the power of gene editing to remove disease. But to start… “oh, I want, a girl rather than a boy, or I want blue eyes for my child” that's the aesthetic uses of gene editing that raises profound ethical questions for me.Tahra Hoops: That is a little wild to even think about that we have technology to even go that far.Okay, so for the last question that we have, what is your favorite absurd policy idea?Ritchie Torres: My favorite absurd policy idea. I don't know if I would characterize it as absurd but I've said if I had absolute power in America, what are the two policies that I would implement? And I'm not committed to these two policies, but one would be national service. Not necessarily military service, but I feel like there are societies that when there's a national experience, it means we have a shared story of ourselves as Americans, I feel like that's something we're lacking.Tahra Hoops: What do you mean by national service? So there's the military, but then there's also…Ritchie Torres: …like civilian service. Like everyone, instead of just going to college, we go to a two year AmeriCorps program or something where you have a shared experience with your fellow Americans and it brings us together as a country and you get to interact with people whose experiences, whose backgrounds are different from your own. Shared experience would give America a shared story of itself.Tahra Hoops: We've asked that question to a couple people and I have never heard an answer like this, so I love it. That's so unique.Ritchie Torres: I have a stranger answer for you too.Tahra Hoops: Okay. I want to hear it.Ritchie Torres: This would not be a matter of policy but I actually think we should draw from one of the best practices in Judaism— an American Shabbat. Imagine if we were to live in a country where every Friday evening if you turn off your phone you actually have family dinner, you disconnect yourself from the bombardment of social media and connect yourself to the things that matter, which is family and love, and it would make us a much happier and healthier society.Tahra Hoops: Yeah, I live in a very Jewish neighborhood in LA and every Friday it's become tradition... our neighbors across the way they always have us come over and ask if we could plug in like the crockpot for them and take it out. It's become a very neighborly connection that I would not have had if it wasn't Shabbat. They always invite us over. It's also so nice in the morning when we walk our dog and see everyone walking to temple because no one's using their cars and so forth.So it just becomes very lively on Friday to Saturday. It's something I really appreciate in a city like LA that's very spaced out.Ritchie Torres: And look, to be honest with you, we’re all so immersed in our phones that I cannot even tell you last I had a genuine family dinner. I feel like we're so addicted to social media and our smartphones that there's an untapped, latent desire to disconnect and to reconnect to our humanity.Tahra Hoops: Yeah I think that's great and I wouldn't consider that absurd. I think that's a sweet idea to think about. Just to have…Ritchie Torres: no, it's not absurd, but it's strange.Tahra Hoops: Yeah.Ritchie Torres: It's strange from what our modern culture has become, which is to be on and connected 24/7.Tahra Hoops: No, I love that. I think having weekends to have more face-to-face connection is just amazing. Like on the weekends, I definitely try not to even go on Twitter or any social media just to have space away.But I think that's all that we have for you. Thank you so much for being here.Gary Winslett: Thank you so much, Congressman Torres. It's great talking to you.Ritchie Torres: Always a pleasure. Take care. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.therebuild.pub

In this episode of The Rebuild, Matt Yglesias joins Gary Winslett and Tahra Hoops for a wide-ranging conversation on the future of abundance politics, the tensions between environmentalism and economic populism, and what a pragmatic Democratic agenda should look like post-2024. They explore how Democrats can better connect with working-class voters, the underrated value of the social safety net, and the challenge of breaking through in today’s fragmented attention economy. From big-ass truck abundance to Medicaid cuts and policy doomerism, it’s a lively and deeply insightful discussion about rebuilding a broad, pro-growth Democratic coalition.Full Transcript​Gary Winslett: Hi Matt. Good to talk to you.Thank you for being with us on The Rebuild.Matt Ygelsias: Oh yeah. Good to be here.Gary Winslett: Yeah. Well, we'll jump right in. So the last time you and I spoke in person, was at the Abundance Conference last fall. I. And about 20 minutes after we talked, you got protested by a bunch of these environmental crazies while you were talking at lunch.And I've thought back about that a little bit because in some ways it was like a precursor to some of the abundance fights we got in the spring where here you are, like to the left of the median voter talking to a room that's probably 75% Democrats and you're getting protested from the left.And I just wonder, and, this kinda repeated itself with Derek and Ezra in abundance in the spring, and I just wonder what you make of that dynamic.Matt Ygelsias: I thought it was interesting on a couple of levels. one is, they were protesting me because I had written an article that was saying that Kamala Harris's position against a nationwide fracking ban was correct.So it wasn't like that hot of a take. Kamala Harris was vice president of the United States. She was running for president at the time. But what I was doing, unlike I think a lot of left of center pundits, was defending the position, right? And not just defending it as a concession to political reality in Pennsylvania, but trying to educate people and like why I thought that was the right stance to take.also what immediately preceded it was me, talking to Derek Thompson about his, at the time, not yet out. Abundance book and I was offering the view that I thought there was gonna need to be probably more contentiousness to win the kind of arguments that he was involved with. And I think that event that, the protesting and then some of the reaction to the book when it came out. The book, I mean if you read the text right, is not explicitly critical of any environmental groups, is not explicitly critical of any labor unions. But, I think to the credit of the group's leading the backlash, like they're not stupid.They can read between the lines. They understand that the abundance agenda is at odds with some of their positions and some of their behavior, and they're not actually tricked by just being nice about it, like they fight. And I think, it's a real argument, right? It's not just the kind of thing where you put it out there and you're like, ah, like Democrats should be for growth.And business and opportunity as well as a safety net, whatever. People aren't just oh, that's amazing, let's go do it. It's this is a, there's a real argument to be had, and I at least think it's worth, like, engaging directly in that.Gary Winslett: Yeah, no, I would agree. And, the big California fight yesterday around housing is just an example of that–you've got environmental and labor organizations who, in a perfect world, I'd prefer not to fight with, but if they're gonna be fighting new housing and making it easier to build housing near transit, then that's a fight you have to have.Matt Ygelsias: and, and the context there is that California is now like years into the housing reform process. A lot of bills have passed. But what has tended to happen is that to get zoning reforms done, they've been Strict labor requirements attached to them. And it's turned out that like very few projects actually pencil out under those terms. And so there's been an effort made to scale it back, actually, not scale it back to zero, right? But they convinced that the YIMBYs convinced the carpenters union to say, if we, lower the standard a little bit, like there will be more actual projects and so that's gonna be better for our members.The rest of the building trades do not agree with that. Sort of analysis, they would rather have a larger slice of a smaller pie. And yeah, I mean you're seeing, it's like there's no, there's gonna be no way around this other than direct confrontation and persuading elected officials and voters in California.voters who I think want to be pro. Labor and who I think, in a, on its face, right? Like why would the building trades oppose more construction? And like I do actually understand why they've gotten to that position. But it's weird to construct the sort of. Pro-labor position as being, we're gonna have very few construction jobs, and then the ones that we do have, we'll have this kind of super premium wage.Rather than saying construction jobs are pretty well paying, for blue collar work, there's not just like everybody has the skills. They pay good wages if we allow for more construction. That's, good for housing supply. It's good for