[Host] State Republican leaders are demanding information from the Biden Administration into how a person listed on the U.S. terror watch list was found and arrested in rural North Carolina.

And Duke energy officially request to replace half its coal power plants, this is state lines.

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[upbeat music] ♪ - Welcome to "State Lines".

I'm Kelly McCullen joining me on today's panel Dawn Vaughan of the News and Observer to her right Senator Jay Chaudhuri of Wake County representative Alan Chester of Nash County and the host of Wilmington's morning news Nick Craig, thank you so much for being on.

- Thanks for having us.

Busy week, one week closer to a short legislative session that promises to be fun but state politics took a national flavor this week Republican leaders in the state led by Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson wanted public information from the Biden Administration because a person that allegedly listed on the U.S. terrorist watchlist was arrested in Gates County.

Awet Hagos is charged with multiple crimes following a four-hour standoff in the town of Eure, North Carolina.

He has been in the United States they say for about 6 months, We're going to get to you in a minute Dawn because what's reported may not be exactly what's true.

But Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson did write a letter to the by the Biden Administration.

He wants more information in fact he was demanding more information and here's an international or national political issue now being brought with you like it or not gubernatorial issue.

- Right well, I mean if nobody had heard yet.

Mark Robinson is the Republican candidate for governor and immigration is an important issue nationwide, especially for Republicans so he wants to bring attention to it and this was an opportunity to talk about immigration policy and what he wants from the federal government of course the person the White House right now is a Democrat so if you're a Republican running for governor and then you would criticize who's who in the White House.

The governor bunsen wrote a letter also signed by the Gates County Sheriff and Senate Leader Berger and Speaker Moore asking for more information like why hasn't the federal government given us more of this information.

The federal government already gave some of the information so a lot of the reporter questions were like well who all if you talk to and who if you asked because one of mine was.

You know are the feds going to say I need to tell the Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina, what happened or not how the fun this information so being a reporter of course work for McClatchy we asked at the White House briefing that day if there's any information about it.

They didn't have anything at the time I heard back from from ICE the next day finding out some more details about the status of Hagos.

And why ICE wanted to have a detainer on him to basically find out what's going on and there's a little bit of information whenever the feds tell you anything even if it's a little it's a lot because they're the feds and they're not always forthcoming with things but there are still a lot of unanswered questions about him - Senator Chaudhuri Lieutenant Governor of all people lieutenant governor's office says a letter to the Biden administration when Trump was president Democrats would mail these demand letters as well, what makes that good politics for a candidate or a person in office to do such a thing do you really think Joe Biden is going to read Mark Robinson's letter would Trump read a letter from you or Dan Blue haha well look I, - I think as you pointed out in the opening comments of this issue.

It's a it's a political opportunity where I think Robinson thinks that all the Democrats are vulnerable and we may see an extension of this given that we've seen immigration issues also confront the General Assembly, but you know 3 points I think one is, Governor Cooper has made clear that law enforcement agencies are cooperating to address this issue.

Second, when it comes to border security, although I don't know the set of facts here a clickable or not you I think Democrats have introduced on the strong border security bills and in recent memory and we still haven't passed it in the lastly in these are my words these are Mitt Romney's words a Republican last time I checked that a Republican they're still willing to listen to Donald Trump as opposed to solving the border issue - And for clarity, this is a congressional national issues the state Legislature is not passing immigration.

- And they don't I asked Robinson if you talk to burger more about wanting an immigration legislation this session, he hasn't.

- Yep Representative someone's arrested those allegations there on the terrorist watch list in a very small town in a very small rural County.

From rural North Carolina growing up that would rattle my cage, my family's case because that doesn't happen anywhere except in big cities in North Carolina or so that would seem to be the impression.

- Right yeah, I think given the nature of someone being arrested being found to be on the terrorist watch list that it's going to generate some questions for that for the populous and I think they're fair questions how to get here what was charged with why was he on the terrorist watch list.

