From our State House studio in Montgomery, I'm Todd Stacey.

Welcome to Capital Journal.

Leading the news this week is the developing situation with high school athletics and students transferring with Choose Act funds.

The Choose Act is the school choice law enacted in 2024 that allows parents to us as much as $7,000 in tax credits to send their child to a school of their choice, including private school.

But the Alabama High Schoo Athletic Association has ruled that any students transferring using those funds are subject to anti recruiting rule that require athletes to sit out a year.

That has infuriated advocates of the Choose Act, including the governor, lieutenant governor and Speaker of the House.

On Thursday, Governo Ivey and Speaker Ledbetter filed a lawsuit asking a summary judge to block the association from preventing Choose Ac recipients from playing sports.

And on Friday, that request was granted.

Judge J.R. Gaines issued a temporary restraining order barring the age AA from enforcing any rule that would prevent Choose Act recipients from participating in sports.

The next step is for a hearing on the case.

Our senior education reporter Trish Crain is closely following this situation and we will keep you updated.

Of course, the big story of the week happened on Monday in Washington, where members of Alabama's congressional delegation gathered in the Oval Office for President Donald Trump's official announcement that the US Space Command's permanent headquarters is coming to Huntsville.

The decisions put to rest years of back and forth between Alabama and Colorado, where the temporary headquarters has been based.

Alex Angle reports from Washington on the president's announcement and what comes next.

I am thrilled to report that the U.S. Space Command headquarters will move to the beautiful locale of a place called Huntsville, Alabama.

And with that, Presiden Donald Trump made it official.

Space Command will soon call Alabama home.

Alabama's delegation stood closely by Trump, beaming during Tuesday' announcement in the Oval Office.

I want you to know I appreciate this president standing up and being strong and saying he's going to make this right and put it where it rightfully belongs.

That's Huntsville, Alabama.

Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers has been pushing to bring the headquarters to Rocket City for years.

Huntsville was named the preferred site in 2021, but former President Joe Bide chose to keep the headquarters in Colorado Springs in 2023, citing military readiness.

The state of Alabama is about to show the country the best among us, so we know the economic impact is going to be tremendous.

About 1400 direct jobs are expected to come to Huntsville over the next five years.

That' according to Mayor Tommy Battle.

The city and Redstone Arsenal say it's ready to handle that influx.

And Congressman Dale Stron says it's time for construction.

While understanding site prep is ready to roll, design is complete Senator Tommy Tuberville boasted Thursday about how prepared the state is for the move.

I'm thrilled for what this means for our state and national defense.

Not only wil the move save taxpayers nearly a half a billion dollars, but all Americans can rest assured that Space Command will be housed in the most secure facility at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.

Democrats also applauded the move and were involved in lobbying for the relocation.

Colorado officials vowed to fight the move, even threatening to sue over the decision.

But Alabama lawmakers remain confident the headquarters will be permanently located in Huntsville.

Reporting in Washington, Alex Angle, Capital Journal.

Thank you, Alex.

And Governor Ivey issued a statement after the announcement saying quote, As I have said all along, there is no better place to locate Space command headquarters than in Huntsville, Alabama.

The facts prevailed, and it is official space command headquarters is coming to Sweet Home, Alabama.

I commend Redstone and the city of Huntsville leaders for their diligence in maintaining a mission ready stance in, quote.

Also in Washington this week.

Three Alabamian nominated to federal judgeships appeared in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

U.S. Senate.

U.S.

Senator Katy Britt presided over their confirmation hearing.

Three nominees fo federal judgeships in our state who have superb qualifications and a devotion to the Constitution and the rule of law.

I am thrilled that President Trump has nominated them to serve in the judiciary and Alabama Supreme Court Justice Bill Lewis is nominated in the middle.

District Attorney Hal Moody and Alabama Solicitor General Eddie Lacker are nominated in the Northern district.

I believe that everybody that comes into that court deserves to have their voice heard, regardless of where they are on the issues, regardless of where they come from.

And after 17 years in private practice and trying cases in federal and state courts, appearing in federal state courts across the country, I feel like I was born to do this.

I think that's a really important skill for a judge to have to be abl to master an area of law quickly so I can provide justice, both by getting to the answer that the law demands, but also getting an answer to the parties before you quickly.

The nominees will b voted on in the Senate Judiciary Committee before they get a vote on the Senate floor.

Back here to Alabama, where state leaders continue to worry abou the rising cost of health care and how federal cuts may squeeze those in need.

Providers in rural areas are finding it hard to keep their doors open due to funding challenges and staff shortages.

Capital Journal's Randy Scott reports.

We're working on recruiting rural providers.

We're trying to find ways to get people who are willing to go to, you know, the towns like where I grew up and where a lot of us grew up and live there and practice there and make it financially feasible for him to do that.

During a recent joint legislative budget meeting, state health officer Dr. Scott Harris shares his insight on helping solve a problem facing many rural Alabama communities.

A shortage of available health care.

I applaud the administration for this rural health Transformation grant because that's exactly what they're trying to do, is to think of ways that we can be creative and solve these problems.

