The AI Race America Might Not Be Ready For | Sen. Martin Heinrich

- You're listening to American Power from Findout Media. I'm your host, Nat Towson, political speech writer,

other kinds of writer, and most important

when interviewing a senator, podcast host. I'm joined as always by my panel of experts our expert on foreign policy and the military. Chad Scott, Chad, how's it going? - It's going well looking forward

to just getting right into this. - Absolutely, me too. And of course, our expert on energy of all forms,

“you know him as Mr. Global Matt Randolph, Matt, how's it going?”

- Oh, it's going great, how are you? - I am great, and I'm excited to bring on our guest. Let's move right into the episode. Our very special guest today is Senator Martin Heinrich, who represents New Mexico and is the ranking member

of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He also serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, placing him at the intersection of energy policy,

the electric grid, AI, critical minerals, and national security.

With a background in mechanical engineering and years of work tied to New Mexico's national laboratories and military installations, he brings a particularly informed perspective to the question of whether America can produce, move, and protect energy.

The energy that it needs to remain a global power. And just to editorialize briefly on my own, he is also a longtime champion for renewable energy. Senator Heinrich, welcome to American power. - Really great to be here.

- I want to jump right in by asking you a question about Iran. Obviously, something we talk about on this podcast, a lot, you recently pressed administration officials for a strategy to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. In a recent hearing, you spoke to General Kane

and asked if the goal of reopening the Strait to prevent, you know, increased costs to Americans was a strategy that they were pursuing. I'm curious, what do you think a realistic strategy looks like to reopen the Strait and reduce the economic damage

“that's already being caused by the disruption there?”

Is the goal in your mind to restore commercial shipping right now or to deter further Iranian attacks or try to somehow compel Iran into a broader political settlement? - The question is what are we solving for, right? And you know, we want Americans in the region to be safe.

I think when this started, that was not fully appreciated. It was a bit of a cluster getting folks two places where they would be safe from this conflict. We want an enduring ceasefire because otherwise ships will not transit the Strait.

We want the Strait open basically. And so, can you solve for those things in a purely military way?

And for me, I think the answer is no, you cannot.

You have a very challenging geography and you have a completely asymmetrical military situation where a few cheat drones can put at risk some very expensive assets. And so, you need a broader diplomatic strategy

“that brings Iran back to the table and creates”

an enduring ceasefire if not some sort of peace plan. And to make a distinction that will bring down gas prices for Americans, right? - The distinction between fully opening the Strait and Iran's, or fully blockading and closing the Strait

and Iran's ability to jeopardize commercial traffic through the Strait. They don't need to physically block hate it. If that means that effectively, we can't overwhelm them militarily in that particular region.

And obviously that strategy has not yielded a commercial traffic all of a sudden. - Well, that's right because you have insurance companies that are gonna tell their clients, no, I don't want you anywhere near the Strait

unless we actually feel like you're gonna have the security that you need, you'll be able to grant it safely. The same thing is true of the Red Sea. And so, we have the most exquisite military in the world. We can accomplish any of the discrete things

that they can solve for it. They cannot solve for the bigger diplomatic challenge that we have here. And that's necessary to get the Strait fully real. - I absolutely agree, and I wanna ask,

doesn't seem to be happening with the current administration. I don't think our president is negotiating any kind of diplomatic solution that seems to be effective in any way, or that Iran is really responding to, leading up to even recently, just claiming

that talks were happening that didn't even happen. What would you do differently? How would you engage diplomatically with Iran at this juncture? - I mean, I would send my secretary of state.

It needs to be more than a photo-opopchiddy Vance. And it needs to be real negotiations. I mean, we did this with the JCPOA in a number of years ago.

who had frankly better standing and relationships

with Iran, our relationship with Iran has always been fraught. We need, you know, we're now in a position where we don't have the friends in the world that we have historically had.

We need friends. And that's, you know, we need these negotiations to be real and at the highest level. We've seen this on again, off again, we've got a deal, we don't have a deal over like dozens of times now.

That does not get us to a place where oil is transiting the straight. It doesn't get us to a real solution. We need legitimate diplomatic negotiations and we need to have, we need to have friends

in the world who can help us get to yes. - So Senator, do you think that the United States will actually be able to eventually reopen permanently the straight-of-ormous as kind of the status quo anti as we were back in January?

Or are we just kind of temporarily trying to kick the canned on the road to get to a level that is acceptable

“until maybe we can bypass by a pipeline or some other method?”

- I think we should certainly pursue avenues that reduce the reliance on the straight. But I do think that in the current situation, we need a fully functional straight-of-ormous that's open. And that means we're gonna have to negotiate some sort

of a deal with Iran and I would just point out everything that we want right now are things that we had six months ago, right? It's not like we're not went in the lottery here. We're trying to get back to what was the status quo six months ago

and that put Iran in a much more influential

and powerful position than they were before.