economic growth, but it's, good for workers.It's, you need more plumbers, you need more electricians, et cetera.Gary Winslett: You've drawn this line between what you call real populism and what you describe as like a degrowth environmentalism, hiding behind a lot of progressive rhetoric.Where do you see this creeping up most today? And what would it look like for Democrats to really embrace a kind of... Unapologetically pro- growth environmental agenda.Matt Ygelsias: It's interesting 'cause I, think you see it in the negative space, right? So when Zohran Mamdani is running for mayor in New York City, like the nature of New York City is there's no fossil fuel industry there... there's no natural resource extractive industries there. And so you get this kind of... Left populism that, I, have various disagreements with, but it doesn't ask these kind of questions, right? Because it's just not relevant to the New York City business model. You transport that, right?And you say what does a populist agenda mean for Michigan? Are we really gonna ban electric cars and tell people that's economic populism in states where they're building the SUVs and the trucks? Are you gonna go to Texas and Colorado and New Mexico and Pennsylvania, where they have oil and gas industry?Are you gonna go, I'm in Maine right now. The Biden administration had this knockdown drag out fight. With, lobstermen in Maine.Gary Winslett: Fishermen. Yeah.Matt Ygelsias: About some regulation related to whales, and Jared Golden, who's like a blue dog Democrat, represents Northern Maine... the Trumpier part, he was dead set against this.But his colleague in, southern Maine, the Democratic governor the senator, both, both Susan Collins and Angus King, they were all against this, like every elected official in Maine was like, no, like we need to prioritize the economy of Maine over this whale preservation. And the Biden administration, was they eventually lost in Congress on this.But they were like really, fighting for it. And we used to know that. the seventies and eighties it was... conventional wisdom that there was just a profound tension between environmental protection and certain kinds of labor populist issues. Which doesn't mean environmental protection is like never the right choice to make, right?if we're gonna preserve two jobs, but poison millions of children like we should probably not do that. but it's a very real tension that exists and you just say, we're gonna, we're gonna slap a kind of populist rhetoric and be like, we're just like, I'm mad at, executives, at like big lobstering, but eh, like the guys on the boats and their families and the guys who sell the diesel to the, they all know, right? there's an economy here and people like want their jobs.Gary Winslett: Yeah. No, I totally agree. This is one of the reasons why I've been a big fan of restoring the Bureau of Mines. So we can, like mine rare earth elements here.Like those are good jobs in rural areas and do you want them coming from China? Do you want 'em coming from the Congo or do you want to like actually mine them here? That seems to me like another avenue of like resource extraction that makes a lot of sense.Matt Ygelsias: Yeah, exactly. And this is a big, I think tension as the democratic parties become very urban.We of course depend on natural resource extraction in urban areas, but we are very abstracted from it. And, it's something I've learned a lot from my, my father-in-law manages a ranch in Texas. He's a long time Republican, hates Donald Trump, is increasingly becoming a Democrat. But the pain points for him are around, natural resource economics.Really, to him raising cattle and the water on those lands, but also people he knows who are in the oil and gas industry. And, just the fact that this is important to the economy. And I, think like left-wing people get it when it's closer to them, And so again, like Mamdani wound up having like strikingly libertarian opinions about halal cart operations.Because I love to say it and like I think that's because it's like when it's people who you know... Right? Like in your community you understand that like regulatory burdens like can be quite bad. And when you're like, okay, I've never met somebody who's involved in timber... then you just like, oh, like I'm for the environment and like I am also for the environment.And I think, halal cart should have food safety rules and, all of these things, but there's a real trade-offs. and you have to take them seriously. And especially if you want to prosper in rural areas, you have to take the, the real economic concerns that people have seriously and not just like slap rural broadband on top of what's otherwise a degrowth agenda.Tahra Hoops: Yeah. No, I completely agree. I'm all for taking down halal inflation. That was one of my favorite taglines for this entire campaign.Matt Ygelsias: Yeah, it was great.Tahra Hoops: Okay, so this is the last abundancy question we'll try and give you, but I really liked what you said recently about Senator  Gallego, about big ass truck abundance versus high speed rail abundance.You contrast into two strains of the agenda. One focusing on delivering elite preferred goods, such as the high speed rail, and another focus on normal material like owning a big ass truck. So how do Democrats go from shifting and preaching almost as a technocratic elite efficiency project to selling it as what could be a populist promise for working class swing voters?Is that possible? Should abundance just be separated as something that you govern as? Or should people really start to look at it as a political agenda?Matt Ygelsias: I think there's sort of two things going on, right? It, and people who are interested in reform of the Democratic party which I think is your project.Here is a project that's very important to me. There's two strands of that, right? And like one is. How do we improve the governance outcomes in the places where Democrats are winning? The places where people on the basis of cultural and moral values affiliate more with the Democratic Party.It's easy to win elections in Maryland, in Oregon, in Washington, in California and New York, but Are we doing a good job? Are these places growing? As quickly as they can be. Are we executing on the projects that are nearest and dearest to progressive's hearts And that's high speed rail abundance, right?It's if you're gonna build a bullet train between Los Angeles and San Francisco, like you should have a train at the end of that process rather than a big embarrassment,Tahra Hoops: I agree...Matt Ygelsias: but then the other question is like, how do you gain power, nationally, in a Senate landscape where... or an electoral college landscape where the decisive states are in the Midwest, they're in the Sunbelt, et cetera.And I think it's just important to acknowledge that while it, would probably. Democrats would look better if the California high-speed rail project had gone better. But you're not gonna build I think like high-speed rail in Arizona where Senator Gallego goes. Like, where would it go?it's it's a big empty state and definitely not in, Wisconsin and other things like that. And you need to be connected not only to What kind of like grinds my gears about progressive governance in Washington DC but actually think about what people are like.Senator Gallego had this line. He said, he said, every Latino man I know wants a big ass truck. And so I tell them like, I'm gonna get you outta your mom's basement. I'm gonna get it so you can get your own house. I'm gonna get you that big truck. And, that's an economic agenda, but it's also a, it's a values agenda, right?It's about saying that people who didn't dream of moving to the big city, when they grow up like that, that we can follow their dreams too. So I grew up in Greenwich Village, so I'm like a... native, like I had no phi. and my dad's a novelist my mom worked in magazines... She was a painter. So I have no idea what real America is like.but I think a lot. But I think a lot about my wife who does know and she grew up in rural Texas, but what she wanted all of her life was to like, go to a good college, get a good job, In the big city and be an urban sophisticate and that's great. I love my wife, I love the city, et cetera.But I think sometimes the Democratic party is, it's just, it's too dominated by that vibe. You know, by like the girl who wanted to get away, which like is great and like I support and I validate that, but there are just tons and tons of people who grow up in middle America. And like living in middle America and want the best version of a middle America lifestyle for themselves and we have to speak to that.Gary Winslett: Do you listen to much country music, Matt?Matt Ygelsias: Absolutely not. I, again, I, don't wanna pretend like I'm trying to do like objective analysis.Gary Winslett: No, But I was gonna ask if you've heard the Chris Jansen song, buy Me a Boat.Matt Ygelsias: yeah.Gary Winslett: It's great. Like that kind of vibe is what I get from like big ass truck abundance.It's–I want the