It is really going to change the delivery of electricity in the entire world.
There's been a real renaissance over the last few years in nuclear and most of nuclear
was done by the government, but recently it's the private sector, less than a pre-market system. Here you have this reliable and really as all these attributes of it that is sat there for years and years and now the private sector has set up, I get people for years, I would have people come in occasionally and talk about it, over the last few years, there is a month
goes by, well I don't have an investor group that's new to the play, say hey we want to play nuclear and so surprise, there's competition and surprise, this competition is moving the thing a whole lot faster. Americans are capable of achieving extraordinary things when they have the freedom and opportunity to do so.
This is American potential.
“I think most people know Idaho for its potatoes, but did you know it's leading in nuclear”
energy research and it's positioning itself to lead the country when it comes to critical
minerals? We'll talk about that as well as today with Idaho Senator Jim Rich, but also why he decided to run for office. Senator, thanks so much for being on. Thank you so much for having me, enjoy doing this.
Great, so we've been doing talking all years as part of the America's 250th birthday. We've been talking about what we call the one small step like, why did people get involved throughout history in running for public office or taking action in their community side? I kind of want to start off, you know, you've held a few different offices, so like what made you get involved in community service, public policy to begin with and then run
for office?
“Well, I think I'm a little different than a lot of the people here in Idaho that I've”
known that over the years that have run for public office and that is, I really didn't have any interest in it until I graduated from law school, went to work in the prosecutor attorney's office here and really enjoyed the job prosecuting and as I went along, my boss decided to retire, so if I wanted to keep my job, I had to run for it, so that's when you got me started, that was quite a while ago, but like I said, I know a number of people,
I was the governor of the state and people who were predecessors of mine there and predecessors now in the U.S. Senate, a lot of them were active way back in college when they were at that university. I was not and really wasn't thinking along those lines at all, my undergraduate degree was in Forestry before I went to law school, so I really had no thoughts about it when I was
in Forestry, when I was in law school again, I just really never gave it a thought, but
then went to work in the prosecutor's office, really enjoyed that and it is public service, it's a real public service keeping the bad guys off the streets and love doing that. Best job I ever had. That's great. I mean, actually, it's interesting that you studied Forestry, and I want to talk about energy
predominantly in the student for a minute, but I kind of am interested in Forestry, that's an important issue for representing the state like Idaho, has that been something that's
“come full circle that you've been working on forestry issues?”
Well, believe it or not, when I became governor, it was just for tutors that George W. Bush at that time asked all the governors to take a look at the roadless rule that we have in America that had been the subject of hundreds, if not thousands of cases. The roadless areas were areas that were left over in the '60s and '70s when they argued over wilderness and designated wilderness pieces.
They had some leftover that was essentially, they called it roadless, although some of them are roaded, some of them are roaded fairly heavily. But they just said them there, and they were not general forest, and they weren't wilderness, and the result of that was, as with every administration that came in, they'd write a rule for that ground, if it was Republicans, people would be able to use the ground more,
would be able to harvest from it, do kinds of things you do on more towards general forest. When the Democrats came in, they'd reverse that and lock it all up, and so every time that happened, there were lawsuits all over the place on them, and lots and lots of them. And then when the Bush asked this governor's do that, I was only one to took the bait. I give, by the way, against a lot of good friends I had here, who was judgment, I respect.
It was a laboral love for me, and we had about 9 million acres that is roadless.
I'd put together a process for dealing with it, bringing everybody to the table, everybody
“from ranchers and loggers, and the other and the environmentalists, and we have a lot”
of people that have an interest in recreational use, particularly motorized recreation use. Put them all together at the table, and we fought it out, make a long story short. Got a roadless rule, of course, we were sued immediately, we wanted in the district court here, then went on to win it in the 9th Circuit, and we have Colorado has kind of a rule.
We have the only place in America that's really got a rock solid, all encompassing roadless rule
for 9 million acres, and it is managed by Idaho people.
It is managed by a committee that is appointed by the governor, and it's worked incredibly well.
“We haven't had one lawsuit regarding it.”