I think these are all reasonable questions to ask if he was here for 6 months was here 6 months undetected how long was here legally to be overstay a visa how did he get a visa if he's on the terrorist watchlist I think right now we're left with more questions than answers and so I think as citizens and as elected officials that represent the state where this happened that we we do have a right to have access to some of this information.

- Nick there's a lot of ifs in this this this man may not be on the watch list, Dawn's talking to federal people its conflicting information.

We know how we in the media can do we get a great story we run with it and all of a sudden the story isn't what it was originally reported as the damage is done how cautious should even conservatives will be fired up about this, but how cautious should they be to let this story playoff to make sure what has been reported is actually the truth of the situation for both the accused and for the community - I think of course you do have to come to it with some level of of caution when you're reporting and I think that's kind of what Mark Robinson's press conference was, it about 5 minutes, he asked the questions essentially just read his letter verbatim.

Going back to the point the senator made about this being a big political item it is I mean when you look at every single political poll from left-leaning or right-leaning media outlets, immigration the border, Kelly is the top issue on voters minds so I would expect Mark Robinson to exploit the issue and Democrats like Josh Stein to do the exact same thing because it is the top issue for voters and will be as we head towards November.

- It's the top national and a federal issue.

We hire Congress people to senators to represent us and that why bring that into a legislative race, we need a governor we need a lieutenant governor or a council of state, they're not going to pass one bills going affect federal immigration law.

- Well outside of programs like this there's very few outlets that cover statewide media everybody is watching CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, or one one of the other major networks and so when that's all you're watching All day, it is the national issues that are important to you, even though there may be more important things going on literally in your backyard on a school board or a county commission or a city council.

- And it's true too that whenever something national happens, people want their state and local leaders to do something about it or to say something.

- And most of the time they can't, but that's still what they expect.

- Yeah, well, let's keep going.

Back to you, Nick, on this.

Connecticut state leaders seem to be using what's happening here in North Carolina, especially the governor's race, to recruit business away from our state.

Connecticut Democrats wrote the state economic developers up there, wanting them to explore opportunities to persuade our businesses to relocate up to the northeast.

The reasoning is Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, Nick, his nomination for governor.

That said, and factually, CNBC, if you care about ratings, has rated North Carolina number one for business climate two consecutive years.

How can one state see such an opportunity to steal business, and national major financial networks view our state with Mr. Robinson in office as being number one twice?

- So back-to-back, and obviously with that, Governor Roy Cooper and Joe Manchin and the Republicans holding control in the General Assembly.

I do find it pretty rich that Connecticut of all states is doing this.

They rank 31st in that list from CNBC.

So while they're, of course, going to try and gin up some of the more political stuff, and it is, it is important, I think if you're a legitimate business looking to expand in a state, you're going to look at those states that are at the top of those lists for business.

Connecticut has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the country.

Population decline in that state is rapid.

Job creation growth nationally, it's, like, 14.5% or so, it's less than 3% in the State of Connecticut.

So they can try bringing Mark Robinson up to the northeast.

I don't think it's gonna have a lot of impact when you're the 31st state for business, compared to North Carolina.

- Forget all those facts, Representative Chesser.

Connecticut wants our jobs.

You too, Senator Chaudhuri.

Just ignore all that.

Why would they, I don't want to say meddling, but what's the deal with another state legislature or legislative leaders just coming down here?

Are they friends with someone down here and they just want to kind of put a flavor on our race?

- I don't know.

I think it's more along the lines of their regulatory environment is not conducive to recruiting jobs and recruiting employers like ours is, so they have to find some other reason for employers to relocate to their state, which is just name calling and throwing stones, essentially.

Like, "you don't wanna work there.

Look at that guy!"

Well, he's been here, well, both years that we've been number one in business as the Lieutenant Governor, and so I don't think him moving up into the Governor's Mansion would change the regulatory environment that we've been able to produce at the General Assembly.