money to…Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy me a boat. And it's just got a very like winsome fun vibe to it.Matt Ygelsias: Yeah. exactly.I... There's a big aesthetic divide in America about like motorized boats versus like kayaks, right? It's it's just like more liberal to not have, like as much power, in, in your things.When you're thinking about policy, right? for all the reasons that like, we think, it's like. People should have different lifestyles. Like we celebrate our gay and lesbian friends and colleagues, and it's yeah, also if what you want in life is a motorboat or a jet ski like that's good too.Like we're here to help people live their best lives, not to tell them what's appropriate or to just say that what's in our cultural niche is the only thing, that's valued. And so just to remind people of what growth is for what, the social safety net is for, right?These are two sides of trying to help people achieve material prosperity and sort of freedom. positive freedom to, to do things and to do what they want, want. but to, you know, remember that what people want is not necessarily gonna be what I want.Tahra Hoops: Yeah. No, I think that's a very good distinction that you're making and I think a lot of times the discourse muddles the two where they do believe people who are sadly discussing coastal elites, like me and you, want everyone in America to follow like this technocratic, like high elite class.And it's just not the case. Like upward economic mobility looks different for different people because of their backgrounds.Matt Ygelsias: Yep. Yeah. and just desires, it's okay. We're, a diverse country in. Across multiple different dimensions of diversity.Gary Winslett: For sure. I wanted to ask you about attention, because this seems to be one of the real problems the Democrats have right now.Yeah. How to do better in this attentional environment against Trump because he has this ability to dominate attention, but both because he's the President and just... his outlandishness. what it means is that a lot of times there's just and I know you've heard from on this, but there's not as much focus on republicans worst policies.The Medicaid cuts are gonna be disastrous for rural hospitals. And I just think a lot of, like almost nobody on the street, and I live in rural America, I talk to people, almost nobody knows this, that this is gonna be really, bad for rural hospitals. And so just like, how do you think.That Democrats can perform better in this sort of attentional environment?Yeah. it's tough. I think it's always a little bit lame to just be like, you need people with charisma and people to, try to focus on, making better videos and stuff like that.But it is true that you need that. And you need to turn the attention to the right things. I think that the, I, think that. Progressives defunded their health advocacy infrastructure, relative to where it was 10 years ago in favor of focusing on some other kinds of things.And I think that there's a sense that like your incentive as a kind of safe seat member of Congress is to like, make news on immigration rather than make news on healthcare. But I, think the unfortunate dynamic that we're in. Because of the way Democrats lost in 2024. Most people, on the left and in the center of the party are disgruntled with the national leadership and think that change is in the works and we are fighting a lot with each other to define what that change is going to be.And there's a lot of interest in that, right? Like on both sides. Different factions of the Democratic party agree on the Medicaid issue, right? Like you could find everybody, Jared Golden, Richie Torres, Ilhan Omar, like there's no disagreement about this. And so as a result, it's like I... plays is a little bit boring.Right? That it's like that everybody's on the same page, but there should be some strength in that. I would love to see some of the more high profile Democrats who are identified with like different sides of these factional controversies. Do a sh... Splashy show of unity around some of these points.Because, this really is the thing that sort of brings brings all different kinds of Democrats together, is a view that like the people who get sick should get medical care. like even if they're poor, it's a moral value that I think a large majority of the public agrees with.There's a lot of technical ins and outs to healthcare, but if you like zoom out on a level of moral values, like people think that you should get treatments for your health needs, and that is true even if like you don't have a lot of money in the bank. and Medicaid is a good program that does that.It provides care quite cost-effectively. it has grown, it has, shown some real staying power even in, red states and, things like that. And, but, I, as well as everybody else have my share of the responsibility. Like I, I have tried to write about the one big beautiful bill act, and its impact on healthcare.The pieces that I've done on it have not performed as well as pieces on some other things, so I... to an extent. It's my incentive is to talk about other stuff to another extent. It's my job is to make this interesting. You know, I I I've been recording podcasts about it, like I'm doing my best.I, the, rural hospital impact is really important. Also, just the direct, human impact on millions of people who are gonna lose their insurance. And you know what? To remind people, I think some of the... Slightly weird left economic mania that has had swept portions of the party comes from underwriting, just like the significance of a basic social safety net that like you you shouldn't just dismiss that and say that like true economic justice right? Is about like, how angry can you get at somebody who's rich. It's actually I, think true economic justice is about how much can you do for people who are poor. this was a great achievement of the Obama administration.The Biden administration did not move the ball forward as much on that as I would like, but they did... They did some and they held the line. And, Trump is gonna try to roll it back and that's really bad. that's what got me interested in politics in the first place.Tahra Hoops: Yeah. I, completely agree with you there that it, you have to drive something.That's interesting when you're trying to compete in the attention economy. I've noticed that with my tweets as well where I am posting about these Medicaid cuts daily and they do not perform nearly as well as something that might discuss like NIMBYs or like someone on the left or something that's also happening in the news.Like we just had the recent mayor race that was taking over the news cycle and to me just so frustrating that Democrats are not coalescing around this more because it is just so easy. Like you had Joni Ernst saying, people are going to die anyways. You have Mitch McConnell telling people to get over it. It's just this is good content right here.Get out there. Go get your zoomer intern or social media team. Start making some videos and just talk about this constantly. Especially they're trying to push this by July 4th. That's a very short deadline, so...Matt Ygelsias: They're racing. Yeah. and also, these, gaffs, right? we're all gonna die anyway, which is true, by the way.But it reflects the fact, I think Democrats a lot of times in the past five years have been on the wrong side of sort of basic values questions. And you see when that happens you struggle to even defend your position in public and that's what's happening. When Tony Ernst is like, death is inevitable.Or I, leave it up to Jesus, right? I is that, there's a lot you can say about the details of Medicaid financing or this, that, and the other thing, but there's just like a question of is it a sort of collective responsibility to take care of the poor, the sick, the elderly, and the disabled?Or is it not? Are we in this Nietzschean universe where the strong will fly to Mars and, the weak will perish. And they can't really defend their view on that. So when you can... When you can press them, it ends up generating these kind of potentially viral moments because just straightforward description of a pure market take on like what it should mean if you have severe health needs and you also don't have money, is like quite bad. And I say that as somebody who thinks that there's like a fair amount of like pro market, friendly interventions we could do in the healthcare system that would improve things, but that would be making the supply, like increasing the supply of healthcare services.Is a great compliment to meeting the financial needs, of people who are in need. Saying that we're just going to, deprive people of care. And then say it's fine for me 'cause I've lost Substack subscriptions. that's terrible.Tahra Hoops: Yeah, no, I, completely agree. I just, I wish they had the same energy.I, someone needs to do a fighting the oligarchy tour, but do it for Medicaid. Yeah, like saving it, show up to Republicans like pound, like halls, go everywhere and just never shut up about it and be annoying