Every time there's a lawsuit on roadless, and any time there's any action on roadless, they always exclude it. Wow, that's a testament. What are you just stepping back about, kind of forestry, management, and the federal approach in general, like what's your any enough where it stands right now, you see a lot of things
like more and more devastating wildfires, so that I know there's a lot of aid. Well, it's checkered, it's a mixed bag. Some of it's really, really good, and some of it's really, really bad, and there's just about everything in between, the fires that we're having, everybody attributes to, not everybody,
“a lot of people attributed to climate change, and there certainly is some aspect where our”
summers are longer and warmer, but we really quit harvesting trees a long time ago to have arched a degree. When I was in forestry school, there was a mill in virtually every one of our 44 counties. We had, nobody knows how many mills we had, most of them were smaller, but now in Idaho, south of the Sam and River, we're down to just a couple of mills, I mean, all the others have been torn down because every time they try to get a sale, it's challenged, and you
just can't get the product to harvest, to use. There's private lands, but Idaho, and my friends back east have trouble swallowing this, but two out of every three acres in Idaho is home by the federal government. So think of that by that. We, the state, and the people
only have a third of the land that's within our borders, people say, "Well, how do you operate
like that?" And I said, "Yeah, now you understand what we're talking about." And it's like dealing with everything else with the federal government. It is efficiency, common sense, normalcy, our not strong suits for the federal government. Yeah, well, turning to energy. I mentioned early in the intro that Idaho is leading a nuclear energy research. Why is that? What does Idaho do? Well, let's start with the first time we lit three light bulbs with nuclear energy.
It was done here in Idaho at the Idaho National Lab in a cold December day in 1951. Still have those three light bulbs that we lit. Since then, we built 52 reactors, there are most of them, experimental reactors. The Idaho National Laboratory is the flagship laboratory for all things nuclear, whether it's fuel, whether it's the design of the reactor or anything else. It is the flagship in the universe. Also on the planet, also in the United States,
we do a lot of nuclear there. And it's been with us for a long time. We get it. We understand
it. We've lived with it. We've done some amazing things out there. This summer, we actually
turned to switch on three micro reactors that are really going to change the world. We've been at this for a long time. I've been after them for years. My first trip out there was in 1975. I loved what they were doing and I looked at it and said, why can't you build smaller ones? Because they're building these great big biomins that cost billions to build. And look, investors have to put up the money to do that. They're reluctant for a lot of different
reasons. We lost a whole generation when through my island happened. People were nobody got hurt. Nobody got killed, but it's scared to heck out everybody. So nobody wanted to do nuclear. And the environmental movement, the original environmental movement, was dead set against nuclear. That's come full circle now with a lot of environmental people realizing the nuclear is the way to go. I mean, you put no carbon in the air whatsoever. Yes, you do have
Some waste when it's left over.
handled by every country that's dealt with it in an appropriate fashion. We still are sparring here
“in the United States and how to handle it. But it is compared to the problem that the delivery”
and the generation and delivery of electricity is. It is a small problem. Now, I said that this summer actually in July, we turned to switch on three and then another one four micro reactors that are small, small reactors. They can be delivered on a truck. And this is going to change. It is really going to change the delivery of electricity in the entire world. There's been a real renaissance over the last few years in nuclear. And most of nuclear was done by the government.
But recently, it's the private sector. Less than a free market system. I mean, here you have
this reliable and really has all these attributes of it that is sat there for years and years.
“And now the private sector has set up, I'll take it notice. I get people for years. I would have”
people come in occasionally and talk about it. But over the last few years, there is an month goes by where I don't have an investor group that's new to the play saying, "Hey, we want to play in nuclear." And so surprise, there's competition. And surprise, this competition is moving the thing a whole lot faster. And surprise, it is the competition is creating a different kinds of
reactors with people competing to see who can do this, fastest, and get it to the marketplace. Look,
like I said, we turn the switch on four of those. They're all racing to the marketplace, whoever designs the best reactor, whoever designs one that is licensed quickly is safe, and whoever builds the factory that makes the parts for that, that you can put on a truck and takes somewhere, somebody's going to make a whole lot of money. God bless America. Yeah, that is a fabulous development that the private sector is in the market, because that is
really, it's good drive. Because it scared people for a long time and people just didn't want to take the risk. And now the people who invest are taking the risk. So what are some of the road blocks that you see for the nuclear movement and the further development of nuclear in the country? Yeah, you know, I wouldn't talk about road blocks at this point. We used to talk about road blocks, but particularly with an administration that gets it, that wants to get out of the way instead of
getting in the way. Road blocks are not a part of the lexicon right now. The lexicon is how fast can
“we move ahead without road blocks. That's what's going on right now. Look, we have a long history”
of nuclear. Like I said, it's since 1951. We get it. We know how to do it. We know how to do it safely. And our part of the problem has been the government, a big surprise. As it frequently has been in different arenas. And now we're getting past that. Certainly it's got to be safe, but the industry itself has developed safety standards beyond what the government does. More realistic, much quicker. Things are moving very rapidly in this area. So I wouldn't say road blocks are a
factor. I'd say more, it is a true race, competitive race to get to who can do this economically in commercially. Because like I said, there's a lot of money to be made there. And look, we've had some help. Obviously, Putin helped us. The Eastern European countries are all racing to get nuclear energy. When we compete internationally, we compete with Russia, China and France. If you add America to that, those are the only four places you can really go to get a nuclear plant. If you want one,
all over the world, people are recognizing that this is the way to go. Unfortunately, in the past, the only choice you had was as great big be a myth of cost billions. And governments, private sector didn't have it. The government didn't have it. But now, you're getting smaller cheaper ones that are coming into the marketplace. And it's happening. And Putin helped us because obviously, everybody wants to cut the cord with Russia on having to rely on them for free energy. But secondly,
and I think just as importantly, here in the United States, the estimates that they're putting
On the table for what we're going to need over the next 10 years is absolutel...