But it's not easy.

It's not just about your health care delivery.

It's not just about the resources for when you're sic or when you have an emergency.

It's about the economic well-being of our state.

It's about the small rural communities and the businesses and the population to try to bring in a new business into a area that does not have a healthy health care system.

Alabama Hospital Association president CEO Dane Howard says the state's healt care system is seeing some tough times due to financial issues in local and rural areas.

She says things need adjusting now because a problem in a small Alabama town today can be a problem in a bigger city tomorrow.

Our reimbursement level is stagnant.

It's not horrible.

Medicaid definitely compared to some other states who have been able to take advantage of some other opportunities.

It is much less than our border states.

Our Medicaid reimbursement is.

How bad are some of these problems?

This is Thomasville Regional Hospital in Thomasville, Alabama.

This facility opened its doors around 2020, but financial strains led t these doors closing around 2024.

The hospital sits empty.

It's a trend citizens local leaders and state leaders want to see stop the closing of local hospitals throughout Alabama.

What does this mean?

Well, here in Thomasville it means thousands of citizens, if they need health care, have to now drive to find it.

The one primary issue is the reimbursement.

What what providers are paid in the state of Alabama for the cost of delivering care to our citizens is substantially less than most every other state in this nation.

And that includes Medicare.

That includes commercial insurance and that includes Medicaid.

And having one of the larges number of uninsured individuals in the nation.

Changing the coverage gap and dealing with uninsured patients are other ways to improv the state's health care system, says Howard.

First of all, we need to be paid fairly.

We're not asking for special.

Just fair pay us fairly compared to the rest of the nation.

Give us a chance to put a little stability back in our system.

And from that stability there are so many opportunities that we could make things better in Thomasville.

Read the Scott Capital-Journal and Randi joins me in studio right now to talk more about this important topic.

Randy, thanks for your story.

I've got to say, it was kind of stunning to see images of that hospital there in Thomasville.

Brand new, not a dilapidated building or anything brand new, but closed, as they say.

Still has that used new car smell, I should say.

It was only open for a number of three years.

Just about it was opened up around 2020 and they closed their doors right around 2024.

Health care cuts across the nation caught it with this one, as well as some financial issues.

But the big problem is it's something that is needed in their particular area.

And now some 4000 people throughout that county, If they need health care, they're going to go somewher else, whether they go to a small hospital type setting to get that care or if they need major care, it's either Montgomery to the north, which is an hour and a half away, or mobile to the south, which is also an hour and a half away.

Yeah, I think sometimes those of us in cities can take proximit to hospitals for granted, right?

I mean, Jackson is right down the road.

We've got to several here.

But if you're in a rural area, you really depend on that hospital in your hometown for, like you said, it may not be a major care situation, but you know, routine kind of stuff.

And so if it closes, you're talking about two, 3 hours.

That's a big difference, especially if it comes to an emergency situation, life or death in many cases.

Here's the deal.

No matter if it's a broken bone, if it's an appendicitis, heart issue or the birth of a child, you're looking at going hour and a half to Montgomery, to the north.

Hour and a half south to Mobile.

That is just a whole lot of time to be spent traveling.

When there's a medical emergency that needs some treatment, it needs some care and some looking after immediately.

But that's what they're faced with.

And the people in that area are hoping something can be done because literally, you spent all this time to put together that facility and it's just sitting there.

Yeah.

Well, and also talk about the economic impact.

Right Because these are small towns.

The hospital is a major driver of jobs, of sales tax revenue and things like that.

So if a hospital closes, as that one has, but there's other others throughout the region, you know, facing closure as well.

It's a huge economic, you know, shot to the gut, really in terms of what it means economically when companies look to move into an area, one of the first things they look at is what kind of health care system is set up in that area, along with education systems, along with workforce.

Healt care is right up there with it.

So aside from being an economic boost for the economy of that area, it does serve its purpose b keeping the people safe there, keeping the workers who are there safe, keeping law enforcement and first responders in case they need something, keeping those doors open are vital.

Now, it is closed.

Now, is it closed for good?

That's the million dollar question.

Literally.

There's hope that something can happen.

I read a report over the Internet saying tha there could be someone in line to come in and buy it.

But as of right now, those doors are closed.

Well, and also with the passage in Congress and enactment of the one big beautiful bill, it did include, because Senato Britt's talked a lot about this $50 billion specifically for rural hospitals.

That's nationwide In Alabama, we could be looking at as much as $500 million specifically for that.

Details are yet to be determined.

But I know you you talk with Dan and some hospital leaders.

Are they hopeful that that fund can prop up places like Thomasvill and others throughout the state?

You know, get them through these tough financial times.

They are definitely hopeful, optimistic.

It's something that's needed, pure and simple.

You need to have a hospital in that area.

Those people need to have that hospital in that hospital in that area is something that has bee worked on for a number of years.

And to see it scuttled like it was and is still sitting there it kind of draws a point home.