I think that core element is gonna remain intact and that's gonna maintain the advantage that we've had over our competitors for the past few years.

- Senator Chaudhuri, do voters really like having divided government, that creative tension, if you will?

Is that causing good policy?

- Look, I think both sides can take credit for our business environment, and you hear that both from Governor Cooper and the Republican leadership.

But let me make a couple points.

I mean, I think there's probably agreement at this table that Connecticut is not really a threat to the economic development environment in North Carolina.

But, that being said, I think there are a couple of things to keep in mind.

The idea of Governor Mark Robinson still is a valid political and economic development issue, and those aren't my words.

Republican State Treasurer Dale Folwell said that North Carolina has been the best state for business.

We should be able to turn the keys over to someone who can improve our standings.

I think there was certainly discussion in the Republican gubernatorial primary that Lieutenant Governor Robinson would drive our car into the ditch.

And secondly, we can put aside the politics of it and look at what the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce, statement that they issued after the primary, saying that there was real concern about our political environment and what it was gonna do to our ability to recruit jobs.

And so I think if you look at where the chamber stands on our ability to recruit jobs, looking at some of the extreme candidates that have been nominated, I think it's an issue that we've gotta keep in mind going into November.

- Now, Dawn, in fairness to that comment about Dale Folwell, he was an opponent of Mark Robinson in the GOP primary.

He would have a reason to, y'know- - Sure, he's a much different person- - Shoot at him a little bit, y'know, throw barbs and whatnot.

- Yeah, he has a much different personality than Robinson.

And the other candidate, Bill Graham, the attorney who came in last, got Senator Tillis's endorsement, and Tillis and Robinson are definitely not friends, and aren't gonna become them by the way they've been been talking lately.

But what I thought was interesting about the NC Chamber is that they didn't mention Robinson.

They talked about how Luke Farley had won the primary, Republican primary for labor commissioner, instead of Representative Jon Hardister, which, myself included, everybody thought Hardister going to win.

He is, y'know, very well liked, so that was kind of a surprise with Farley.

And then the state superintendent candidate, Republican candidate Morrow, who says things that makes Robinson look, y'know, very, very vanilla in comparison.

- Does she say things or tweet things?

I've read all about these tweets.

- I think a mixture, a mixture of both, you know?

But I think with the economic factor, y'know, HB2, a lot of people haven't forgot.

It cost the state a lot of money.

So the legislation has an effect on business, but also the governor is essentially the spokesperson for the state.

The, y'know, North Carolina governor doesn't have much power, but they're the one going out there.

Y'know, it's Berger, Moore, and Cooper that are the ones announcing something.

So if one of the dynamics of who is trying to bring business here is somebody that a lot of people don't like or don't like what he says or thinks there could be other problems for business, that can hurt the state's economy.

However, regulatory wise, taxes wise, y'know, Republicans talk about the reduced tax rate and it's still going down and taxes are a factor too on whether or not people want to live and work here.

- Nick, let's talk about the down ballot races.

I mean, there's, what, Cooper and Speaker Moore and Berger recruiting jobs, to Dawn's credit.

Now you may have Robinson, Farley and Morrow on as potential council of state holders and it's being used against our state.

What do you make of that?

- I think this is exactly what you would expect.

This is just party politics, Kelly.

I mean, this is the name of the game.

As I said earlier, if you are a serious business looking to expand, you're looking for a state and for a climate that's got a good educated workforce, low regulatory, low taxes.

Those are the elements you're looking at.

I don't think you're necessarily, it doesn't mean it doesn't factor in, I don't think the top of your ticket is who is the governor of the state, who is the school superintendent.

I mean, let's be perfectly clear that job growth is not coming because of the state superintendent.

I think those are those, the top of the line elements are the things, the policies, that are actually taking place in this state.

I think everything else is just political fodder on what is going to be a very, very contentious political cycle in November.