because of AI, and it's because of other things that use electricity like the data centers.
“Those two alone are just, they don't use a lot of people to operate before they sure use a lot of”
electricity. And I don't understand it. You're going to have to get another expert on your podcast to understand or explain to people how these centers consume the electricity that they do. I can't explain it, but I can tell you that there isn't anybody that says, oh, we can do it with less electricity. They're all same. We need more electricity. And that's what's one of the things that's causing the data center push back around America is everybody's
same away. You're going to build this in my backyard. And then I'm going to have to put the bill for the new electricity. So pretty much people have figured out that if you're going to do a data center, you're better come with a plan for you producing or buying your own electricity and not
“competing with the people in the neighborhood. Totally right. I mean, we've done a number of”
episodes on just the need for more energy. The ramp up that's going on right now, and it's going to continue over the next decade. And obviously, nuclear is part of that all of the above approach, you know, why should we as a nation? Well, it says as to why we should be focused on more than one source. What do you think about in all of the above approach? And what are the elements that you favor there? Well, I've been in all the above all the time. I've been in dealt with the
issue. You don't want to put all your eggs on basket. We're really fortunate in the night of what we have falling water, which very few places in America do. The result of that is we have one of the lowest power rates in the country. But that's certainly one of the things that we love as far as all the above. But look, you're not going to run. You are not going to deliver the load that the tech sector needs with windmills and solar and even with hydrocarbons,
the environment won't tolerate it. So the answer, the only answer to this is nuclear. And anybody who doesn't buy onto that is making a huge mistake. I mean, it is nuclear that is going to provide the base power and you need base power for where we as species on this planet are heading,
we're going to need a whole lot more power than what we got. So turn to another critical issue
that has national security implications. Idaho is becoming a leader in playing critical minerals.
“Why is Idaho becoming a leader and kind of house that growing? Well, I think Idaho is a”
leader because we've always been a leader due to the deposit of a rarest and critical minerals around the planet. We're blessed by the fact that we have a lot of deposit here. And so we've been at this for a long, long time. But look, critical minerals and rats are a lot like energy. I mean, the demand for them is just is overpowering. I'm not only chairman of Foreign Relations, but I'm also the senior Republican on the committee that deals with all things security. The intelligence
community committee. And we have known, look, when COVID came along, we realized that the supply chain on this planet had some real difficulties with it. We expots amongst other things, but also political problems. But then when the Ukraine War came along, it became even more obvious that we had that in an America woke up. And we in Congress, both Republicans and Democrats have most Democrats
have signed on that we've got to do something. We have to produce our own critical minerals,
or have them produced by a good reliable ally. Most critical minerals that the largest supply comes from China. Well, gee, what could possibly go wrong there? We saw it go, we actually saw it go wrong a couple of years ago when we looked and saw what China had done. China had really cornered the market. I got a lot of these critical minerals because they have a lot of them themselves. But they went out and really worked to Africa over pretty good and the rest of the
planet over pretty good to tie up the critical minerals. And more importantly, the refining
of the critical minerals. So we decided that we needed to do something about it and it has been
An all-of-government approach as we did this.
years ago when at the negotiating table when the president was negotiating with them on trade,
“they drew that pistol and laid it on the table and said, okay, you want to do this to us.”