to the point where it just never leaves people minds. I don't think we'll do that and that's fine.But, on the topic of Doomerism, I wanted to ask you about just like young progressives and doom in general. I remember I think one of your biggest pieces are like, why young liberals are so depressed, which I find hilarious. and I think we can agree that you've pushed for politics that's focusing less on vibes, more on outcomes.But why do you think this negativity persists among young liberals? And how should Democrats counteract it with something more motivating than democracy's on the ballot?Matt Ygelsias: You're the young person, you probably know.Tahra Hoops: I know.Matt Ygelsias: No, like philosophically, right? Something that progressives tend to emphasize, which I think is true, is that a lot of what happens in life is due to luck and things that are outta our control.That, one reason that I've been successful in my career is that I have a skill of writing really fast. And I know because my mother worked in magazine journalism when I was a little kid. That skill was just not that valuable in the eighties and nineties because it was a limited amount of column inches that were available.And what like really did it as a journalist is if I put more time in this piece, could I make it dramatically better? The internet opens it up and it's like there's no limit on how many pieces you can publish. And suddenly being a guy who's really fast is super valuable. And I came along early enough that not a lot of people realized how the internet was changing things, right?So I got like a first mover advantage where like I was a, like a well-known blogger, quote unquote, when I was 23, and have just coasted. So like that's a good luck in life. Yeah, at the same time. And so that's like a classic progressive point. It's like why we believe in fairness, et cetera, et cetera.But when you get so much into pushing people on, like how structural everything is, right? You're, you're sort like telling people, it's like it's bad politics to like ever give anyone constructive life advice, unlike... how you could make your life better to ever take responsibility, for your own.Stuff. And I think it's weird I did that becomes like misaligned with basic American values, but we also know it's like it's bad for people's mental health. Like you are supposed to. If you wanna be happy in life, you need to try to cultivate like an internal locus of control and think about what are the things that are under your control?Like what can you do about them? and we see that in, it's everything from 12 step recovery programs to like, any kind of like good, mental health treatment, right? It's about like how can I think about what I can do and what I can take responsibility for? And so when you build like a whole political culture.That's around like just telling people about, like the oligarchy and systemic racism and all these other things. It becomes a recipe for a lot of sort of. Ineffectual anxiety, plague depressed people and like, that's not good. and like I don't wanna be heard as saying that.It's luck plays no role in life. Or there are no systemic biases that people face. 'cause there, there clearly are at the same time, like within the hand that we are dealt. we all have the opportunity to play the hand better or to play it worse. I think most people, are in fact in the market for like good.Information and advice about what they can do to take better control over their lives. And, we need to just build a culture of that, right? Including a culture of like in politics, what actions can I take that will be constructive in achieving goals that I care about, rather than just like, how do I signal, right?Like affiliation with good values.Tahra Hoops: No, I think that's a good way to place it. And I agree that what drives a lot of democratic politics is just just overwhelming, like fog of malaise. And I, wrote about this like a couple weeks ago after going to welcome Fast. Ooh. And I saw Derek Thompson discuss abundance and he mentioned how the vibe of the book came out as positive to a lot of people where they almost felt like a, a sigh of like relief after reading this.And he thought it was funny because you read the book and it's just like diagnosing everything that's wrong in America and you just like by text, quite a negative book. So it's so funny that people felt almost like a little joyful that's. Exactly how I came across it as well. I felt really happy.And then I realized it's because when you are just going through, whether you work in government, whether you are just a young person who is trying to catch up in life and you feel like all of the structures, all the institutions that are set up there to help you succeed in life are constantly failing you.It becomes way too large to diagnose and then abundance comes around and you have a book that is diagnosing. Specifically what is wrong in governance? And it gives you a to-do list. And I related it to depression itself. And I like that you mentioned like 12 step programs. because before, like our parents generation, parents before that, if you were depressed, they just said, you, are weak.There's something wrong with it, you're fine. But now if you bring that up, it's okay, this is probably neurochemical imbalance. There are some drugs you can take, like these are resources that you have. It doesn't fix the core problem immediately, but it gives you a start and a path that lets you see like it's not just all doom and gloom. There is something wrong here. And like now that I have visibility, it's easier for me to tackle it.Gary Winslett: The only thing I would add to that is that particularly during the Great Recession, it became seen as deeply. Out of touch to say anything positive, particularly about the economy. If you said something positive, you were treated as like running interference for the status quo. And that got baked in so much that you almost had this like spiral effect where people peacock about how much they cared by saying how bad things were and so then the next person next to them would like one up them about how bad things were.And so you got this real spiral that, that happened for a while. I'm naturally an optimist, so one of my optimistic. Takes is that we're starting to see a little bit of that unwind. you know, I, I may have some ideas, disagreements with Momani, but one of the things I liked about his campaign was it's, he's a nice person.It came across as like not angry all the time, which was nice. So I'm hoping maybe we're starting to see the green shoots of not having doomy politics.Matt Ygelsias: Yeah, I, definitely think that there's something to that. and also, how do I wanna put it, the idea that problems are chunkable, right? That like you can drill down and come up with specific, often not that enormous policy changes that will make specific things a little bit better and just plug away, like my Substack is called "Slow Boring", not because it's boring. no. So it's, a line from Max Weber and he says that politics... it's a slow boring of hard boards, right? Like you're just like, you're just drilling away. And I think it's fine if people find that a little bit tedious and like just don't wanna be super political, but I do want people who do want to be political to see it that way. You know that it's just.Work. it's not like we are going to, bring utopia on the planet or that we need to tell everyone about how terrible everything is, but we can try to look around us in specific ways to see specific way things that could be made better and we can try to see is there a. Tractable political path toward change here.If there isn't, like you could just move on to something else because there's actually, you know, if you see the world's problems as being many, right? There's like dozens and dozens of things that could be improved, rather than one, Cosmic evil that has to be slain.Then, if you not making headway on something or you can't see a way to make headway there's no bipartisan route. It's not like a great electoral issue. It's like just pick something else to work on. You know what I mean? Instead ofTahra Hoops: people should quit more.Matt Ygelsias: Yeah. I think about something like gun control, where I, I agree analytically that if the United States of America had like a radically different approach to firearms policy that would save a lot of lives. I think that's true. If anybody asks my opinion, that is my opinion. I think there's good evidence for it.I also just, I don't see it happening, like I don't, I, I don't know what, we're gonna do about that. On the other hand, it seems like we could probably, have save a lot of lives through reduced, traffic deaths in the near future with self-driving car technology, which has its own policy dilemmas, but they don't seem like un unfixable ones, And so it's like you can engage if what you're concerned about, it's, instead of saying I'm concerned about gun deaths, you'd be like, I'm concerned about people dying. In preventable ways, often being cut down in the