- Yes, we've mentioned many times on this show that it seems like the goal of this war is to solve a problem caused by the war, specifically closing the straight. And that the U.S. is gonna have to give something up

that we didn't before in order to negotiate back. And I'm curious if you have any more insight into how, you know, obviously you wouldn't have necessarily gone about this as the same way as Trump from the beginning. But if you were placed in this situation now

as Commander in Chief Or as a negotiator with Iran, what do you think that we're gonna have to concede in order to restore trust and enough diplomacy

“to prevent them from disrupting the straight again?”

- My impression from everything every red and seen from Iran is that they're gonna want some level of economic reintegration and probably reconstruction-based sanctions relief, which are things that they were not in a position to press for six months ago.

- Well, I wanna pivot to another topic 'cause we only have so much time and I believe Matt Mr. Global has a question regarding AI and the energy grid, if you wanna jump right in. - Thanks again for coming, Senator Heinrich.

You know, we keep hearing that we must win the AI race. Do we currently have like the generation and transmission capacity that's gonna be required to win this is in my opinion, greatly lacking at this time? So we have a much bigger mountain in front of us

to move than maybe like a China who has really focused a lot on their energy. What can we do in your opinion or what should we be doing to move towards winning the AI race while also protecting rate payers,

which is really the biggest issue in my mind? - So I don't think we're ever gonna beat China playing a numbers game, like there are, they have so many engineers, they have more engineers than we have whole classes of scientists.

“I think we have, what we have historically,”

the reason why we are still ahead of them in the AI race is that we have more creativity here. We have national laboratories that foster innovation. So I just don't think we can beat them on a strict numbers game.

However, we do need a much more robust grid to be able to build out what we do need to continue to compete and beat them in this space. And so I think we need permitting a reform to bring generation onto the grid faster

to build more transmission. I spent 17 years of my life facilitating one 550 mile high voltage DC transmission line. Now, for me, it was worth it

'cause it was a $20 billion impact to the region.

It was a lot of really good jobs. It was a lot of tax revenue. It was a lot of clean electrons on the grid,

Like there is no capital that is that patient.

“So we need to find all the ways that we can speed that up,”

permitting reform is critical to that,

but we also just need things like, we need the administration to get out of the way. I mean, they are sitting on every form of energy right now that we could be plugging into the grid, that are projects that are ready to go,

that are financed and right now are at risk. And that is raising costs for consumers. So, you know, the fastest speed to power right now is wind solar batteries. And this administration is fighting all of those.

They're also saying we're gonna do all of the eye, just based AI based on gas powered generators and turbines. Well, that raises the cost of natural gas for other uses. You know, when you're bringing on a huge new

used for natural gas for also the administration is approving every export license you can think of.

We have always had really relatively cheap natural gas

in the United States and we're linking up our natural gas economy to the world natural gas economy in a way that is only gonna raise prices. We have got to find some solutions that give some relief to the American consumer

or they are just going to revolt and rightfully so.

“So, I think if you're gonna bring these big AI data centers”

and other large loads too, you know, manufacturing loads, manufacturing is a good thing. I like manufacturing to be in the United States. But those customers should pay their own way on the grip. - It just curious about also the,

you're feeling about the environmental impacts of, how are we going to scale up our grid at a point where the climate crisis is already accelerating? And what is the responsible way of doing that

without leaving the American consumer to reliant

on oil or paying too much for energy while also trying to ensure that we at least stem the damage that's already being caused. I mean, we're seeing more natural disasters. I, you know, I think an hundred convinced you of that.

But I think the individual American citizen is becoming more concerned. - They should be my constituents, which is where I see it most directly, are now seeing climate-related impacts

that are in excess of things that anyone thought 15 years ago, 20 years ago, we would see in my lifetime. So, I have constituents who can't get fire insurance, for example. Who used to be able to do that as a matter of course, or whose home insurance has gotten up dramatically

because of the fires and the impacts that we are seeing. So, I think we have to recognize that we're trying to solve for an energy transition. And the way to do that is to manage that transition to the best that we can.

We have the ability to move a lot of things in our economy away from molecules. We saw China do that, by the way. They very effectively sort of solved for the current energy crisis that we are in.

They built up their reserves of oil, and they moved large parts of their economy over to electrons from molecules, from oil to electricity. We need to do all that simultaneously.

We need to walk into gum. And that means not solving things based on dogmas, but based on engineering. - Senator, do you see nuclear as a part of the scenario as a transitionary potential energy path for us

as we go down the renewable path? Is that somewhere we should look as a way not understanding fully that it takes a long time and can be very expensive to build these nuclear reactors, but is that something worth pursuing?

- Absolutely. I spent my undergraduate actually working at one of the largest research reactors in the country. I think we have to go into that. Why is white open?

You mentioned the main constraint that I see is the cost per kilowatt hour of new nuclear.