Yes, you definitely need to take care of what is in the rural areas, because what happens in the rural areas will actually have a domino effect up on big areas because if the hospital there can't function again, if there are big emergencies that need to happen, those people are going to go to either Montgomery, t the north, Mobile, to the south.

Now, those hospitals will get taxed as they were flash back a couple of years ago when COVID was here and hospitals were bursting at the scene.

That's going to be a huge problem.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, I really appreciate you going on the road and doing a story, an important topic that will follow.

So thanks again.

You're welcome.

Mental health care was a major topic of discussion this week here in the state House.

The Alabama Commission of Evaluation Services released a preliminary report on its analysis of the Alabama Department of Mental Health and specifically how that department has been standing up mental health crisis centers throughout the state.

Commission members noted that the staff produced a report that had a, quote, negative tone, calling the data produced by the department deficient.

Mental Health Commissioner Kim Boswel pushed back on that assertion.

More often than not when people were in a behavioral health crisis and didn't know what to do, they dialed 911 and the only two places.

The only two folks who can come and get you are EMS or law enforcement, and sometimes both.

The onl two places that could take you before crisis centers is either the emergency department or the jail.

And so that was the situation we were in at that time.

We also had separate services for mental health and substance use.

So those services wer not integrated during that time.

We made a major shift, a big pivot to say what is going around, going on around the nation, what is the best practice that we can look at and say, what's goin to serve the citizens of Alabama and keep folks with mental illness out of jails and out of emergency departments?

And that's when we decided to send up crisis centers in our state, 20 473, 65 days a year.

Those crisis centers are open.

So now when you're in a mental health crisis, you don't have to dial 911.

You can go directly to the crisis center you can dial nine, eight, eight and be directed to the closest crisis center.

You can walk in, your family member can bring you.

So now there's an option for the citizens of Alabama to be able to have their mental health crisis dealt with by professionals who were there every single day of the year.

And I'll be speaking in more detail with Commissioner Boswell later in the show.

Turning to northeast Alabama, where a recent fatal crash at a private ATV park is once again drawing attention to the risks of all terrain vehicles and the ongoing debate over how they should be regulated.

Law enforcement officials say ATV safet is a growing concern statewide, and they're urging riders to take precautions.

Capitol Journal's Jeff Sanders reports.

Two people were killed and several children injured in a weekend accident at a private ATV park in northeast Alabama.

And while the deadly crash happened on private property.

Lieutenant Jeremy Burket with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency says trooper and local police are seeing more and more ATVs being used illegally on public roadways.

But we've had several ATV related accidents, again, as you alluded to, on private property, but also on the roadways.

And that's one of the places that Utvs, ATVs, all terrain vehicles here, regardless if it's a go kart golf cart, four wheeler, simply do not need to be on the roadways.

Bearcat stresses that ATVs are designed for recreation, not public streets, and that safety gear can make a lifesaving difference.

That helmet is going to protect you just like riding gloves are going to protect you, having long sleeves on, having long pants on.

Because again, there' a tremendous amount of residual risk that's associated with operating ATV or UTV.

State Senator Andrew Jones of Center represents Cherokee County, where the fatal ATV crash took place.

He sponsored several bills to regulate these parks and others across the state.

But so far, all those measure have failed in the legislature.

Jones released a statement saying in part, I have long been concerned about rampant drinking, virtually zero enforcement of park rules.

These are just a few reasons I authored SB 234 to provide reasonable safeguard for Cherokee County ATV parks.

Jones also said he will no bring back ATV park legislation without the full support of local officials and the local delegation.

But Lieutenant Bearcat says regardless of laws or regulations, safety come down to the choices riders make.

If you've got a young child there on the right size ATV for them, there's so there's a whole list of things that we would encourage people and tail people to do if they were going to operate an all terrain vehicle in a recreational area or private property, which we want people to do.

I mean, Alabama is a recreational state.

Bearcat says whether it's a organized park or private land, riders should treat ATVs th same way they would a motorcycle or a boat with planning proper gear and respect for Capital-Journal.

I'm Jeff Sanders.

Thank you, Jeff.

The Gulf Coast recently marked the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall.

The storm was one of our nation's most devastating and almost certainly the most memorable.

A new documentary here on APTN recounts the United States Coast Guard's heroic response.

Featuring firsthand accounts from pilots, rescue swimmers and others, and dramatic archival footage of their operations.

Here's a clip.

On August 29th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Louisiana coastline.

Her winds pushed surge water toward New Orleans, a city that is mostly below sea level and depends on its levees for its protection.

The extreme floodwaters put pressure on those levees and they breached.

Approximately 85% of New Orleans was now underwater and thousands of people were trapped.

Many were unable to evacuate and had to ride out the storm in their homes.

Boats or designated shelters such as the Superdome.

The mix of hurricane winds and flooding devastated all infrastructure.

New Orleanians were becomin increasingly desperate for help from city, state and federal officials were unprepare for the scale of the disaster.

But there was a ray of hope.

The United States Coast Guard was ready.

And during those next few critical weeks following the storm, these men and women went o to save more than 30,000 lives, making it the single biggest search and rescue operation they had ever conducted.