- I have to just disagree with Nick slightly, because I think you can't underestimate the human element of the governor of the state being a salesperson and an ambassador - Sure, I think there's some element to that.

- for the state.

And I've been involved in two economic development recruitment.

You can't discount the C-suite folks, the spouses of the CEO.

And when you're getting headlines like the ones we're getting from Mark Robinson and Michele Morrow, I think a CEO will say, he or she may say, "Hmm, I don't really know "if this is the right state for us."

- Schools matter if you wanna, I mean, everybody thinks about - If you send your kids to that school - where do you wanna live?

What's the school system like in the state?

So it's not something that's immediate, whether what you think of the politician, that's the head of an agency or whatever, but it's kind of overall, what's the reputation of your state and how can that shift, depending on who the people at the top are?

Senator, how much does personal charm in a sales pitch at that level, how much does that play to A CEO?

I mean, I get the incentive package and from us outside that room, we think you're rolling out PowerPoints and all kinds of things.

How much of it is you just gotta be likable?

- I mean, look, I think it's holistic and I think Nick is right about the factors he cited.

I mean, educated workforce, taxes generally show up in surveys of CEOs as the top reasons.

But there is a personal element to recruiting companies and I think Governor Cooper has done a great job, but I think if we had another Republican gubernatorial nominee, I think he or she would do a much better job than probably Mark Robinson and maybe he'll be able to overcome the stigma that's been tied to him, but someone that divisive just doesn't seem to lend itself to trying to improve our business environment.

- One other change too is that Speaker Moore isn't gonna be around next year and I mean, it's the top three people with recruiting.

So that could change.

- And Speaker Hall unless there's a democratic upset.

- Or if Republicans decide Hall, it seems like they have.

- It seems like they have.

Any comment on that.

- Nope.

[all laughing] - Alright, I wanna touch on this.

We have a lot to get through.

Thanks for talking politics with us.

This is what we do here.

Duke Energy is taking official action.

It now officially wants to replace two of its four coal-powered units or electric plants with natural gas.

Duke expects to cut carbon emissions by 40% through burning this natural gas instead of coal.

It will be placed near Lake Norman.

It could open in 2029, operate for 35 years and could be expanded to include hydrogen, I've learned.

All these exciting new energy sources.

Also closer to the triangle and you, representative Chester.

Person County is expected to get a new natural gas plant as well, in the near future.

But Nick, natural gas, is that the future or just a step towards solar and wind?

Whether you like solar or wind, personally.

- No, I think, I think when we're looking at and last time or a couple times ago I was on, we had a similar conversation about energy.

And this is what we would call a good base load power source.

You can spin it up, you can spin it down based on demand.

Hot in the summer, more people running their air conditioners.

Cold in the winter, people running heating strips so that they can keep their houses warm.

Nat gas, coal and some of these other things, are great for that.

Wind and solar I think will get there.

That time is not right now.

So in the meantime, you need those things, whether it's scrubbers on coal plants or converting coal plants to steam, or in the case of what Duke Energy is looking at, bringing brand new natural gas power plants online, that will build the future for, if there's a time where solar and wind make more sense for the energy portfolio, then they can come right alongside and you can start turning those plants down or off.

- Representative Chester, 40% drop, if Duke is right.

That's a substantial amount of carbon emissions reductions.

Of course those in the environmental community want to go all the way to full renewables.

What's realistic?

I know a lot of people, conservative and liberal, if you wanna call us that, they think solar's cool.

You're seeing panels up on a lot of Republican houses.

So are are we gonna crawl there or are we gonna leap there?

- I think we kinda take the chains off and let the industry decide how fast we get there.

And I think this is a move in that direction.

It's more of a renewable resource.

It's more of a green resource than previously used, but it's also the industry deciding, "Hey look, solar and wind just can't meet the demand "that we're facing right now."

Which is why they're choosing not to invest there, currently.

They're choosing to invest in natural gas and it's reliable, it's dependable, it's cost-effective for them to produce and it allows them to maintain a cheap product to the consumer.