“And I think we're gonna have to get away from building”

the big complex light water reactors that were the norm when I was going to college. We're not building those fast enough to bring them down the cost curve. But I think there's a lot of opportunity

in small modular reactors, and there are several players who were pretty far down this road, and I think those could be a big part of the base load generation moving forward

for how you manage the grid. And I think how we manage the grid in the future is not gonna be the same as how we manage the grid 20 years ago. We're oftentimes solving for the most challenging hours

in the year. So you build a foundation on 24/7 firm power like nuclear, and like the advanced and enhanced geothermal

I'm very bullish on the future of geothermal.

“We're seeing real advancement across the West”

and leasing in places like New Mexico.

In places that would have never attracted

geothermal development in the past. That's your foundation. And then you build on top of that based on storage, based on both short and long-term storage, based on your renewable power,

which is your fastest in terms of speed to power, the easiest to plug in the fastest to permit, and the cheapest. And so you have to solve for the demand across the entire calendar year

by stacking those things up in a way that hopefully you can provide the cheapest power for an average consumer. - Senator, what do you think water and the preservation of its stacks up in this,

so for years when I worked for Big Oil,

we did a lot of work on reuse of water, recycling water,

“trying to find ways to, we weren't depleting”

fresh water aquifers, and then now with data centers, you know, a big data center uses significant amount of water, even a small one uses as much water as a coal plant. Are we not focused enough on water, or do you think we're headed in the right direction

in the conservation of that? Specifically with the corporations, are they doing enough to conserve water? - I don't think if you're a hyperscaler today, and you think you're gonna cite a data center,

and you're not gonna answer the communities, questions about how you're treating water in other natural resources. You're setting yourself up for failure. So the good news is there are solutions, they're not free,

but there are many ways to cool data centers today that are not just evaporative cooling. So there are immersion technologies, there's direct chip to chip cooling. There are ways to use water that is not part

of your freshwater aquifer. If someone wants to pull a brackish water out and clean that up, use that for evaporative cooling, that's a different solution. But everyone who thinks they're gonna build

one of these data centers, I guarantee it, the local community is going to demand answers for how you're gonna treat that resource and they should. - I just wanna follow up a quick question about nuclear versus geothermal

or how we're building out our energy grid. If I'm not mistaken, the last nuclear reactor built in the US finished years behind schedule and that nuclear reactors take years if not decades to build.

What's our best strategy for compensating for the already stressed grid? Like I was just curious if you could expand a little bit more on that because I'm also very bullish on geothermal. I think it's really interesting innovation being done there

and I think there's obviously we need to explore diverse forms of energy. But I think we gotta go back and forth into one of our discussions of nuclear because one thing that you didn't mention geothermal

doesn't generate waste the last 10,000 years. And so I think it's a pretty high burden of proof that nuclear, I understand that it's a very concentrated source of reliable power versus a very distributed source. But I feel, I think it's a pretty high bar to clear.

So I was hoping that you could speak a little bit more to the role of this area in the speed of our rollout.

“- First, I think you need to have a distinction”

between the last generation of functional nuclear, which are these big, complicated light-butter reactors. And the ones that were built in Georgia a few years ago,

the first unit is really expensive.

And then you figure out how to manage your labor to bring that down and we saw huge cost reductions. There were bad overruns at the beginning. But that labor force just scattered to the wind when those units were done.

So I don't think that's gonna be the future of nuclear at this point, I think what will be this future of nuclear are small modular reactors where you can really build incremental power like Legos, basically. But one next to another, next to another.

Now, when you look at the geothermal side of things, what we're talking about is advanced technologies that are ready to day in some form, that can really also dramatically increase the amount of clean firm power that you can put on the grid.

But when we're talking about relieving the cost of electricity today, the really fast stuff is wind solar about it. So we need to maximize that while continuing to pursue these other long-term firm solutions

And we can't do that if we're gonna argue about,

“dogma and some sources are good and some sources are bad.”

If we can't build stuff in this country, we're simply not gonna solve for any of these issues. - But to be clear, you are in support of reducing, if not eliminating our dependence on oil, yes. - Absolutely, but we're not gonna do that overnight.

- Of course. - Of course. - I'm not talking about that. - I'm not talking about that. - I'm not a keep it in the ground person because people have to fill up their gas tank tomorrow.

But long-term, MI4, taking the transportation sector and making more of it based on electrons instead of on molecules. - Absolutely. - MI4, that's what I was curious about.

- Because that does seem like the ultimate goal, yes, like to divest in for the sake of the environment and without pushing the cost on consumers. - For me, the ultimate goal is, we need to have an energy system that is not creating

a whole secondary set of challenges that are, you know, in some cases, existential. - Obviously, my world is in the military, foreign policy diplomacy arena. You sit on the intelligence committee at a time

when it seems like intelligence assessments in the Trump administration are often drawn into political debates rather than just on the merits of the assessment.