You know, there's an old saying in the Coast Guard.

Some might even call it the unwritten motto, when lives are at stake, no matter what the call.

The book says you have to go out, but it doesn't say anything about coming back.

There may be no better depiction of this than the Coast Guard's response to Hurricane Katrina.

We now look back 20 years ago at the air crews that flew over the city of New Orleans during what was most assuredly one of the Coast Guard's finest hours.

What was the hardest that you had to d during this more difficult task?

Six Most difficult task that I face was more of a personal situation when I came home.

Well, first off my house was kind of destroyed during during the hurricane.

So I was living with my wife's first cousin and I came back to that house and my wife was a little upset and I didn't understand why she was upset.

I was tired.

I just wanted to go to sleep.

And and I said, What's wrong?

And she told me tha she was worried about her mom.

I'm sorry, you guys.

You know, this is our business and the Coast Guard.

It's all about hurricane season and preparing for hurricanes.

That's why we're here.

That's why we serve.

And that's why we all joined the Coast Guard was to save lives when Hurricane Katrina came along.

That is what we had been training for for years.

And we were ready.

We were prepared, stepped up to the plate and as a result, many thousands and thousands and thousands of lives were saved.

We flew out the really people of ours that we had never flown before and at rates we'd never flown before and conducted risky hoisting operations and the numbers of folks we'll never se in their entire career with John Kerry and all those Coast Guard men and women who came to New Orleans went above and beyond the call of duty for Survivor in the events of her The Magnificent.

This is the greatest, sustained, intense, most successful rescue operation at Coast Guard history.

A lot of Alabama based Coast Guard there in Mobile were involved in those operations as well.

And you can watch the full documentary online on our Web site.

That's AP TV dot org slash paradise.

And we'll be right back for th interview portion of our show.

Stay with us.

You can watch past episodes of Capital Journal Online anytime at Alabama Public Television's Web site App TV dot org.

Click on the online video tab on the main page.

You can also connect with Capital Journal and link to past episodes on Capitol Journal's Facebook page.

Benjamin Turner was an entrepreneur, business executive, civic leader and legislator.

Born into slavery, Turner became the firs African-American representative from Alabama elected to the U.S. Congress.

He founded the first school in Selma for the education of African-American children and was a political, moderate and proponent of reconciling nation.

Turner took a stance regarding the injustices of slavery and advocated for desegregated schools and reparations to former slaves.

You're watching Alabama Public Television, celebrating 70 years of service to Alabama.

Welcome back to Capital Journal.

Joining me next is Kim Boswell, commissioner of the Alabama Department of Mental Health.

Commissioner thanks for coming on the show.

Thanks for the invitation.

It's good to be here.

Absolutely.

Well, you are in the news this week and I want to get to some of that in a minute.

But I was hoping that you could offer an update on the crisis care centers.

The legislature I don't know how many years now, several years, has made a real investment in standing up crisis care centers around the state to kind of make up for some of the closures over the last few decades, really.

But I don't remember exactly what number we are on and where the regions are.

So where are we in terms of standing at these crisis mental health centers?

So the great news i we have six crisis centers now.

We've stood up six crisis centers in five years.

And honestly, in one of the most challenging times in the middle of COVID, with the workforce challenges that everybody saw during that time.

So we have now have crisis centers in Huntsville, Birmingham, Tuscaloosa Dothan, Montgomery, and Mobile.

And the most recent opening is in Dothan.

So they opened in February of this year.

And so we're really excited to see that expansion across the state because we really think it's a vital service that every community really needs.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, that's a really good regional footprint there.

So walk me throug what a crisis center might do.

I know it probably varies day to day but what if I'm a practitioner?

What might I see?

What kind of cases might I see walk through the door?

What?

What kind of work do they do?

So it's a lot of different types of presenting symptoms at a crisis center.

We had over 3600 people show up in a suicidal crisis since we've started these programs.

So that is pretty huge for us that someone is accessing that service and has those crisis services available when they're in a suicidal crisis.

So that's really huge for us.

We've had a large number of individuals show up who are in psychosis, so they're in an active hallucination or delusion.

It's kind of a shocking number because more often than not, those individual wind up in a negative engagement with law enforcement or with their family members, because the reality is they're not in the same world that we are.

They're in an active hallucination or delusion.

And so those folks are really vulnerable.

And so the fact that we've had so many show up at the crisis center is really pretty amazing.

And we feel like it really means they avoided so much more negative interactions with either their family or with law enforcement.

Well, yeah, when you say that, I'm thinking, well, what if they didn't come right?

What or what if the center wasn't there?

Right.

You know what would have happened in that situation?

And isn't part of this because I remember, as you know, this conversation kept taking place.

One of your biggest advocates, well, two of them, Speaker Ledbette and also Chairman Rex Reynolds.

And I mentioned Chairman Reynolds because he's a former police chief.

Right.

And so he gets the part of this that you don't want folks in mental health crisis to end up in, in jail because it's not where they belong.

Right.