If we rush into a product that's not ready, I can guarantee one thing, the consumer's gonna feel the cost of that.

We saw it in Texas, we've seen it across other states as well.

Energy prices will just skyrocket to meet the demand.

And so I appreciate the industry taking a step and saying, "Look, we want to maintain dependability "and cost effectiveness not only for the production, "but also for the consumer."

- Senator, the Republicans can easily take a stand on the energy issue, much more nuanced than the Democratic caucus, because everyone wants power and air conditioning and all the good things, Teslas.

And then another group says, let's be as efficient and as clean as we can.

Maybe at the cost of some convenience.

How do you balance that out?

- So look, I mean, fortunately we don't have to balance that out.

The utilities commission has to balance that out.

And I think there are two things that loom large, I think in the debate in Duke's decision to move in this direction.

I mean, one is the historic bipartisan bill that we passed, as you mentioned, 70% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, carbon neutral by 2050.

The question is whether this plan gets us there.

Secondly, which I think, which probably is not disputable, is actually the new demand of gigawatts given the number of industries.

We just talked about job growth.

But that's put real pressure, I think, on Duke to meet those energy demands.

I mean, as you've pointed out, the environmental critics here in this instance have pointed out that we're kinda swapping out one form of fossil fuel for another.

And so I think there's a debate about whether natural gas gets us there or not, because you've got potent greenhouse gas emissions with the new plan from Duke.

- Dawn, I'm no expert in power, is the future, now?

Is this, I mean, as long as we're gonna need electricity, is the natural gas you think gonna be the key?

And I'm not asking you to be an expert or an investigator on this one.

What do you think?

- Sure, well I think that, you know, we were talking about business and the Democrats, Republicans coming together, agreeing on energy and the energy future has been a major accomplishment of what they've done.

So it looks like things are moving toward with that balance of environmental needs versus business needs and the consumer.

So, seems like it's moving ahead.

- Yeah, I wanted to touch on it.

It's a big deal to start phasing out the coal industry.

- Kelly, the senator made a point that I think is important.

Duke Energy, in the beginning of last year, said that we were gonna be at 34 gigawatts by 2030.

They updated that to then 37 gigawatts by the spring of that year.

So you're talking about a huge uptick in demand that has to be met.

- Alright.

North Carolina community college leaders believe an extra $100 million would help modernize workforce training programs on their campuses.

Lawmakers, guys, you know, you're convening in just a few weeks for the short session to adjust the state budget.

The colleges say many businesses are arriving.

We've just discussed that.

There are some niche jobs out there that need worker training.

They say they're on the front lines.

It's a critical service need right now.

And well, the ball needs to get rolling, Senator.

$100 million, is that too much of an ask for a short legislative session when you tweak an existing budget as opposed to pass a new one?

- Look, I think traditionally, as a short session ask, it's probably considered a lot of money.

But I mean, I think this is one of the under-reported stories this week because it goes back to a conversation that's happening in the business community, the education community, is how do we respond to the incredible job boom the state's experiencing?

And I think if you look at what the President of Community Colleges proposed, I mean, one is the dollars, but he's also talked about the urgency, because we have to figure out a way to meet the job demand.

Secondly, is really rethinking and reimagining the way we provide the training to our workers.

So they're talking about providing certificates and short-term skill upgrading, as opposed to taking courses.

And then lastly, as a boost for instructor wages in high demand areas, because our traditionally and historically, our community college professors have been paid that much.

So I think this is a real issue that warrants real discussion, because if we're gonna meet the demand of all this job growth that we've experienced over the last three to five years has been kind of the theme of the program, we gotta do something.

- Representative, the certificate versus the diploma.

My understanding, and I could be incorrect, is that community colleges, they get better funding if they give out two-year associates degrees.

These are apprenticeships, specialized worker training certificates that will go out.