We're going to start cutting off or just a bad rationing, the critical minerals you're going to
get. And at that point, everybody said, whoa, we're not going there. We got through that, we got over the hump and Trump was really tough on him and said, guys, you can't do this and if you do, here's what we're going to do. And they didn't like the other side of that picture. So we got through that. But we are in a very difficult position or had been in a very difficult position. It improves daily. It's going to continue to improve daily weekly monthly annually. But we're
pulling ourselves out of that and we have to pull ourselves out of that. It is certainly one of
if not the most critical national security issues that there is. Also, the same thing goes for
semiconductors. It is just like that a national security issue. A lot of people don't view it that way. But it is. It truly is. Most Americans don't sit around and think about manufacturing and what goes into making an automobile refrigerator or really importantly to us a defense item,
“a rocket or something like that. So with the important committees regarding foreign affairs”
and intelligence, you have particularly insight, are you generally optimistic about where America's going with regard to critical minerals and semiconductors? Those things that might not be the
sexy part of national security, but are really, really important. Yeah. We, you know, I am.
And let me start with this. We live in the greatest country in the world. Bar none. No matter what the left wing talking heads tell you on TV and on the internet, this is the greatest country in the world. And why is that? It's the free market, the free enterprise system. You know, when the founding fathers sat down and said, what kind of a country we're going to have, we said, well, it's going to be a capitalist country. Capital is going to be owned,
controlled and deployed by the private sector, by people who have a profit motive, not by the government, who have lots of different motives. And that system that we have has put us in the seat that we're the best there is. And so when we recognize we have a problem, we can resolve that problem. You know, I, you know, my European friends ring their hands about this, that nearer thing. I say, guys, look, we can do this. This is a country that started with a
revolution. We've been through a civil war. We've been through two world wars. We've been through depression. We've seen it all. We've done it all. And you know what? We are still standing. We're
“still on our feet. And I truly believe that's what's going to happen. I'm going to give you a good”
example on the semiconductor industry. And this is something else I know, because we're the home of micron industries, micron technology, which was one of the early ones to the table. I know the guys that founded it. And they, like all the semiconductor businesses in America, took off, invented this fabulous thing called a chip, a semiconductor, and started making it here in what have you. And then, because we are a free market in a free enterprise system, the industry chased the
the siren of cheap wages over to Asia. And so the industry moved over there. And we recognize that, that this was a national security problem, not long ago, we're in the process of moving it back. Now, there's no doubt that the government is playing a role in it. I hate the government being involved in almost anything. But if this industry was going to come back, it was going to take an all of industry approach. And it was going to take the government to to grease the skids to make that happen.
It's happening now. The semiconductor industry is moving back to the United States. Where it belongs, where it was invented, where we will use it for peaceful and good purposes, but also to defend ourselves. That's great news. That really is. Turning to another issue that affects America's economy, really is the permitting process for all kinds of things. And NEPA is part of that process. And most Americans really know what that is.
What is NEPA and how does it help work for the process in your view?
Well, NEPA was enacted in NEPA stands for National Environmental Policy Act.
The act was passed in 1970. And like all things, I'm sure I wasn't there, but the speeches on
the floor of the Senate. You can just imagine people beating their breast and say, "Look, vote for this. You're going to help the environment. Oh, it's so wonderful. It's going to do magical things for the environment." And like all things, kind of like the endangered species act. Same thing. You know, I mean, who doesn't want to save the species? The difficulty to have is like all things government. There was no last paragraph that said, "Oh, and by the way,
“when you enable this, please use common sense." That's how to window with NEPA and with the”
the endangered species act and all kinds of other things that we deal with. Look, who doesn't want a good environment. Who doesn't want environmental policy that is designed to help protect America and help what we have. Look, in Idaho, like I said, two-thirds of our state is owned by the federal government. We love our public lands. We're not so red out about the people of the nation, but we love our public lands. And we do everything we
can to sustain these public lands to manage them such that when we harvest, we harvest properly, that we don't decimate the public lands. But I'll tell you what, because we have not harvested these fires are much hotter, they're much more difficult to control. We have huge fires. We have one that's not too far from where I'm sitting right now in Boise, I don't know. Just probably about 40 miles south of us, this burned 570,000 acres in the last month. That's bigger than