We've seen, in Trump's first term,

he undermined U.S. intelligence when he was standing next to Vladimir Putin at a press conference. He has also countered U.S. intelligence on China, North Korea. And now even as recently as Iran

with these utility cyber attacks that we've seen, where he said he doesn't think it was Iran. How concerned are you that the intelligence community, that intelligence in general in this country is increasingly being judged according to whether it supports

the president's preferred narrative rather than rather whether the analysis is actually accurate? - I am more concerned than I have ever been. I would say that in the first Trump administration that the intelligence community as a whole,

weathered that four years in a remarkably resilient way. We really saw the professionals continue to produce the kind of product. Sometimes the administration, what they did with that, was very concerning.

But now in the second term, I am seeing the reach of politicism pushed down in a way that we cannot afford as a country that will make us less safe. And so that concerns me a great deal.

When you see people like Pulti being put forward as DNI, I mean, that's unacceptable and we know that will make us less safe. It will only facilitate more politics in that arena. And so we've got a window here

where the intelligence community as a whole has to survive the next two and a few years in a few months of the Trump administration.

“And I think right now, the best possible thing”

that could happen would be some change in the majority of either the House or the Senate or both, just to be able to put the guardrails in place in budget bills and in policy bills and the Intelligence Authorization Act

to make sure that this really incredible

resilient intelligence community continued to do their job through what it's gonna be a relatively hostile two-plus years. - You know, Senator, I've joked that the easiest job in the world must be working in intelligence

for another country collecting intelligence on the president because he cannot stop talking. And through this, through his constant need to talk and communicate and basically try to shine as much good light on himself as possible.

I feel like he's greatly weakened our stance in the world and he's completely shot his credibility, which in my mind, you need as much credibility as you need bombs to win a war and when you've completely destroyed your credibility,

it doesn't matter how many bombs you have. Does the president not have anyone around him saying, "Dude, could you just shut up for five minutes "because historically we don't need presidents "or anyone at that level saying things

"that don't need to be said publicly "to antagonize our adversaries, to antagonize our allies "and just straight up lying. "Like, how do we solve for that problem

“"because I think it's very damaging to the United States?"”

- I always hopeful that that was gonna be Marco Rubio

and he is proven incapable. I truly worried that one of the differences

is that in Trump, one, there were adults still in the room. There were John Kelly's and Mad Dog Madness and other people who really kept us from going off the rails in a number of cases. I don't see anyone in this administration,

including his chief of staff who I had hoped for who can manage the president effectively and that is causing us a lot of problems. We also don't have friends right now. Like, historically, one of the reasons why we were so powerful

is because we were so good at leveraging our allies around the world. When you offend all of them and slap tariffs on your best friends and when you offend the Canadians, you're really narrowing, you're putting all of the burden on us

and that's just not a powerful place to be it. You can throw the word dominant around all you want but if you're on an island alone, you're not gonna be very dominant. Without credibility, you don't have deterrence

and deterrence was always what made us a superpower.

It's people wouldn't mess with us because of our capability. Now we don't have the deterrence. That's the credibility problem.

“Senator, do you believe there's two questions here?”

Do you believe the intelligence community can continue to remain impartial under this hostile environment and second of all, does Congress have any swaying this anymore? Do they have enough power to protect the independence of the intelligence community?

- I think what you're seeing in the moment is that the majority is unwilling to exercise that power. That's a problem. However, that power is there and if we had a different majority

or if we just had a number of independent Republicans who were willing to put limits on how far they'll let some of this abuse go, we can absolutely put guardrails in place. And so that is an issue that I intend to prosecute in the coming elections because we need a lot more guardrails

on this administration. But the power is there. Congress has to be willing to step up and use their power. - I'm curious, if you have just one other thought

on that, you mentioned these major differences between Trump, one, and Trump to these administrations. And we've also talked about this a lot on the show that he was, if there's anything you can say

about his first administration is that they were

not hawkish on military action. And I've asked many times what changed.

“And I think you're right, and we've talked about this a lot”

that just not seen like there are adults in the room. But I'm curious what you think is to how he's been able to maintain an environment of effectively, yes men. But also control in Congress in spite of declining, seemingly declining success and popularity,

but not only popularity, but it's really demonstrative losses in a way that he didn't have before. - The way that Trump maintains control over today's Republican party looks more like a cult than it does a political party.

So I think there's a real question about after he is gone, where does the Republican party go?

Because the reality is, the principles are not the same principles.

I mean, we have a, we have an administration that is literally taking ownership of the means of production. I don't think that's the phrase that we used to associate with capitalism. It was a phrase associated with a different form of government.

- Oh, it's not handing it to the workers, but yes, I understand. He is a unique person in history. And he, he also has the benefit of spending four years figuring out how to write this system.

I don't think any of this is gonna go down in history well.

“I think that we spend so much time talking about”

the negative outcomes, which are very real for American families and the price of gas and the price of diesel and the price of your kilowatt hour of electricity. I don't think we spend enough time talking about just

how efficiently and effectively corrupt this second Trump administration has been, how they've been willing and able to rig markets to have to use polymarket and these different platforms to enrich themselves.