Any move there to reward community colleges if they say we will go into niche training for niche industry?

- So I think what you're talking about are the educational units that they're paid for, how they get reimbursed for the services they provide.

- 'Cause it's a rethinking of how this works for a $100 billion.

- And I think it's definitely something that we need to review at the general assembly.

It's a top tier issue for the community college system.

As far as the job demand that we've been talking about, I think we have to take a step back and look at it.

One of the issues that we're facing is there's just not enough laborers.

We can't educate enough people to fill the holes that we have right now.

And a statistic that I saw towards the end of the long session last cycle was nearly one in two males in the country, age of 16, I believe, to 26, are not enrolled in school and they're not currently employed.

That is the largest labor gap that we have in the market right now.

Until we figure out how to get those people engaged in the labor force in the economy, we are constantly gonna be chasing numbers that we cannot educate our way out of.

So I think it falls to us as legislators to try to find a way to encourage these people to get off the couch or wherever they are, and get engaged back into the economy.

And until we figure that out, we can throw a ton of money at these issues and it's not gonna fix it.

- I just wanna touch on one thing.

Let's move on past this.

For the media, I wanna talk about sports betting too.

We've talked about so much.

I do wanna squeeze this in.

Lottery officials say the launch of sports betting has been a success, as well as these new digital lottery tickets, generating a lot of revenue in this state.

Data's still being collected on sports betting, but new revenue information is showing, Nick, that digital lottery tickets have generated $50 million in revenue since November, 2023.

That's 400% above expectations.

70% of these lottery tickets are sold on the lottery app.

Nick, your thoughts on betting?

Conservatives didn't like it.

I bet there's a few conservatives betting.

- Yeah, a lot... - [Kelly] This week of... - I think this was actually a relatively bipartisan issue when this went through the general assembly.

North Carolina was, and I say late to the game not in a derogatory sense, but there were 36 other states that had already passed legalized electronic sports betting.

So the state saw what worked, saw what didn't.

Let's be honest, Kelly, people were doing it anyway, whether they were calling their bookie.

- [Kelly] No, they weren't.

- Or using it on some other sort of app or service.

So I'm glad that it's legal now in North Carolina.

- Representative.

Sports betting, we've had the casino debate the last time you were on.

Now we've got real betting on the app and you can do March Madness 'til you're mad.

- Yeah, and I was talking to Nick about it beforehand, and apparently, he's made a little bit of money on Inside Now.

- [Kelly] I've lost a little bit of money.

- So I think the proof is in the pudding.

It's in the numbers.

We've got numbers from the first 48 hours that it was open, and North Carolina had 370,000 unique accounts created in the first 48 hours.

To put that in perspective, Virginia's had it for over a year, I think two years now, and they were at 134,000 accounts.

And so there were 5.3 million geo connects, which is every time you open your app to place a bet, it makes sure that you're somewhere that has legalized betting.

So it checks your location.

That's 5.3 million possible bets.

I don't know if people are actually betting or just checking the point spread, but that that shows that people wanted it.

- Senator Chaudhuri, 20 seconds.

- Yeah, so really quickly, I will say we can't ignore the structural deficit we've got with the budget that is projected to be almost $8 billion seven years out.

We can't gamble our way out, even if the revenues have gone up.

We can't meet that shortfall that we're gonna see in the deficit.

- [Kelly] 15 seconds to you, and we gotta go.

- I'm number one in both pools I have as of this morning.

[all laughing] - We'll check you with the state regulator.

It has been very popular.

A lot of us loaded the app just for fun and they make it very, very easy and it's very responsible.

Anyway, thank you so much for your time today.

It's always great to have you on.

Gentlemen, come back and be on the show sometime.

Answer the phone when we call.

We'll have you right on.

Great analysis, Dick.

Thanks for making a drive up from Wilmington.

Thank you for watching email at statelines@pbsnc.org.

I'm Kelly McCullen, and thank you for watching.

We'll see you next time.

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