Special session recap with Rep Austin Foss

0:00You are listening to KFGO. Welcome to the broadcast. This is Carla Rose Hansen. I'm sitting in for Tyler Axness on Afternoons Live today. And we're talking about the legislature's special session last week. Governor Armstrong called us into a special session to address the problem and the concerns about the safety for North Dakota residents. And I have with me my seatmate from District 44. Besides guest hosting for Tyler, my day job is being legislator in the North Dakota House. And in District 44, I work with Representative Austin Foss, who is a fellow member of the North Dakota House with me. Welcome Austin. Thank you so much for having me Carla. Yes. So Austin, you sat on the joint policy committee that actually heard all the testimony about freedom, both from the health care professionals as well as the North Dakotans who used the product. And they feel like it's really effective for them. So

1:04tell me a little bit about what you learned. And did that change your mind as you heard all this testimony from both sides? Yes, honestly, I came into this not knowing a whole lot about freedom. I think most legislators came into this session not knowing a whole lot about freedom. And I think the common knowledge that people have is I think that we have these preconceived notions in our mind that when we're going into these hearings that we already know what we're going to vote on, we already know how we're going to vote. And that's simply not true. What I heard on the committee was that for basically every single health care professional, whether it was behavioral health or medical professional in this state, all were on the same page that we needed to ban everything that natural freedom versus synthetic freedom. There's not a whole lot of a difference when it comes to how addictive these drugs are. And that's what I

2:06heard from them. And whereas the other side that was toting the benefits of natural freedom and the benefits of freedom in general were out of state and mostly the lobby that we heard from. I did hear from emails to from some constituents and some people within our state to telling me their stories about how freedom has helped them with pain or getting off of a different drug. So there is testimony beyond what we heard in session as well. But it was overwhelmingly ban it all from the individuals within our state. So ultimately we as both the House and the Senate ended up kind of a compromise. I guess if you will, we continued the governor's ban on synthetic freedom, but we're going to allow the sales of natural freedom eventually once a lot of regulations end up in place. How do you feel about that outcome? Fine. I think the regulation is

3:15going to be very hard. And I think it's going to mirror what we have done for marijuana in this state right because we have medical marijuana is legal in this state, but it took I don't even know how many years to figure out a regulatory system for that. I think it's going to be very similar for this too. So even users of natural freedom probably won't be able to purchase that very easily for at least several months while they're trying to figure that out. And even beyond that, I really don't know how they're going to figure out a system within our state because we can only work within our boundaries on how to actually test these products and make sure that it is aligning with what we pass as a legislature. Right. It sounds very complicated. So one of the other topics I wanted to ask you about that we dealt with during the special session was data centers. You know, it's a hot topic right

4:17now in North Dakota and across the country. And there was sort of two aspects about data centers that we dealt with or could have dealt with. One was a bill that actually was part of our agenda that would have banned non-disclosure agreements for public officials related to these big types of projects so that, you know, the citizens of North Dakota could really, you know, be assured that they're getting a transparency with the process. So that was one aspect. Let's first talk about that when we first talked about the other aspect about data centers. What ultimately happened with that bill? And were you surprised? I unfortunately, I wasn't surprised that the outcome it did fail in the Senate. It did actually come out of our committee with a do not recommendation as well. I was not one of the people that supported that do not recommendation. What it came down

5:18to was a lot of our colleagues believed we already had open records laws on the books and that they were sufficient enough when public officials are dealing with these kinds of projects and that there were repercussions for those who don't follow that. I believe that wasn't necessarily the case. There are repercussions right now for just the individuals that are withholding those offices, which you think about towns like, I mean, I'm from Patton, right? I'm from a small town, right? We, our elections aren't really heated. You know, people aren't going into these elections thinking that this is their career, right? Like this is a responsibility that they have, but they don't know the law back to front, right? And so you expect all of these individuals to know all of the open records law and then they sign these non-disclosure agreements with these giant companies that have

6:20like hundreds of lawyers and all of this money and they get a slap on the wrist, basically. So what are the repercussions if an elected official violates an open record, like either an open meeting law or an open record law, besides being unelected down the road and losing their seat, but what are the repercussions? Your constituent can reach out to the Attorney's General's office and get an opinion from them. And if they find that the open records law has been violated, that they can, there can be repercussions. Well, first, they just have to amend it within seven days, right? They just basically have to say that they did something wrong and that we are going to open this up again. And if they do that in the seven days, everything is fine. The non-disclosure agreement that they have still works and everything is okay. And if they don't do it past that, then misdemeanors and classy felonies come down the line. But basically, they are also

7:25just slapped on the wrist. Yeah, I just, I think the average North to quote and really expects, you know, more transparency from their elected officials than some of them have seen in the past with some of these big deals. They feel like things are being withheld from them about what's coming around the corner and that really impacts their quality of life or their property values with some of these big projects. Well, only Attorney General is not just waiting there, hoping that they're getting, you know, these opinions from constituents like they're not going to get you that within seven days. Right, right. Exactly. So the other big topic related to data centers that we were hoping to deal with during the special session was a bill that would have placed a temporary moratorium on the development of data centers. Now, there was a process to consider what, what bills were on the agenda for the legislative session a few weeks prior. And it, the bill to put

8:27a temporary moratorium didn't make it through that process. But there was a backup process where a legislator could make a motion on the floor to, and if they reached a certain threshold with votes from that body, kind of get every legislator to weigh in, we could have added it to our agenda and gotten a hearing on that topic. So in our chamber in the house, we did that. We, the Democrats proposed adding a temporary moratorium for data centers as one of the agenda topics. It didn't meet the threshold with the number of votes. So we couldn't have a hearing on it. And then over in the Senate, they did not even allow the vote. They wouldn't even... They wouldn't even talk about talking about it. They wouldn't even talk about talking about it, which they just shut it down. So when we get back from our next break, I want to ask you about, you know, what message does