One really key factor in trying to make sure that doesn't happen is the standing up of the 988 call centers, which really are part of this crisis continuum of care.

Because in our syste and you heard me talk about it a little bit yesterday when we started this, this level of care was not available and pretty much you could go and get outpatien services between eight and five or you would have to go through a civil commitment proceeding and have your civil rights taken away in orde to get mental health treatment.

So people who are in a crisis more often than not, we're dialing 911.

And of course, if you dial 911 you're going to get EMS or law enforcement or sometimes both.

And before crisis centers opened, the only place they could take you is either to the E.R.

or to jail.

And so having a place to go, you know, if you see the numbers, we've had tons of law enforcement drop offs diverted many, many individuals from jail, from emergency departments.

And part of that is that nine, eight, eight number as well.

So now you don't have to dial 911.

When you're in a mental health crisis, you can dial nine, eight, eight and find out where your local crisis center is.

You can walk in.

So we do have other folks who are experiencing depression, anxiety.

Those are really big numbers, too.

We see a lot of folks with depression and anxiety, but the growing area that we're seeing is substance use disorder.

So the crisis centers allow for sort of integration of that mental health and substance use treatment, which we've never really had before either.

So somebody doesn't have to figure out, oh, does my level and have a mental health issue or substance use issue, they can just show up at a crisis center and they're going to be assessed to figure out, you know, what's really going on.

Yeah, that's really interesting.

Speaking of nine, eight, eight, I don't want to get to the ice and stuff in a second, bu speaking of nine, eight, eight, I know there have been questions about funding in the pas and making it truly universal.

Where are we on that?

Might we see some funding streams that might give more access to nine, eight, eight?

So we're in pretty good shape right now.

There was an opioid settlement appropriation and for 988 we have hit our 90% in state answer right.

That we were shooting for just like crisis centers that are national standards for nine, eight, eight.

So we're in pretty good shape with nine, eight, eight right now.

That's good.

And so we're really excite because we finally hit that 90%.

That's really importan to answer those calls and state instead of the rolling to the national number, because then that's when they can get the local resources, including the crisis centers.

I see.

Well, let's talk about this.

The Alabama Commission on Evaluation Services, I think I have that right there.

Basically, they've been described at least as kind of a dodge ish organization, even though they were started a long time before.

But they're going to different state agencies in evaluating this to loo for efficiencies, essentially.

And so you were on the you were on the the agenda.

This report is preliminar report from ACES said, you know, the called the the dat that y'all produced deficient.

There was a back and forth.

You had this meeting about it.

It was cordial, as Mary Snow described it.

But what's your response to that?

What why did they see your data as deficient And you obviously didn't see it that way?

You know, I think some of it was they started out in a completely different place wanting protected health information.

They had some really sor of grand ideas about, you know, the things that they could d to evaluate the crisis centers, really wanting to figure out if they could take our data and link it to hospital data or to jails and determine whether or not we were actually diverting people from jails in the emergency departments or whether or not those people were showing up.

We kind of thought that was a grand idea at the beginning of the project too, and learned very quickly.

There's not really jail data.

There's no centralize data repository for jail data.

Hospitals are the same scenario we're in where they're not going to share necessarily protected health information.

And so I think they started out with some very big ideas abou how do we evaluate the programs.

There was some we really didn't have an opportunity to like go over the data with them.

And I really think that was one of the bigger issues.

Things that they identified as errors were not necessarily errors that could have been missing data, it could have been some othe things.

Our data wasn't perfect.

Let me say that we had some data errors, but what we saw in it is as crisis centers opened as these startup organizations opened in the first 18 months, there were some data errors.

But then as they got into a routine with the data, then the data really became much more cleaner set of data than when they first opened the first 18 months.

And honestly, I felt like a big part of it wa they didn't have a lot of time to really do tha because we spent a lot of time haggling over whether or not we could give them protected health information.

So we say protected health information.

Is that like I' thinking in my head, like HIPA?

Yes.

Like, okay, my about check into a clinic or a hospital that can't be shared.

I can't be right.

That information can't be given away.

So they were actually asking for that.

So there was a point in in the evaluation where they sent us a list of data elements that included things like date of birth, Social Security number, diagnosis, those kind of things which are obviously clearly protected health information.

And, you know, it was kind of challenging because, again, this is this those group and you want to be cooperative kind of sounds like, Well, so we finally had to say to them, look, you know, even if we could get all the lawyers between our lawyer and the community mental health center lawyers to agree o a business associates agreement, which is the kind of agreemen you do in those circumstances, ACS is really not in a position to accept that data because they don't have a privacy officer, they don't have a security officer, they don't hav an institutional review board.

And so they're not really set up at the moment to do protected health information, to take that information into that agency, because, as you know, with HIPA, there are severe penalties if there's a data breach or the data is used inappropriately.

Well, but I mean, hip is there to protect me.

You know, I don't want my information.

So it's interesting that that's what they were after.

So there's seems like there' a little bit of miscommunication in terms of what the goals were and everything.

But I do want to ask you, I mean, the whole point to look for efficiencies.