prime of their lives. It's like, how is the US an outlier from other countries?We are an outlier in terms of gun deaths. We're also an outlier in terms of car accident deaths and like you can try to solve the more solvable problem and actually save people's lives rather than just making yourself. Crazy about the fact that there's yeah. A profound cultural division in the country around firearms ownership.Tahra Hoops: Yeah, I, think that's a helpful advice to give someone in being a bit more realistic in managing your expectations, which is just very difficult because the art of politics and policy, the people who are very interested in this. Or their heart is in it, like the feelings intertwine and it becomes very difficult to separate the two, especially when you lean into advocacy.So I can understand the argument on both sides of this, but I do agree a more realistic approach would be like, if it's not feasibly out there, how can I actually change the world in a way that it is an achievable, resulted outcome?One of the last questions that we have for you is, back in November, after the horrific loss that we suffered, you came out very quickly with the common sense democratic platform.It's like the manifesto that you had, what it looked like. But if you had to write, like right now after we've seen like the first like six months of what the Trump administration is and how Democrats have been responding to it, what would be like a three point platform that would help Democrats win Senate seats in Ohio, Florida, Texas, any other?State similar without alienating maybe core voters or maybe if we should be alienating them, what would you call, what would you add?Matt Ygelsias: I think it's really about broadening the tent, right? In this case, right? Rather than even defining a specific policy agenda. But when you broaden the tent, you have to ask yourself like, what is the central pole?Of the big tent. And I think defending and incrementally expanding the basic social safety net is that tent pole issue, right? We were talking about Medicaid, snap, maybe selling on child tax credit, tax enforcement, progressive taxation, that, that whole suite of issues, right? that is the tent goal.And then you gotta say on the rest, it's like we. You're not gonna get progressive minded people to stop having the opinions that they have about gun control. But like, acknowledge that this is just like probably not happening, And so if you're not gonna be able to win in rural America by highlighting that, it's like you gotta just let it go.People don't need to change their mind, but it's gotta go off the agenda, right? And then on energy, which I think is really central and critical to all of this stuff, I, think Democrats need to return to a much more, all of the above type approach and to a focus on. What are pro-growth climate solutions?Because the basic issue that you have is that like climate change is real. it is an actual problem. the people who say that it isn't are, lying to you, but the level of short-term personal cost that Americans are willing to bear to address what's really a long-term global problem is quite low, right?So there's sort of two ways you can tackle that. One which Democrats have been trying is what if we hide the cost, right? So like instead of having a carbon tax, instead of having cap and trade, we're gonna do everything through like backdoor regulations. And we keep seeing that doesn't really work.Because you're hiding the cost, you're not making it go away. On the other hand, there are things you can do that have zero or negative economic cost, right? So like reforming the transmission system is pro-growth. Reforming the way the NRC handles advanced nuclear is pro-growth. Reforming, increasing the possibilities for geothermal exploration is pro-growth.Making sure that even the basic renewable siting is something that you can do, right? Is a pro-growth measure and really just. Focusing in on that, right? That if you want to care about climate change, you have to be focused on this, like expanding the renewable energy, re expanding the zero carbon pie rather than on trying to strangle the fossil fuel industry. I, emphasize that, not because it's the only issue that matters, but because I think it's like the. The stickiest one... the, the environmental movement in the United States like really doesn't agree with that. although they don't like to say publicly that they're like hostile to large swaths of zero carbon energy production, but like they really are.And Democrats need to move off of that, I think, to show that they can square progressive values with, people's material needs where we started here, right? Like... so, so I think that's the core. Then, on just like basic social order. I think people know at this point that you can't defund the police.Millions and millions of people are gonna make asylum claims. You need to manage these systems responsibly. I think immigration's very complex on the merits. but Democrats are getting there on that. but it's tent pole welfare, state expansion, big tent on social and cultural issues, and an approach to energy policy that takes the economics of it seriously, rather than siloing it as like a niche environmental concern.Gary Winslett: No, I think that's, I think that's great. We'll have you for a few more minutes. As our listeners are, no doubt aware, The Rebuild is a Substack that we're writing that's focusing on how, Democrats can do these kinds of cost of living concerns and pro-growth policies. and so to wrap up, we'd like to ask, four kind of quick fire questions.First one is, what is something that you think is too expensive?Matt Ygelsias: Housing is a, boring one.Tahra Hoops: That's aGary Winslett: boring one.Matt Ygelsias: Known for that, but but, okay. Okay. To be a little more interesting. Like routine dental care is too expensive.Gary Winslett: Okay.Tahra Hoops: I agree.Gary Winslett: Yeah. It is. Yes. Okay, cool. What is an innovation that you think is overrated?Matt Ygelsias: Just like the internet. I make my life on it, but it's been a very mixed bag.Tahra Hoops: There's some dark quarters of this place. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. What do you say? Sorry, go ahead.Gary Winslett: I, what I was just gonna say, it's funny. in January I teach a course and it's the only course my students teach and one of the small assignments is they have to give me their phone and computer for a dayAnd go on a digital detox for a day and get pushback. And all of my students love it. thrilled to get away from their tech for a day and be forced to do that. But I,Tahra Hoops: they give it up like willingly?Gary Winslett: Oh yeah. A hundred percent. You would think I would get so would've done pushback. And I get none. I get like thrilled reactions.Matt Ygelsias: To it because I think as long as you can say you're like doing it for a reason, right? Yeah. Because it's really hard to just unilaterally opt out. But if it's oh, for this class, like we all have to do it, it's like an interesting, kind of experiment.Gary Winslett: Yeah.So what, next one is what is a policy or innovation that you believe is underrated?Matt Ygelsias: Okay, so, 10 years ago, like charter schools were very hot. And people have like completely moved off them both like republicans to this like unregulated unaccountable choice dynamic and Democrats to a very kind of status quo view on education.But I think during the time, like the actual evidence behind charter schools has just gotten better and stronger and it's clearer that providing choice. But requiring the providers to meet a real standard of delivering value, is like very positive for education. And we're experiencing a lot of disruptions, obviously because of ai, other things happening, which I think means we clearly need more flexibility, in the world.But also again, that like we need a real standard. we learned during COVID that just being like, wow, we have computers. So do people need to go to school like they do? They do need to go to school. so I, think it's become badly underrated.Gary Winslett: Okay, cool. All right, last one. So I have this absurd policy idea that I think Patriots Day, which is the third Monday in Massachusetts third Monday in April in Massachusetts, they, it's a state holiday.Everybody—Matt Ygelsias: I'm familiarGary Winslett: –have that. Yeah. So I have this idea that we should make Patriots Day a national holiday.Matt Ygelsias: Okay.Gary Winslett: 'Cause it would be a national holiday between, in that like long span between President's Day and Memorial Day. And so I'm just curious if you have a off the wall absurd idea like that, that you think would be really good.Yeah. so I think, during the, this is not a good, moderate take, but, during the French Revolution, the Jacobins tried to do calendar reform, where, every month was gonna have exactly 30. Days in it. and each week was gonna be 10 days long and then there would just be like five bonus days at the end of the year for holiday.And I really feel like that made a lot more sense as a parent, like trying to explain to my 10-year-old, like why it is different. Months have different numbers of days. and he's he's making good points. Like what is the deal with this? this guy, like what if different hours in the day had different numbers of minutes in them?Like you'd be losing your s**t constantly. so that's what I want. I want calendar reform.Alright, cool. This has been great Matt. Thank you so much for joining us. we really want to thank you for coming on.Matt Ygelsias: Thank you.Transcript has been edited lightly for clarity. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.therebuild.pub