None of these negotiations in the Middle East should ever involve Jared Kushner. I would say, and so those are things that are artifacts

or as even evident and Trump won. And so, you know, like, I will give him this. He has an emotional intelligence that has allowed him to manipulate the entire Republican party and to get what he wants.

The outcomes from that have not been to the benefit of the American people.

“And that's why you see these huge changes”

in how people view this administration and the president. - Thank you very much. I think that's a really cogent point. And I just want to say two things.

One is for, for the second spot,

'cause you are allowed to say the word communist so don't worry. And the second is that for more information on the ways in which Trump and the Kushners have been specifically manipulating oil markets to their personal benefit, listen to our extra special bonus

episode that comes out this Friday in which Chad will break that down with specific dates and numbers. - So Senator, it's actually kind of a two-part question. What you can tell us, what's the one thing

that keeps you up at night that you can tell us? And give us finish with a bit of good news or something positive that's come out of one of your committees or some of the work you're doing. We can finish on some good news.

- Well, the thing I worry about the most is that we are now in a politics

where people get to choose their own facts.

So, you know, if your house is burning down and you're in the living room, are you in about whether the house is on fire or not, you're not gonna solve for that very effectively. And we're gonna have to get back to some level

of fact-based politics if we're gonna get the best solutions for how we solve any of these issues. I also get to see America at its best. You know, all of these food fights in Washington, DC, I go home and see people working

at the National Laboratories. I get to see the kids who wanna what are attend the service academies. I see people solving real problems in their communities, all over the country and certainly in my home state

of New Mexico. And so, those people, I just don't think anybody should ever bet against the American people. They have exceeded expectations over and over and over again.

And that gives me great hope for the future of this country. Fantastic answer. Yeah, I appreciate it, Senator. I mean, especially as a graduate of New Mexico

Highlands out there in Las Vegas, right off, I appreciate you coming on the show for sure. So, thank you so much for joining us. Senator Martin Heinrich, is there anything else you'd like to say before leaving?

I really appreciate you coming on the show and taking time to hear us out and answer our questions. No, it's been a real pleasure for me. Well, this has been a pleasure for us as well.

And honor to have you on the show. I would love to speak to you again if you ever have the time to speak to us and go further into learning about our energy policy or talk more about our renewal build out

“because I think you have a lot of insight there”

that I'd love to hear more about. And thank you for all your work, protecting Chaco Canyon, too. So, thanks for that in there as well. I look forward to continuing the conversation.

And that was our discussion with Senator Martin Heinrich, most notably the first Senator ever to appear on the American Power Podcast in American history. In fact, first since the founding of our country to appear on the American Power Podcast,

what do you guys think of the interview mat? You and Heinrich are old buds since your Washington DC days, almost a month ago. And you're also both fellow setting the record straight about gas prices on a front facing camera video, shot in your car, buddies.

So I feel like you have the most in common with him, how did you feel about this discussion? - I thought it was great. And one of the things that I like the most about the Senator

is he's always thinking about how do we fix this problem.

He doesn't care about favoritism, the dogma. You guys brought up like he doesn't. No, he's always about practical, logical solutions to problems. He doesn't much care about the politics. It's how do we fix shit?

And that's my favorite thing about that guy.

“And that's why I think he's going places.”

Not that he hasn't already gone all the places. I think he's going more places. And I really respect the fact that he can set aside all of the stupidity of the politics and just focus on what needs to be done to help our country

and to help people. And he gets up every day and does that. And that's what I see.

He doesn't care about playing the politics all the time.

- Yeah, you liked him enough that you said,

“well, in the episode that's gonna go Friday, was it?”

I think you said that you think he's gonna be president. - Sorry. - He could set that on Mike? - I don't know if he was, he might have been off Mike, he might have been off Mike.

- Are you quoting Mr. Glow? Are you leaking a Mr. Glow? - No, what I'm saying is he could be the president. He is the type of person that the American people are starving for.

- Great. - Just how do we fix this? - Set aside over. - Yes. How do we just fix this problem?

And we haven't had that since, you know, it's some time. I'll just leave it at that. - Chad, how did you feel? - I mean, I just like that.

We have competent people that can speak to things in this world of gross incompetence when it comes to the administration. I mean, he transitioned well from the energy to the intelligence questions.

I mean, obviously, when you're on both committees, and he's the ranking member on the energy and resource committee. So he definitely is an expert there, but being able to speak to the intelligence problems,

I mean, that's a real problem. And we need people to be able to articulate the way ahead and take some of the pushback and that you discussed a bit on that, the difference between the geothermals

and the nuclear and pushback of it, and he was able to articulate that,

which is always good to have.

So I just like to see smart people. It's like when we had Julie Smith, the NATO ambassador, she was brilliant. Just having smart people on the podcast, it always makes me feel good about the future of this country.

And I think that it's just, it's not a unique feature.