So were there discussions of what kind of efficiencies you all can make in setting up these crisis centers?

And just in the mental health space in general?

You know, it was interesting because the recommendations were not necessarily around efficiencies.

I think what we agreed on is that, yes, you know, having a little more rigorous data, you know, clean up and making sure we have the right data or that if there are data errors, those are corrected, you know, fine.

But there really weren' a lot of other recommendations, at least in my mind, that addressed efficiency or any of those things.

There was one recommendation that was a bigger policy issue that, you know, was really directed at the legislature about paying for aimles drop offs at crisis centers and emergency, you know, EMS folks, if they drop off at a hospital they get paid for an emergency drop off.

But if they drop off at a crisis center, they don't necessary get paid at that rate.

They might get paid at a medicaid rate, non-emergency transportation.

Oh, so that's that' kind of a disincentive, right?

Right.

Right.

And so that was a good policy discussion and that was sort of talked about yesterday.

And that's great.

But that wasn't really didn't have so much to do with the efficiency of crisis centers.

It's definitely a barrier for sure.

And then there were some issues around transportatio barriers, things that, you know, we sort of expected them to be evaluating.

The crisis centers, not the big global issues like transportation.

So, yeah, well, we'll watch it going forward because I think it was a preliminary report.

So maybe there'll be some more conversation.

I appreciate you sharing that with us.

Speaking of budgets you presented to the legislature last week on there, there were really seeking information, really more having to do with federal cuts.

Right.

Because a lot of state agencies have been affected by these federal cuts, rescissions, things from Congress.

The one big beautiful bill at all that How's mental health in that conversation?

What are all at risk of federal cuts?

And in most of our programs right now are in pretty good shape, which is what I really said to the during the budget hearing.

One of the things that people don't realize is 45% of our budget goes to individual with developmental disabilities and the services that we provide for those individuals and that is a medicaid program.

It's an entitlement program.

And so far, we're not seeing any cuts in that program.

People are eligible based on their disability and usually because they'r on Social Security disability.

And so some of the conversations about Medicaid cuts and that kind of thing, that's not really impacting our developmental disabilities program.

A couple of our discretionary grants are level funded, but what we're seeing is the discretionary grants are being level funded and then there are conversations going on about what their priorities are, what this administration priorities are, and how do they use other discretionary money to sort of put money out there that really does address their priorities.

Instead of what's existed, you know, for the last ten or 15 years.

Okay.

I see.

You did mention in that hearing that this rural hospital fund $50 billion from Congress, we're going to get a lot of that, like $5 million.

You did mention tha rural mental health facilities and opioid clinics are eligible for that money.

Do you see pursuin some of that as the legislature or maybe the governor's office allocates those funds?

You know, that's a conversation that we'll be having with the governor's office.

I spoke with someone this morning and it's like, okay, we there's some strategies that we need to develop.

And it really sort of depends a lot on ho the guidance comes out, right, Because we know those organizations qualify.

We think we know a list of potential projects that can be funded, but we really won't know until the guidance comes out what projects will be eligibl for funding under that program.

I do see it lining up a lot with President Trump' executive order on homelessness.

There were some things mentioned around assisted outpatient treatment and civil commitment beds because rural hospitals operate 288 of our civil commitment beds right now.

And so if rural hospitals close, we're in trouble because we lose 288 civil commitment beds that we don't need to lose.

So we're very supportive of our rural hospitals, need to stay open, and then we think there's some other rural hospitals that might be intereste in opening civil commitment beds as a part of that, you know, funding stream as well.

Well, that's a conversation we need to continue as that fund.

You know, like you said, the guidance continues to get laid out.

We're out of time.

But thank you so much, Commissioner, for your time and we'll talk again soon.

Great.

Thanks.

We'll be right back.

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Amelia Boynton Robinson was a leading civil rights activist who played a key role in the efforts that led to passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and was the first African-American woma in Alabama to run for Congress in 1933.

Robinson and Reverend Frederick Reese founded the Dallas County Voters League in 1964.

They invited Martin Luther King Jr to Selma to help secure the right to vote for African-Americans.

The following year, Robinson helped plan and lead the failed march from Selma to Montgomery that came to be known as Bloody Sunday.

On March 7th, 1965, she and approximately 600 marchers were met by police and Alabama state troopers with tear gas and billy clubs at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

When the Voting Rights Act was signed into law August 6th, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson invited Robinso to attend as a guest of honor.

In 1990, Robinson received the Martin Luther King Jr Freedom Medal in honor of her life's work for the advancement of human rights.

Welcome back to Capital Journal.

September is Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month.

And joining me next to discuss that topic are Jane Adams of the American Cance Society Action Network and Dr. Bunker sex into a pediatric cancer researcher at UAB.

Thank you both for coming down.

Thanks, John.

Well, as I mentioned, September is Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month.

So, Jane, you are an advocate.

You're well known on this show.

Talk about that advocacy.

What's going on in the month of September and throughout the year a it relates to pediatric cancer?

Well, we launched off the month with a big tailgate last week at UAB.