Prof. Gary Winslett: Congressman Peters, it is so nice to have you here on The Rebuild. We're really excited to talk to you.Rep. Scott Peters: Thanks for having me.Prof. Gary Winslett: Yeah, love to do it. Let's dive right in.So I was reading in the Wall Street Journal just on Sunday that consumers should expect electricity prices to go up this Summer.And yet I was also reading a few weeks ago about how congressional Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee are taking aim at green energy–even trying to zero out programs that are helping transmission get sited and built even while we know we need more electricity to keep people's energy prices down.I know this is an issue you've worked on for a while, and are going to be focusing on this new Build America Caucus. So what I want to first ask you about is just what are some of your ideas for reforming some of these permitting processes so that we can accelerate Green Energy deployment?Rep. Scott Peters: Well, Professor, you're alluding to that pesky supply and demand problem, right? I mean, that's. That's it. I would say for the first time in some decades, we're going to see an increase in demand for electricity because of AI, because of reshoring manufacturing, both under policies driven by President Biden, President Trump, electrification–that load growth not only challenges our supply, but threatens to destabilize the grid.We learned also from Jesse Jenkins at Princeton that if we want to realize the climate benefits of the IRA–the biggest investment in climate action in the history of the world–we need to triple the size of the grid because you need to get solar energy from places like Arizona and wind energy from places like Iowa to the places where they need it.We're really challenged to do that. And I think as a result of that, we face a choice in the future between higher electricity prices and astronomically higher electricity prices.Rep. Scott Peters: So we've got to get on the job. And as you alluded, I think there's a tremendous amount of clean energy about to be connected. We have 2,600 gigawatts in line to be connected, projects to be connected. A gigawatt is roughly the size of a nuclear power plant. So that's a huge amount of energy. About 90% of that is non-emitting. And so if you're interested in climate action, you're interested in energy supply, got to get that stuff online and we ought to make everything faster.So the challenge we've seen is that, as proud as I am of being a Democrat who voted for the Inflation Reduction Act and all that climate action, we just didn't get it into the ground. And it doesn't do us any good to have money in the bank unless we get into the ground.So a lot of what we're seeing now is the difficulty of process we've got. It takes, you know, four, four and a half years to do a big environmental impact statement, another four years to litigate that for, for transmission projects, it's much higher. And so we've got to, we've got to come and modernize our environmental laws in line with that.Rep. Scott Peters: So some of the ideas we have are first of all on transmission, you know, we'd like to pursue parity with natural gas. Natural gas is a one stop shop. You go to, you go to FERC and they're the lead agency we have. The FASTER Act, which we've introduced, would designate FERC as the lead agency for large interstate transmission lines as well.It's a little more complex. Complicated because they're visible–they're overground. But it's a way to coordinate federal, state and local authorization and reduce the big timeline for those things.A second challenge is that we know we need to connect various regions and there's no incentive for interregional cooperation. So Senator Hickenlooper and I have the Big Wires act, which would require each region to be able to transfer at least 15% of its power to another region.That would have really helped Texas when they had their tough weather, when that awful storm where they lost people because of cold. It's a reliability issue, but it's also a cost issue.Then I think we'd like to just generally look at the environmental laws like the National Environmental Policy act, NEPA, to see if we can't make things go faster. It was just that if you're a climate advocate, we're in the mode of needing to build stuff. If 90% of what wants to be built is non-emitting, let everything go faster. Because if you put down 10 to get 90 back, the second time you do that in a casino, you get kicked out. That's a pretty good deal.Prof. Gary Winslett: Yeah, for sure. I actually wanted to focus on that FASTER act a little bit because I think this is something a lot of people don't realize is that FERC treats natural gas one way where it has national siting authority.If you want to build natural gas from Oklahoma to Virginia, FERC has the ability to do that and, and they really don't in electricity transmission. So giving FERC that authority, you're really just putting Green Energy on parity with natural gas.Rep. Scott Peters: 100%. We've actually got something called backstop authority. I'm sure you've heard reference to, which is the idea that, you know, we designate these, these national corridors and you know, nothing gets built in them because there's no incentive to cooperate.And so we've sort of said to FERC, okay, we'll give you a backstop authority. If they don't build it in a certain amount of time, you can order it. But that was a provision that was started in one form in 2005. And in the Bush administration, Obama, Trump One, and Biden, it was never used. So I think we have to come up with a different way.We think the FASTER act would be sort of a way people can understand it because they've seen it work with natural gas.Prof. Gary Winslett: Yeah, exactly. Well, and the other thing that I really like about both of these bills is they're both low or even zero cost to the taxpayer. Like, these are smart ideas without being budget busters.What's been a surprising obstacle to you? It seems like such a common sense idea to me once you, you lay it out. What has been a surprising obstacle to you in the FASTER Act, the Big Wires Act?Rep. Scott Peters: Well, in general, I think, you know, there's, there's a surprise on the Right, there's a surprise on the Left. The surprise on the Right is sort of a lack of concern about transmission. I think maybe 10 years ago you would have seen…well, in 2005 when the energy act was passed, this was well before solar and wind had been deployed.It was really a reliability issue. We were trying to recover from the big blackout we had in 2003 was a nationwide blackout, basically by one failure in Ohio. And so the idea was connections would provide more reliability. And that was really the first attempt to really get the grid going.But now there's been the deployment of solar and wind and people, I think wrongly on the Right see that this is competition for oil and gas, which is not. We need all the power we can get.That's what you've seen the deployment in North Dakota, in Texas, of tons of wind. I mean, Texas has more wind, I think, than any place but China, literally. And it's not like they're a bunch of tree huggers in Texas. They make smart energy decisions in kind of the most perfect energy market from a freedom of choice standpoint.So that's a surprise. I don't think it's ideological to… take a grid that's old and small and dumb and make it bigger, faster and smarter.Rep. Scott Peters: And then on the Left, I think you see, you don't see appreciation for the cost of time. And you know, I think in the 1970s, we, the environmental movement was trying to stop bad, bad things from happening. We passed NEPA so that you at least consider the environmental effects of every decision you made that was significant and consider the alternatives. And that's very reasonable.But now we've gotten so used to slowing things down and litigating over them. We have to realize that the things we're slowing down are things like offshore wind and, and, you know, utility scale solar and transmission lines and, you know, hydrogen pipelines, carbon, carbon dioxide pipelines.The things we need for climate action are stuff we have to build.And on balance, if we build more, even if some oil and gas gets through, we're going to win in terms of emissions reductions. So those are the tensions we have. I think people are coming to understand that we need more electricity and that with the demand for so much more electricity, we're all