“I think there's more of those type of people”

out there than we think. And because of that, I love having discussions with them. And I do really hope we can bring them on. I know we only had 30 minutes with them today, but man, I couldn't imagine an hour

where we can do a deeper dive to ask some of the harder questions on policy and on tactics, strategy and things like that. But it was a very good primer. And like he said, he promised to,

or he said he would definitely make time in the future if we can get him back on. - Well, I'd be great.

I agree. I'd love to have him back on.

And for our listeners, this being a briefer, or half of our episode talking to him, I think I wanted to touch on a lot of topics at once and sort of get a sense of his gauge on a lot of parts of our current situation.

But yeah, I would love to go as I mentioned, deeper energy policy, or just dive deeper into a topic for half an hour with him. Because it was a great conversation. Like he said, I appreciated him taking the push back.

I think he's not speaking my exact language. He's very diplomatic. I appreciate it. I appreciate him hearing me out. I think, I wanted to ask more. And we didn't have a lot of time precisely what he meant

between the difference between operating on dogma and not operating dogmaatically. Because he was talking about the cultness of Trump world. But I think some people think of clean energy enthusiasts as being dogmatic or the belief that anti-nuclear being a dogma.

So I'd love to get into the weeds as specifically how we deconstruct that. Because I agree, we're hungry for competence right now, and we have set the bar insanely low. But not just with the current Trump administration,

where it's literally upwardly failing, yes, man, who are not qualified for their positions, be it a minor reflecting pool contract or Supreme Court seat. But it's also, among Democrats, the Democratic Party

has just been giving us so many people for years who tell us that aggressive change, that anything radical is un pragmatic, that anything forward thinking or a solution that is not an incremental solution is just not realistic.

And they've kind of separated the idea of change at pragmatism, which is really anti-radiocal. It's really anti-progress. And I think it's refreshing to hear not just in the current administration, but from a Democrat,

like you said, it's like solutions focused. It's we're talking about what are new solutions. And I agree, we can't stop using oil tomorrow because our cars run on it. But that's not a reason to let that inertia

prevent us from finding solutions. So, I'm still not sold on building out small nuclear reactors. I'd love to research that more and talk about it more. But I did really appreciate about our conversation that he is.

It feels like learning, building, looking towards how we change in a pragmatic way, versus how do we preserve the industries that we have with minimal loss.

“And I think that's what's been the dogma in Democrats”

for a long time of like, whoa, we can't do that. It might injure capital, it might injure businesses, it might injure donors, even in the temporary to make the infrastructural changes that we need to move into the future.

And he didn't sound like that. And I think that's really refreshing.

I think is kind of exceptionally refreshing, given where he's from.

“'Cause New Mexico, you have to understand,”

they helped invent the nuclear age. They are at the forefront like Los Alamos and all of the isotopes that the Albuquerque Estos, but all of that, I've actually played at that stadium by the way, when I was in college, I played college baseball

and so I played at that stadium. Anyways, so the fact that he is willing to say that, yes, nuclear has a place and it's understandable. His constituency is a huge nuclear state.

I mean, they're on the forefront of the research for those small modular reactors, which is why I assume he spoke about it. But he's also a champion of the green energy. I think that's a big, a big win

to be able to hold those opinions and not just be so, so very much, as you say, dogmatic about where it's going, about do you have any thoughts on that? It'll, I just want to point out that he's the senator of New Mexico,

which is the second largest oil and gas producing state

in the country, only due to its size. If it wasn't for New Mexico's size, they would produce more. I mean, it sounds silly to say, but like on a per square mile basis, New Mexico actually produces more oil and gas than taxes.

Like New Mexico is an oil and gas powerhouse. The sweetest, most productive part of the Permian Basin is actually the southeast corner of New Mexico. And the fact that he is a senator in a state that is so reliant on fossil fuels

and is still so adamantly pushing renewable energy and his constituents love that, says a lot. It says that just because you happen to be blessed with a lot of natural resources in your country or in your state, doesn't mean you can't look for alternatives.

So the people are of New Mexico, New Mexico's almost like a totally different country than Texas. The people in New Mexico are, well, they're more Democrats. They're fine with the oil and gas production

as long as we're advancing other types of energies as well. And Texas has a lot of renewable energy, but it's not because of the people like it. The people in Texas don't like it one bit.

It's basically being forced upon them.

So I think that's admirable that he's able to do that in that state. I don't think he could do that in Texas, but he can do that in New Mexico. And I think it's great.

- Yeah, and as you said, he is to some degree protecting New Clear interests and that's a state industry. But he could just as easily be protecting oil interests and, you know, leading New Mexico to a sort of oil culture like Texas has and is taking that somewhat risky step.

And I mentioned this in his intro, when I editorialized a little bit, but he's been not only supporting renewable energy, but he's been running on it since he was running for City Council in Albuquerque.