On UAB's opening game, inviting the community to come out, engage with the American Cancer Society and Advocac learn, engage with researchers.

So we invited UAB researchers to come to that as well.

Community members.

Talk to your local researche and also engage in some advocacy by writing postcards to members of Congress.

And then, of course, we're continuing to promote as Congress discusses funding for the National Cancer Institute.

We're continuing to advocate and promote, you know, robust funding levels and making sure that researchers voices are heard.

Well, that's kind o what it's all about right now, right, is it's funding because you had those cuts coming from the Trump administration reversed.

Thankfully, I think everybody was relieved about that.

I mean, you about hundreds of millions of dollars.

Doc, I want to ask you when we hear about NIH funding being utilized specifically for cancer, anything really how does that get utilized at a place like UAB?

Yeah so it's a driver of the economy and it's a driver of advances in health care.

Right?

So I'll give myself as an example, I moved down here a couple of years ago.

I was recruited from Chicago an I brought with me NIH dollars.

I used those dollars to hire local Alabamians who worked in my lab.

These are people who have an opportunity to really do cutting edge research.

I had one person who, because of the opportunity in my lab, moved on to take a top level position to the top university after that.

So that's some of the human impact is that we're able to really grow the econom with the money that we bring in.

The other thing we do is just, you know, have advances in research tha lead to advances in health care.

And so all of that comes back to these dollars.

I should also add that the people that I hired into my lab who are Alabamians, they don't just do the work and move on to their next best thing.

They're also the people who go to local restaurants and spend those dollars.

They're the people who go and buy a car or rent a home.

And so it really stimulates the economy in a lot of different ways.

I keep hearing abou I keep hearing the word cures.

Right.

This research can lead to cures.

Talk about some of those potential breakthroughs that are happening right here in Alabama.

I think sometimes we take that for granted.

The amazing center that's going the center of research that is at UAB.

Talk about some of those potential breakthroughs that may be a little over our heads, but but I'd like to get you to explain some of that.

Well I think I'll just kind of zoom out first and say that you know, it's it's a long pipeline.

And so what's been sort of tragic about what has happened in the last several months is that, you know if these cuts are not reversed, then you the impacts of this hit you ten, 15, 20 years down the line because it's a long pipeline.

So, for example, in my lab, we do pediatric cancer research trying to understand how you can turn cancer cells into cells that aren't cancerous.

And it's a way to try and treat them indirectly as opposed to just trying to kill them.

We're trying to take away their ability to be a cancer and turn them actually into neurons instead.

And the way we inform that is by what we learned studying what stem cells do.

So it's the kind of thing that doesn't immediately lend itself to saying, oh, it's a breakthrough.

But what happens is what we do there and the targets that we find that are therapeutic targets can then be used for clinical research and that can lead to clinical trials and then hopefully one day leads to treatments for patients.

So at every part of that pipeline, it's like water starting her and running through that pipe.

And every part of that pipeline stuf is happening right now, right?

So the stuff that's happening at the end of it's going to be the therapies that come out.

Now, the stuff that I'm doing my lab is doing will hopefully be the therapies that come out in many years from now, which is why an interruption in funding is a problem.

Yes.

Yeah.

So, I mean, I live right near the Copper River, right?

It's gorgeous.

And you can imagine if you put a dam in anywhere in that river, then you're going to hav a problem with the water flow, whether the dam is here for basic science research, all the way down here for the clinical trials, it's going to cause a problem.

And right now, we're seeing that happen across the board because o what's been going on federally.

Mm hmm.

Well, Jane, this is an issue right now.

Again I mentioned that we're relieved because that NIH funding was restored.

Senator Brett brought the director down to UAB, of all things.

So and I talked to her about how they're kind of playing Whac-A-Mole with some of all this stuff.

But this is an issue right now because Congress right now is working on this funding.

There was a markup going on this week.

Yeah, the Labor committee marked up yesterday and some today on the NIH budget, which includes funding for the National Cancer Institute, CDC, other budgets related to health care yesterday.

And thankfully, what we're seeing both out of the Senate, thanks to Senator Brett and out of the House thanks to Congressman Aderholt, is a rejection of these drastic cuts to research in cancer research that are happening that the administration suggested they suggested a 39% cut to these programs.

And what we're seeing and sad is Congress rejecting that and sayin perhaps we should even fund it a little bit more, you know, doubling down on this effort, knowing how important researc is all across the United States.

Now, what we're worried about still that we see in the markup is on the prevention side.

So when somebody gets canned before somebody gets cancer, it's important that they get preventative screenings.

Right.

In Alabama, we have the Alabama breast and cervical Cancer early detection program.

A lot of that funding comes from the Center for Disease Control, CDC in D.C. That is a line item that we're worried about getting cut in the budget, which would ultimately mean less of those federal dollar to Alabama to fund that program.

And we have one of the worst cervical cancer rates in the country.

So we really can't affor to lose any screening funding.

So we're paying attention to the screening funding.

It's important to both robustly fund research and prevention.

Mm hmm.

