[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato.

We kick off the program with our longtime friend, Jeanette Hoffman, Republican strategist, who is also the host of a new series called "Energy Matters" with Jeanette Hoffman.

Good to see you, Jeanette.

- Hey Steve, thanks so much for having me.

- Are you saying we have an issue with energy in New Jersey?

I hadn't noticed.

- It's crazy, right?

I mean, listen, it is the biggest issue in this year's gubernatorial campaign and legislative races, and if you told me that four years ago, I wouldn't have believed you.

But if you look at both candidates for governor, Mikie Sherrill on the Democratic side, and Jack Ciattarelli on the Republican side, they're both talking about ways to reduce your electric rates, which have increased by 20% for most New Jersey homeowners.

- Okay, this program, this segment may be seen before, as well as after, but as we speak mid-September, we actually just did an interview with Jack Ciattarelli, later today, we'll be talking to Congresswoman Sherrill as well.

Energy is a huge issue, but let's do this, what is the series?

And we'll let everyone know is that, this streams with our colleagues and the folks over at on ONNJ, we'll put up the website, describe the format of the series, 'cause anything we can do with our media partners to promote what they're doing is important, go ahead, Jeanette.

- Sure, the show is called "Energy Matters," It's sponsored by New Jersey Policy Institute, and it's hosted on a streaming platform forum called ONNJ, ONNJ.com, and it's an interview series, and we look to talk to everybody on both sides of the aisle, Republicans, Democrats, people involved in policy, people involved in the energy world, to help break down this really complicated issue, Steve, it's not simple, it's all about supply, our energy supply, and demand.

The problem is, we have a huge demand for energy right now, especially electricity when we're talking about artificial intelligence and data hubs in New Jersey, and we don't have that much of a supply.

So, you know, what happens then?

Well, we see our energy rates are going up.

So in this interview series, we look to talk to people who are making decisions about these issues, now and into the future, about how it will impact New Jersey consumers, and what the best way is to go about lowering their costs.

- Jeanette, you understand politics, you understand polling better than most, to what degree do you really believe that the average New Jersey citizen, 9.5 million New Jerseyans, to what degree do you believe the average citizen is, other than the utility bills, which, yes, that'll get your attention, - Yeah.

- What do you believe the, quote, "Appetite is for a meaningful discussion about energy?"

- Oh, I think people wanna hear it because until it impacts you, you don't really understand it or you don't really wanna talk about it, but when you open that bill, from either, you know, PSE&G or FirstEnergy, and you see, "Whoa, wait a second, why did my electricity bill go from $200 to $500 overnight?"

You wanna know, I think people really wanna know, and they wanna talk about it.

And, of course, we talk about clean energy too, because that's important, having a cleaner environment, everybody wants that, but the problem is, we are not quite there yet with our energy supply, and we need other things too, to keep us, you know, affordable and dependable in energy.

- Again, you've known us long enough to know we don't have a quote-unquote "Point of view," we don't have a dog in the fight, a horse in the race, whatever prescription you wanna use, the series that you do, "Energy Matters", Does it have a point of view?

- Well, I think everybody is looking for pragmatic solutions to lower energy bills, right?

- Right.

- And I think that's the basic issue.

- That's a point of view.

- Yeah, I mean, how can we help New Jerseyans get their costs down and make sure that we have a stable, affordable energy grid, that, you know, helps New Jerseyans - What do you mean a grid?

- keep the lights on, right?

- Go back, go back, Jeanette, just using the term grid, you know, I'm obsessed by communication and the way we use language, people go, "Grid, what grid, what grid?"

- Yeah, well, the energy grid is where we pull our electricity from, right?

And that's what powers everything in New Jersey, that's what keeps our lights on, and allows us to run our homes and our businesses, so our energy grid, the problem is, we don't have enough supply going to our energy grid, so we're buying electricity from different states, right?

So, in fact, you hear different legislators saying, "You know, we want clean energy, but right now, we don't have enough energy, so we're buying coal from West Virginia," which people would say, "That's not the cleanest supply of energy," but New Jersey isn't producing enough energy, so we have to rely on other supplies right now.

But having an energy grid that's dependable and reliable is really important, Steve, because in other states, you've seen brownouts and blackouts, we don't want that for New Jersey, we wanna make sure that our grid is reliable and dependable, as well as affordable.

- Okay, so how the heck, as someone, my colleague Mary Gamba, who you know well, is always like, "Steve, you keep mentioning IA, but ..." IA, AI, she goes, "But you don't understand it."

And I go, "You think I'm alone?

I'm trying to understand it.

I'm trying to understand how it connects to what all of us are doing, in one way or another."

But then I'm going, "Wait a minute, AI, AI data centers, energy costs."

I'm thinking, "What, what does AI have to do with energy costs?"

Jeanette.

- Well, AI data centers use a ton of electricity to run - What's a data center?

- artificial intelligence.

- It's, a data center, you know, it's a business, Steve, it's a technology business, and a lot of them are coming to New Jersey or they're going to other states that have more affordable energy or lower taxes.

We wanna recruit the best businesses to come here to New Jersey, such as data centers.

I can say data center, I don't have to say AI, if that confuses you.

- Jeanette, I know what it is, I'm just saying, but these data centers are critical to the "infrastructure" to allow IA to function, AI, AI, - Yeah.

- artificial intelligence to function, but we don't have them?

- We have some of them, but we wanna recruit more of them here.

The ones that we do, we have, they're pulling a lot of electricity, and as I said, that is increasing the demand for energy in New Jersey.

Other states are recruiting AI data centers to come to their states as well.

We are not as attractive because our energy rates are very high, our business taxes are very high, so we're losing out on that competition to other states.

So again, we have to think about affordability and reliability when it comes to energy.

- So, with AI, artificial intelligence, there's competition among states, between states, as to who gets this cash cow connected to AI?

- Sure, Steve, it's like any other business, right?

States wanna recruit employers to come to their communities, to, you know, increase their tax base, to increase employment in their communities, but businesses look at New Jersey, like they look at other states, and they look for competitiveness, and if we're not cost-effective for them to do business here, they'll go to Pennsylvaniaú or they'll go to New York.

Another employer, manufacturing, that is a big sector, New Jersey is really trying to recruit, but do you know that manufacturing uses a ton of energy?

So, when we look at manufacturing, we also have to look about lowering their energy costs if we wanna recruit them and have them stay here in New Jersey, - Jeanette Hoffman is not just a Republican strategist, the name of your firm, by the way, let everyone know?

- Marathon Public Affairs.

- Also, the host of "Energy Matters" with Jeanette Hoffman, it is on ONNJ, our streaming colleagues.

And listen, even though we're in public media and we distribute our content everywhere, we wanna do everything we can to promote the distribution of important, relevant public policy-centric information on other platforms, that includes ONNJ.

Jeanette, thank you my friend, all the best.

- Thanks, Steve, appreciate it.

- You got it, stay with us, we'll be right back.

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