going to have to come together. And I think these will all be parts of the solution.But you know, the politics sometimes interferes with the analytics.Prof. Gary Winslett: No, totally agree. I teach my students a course on Climate Change and markets. And one of the things I like to say to them is that I grew up playing football. Like the old environmentalism was about playing defense. Like stop.The new environmentalism, we got the ball, we want to play offense, we want to build things.Rep. Scott Peters: Yeah. And want actually to, you know, pick up yards, pick up yards and touchdowns.Prof. Gary Winslett: Right. Like that's what it is. Climate touchdowns for sure. I want to also ask you about health care as well. So the Inflation Reduction act actually used a lot of your ideas about Medicare drug price negotiation from this Reduced Cost and Continued Cures act you had written.I don't think a lot of people know that. So I would just love to hear you talk about how you came up with some of these ideas and then what are some other ideas you have to reduce healthcare cost?Rep. Scott Peters: Yeah, so it was a big, it was a difficult time for me. Speaker Pelosi had this HR3, her bill on getting for the first time Medicare to be able to negotiate the prices of drugs. And of course that makes sense. Right. But the problem with it was that she wanted to start negotiation sort of almost price setting the day the drug came out.Now I realized that that meant that no one would ever invest, invest in risky drug discovery because if you don't have an opportunity to make a profit back on your risk capital, you won't invest it. You'll invest in real estate or something else. And you know, we invest about $47 billion now in the NIH in public research.The comparable number in the private sector was over $100 billion. And we put that at risk if we set this thing up wrong. So I just said let's give a patent period to these drugs so that you know, once something's invented, they get there. You know, we propose 12 years to, or 11 or 12 years to recover that money.Rep. Scott Peters: And I think she did not believe that I was going to stick to my guns. But I just knew that for San Diego in particular–we're the third leading biotechnology cluster–this is a really important part of our economy. We have big employers like Eli Lilly and Johnson and Johnson Novartis.But a thousand companies doing this with 80,000 people. A thousand companies, that means there's a lot of small outfits trying to solve hard science problems with private risk capital. And we wanted to keep that going.So I did stick to my guns. You've got tons of protests. I was threatened with primary opponents by the Democratic Party. I actually voted against our reconciliation bill as a member of the Budget Committee on the Democratic side. Took tremendous blowback. Everybody in my district office became an expert in explaining the economics of drug discovery and investment.Rep. Scott Peters: We got through that. We did get the change made that we wanted to, and I think we came up with a better bill. It's not a perfect bill, but Democrats are all very happy that for the first time we had the ability to negotiate prices. And you know, it was in a way that, you know, the industry didn't love because it was, it was more restrictive, but it also, it didn't kill it.And I think there are some more challenges. We're still in competition against China, other countries that want to invest, but this is a place where we have the lead. And so I think that's a good thing.Another idea–I do think a lot about diagnostics, Gary. There's the attitude sort of in the bureaucracy about innovation is that it's a cost. And one of the problems we face is that when we analyze what something costs in Congress, we only look at this year. So what's the outlay for this year?Well, in something like diagnostics, which is some tiny percentage of this Medicare spend, for instance, but drives 70% of Medicare decision making, you know, the cost this year is saving money down the line and you're not really getting in as part of the analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, when they analyze the cost, they don't really analyze the benefit of it.But there's tremendous opportunity with genomics, with blood screening for cancer, with all sorts of innovations now to deploy those things today and save a ton of money down the road. And I want us to think about, you know, taking advantage of those great mostly American inventions to help us provide better outcomes for patients and more cost effective health care.Prof. Gary Winslett: Yeah, no, I'm totally on board with that. Some of my doctoral dissertation research was on intellectual property and pharmaceuticals, so I've also dug super into the weeds on how you actually try to get this innovation and access. And it's hard, but I think it's really cool that you guys got that drug price negotiation in there while preserving the incentive to innovate. I just, I thought it was really cool.Rep. Scott Peters: Yeah, thanks. Democrats–I mean, I kind of laugh because they were so mad at me and a lot of them don't remember why. But they were mad at me.Prof. Gary Winslett: Yeah, well, it's genuinely a challenging problem. The more you get to it, you more you're like, “Okay, well there's some real trade offs here.” So I thought it was cool what you guys did.I wanted to broaden out the conversation a little bit in terms of the abundance agenda, which is getting a lot of attention for totally understandable reasons. But a lot of the conversation has been really conceptual. But like, at, at a certain point, it does have to turn into a legislative agenda if it's going to be a real thing.And so I wanted to ask, what are some of the bills that you've written or sponsored that advance abundance or reduce cost of living? Are there areas where you think we can go bigger? Are there big priorities you've got for this Build America caucus that you've helped to launch?Rep. Scott Peters: Well, I think the work I've done on permit reform is really foundational to getting more. More building. This is something that as a–I was the city council president in San Diego a while back. I faced this with housing in California. If you put so many roadblocks in front of housing for 30 years–California suppressed housing. Now we're paying the price through higher prices.And so I've been an advocate for reforming our regulatory laws. And I think actually public politics is changing. There's a whole YIMBY movement. I like to think I was part of the start of that with the San Diego YIMBY Democrats that are really advocating for infill housing as not just a affordability imperative, but also an environmental imperative because we want our growth to occur where growth has already occurred.And I think things are moving well that way. I have a particular bill on that, it's kind of cool, called Build More Housing Near Transit.When I was a baby council member back in the 2000s, we decided to extend our light rail from, from sort of the downtown area up to the major job center up by University of California, San Diego. And you know, it took forever to plan it. We had to pass a half cent sales tax extension to have some local money to ask for our federal match.And it wasn't until years later when I'm in Congress that the region was able to ask for the federal money because it had all the design completed, the line selected, and the engineering done. And we were able to give them a billion dollars federally to match the billion dollars locally.Rep. Scott Peters: And now we have an extension. But it occurred to me when I was on the federal side that when I was a local council member, no one ever asked me what I was going to build next to this train. And you know, in fact, we had a lot of parking lots next to the train. You put the train sort of in the path of least resistance.And it seemed to me, you know, it's good that UMB politics wants to fill that in and do Transit Oriented Development, but we should have asked as a federal government: Show us your plans for what's going to drive ridership on this train. Show us your land use plan as part of the competition for federal money.So if I'm choosing between the project proposal in San Diego and the one in Raleigh, North Carolina and the one in wherever, I want to see that you're going to get ridership out of it.Because we have two objectives. We want to get people out of their cars for environmental reasons. We also want to get people paying into the fare box for taxpayer reasons. And so we have a bipartisan bill called Build More Housing Near Transit that would make your housing and land use plan part of the competition for federal resources.That's the way to use federal resources, federal leverage on, to get locals to do the right thing. We don't have control over those local, local decision making. So that's the kind of thing I think that the Build America Caucus wants to endorse.Rep. Scott Peters: When we did, you know, we just talked about the life sciences industry. We're in the lead in life sciences, Gary, in, in