And that's being talked a lot about here at the state level as well.

The screening and the value in that, the things included in the budget this past time.

Yeah.

Look Let's talk about the the kind of reason for these cuts from the Trump administration.

A lot of talk about, you know, putting it putting funding on hold because of what they describe as wokeism in research wokeism at certain institutions and things like that.

How do you all respond to those accusations that somehow money is being used for, you know, left wing radical woke kind of programs?

So it's again, I think it's really unfortunate tha that's where we are right now.

This has been a bipartisa funding effort in this country for biomedical research for decades.

In fact, I'll just point out, post-World War two, the that the sort of cooperation between the government and scientists is what's led to America's dominance in this area.

And it's had immense benefits for everybody.

Health care advances, cutting edge therapies.

And that has not been a source of controversy at all in terms of you know, where the money goes.

Just to give you an example, the NCI National Cancer Institute that funds cancer research to get a grant funded there, you really have to be in good times somewhere in the top 7 to 8% of the grants, which means tha if I applied for a grant there, which is a lot of work, believe me, putting it all together, putting it, making it really good, there's a 92% chance it' going to get rejected already.

So there's a very rigorous process of peer review.

We wish we had more money, not less.

And those funds go to fund researchers that are in the lab working hard day and night to advance therapies.

There's nothing woke about that.

We're really just trying to find cures for the diseases that all of us have to deal with, no matter what your beliefs, whatever your politics.

We all know somebody who has cancer, somebody who's dealt with Alzheimer's and so on.

And that's just something that we want to maintain that focus on.

Jane, what about you?

When you hear that argument, what do you what is the American Cancer Society kind of response?

Well, we'r a science based evidence base.

And so any policy we support, it has to be backed by science and evidence.

So that's important.

First, as we're taking a look at policies that we're going to promot to the legislature in Congress.

And the second thing is that, you know, research has always been kind of a nonpartisan or bipartisan issue.

And what we're seeing is when there are perhaps political actors that want to make it more partizan or make it more ideological, we're actually seeing and thankful that Congress is rejecting tha and kind of bringing back this this sense of normalcy to the issue that befor where it was becoming partizan.

Now we're seeing Congress begin to reject that and say, no, we're actually going to fund it at levels.

We appreciate this work that's going on, which I think is important.

Right.

That we don't go too far down a rabbit hole without dealing with reality.

So any time Congres steps up and takes their article on authority, I'm.

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

The other part is, you know something?

Not necessarily specific to NIH, but any time there's talk about, you know, government programs and cutting and everything we hear about it from public television is they say, well, why can't this be done privately?

Why can't this?

Why does it have to be hundreds of millions of dollars from from taxpayers looking at this, be done by the private sector, by pharmaceutical companies?

So talk about that in terms of, you know, why what you do and what UAB does, what NIH does needs public funding rather than private support.

Yeah.

So I think, you know, maybe because it's close to lunch time, food's on the mind.

I'm going to use food as an analogy.

You know, if you go to a restaurant and you've got your main plat and you've got your side dishes, you can take that main plate away.

There is no amount of side dishes that are going to make make up for that.

That's the difference between the public funding and the private funding.

So NIH provides billion with a B of dollars of funding, and there really aren't an private foundations, even D.C. Can we give out private funding?

But it's still not enough.

It's a drop in the bucket, right?

So when folks say, well, why can't public why can't private enterprises do it, they are doing it, bu they're doing it at this level and NIH is able to do it at this level, and that's why we are ahead.

Right.

So if you do it at this level instead, that's ho you have competitive countries, perhaps adversarial countries that can catch up and how our catching up is if you take that big amount of funding away from NIH.

So it's really critical.

There's no private source of funding that can offer NIH offers.

Yeah, well said.

And it' a national security issue, too.

If we are not investing in research, if we're not having ou government invest in research, then those other countries are right an we're going to lose the ability to get these cures out to our public.

You know, we'll be dependent on other other countries to get the treatments that are necessary.

You know, it's just we need to make sure we're keeping that science here at home for our folks here.

Well, look, we're out of time.

Thank you all for coming on the show and sharing some of this in.

Doc, as you said we all do do know someone who's struggle with cancer.

So thank you for what your team and your you and your team are doing in terms of researc and pursuing those those cures.

And thank you for explaining it.

I feel a lot more educated on the subject.

So thank you both.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

We'll be right back.

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Montgomery native Kathryn C Thornton is a physicist and former NASA astronaut.

A veteran of four space flights.

Thornton has logged over 975 hours in space, including more than 21 hours of extravehicular activity.

During her time with NASA she served on the crew of S6 49.

The maiden flight of spac shuttle Endeavor helped repair the Hubble Space Telescope and conducted microgravity experiments in Spacelab.

That's our show for this week.

Thanks for watching.

We'll be back next week.

At the same time, right here on Alabama Public Television.

But I won't be here.

I'll be on vacation.

Jeff Sanders will be i the chair anchoring in my state.

For our Capital-Journal team, I'm Todd Stacey.

We'll see you next time.