“And he's won, I think he won reelection,”

the City Council president flipped a Republican seat in the House held a demsea for the Senate, but like every campaign has included a renewable energy platform. And I think that's really impressive. Again, like you said, in a massive oil producing state

that also has, you know, a lot to gain from that. - Well, it's also true that a lot of the oil and gas jobs in New Mexico are sort of transplants. People that come from other states to work there. And yeah, there's a lot of people in New Mexico

that work in the industry. But New Mexico is that one place where it's kind of not reflective. Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, lots of oil and gas, lots of hate for renewable that's just not the case in New Mexico. - So, yeah, and I will say that once,

I definitely want him back because it's one thing that's not oil and gas, it's not warfare. I do, but he's a senator, he's a senator on a border state. I wanna talk immigration with him,

'cause that's gonna be something

that is of critical import discussion going into the election.

And granted, he's not up for election for another four years,

“but still, I think he can offer some insight”

as a senator from a border state that seems to be better at dealing with the perceived problems of immigration versus the way the Trump administration does it, where it's just a hammer literally killing innocent people. So, I'd be interested to see how he sees that playing

as a border state, and not only a border state, but generally a left-leaning border state at that. So, definitely want him back. - Time for the final segment of our show, where we highlight, if not the best, the least worst story

or moment from our past week to end on a little bit of a positive note. And that's a segment that we like to call, the least worst part of my week. - Mine's not super cool or anything.

It's just a good policy.

and that is Europe is, even though it's taken almost five years,

“it's finally fully dismantling their energy reliance on Russia.”

A lot of people thought that when the war started and sanctions happened, there was this immediate cutoff and on paper there was, but there was a lot of work around, like the Europeans kept buying energy through India,

for instance, who was buying Russian oil and just reselling it to Europe. At this point, we're seeing that that is no longer the case, or at least it's severely reduced. And at the beginning of the war, Russia supplied approximately

40% of Europe's pipeline gas. By 2025, it was 6%, at the end of this year, it's expected to be less than 1%. And that type of policy, that's where you're putting your money where your mouth is, that actually does hurt Russia.

That will, 'cause Russia's sole abilities

to generate money is basically digging crap out of the ground.

They have no products, anyone else wants other than, if you can't afford American or French or British weapons, you go buy Russian weapons, or buying their stuff that they just pull out of the ground and refine. So because their biggest fires are now reducing,

they rely heavily on countries that are taking advantage of them. The Chinese are exploiting Russia. The Indians are exploiting Russia. And if this bill that I have a bit of heartburn about a passing this bill that is supposed to be

the sanctions bill against Russia, that is supposed to be devastating for Russia, it's Lindsey Graham's bill that he was trying to push forward. It does give the president, once again, sanctions power that I don't believe he should have,

but it's one of those things to I trade for hurting Russia to stop this war for that ability. I'm not sure, there is some problems with it, but nonetheless, it may not be necessary, hopefully it's not because we're seeing the major players

such as Europe finally, five years later,

completely or four years later at this point, really, but completely eliminate their reliance on Russian energy. So I want to give a thumbs up to the Europeans. For doing that, I know it was really difficult. I know there was a couple of winners

who were kind of rough for them as it took a while for U.S. production and Canadian production to give up on running to ship it over to Europe, but it seems to be doing well. And so that's a good new story in as much as it's going

to cause pain for Russian, hopefully eventually in this war. - Mr. Global? - Yep. - Any thoughts on that?

“Or would you like to tell me the least worst part of your week?”

- Are you hungry? - You know I am. - You are. - Oh no, you didn't know. - Sorry. - But I am.

- Oh you, a number of people around the world

that are going hungry has fallen for the third consecutive year.

Now, if you guys aren't aware of this, but we had a spike in global hunger due to COVID, pretty significant spike. And we have now turned that around. According to a UN report,

this week it found that 7.8% of the global population faced hunger in 2025 that was down from 8.1% in 24 and 8.6% in 2022. So global hunger is falling again. We have three years in a row. They're emboiling.

They call that a turkey. I don't know if you knew that net. But I do. - I do. We go home bowling in New York.

Thank you. - And it's totally unrelated story, which is also good news. Deforestation in Brazil has been almost cut in half. And I think that is also another great.

So two least worst parts of my week, less people are hungry and more trees are alive and breathing. Now, if we could just find a way to do that with people, that would be great. But those are my two least worst stories of the week.

More trees, more food, more billies full. That's the deal. That's amazing. - That's a good basket. - That's great news.

- And I do want to be clear that bowling is popular in most of the United States. - We got, I mean, in Boston they do something with little tiny pins. I don't know what they call that.

They think it's bowling. - It dies and comes back and dies and comes back. - That was one point. It was the number one participant sport in America, which makes sense because you can't smoke,

while doing most sports, but smoke drink being athlete. - Oh, I mean, for a while we had Ashtray's right in the ball return, you know, there was a, that eliminates a lot of sports right there. You can really only drink, well, softball.

“Now that I think about it, but you know,”

just think of participants sports. - Well, what's with this hunting? - The best jerseys, the bowling shirts. - Bowling jerseys are, yeah, they're a classic. - Best shoes.