some states, back east for crying out loud. That's because we have the management isn't as good as it needs to be. They do everything they can to fight keep and cows off range land, which is a dumbest thing you can do, because the cows go out and harvest that grass in the spring, so it doesn't grow up to be fuel in the in the late summer and fall. And the same thing in the forest, you know, they fight, fight, fight the harvesting, and yet when the fires get going,
if you haven't harvested a tree, that tree instead of being a valuable product is fuel. And when it's fuel, it burns and it burns hot and catches the next tree on fire and away you go. So anyway, Nipa has caused us no end of difficulties. I mean, it is literally there have been trillions of dollars spent in the courts on Nipa instead of where it belongs out on the out in the environment to protect the environment. You know, I'm struck, I've had the opportunity over the last few years to
talk to a number of your colleagues, whether it be in the center of the house or governors of western
states and what I'm always struck by is there's a common sensical approach to our relationship
with nature and our environment. And what I'm always struck by is it's because almost to a person, you're always in it, you value it. It's part of your life, you know, and people who live out west, you know, live there because of the great natural resources that they can take advantage of and share with their families and neighbors. And it makes for, I think, a wiser public policy approach to it, but unfortunately it gets hijacked by folks maybe who don't share your values and don't
live out where you live. And we get bad policy. That's true to a degree. I mean, there's some people to get it, but I argue with the guys back east, they don't believe me. The two out of three
“acres is owned by the federal government. In their states, the only thing owned is by the federal”
government's a post office. So it's 1,000th of 1% or something like that. But look, when I say our public lands are valued. I mean, I can't say it in, there aren't words strong enough. It is part of our heart, it's part of our soul. And by the way, this is not a Republican Democrat issue. The fire right as well as the fire left are all bought in on our public lands and seen that our
public lands are managed such that we always have them, that they're like our national parks.
They're going to be there for us and for for many, many generations to to enjoy it. All right, last question for you, wrap up. This should be hopefully easier, but as a senator from Idaho, what's your favorite thing about Idaho, or what do you want people across the country
“to know about the state that you love? Well, I think probably what I just said is part of it,”
it's the environment, the landscape we live in, but just as importantly the people that live here.
We have, this is, this is hard for people from back east to understand that w...
sense out here. For instance, we love our police officers. When you've got a problem,
“who do you call? You call 911. In fact, I spent a half an hour yesterday talking with”
guys, a fairly good friend of mine, it's a police officer. And he's so much appreciates the fact that he is appreciated and loves doing his job. And we, you know, we care of each other here. We, you know, we have problems like everybody does, but I tell my friends in the Senate, they don't believe it. That in Boise, Idaho, which is the largest city, we're
in the market area, you were not a million, but we're close to it. But you can walk down any
street or any alley at any time of the night or day and not worry about not coming out the other
“side. They say, all that can't be true. What about the bad part of time? Well, we don't have a bad part”
of time. And so, it's, it's just different here and living in a place like that. And by the way, I live here. I go home every single weekend. I'm, I'm on a plane early Monday morning. I'm on a plane late Thursday. I get, so I sleep four nights in Boise and three nights in Washington, DC, one more in session. One more non-in session. I'm here in Idaho. I'm not back in DC. Believe me. But it, it's a great place to live. I, I, I just can't underscore that enough. And unfortunately,
people have discovered that when I was governor, we were the third fastest growing. Now we're the
fastest growing state in the country. And we, I never thought I'd say this because we, I was part of
people that we recruited businesses to come here. We weren't looking for another micron. We always brought small medium sized businesses here. I never thought I'd say we got too much right now, but we, at this point in time, we truly do need to slow down a bit. Our growth rate is just unsustainable where we are in Boise. But, but like, we'll get through it. We're, um, we're not only Americans, where Idaho is, we can handle this. We'll get through it. Well, it's a market signal. People want
to come and be part of which guys have built. I, I, I, I, I said it the before before, you joined us. I mentioned that my college roommate is from Idaho, from quarter lane, lives up there as a dentist.
“And, uh, he is one of the nicest best-looking men I've ever seen. So that's, that's what I associate with”
Idaho. Well, uh, it's a, it's a unique place, believe me. Nice. Well, Senator Rich, I really appreciate you joining us and, uh, and talking us about uh, energy issues, national security, and Idaho. So thanks again. And, enjoy it. Uh, thanks. And, uh, good to be with you. Thanks. Hey, folks, if you like this episode and like to stay connected with the podcast, be sure to like, subscribe
to our channel, as well as following us on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. And always remember,
liberty and freedom are easily taken to granted. Don't take them to granted. Go out there and defend liberty and freedom. Thanks for joining us. And we'll see you on the next episode. Thank you for listening to American Potential. You may listen to more stories from Americans working every day to expand freedom and opportunity in their communities by visiting of americanpotential.com.