9:28send to all the North Dakotans who are concerned about data centers that our Republicans refused to even talk about it. So with that, we will take a little break. But I'm so glad you're here to add another perspective since I know you were in the middle of this in the policy committee. So this is Austin Foss, also from District 44 joining us. And I'm Carla Rose Hanson, but we'll take a little break and we'll be back with you after this. Welcome to KFGO. You're listening to Afternoons Live with Tyler Axness, but this is not Tyler. This is Carla Rose Hanson sitting in for Tyler while he's out of town. And I have with me Representative Austin Foss. He is my seatmate in the North Dakota House representing District 44. And we have been talking about North Dakota's special session that was held last week to deal with a number of topics. And one of the topics that came up and we wanted to talk about even more than the one that came up is data centers. So the North Dakota legislature,

10:36specifically the Senate voted down a bill that would have required elected officials. I should say prohibited elected officials from entering into non-disclosure agreements. So that was too bad. That seemed like a no-brainer that we would have passed a NDA bill for those related to data centers to ensure more transparency. But that happened. And then there was another proposal related to data centers that the DEMNPL was hoping to get on the agenda. And that was a temporary moratorium. Austin, can you tell us a little bit about what that bill would have done? So essentially what that bill would have done is a moratorium is a prohibition on developing you know any project. And this one would have been specifically for data centers. So basically any development on data centers within the state would be paused up until what this specific bill

11:40said up until June of 2027. And that month was picked because it was after the session. So what we were hoping to do is that a moratorium would pause on the development because many people, especially you know those in small rural towns because that seems to be where most of this action is happening would have time to figure out rules and regulations around their city for data center development. If you know if a data center was to come in they were at least prepared with a system which they had to go through. And we would be able to actually kind of spell out what that system would be during the general session and give the tools to localities to come up with their own as well. And that would have given us time to get to that point. And unfortunately

12:41it just wasn't taken up by legislative management which is the committee that would have allowed you know allows which bills to go into the special session. And then it wasn't allowed when we tried to bring it to the floor as well. That's right. And in fact in the Senate we tried the demnPL tried to bring it to the floor to you know add it to the agenda. And the Senate Majority Leader refused to even talk about talking about it. So he wouldn't even have allowed the vote which was which was really disappointing. So why were North Dakotans asking us to bring this forward? So regardless of how you know anyone feels about the moratorium itself you know they wanted it to be discussed. They wanted the hearing so that they could have their their voices heard. Why are North Dakotans concerned about data centers and why were they asking for this extra time to think through all the details of the development of them? I think there's a lot of issues that data centers

13:42could you know have around them. Well first off they're just huge projects. They take up a lot of land. A lot of honestly productive farmland. So that is one of the issues that people have with them. Also people are scared that their electricity bills are going to go up. They take a ton of power, a ton of power. And you know when you put that much power into a system you know you need a lot of transform transformers. You need a lot of you know in industry around or infrastructure around those as well. And who ends up paying for them is usually the ratepayers right. And the other thing the other issue that they bring up is water usage. They're they're worried about water usage and also just the overarching issue of AI in general. Artificial intelligence is permeating our culture in every way imaginable. And people are scared. And I think they are rightfully so. I think we

14:49I mean we don't know what the future is. I'd love to I'd love to be able to see one the future is but people are scared that their jobs are going to be taken and that there's a lot of downsides day. I as and a lot of good as well. Right. Yeah definitely pros and cons. And the other concerns I've heard from residences like around related to data centers is the noise that could potentially be heard or the property value the impact their property values of something were to be created you know nearby them. And so I know that some legislators feel like some of that research related to the impacts of data centers can be done by a new interim committee that's been formed just actually really recently being chaired by Jonathan Worry a fellow representative here in Cass Coney. Do you have you been monitoring the the scope of work of that committee? Do you want to maybe mention kind of what they've looked at so far? Yes and and I think what where people I think

15:50get it wrong is that you know we we would pass this moratorium and then basically the job of that committee is you know they can just dissipate why why would they need and I look at it is they could have been in tandem right you pass the moratorium giving us time to research this and they're the we already have that set up to where they're the committee that can research these issues right. I think they they've given a lot of time to industry professionals and those who actually lobby for data centers as well. They give them a lot of time to give us information as they like to call it the voter information on why data centers are a net benefit to their community. And potentially they do have the the ability to do that right they they have said that they don't use as much water as we think they say that we will be able to meet the the high electricity

16:54demand of these data centers and they say that the the again the pros out way the cons when it comes to the their giant property tax payers and that could help your community especially a smaller community. And and those are all not necessarily wrong ideas and wrong wrong things to say I just think that they're going about it in a way that I have seen in you know my two years of being in the legislature of shoving information down people's throat thinking that they're just automatically going to change their minds on something there there seems to be a very parental uh focus on many of our colleagues that well the voters just don't know what they want. We know what's best for you. We know what's best for you as long as we just give you the information then then you'll obviously change your mind and that's I think that's a wrong way to look at things. Yeah I think there's a

17:55lot of trust that is not there right now. Right. Well Austin thank you for sharing your perspective on the special session. I know you were deep in the weeds on some of these topics so thanks for joining us on afternoons live. We have a little bit more to talk about and we'll be joined by Representative Alisa Mitzkog from district 25 next to talk about some of the other agenda topics that we handled last week and also that we didn't handle. So after this break we'll be on with Alisa Mitzkog. Thanks a lot.