- Yeah, winning. - And I know you didn't think that I would know what you were talking about, but I'm gonna blow your mind because I was on this stiveship hookers bowling team

The school did not let us call it that officially,

but we went for it anyway. I could see that. - I could see that. - Those hookers, that's just sitting there yelling, you're over the line.

- Yeah, yeah, you're talking to a guy who owns his own bowling shoes. So, you know, I wanna pay that rental fee. - We keep finding a way to go back to Big Lebowski references every episode. - It's like, it's a part of our culture, you know,

it's a, it's a lasting cultural artifact. We, you know, I say this all the time. We don't make much in this country anymore. Art's one of the only things we export. It's only the only things people still wanna buy from us.

You know, strategic oil reserve, notwithstanding. Lebowski might have been one of our top exports of the past 30 years. - He's a movie character that has his own star on the walk of fame. Like, does that happen?

- Honestly.

- The character has a walk of--

- Big Lebowski's gonna star. - The character has a star, not just, so he's like making me just level famous now. - The actual Big Lebowski character himself has his own star on the walk of fame too.

“- I think it's about time we redo Mount Rushmore.”

- Wouldn't you agree? - He had to be the character for the ceremony. - Yeah, let's do it. - We'll get the dude, I don't know, Garfield. - The dude.

- Not Andrew Garfield, you know, the cat. - I'm just gonna give, you know, really important American pieces of culture. Oh, work on it. I'll think about, I feel like George Washington

could become the dude with a few alterations. I think he got the beard already. - Is this one of the only movies where the white guy actually died? - Like Steve Bushimmy, you know,

normally they save that form of nerdy, but in the Big Lebowski they were like, "Hey, we're actually gonna have a white person dying this way." - Oh, right, we're having a little more interest. - The black character to kill them off to motivate

the white guy's journey. - Yeah, most people totally miss that. I didn't, I noticed it. - Good point, one of the best movies I saw recently, which I won't spoil, did also do that.

“Introduced black characters to kill them off”

to motivate the white character's journey. And I was like, "Ah damn, you did a good job, other than this." And of course, I can't tell you what movie it was because you would be learning about a character's death, unfortunately.

But you know what, I want to talk about movies, the police were part of my week was this episode, and yesterday's recording, I'm feeling really good about this podcast. I'm really excited for our audience to hear the special episode

we did on Friday, normally we're doing American Power Extras, but you're gonna get a full hour long discussion with a three of us this Friday. And we had a chance to do a less headlines-based episode that I think you're gonna really enjoy.

And today's interview was also such a pleasure to do. So that's really the highlight of my week. And I'm gonna use my least worst also selfishly and say, I'm gonna recommend a couple of things. I went this week to see the new Spider-Man film.

Disney does not mean me to advertise to them, but I want to say that I enjoy, I feel like an old man saying this, but I am sick of anti-heroes, I am sick of corporate takes on gray morality.

I don't need the people who own the world's water supply to also tell me that the world is a gray area. This movie's already outselling every other movie, and I think that it does show me that American people are to some extent

hungry for moral character. And this is a story, this is a moral tale. For all you Christians out there, this is the most people you're gonna get interested in the power of the Good Samaritan.

This is as close as you're gonna get to all of America and international audiences watching a movie based on the power of the Good Samaritan. And I think you should check it out, but because the American corporate infrastructure

does not need my advertising, even though, clearly, we New Yorker's love Spider-Man, I will also say, I'm gonna recommend another movie

“as films are one of our most important parts”

of cultural exchange and ways we understand other cultures. I'm gonna recommend, if you enjoy superhero films, if you enjoy genre films, if you enjoy just well-made movies, watch a girl walks home alone at night

by Ona Lily Omirpore. It is, it is, I believe she called it

the first Iranian vampire Western.

I would also add that it's sort of like a new age skateboard or superhero Iranian vampire Western in black and white. It's a short film, a not short film, it's a shorter feature film, and it's a vampire movie. Shot in Iran on a very low budget

and came out in 2014 and is one of my all-time favorite films, I watch it every year around Halloween. And so, as I am recommending a film from the American corporate hegemony, I would like to also recommend Iranian independent cinema.

So, check out a girl walks home alone at night 'cause rewatching that is also the least worst part of my week. And moralism in cinema is my least worst part of my week. (laughs) That's good.

I'm not religious, can you believe it? Anyway, that's the least worst part of my week. Go watch Spider-Man, I'm not gonna tell you that, but watch a girl walks home alone at night. This has been a very excellent episode of American Power

if I do say so myself. So happy to have our talk with Senator Martin Heinrich,

And for our listeners, check out our extra special episode,

“this Friday and Chad's run down of all the ways”

in which the Trump administration in Trump's

cronies have been profiting off of this faulty war in Iran.

For now, this has been American Power

from Findout Media for Chad Scott and Matt Randolph.

“I'm Matt Tousin, and remember, with great power,”

there must also come great responsibility, but with great American power,

“there must also come great American responsibility.”

Wow, we're gonna get sued.