[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - Hi, everyone.
Steve Adubato.
We welcome all the way from his beautiful backyard in Monmouth County State Senator Declan O'Scanlon.
He's the chief budget officer in the Republican Party in the Senate.
How you doing, Senator, and how's your yard?
- I'm doing really well.
So is my yard.
I'm clinging to summer.
I will refuse to let it go as long as I possibly can.
- We better not air this in November when it's a lot colder.
We're taping this at the end of September.
Do this for us.
I wanna talk about a few different things with you, but you have said publicly, you actually said this in a Paul Mulshine column.
Check out NJ.com, Star-Ledger, still actually in print.
Check out NJ.com.
He says that, quote, "The Democrats need to defund a wind power plan and, which ruins our view and raises taxes," and you're quoted in here as saying...
This is great, Declan.
"The Democrats are running scared," said Senator Declan O'Scanlon.
You're in Monmouth County, as we said.
"We're gonna run on energy issues in this campaign."
What energy issues are you gonna run on, and why is that so compelling in your mind?
- Well, it's not just my mind, but the voters as well are telling pollsters that they care about our energy policy.
The ridiculous half-baked energy master plan that the Murphy administration put out quietly a couple of years ago is a mess.
It doesn't account for the costs to upgrade our grid.
It doesn't account for the costs that everyone will have to spend to upgrade equipment in their houses and the additional costs of energy that will happen because of that plan.
I'm not saying that we don't care about the environment.
I'm not saying we may not have to transition to more, to relying on the electric grid for more things, and that might not be beneficial.
What I am saying is we have to be honest with the people.
The current energy master plan is a ticking time bomb of dramatically increased costs for utilities, dramatically less convenient availability of energy to run our cars, et cetera.
So it's a real issue, and it's one that voters should be concerned about, and it's one, Republicans are not radical about this.
We're not saying to hell with the environment.
We're saying we need to be honest with people and we need to have reasonable, attainable policy.
What the Murphy administration has out there right now is none of those things.
- Okay, so we had your colleague in the Republican Party, Senator Tony Bucco, talking about some of the same issues, and he has a very similar point of view, and I asked him what I'm about to ask you.
You're saying you're not against these policies, but you're just against the Murphy administration clean energy policies.
You're against the wind energy initiatives.
Let me disclose we have a grant from the Clean Energy Program to do public awareness around clean energy.
We don't have a point of view.
We're just doing educational programming in that regard.
But I have to ask you this, Senator.
What the heck is your plan other than saying that the governor's wrong on his plan?
- We've been out there with, and I just reiterate, first off, you do a moratorium on wind right now.
There's a whole host of questions about it.
Whether you believe that offshore wind activities are affecting whales and dolphins or not- - There's no scientific evidence of that, Senator.
Respectfully, I know that's a, I hate to call it a talking point, but I don't know what else to call it.
Where is the evidence that wind turbines are, quote, killing whales?
- I will side with you on that.
There is no evidence that wind turbines are killing whales.
However, however, the other side can't say that they know definitively that some of the activities of offshore wind, 'cause we don't have turbines yet, some of the preparatory activities of offshore wind might be affecting whales and dolphins, et cetera.
But you're right, we don't know.
It's not definitive, and there are people on my side of the aisle saying they absolutely know or believe that those activities are causing those deaths.
I don't go that far.
I believe both sides don't know what the hell's causing the whale and dolphin deaths, and a short moratorium to see if those activities are the culprit seems perfectly reasonable to me.
- Okay, but you also have argued the cost, and I mentioned this in the Senator Bucco interview as well, that the tragic passing of the president of the Board of Public Utilities, Joe Fiordaliso- - A good guy, good guy.
- Best guy.
And again, check out our series "Remember Them" where we honor and recognize people who have passed in New Jersey with a great impact.
The last thing we wanted to do was do a program with my colleague Jacqui Tricarico about Joe Fiordaliso, but he died tragically too soon.
That being said, one of the last things he said, Senator, was "Stop the lying," and he was talking about not you specifically, but the lying and the exaggerating and the hyperbole scaring the heck out of people saying the governor is coming to take your stove.
Not true, Senator.
It's just not true.
- Well, hold on.
And look, I just said we should, both sides should stop the lying and the definitive statements about offshore wind.
Let's talk about gas.
Let's talk about electrification.
- Is the governor coming to take everyone's stove?
- Eventually, that is exactly where the policy will lead if you look at the policy and you look at the pronouncements of the people creating the policy.
Now, it's true the policy today will not take away your stove, but it is also true that if you take the policy desires of the people making it currently today, they absolutely would remove gas appliances from homes going forward.
They would, Steve.
There's no question.
- But do you think they would- - Everybody's gotta be honest.
- Okay, I'm sorry for interrupting, Senator.
There's a little delay, but to say that in ads, and I'm not saying you're responsible for these ads, but you're benefiting from these ads.
The Republicans running, and this, and by the way, November 7th, there's a legislative election.
All 120 seats are up.
The Republicans are salivating, including the senator.
He sees the opportunity on this issue and on issues of parental rights, which we'll talk about in a minute as it relates to children in public schools.
It's just not true that the governor...
I'm not here to defend the governor.
He's not taking anyone's stove.
They might down the road with people involved change the policy to go from voluntary to mandatory.
That's not actually where we are today, Senator, correct?
- That is correct, but to be fair, Steve, the logical conclusion of these policies is exactly that.
They're already talking about the indoor air pollution from what stoves still have a pilot light.
If you're honest from both perspectives, they would actually eventually, not too far down the road either, want to remove your gas stove and other gas appliances, and reliable ones, and replace them with much less reliable, a much less reliable set of appliances dependent on an electric grid that needs billions of dollars of upgrades if we're going to eventually get there.
So, Senator, parental rights.
Put this in perspective.
What is the issue regarding parental rights as it relates to their children in public schools and what the parents should or should not do or do not know about their children and what their children say about their gender, their sexual orientation, please.
- This is another area where there's been, I think on both sides, exaggeration, certainly on the left, on the policies that exist right now.
The administration put out a policy that they suggested was mandatory that schools are prohibited from sharing virtually any facts about their children and certainly their sexuality and their wrestling with such issues with parents.
So they come up with this policy.
School boards reacted to it by actually implementing real policies, and suddenly the administration has a problem with it.
The left is grossly exaggerating the policies as they exist.
Middletown is where I'm most familiar with.
There are blatant lies and misrepresentations being told by numerous people about that policy, which is a very reasonable one.
A child can... A male child can dress like a female, can ask to have his name changed to a female name, can talk to teachers, can do all that without any parental notification.
It is not until and unless they wanna change a formal document or have a public accommodation, like start using girls' bathrooms, when there might be communication with parents.
It's a pretty reasonable policy.
Parents agree with Republicans on this, and the left is exaggerating and blatantly misrepresenting what that policy does.
- This is State Senator Declan O'Scanlon, been with us many times.
Check out previous interviews.
You'll see the website, steveadubato.org.
He is the chief budget officer, Thank you, Senator, for joining us.
We appreciate it.
Talk to you soon.
- Thanks, Steve.
- You got it.
Stay with us, we'll be right back.
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