the world. And we want to keep it that way.We used to, we invented the semiconductor industry and we let that go overseas and we wish we hadn't done that. But now we've committed $50 billion in the CHIPS Act to bring that back and start building them where lo and behold, because you make a transfer of money to a project, it turns it into a federal project for purpose of environmental analysis.Now all these projects that are exactly where we know where they're going to go, some of them under construction now they're subject to environmental impact review. That's totally unnecessary. And we had to get an exemption for that. We had to basically do another bill. So I did a bill with Mark Kelly and with Ted.Prof. Gary Winslett: I remember this bill.Rep. Scott Peters: Yeah. And you know, actually it was in the–I was playing in the Congressional golf tournament. We have Republicans versus Democrats and the bill was scheduled for the next Monday and I'm making calls from the golf course to kind of get votes.We got the two thirds vote we needed by two votes. Should have been so easy. But that's the kind of thing that you have to modernize the environmental laws to meet the needs of today. And we did that in that instance.But you know, we have to look at whether the contribution of federal funds should really change by itself the quality of environmental review you do on a project doesn't make any sense, Right?Prof. Gary Winslett: No, I think that's right. And it's, it's been so nice to see that some of this is truly bipartisan. Right. Like you and Senator Kelly, Senator Cruz on this, the NEPA reform to CHIPS. You could imagine a bipartisan effort around transmission or around the Fix our Forests Act–Rep. Scott Peters: I think the Forest thing is the biggest thing going right now. I met this guy, Bruce Westerman. He sat down next to me on a plane. We were international flight. He says, you got a minute? You can't–you're on this flight–you really can't say no, but it was really a great meeting.He's a University of Arkansas graduate. He was, he walked on the football team. I think he was an engineer. And then he went to the Yale School of Forestry, so now he is the person who knows more about forestry than any other member of Congress. And he told me the stories of the Sequoia.The Sequoias in California, for the first time in 1200 years, we lost a sequoia to fire. And you know, the Sequoias are resistant to fire at the base. They need fire to open up their seeds. But because we've suppressed natural fire in the West, like shade tolerant trees, like a fir tree or a pine tree would grow up next to the sequoia.And one conveyed the fire into the canopy of the sequoia, the only place that's vulnerable killed the tree. But Gary, since then we've lost 20% of all the great Sequoias–3,000 year old trees in the same way. So he said that, you know, what we have to do is pretty clear. You have to go into the 60 groves where the Sequoias grow and you have to go restore the natural, the conditions that would have existed had fire occurred naturally over the last century.Rep. Scott Peters: So you have to trim a lot of the extra brush. And he says, you can't do a four year study on every grove. You need to provide an exemption. And I said, Bruce, that makes a ton of sense. Let's do it. We did the Save Our Sequoias Act and I was really surprised by the blowback by the environmental community.Here we are trying to save the sequoias and half the environmental groups are out there saying you can't change NEPA no matter what. And they were optimizing around preserving litigation rather than preserving the resource. I thought it was really perverse. So I said, we're going to take that fight.And when we did the Fix Our Forest act, which is a, you know, there's so much jamming up forest health and the ability the Forest Service to provide it, we just provided a reduced, a lot of red tape, provided a way to deal with the biomass that might come out, we still prevent clear cutting. There's no threat like that. But we got work.We did work with some of the most constructive environmental groups. The Nature Conservancy, Environmental Defense Fund, Audubon Society really helped us. Yep. And I can't get all the environmental groups if you, if you want to optimize around litigation. That's not my deal.Rep. Scott Peters: But we're going to provide help for healthy forests that generate less pollution when there's wildfires. More than natural fires, not catastrophic fires. Completely bipartisan. And now we have a companion in the Senate, and I think we're going to get that passed.Prof. Gary Winslett: Great. Sounds good. I wanted to sort of at the end here, have a couple of rapid fire questions that we'd like to do, if you don't mind. All right, first one is, what is something you think is too expensive?Rep. Scott Peters: Women's shoes.Prof. Gary Winslett: Okay. All right. What is an innovation that you think is overrated?Rep. Scott Peters: Automatic transmission.Prof. Gary Winslett: Whoa. Okay. All right. So do you still drive a stick?Rep. Scott Peters: I wish I did. I had to give up the one I had. I can't find another car like I used to have, But I used to love my Mustang, by the way. I can't really drive it anymore because the miles per gallon is embarrassing, but I do miss that car.Prof. Gary Winslett: Okay, fair enough. All right. What is a policy or innovation you think is underrated?Rep. Scott Peters: Genomics.Prof. Gary Winslett: Okay, cool. All right, last one. I have this sort of unorthodox, maybe absurd idea. Do you know what Patriots Day is in Massachusetts?Rep. Scott Peters: The day. It's the day of the marathon, right?Prof. Gary Winslett: Yeah. It's always the third Monday in April, and it commemorates the battles of Lexington and Concord. Right. The state holiday. Everybody has the day off, right? Well, we have this, like, huge gap in the calendar federally between President's Day and Memorial Day. We don't have, like, a nice holiday.So, my weirdo idea: We should make Patriots Day a federal holiday. And so I'm just curious, do you have any favorite absurd or unorthodox policy ideas that you like?Rep. Scott Peters: The thing that bothers me as a Californian, in this building I have 40 million people and two senators. And Delaware has, you know, like, 700,000 people and two senators. So I think you should redraw the state line so that no state is more than 10 times as populous as any other state.Prof. Gary Winslett: So we would have, like, seven or eight Californias?Rep. Scott Peters: Well, you just. You have to rejig the–you can still do 50 states, but you just have to draw the line so that, you know, like, Dakotas would get a lot bigger and there'd be a lot of little Californias. Yeah, I think it's probably right.My county has 3.4 million people in it. My county.Prof. Gary Winslett: Your county. You're. You're. I live in Vermont. Your county has, like, five times as many people as my state.Rep. Scott Peters: I know not. I'm not looking. Where, where are you?Prof. Gary Winslett: I'm in Middlebury College. Oh, so you're in Vermont. Yeah, Vermont. The second biggest culprit.Rep. Scott Peters: I love your people, though, by the way. Peter Walsh is my favorite left wing progressive. He's the nicest guy. I was really rooting against Becca Ballot getting elected because I thought she was a communist. And she's also the nicest person. You can't not like her. She's wonderful.Prof. Gary Winslett: So one of the things that I really love about Vermont politics is people are nice. There is just a niceness on down from, you know, Governor Scott, Becca Ballot, Peter–Rep. Scott Peters: Well, your other senator seems uncharacteristically grumpy though.Prof. Gary Winslett: So you say that, but I was. So I was at dinner the other night because he lives not far away from me in Burlington.Rep. Scott Peters: No one lives far away from you in Vermont, by the way.Prof. Gary Winslett: That’s true! So a guy was relaying the story about how he ran into to Bernie with his daughter. And Bernie asked his daughter how old she was and she said five. And she showed him like five fingers. And so Bernie goes, you know how old I am? And he just starts flashing over and over. And so like, it's, it's hilarious, right? So like, even Bernie, I think is actually like a pretty nice guy.I, I like the niceness of Vermont politics.Rep. Scott Peters: Good people. Pretty place too. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. This has been great. We're really thrilled you came on. I loved talking to you and I hope you have a great day.Prof. Gary Winslett: Thanks, Gary. Respect the markets.Transcript has been slightly condensed for clarity.Chamber of Progress has endorsed several of the bills sponsored or originally co-sponsored by Rep. Peters and discussed in this conversation, including:* FASTER Act.* Big Wires Act.* Build More Housing Near Transit Act.* Fix Our Forests Act.* Building Chips in America Act.* Equitable Community Access to Pharmacist Services Act. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.therebuild.pub