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Right now, though, in fact, we might be taking a
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look forward to another big event on the calendar in
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just a little bit. But first we're going to take
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a look back. Patrick Robinson with labies on with us.
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How are you man, I'm good, Brian, how are you fantastic?
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So well, talk workers comp in a little bit, but
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we got to rewind the clock actually before we get
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into Wednesday. Did I see you on Thursday walk through
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the room at LDI.
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Yeah, you and I were crossing path on one end
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of the state to the other.
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It was all over the map last week, and I
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was like, after.
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The show was over with, I'm like, I'm pretty sure
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Patrick walked through the room at some point, and I'm
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pretty sure I waved and said hello, but like the
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Thursday was a blur.
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He did, but you looked very intense, and I didn't
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want to distract it.
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If I'm looking intense, it means the caffeine is kicked in.
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So all right, let's rewind the clock back to Wednesday. Uh,
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the LABI Policy Forum at Legislator walk us through it?
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Yeah, and I think, well you talk will about this
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a little bit heading into it. Last week. This was
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just yeah, you know, the context wise Legislator's been going
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on for many years, a great event, a great opportunity
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to talk with with representatives and policy makers. And of
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course this year between Will Green with Lobby and then
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Adam Napp with Leaders for Better Louisiana and Scott Walker
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with the Economic Development Alliance, they got together and decided
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to really expand this event and make it, I mean,
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just a showpiece of policy makers, and I think it
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turned out to be that. And the way it started
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was we kicked off Wednesday was a really solid, uh
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and exciting policy form that we've been working on for
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several months to put together. Fortunately, we had three sessions
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and broke them down to insurance re armed, the key
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issues that you've talked about that we've talked about insurance reform,
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workforce development, and energy, which was my area and had
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panels on each of the.
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Okay, let's talk about it first. I want to hear
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about energy first. This was your wheelhouse, this was your baby,
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so let's dive into it because you know it's you got.
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When you look at those who were on the panel
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for your breakout h you had Secretary Dustin Davidson from
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the Department of Conservation Energy. You had Representative Brett Gyman,
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Jean Paul Cusson from the Public Service Commission, you had
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David cress On from LCA, and Larry hand, the vice
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president of Regulatory and Public Affairs over at Energy. So
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tell me all about the breakout, tell me all about
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the session we did.
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And I'm gonna tell you. I'm been in the Energy
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and Environmental Call of the Issues Council director role for
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about a year now, and you can't be a Louisiana
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guy without wanting to jump into this energy discussions as
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big as it's been the last several years. So I've
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had a fantastic time just as meeting these folks learning
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about these issues. Putting this pannel together was a tremendous
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opportunity for me. You mentioned all the panelists, and they
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are the guys that have been leading this discussion for
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the last several years and will continue to lead it,
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you know, as we move forward in the next session
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and beyond that. You know, if you've grown up in Louisiana,
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you know how important energy is. If you're not really
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close to us, you don't understand we're talking about a
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quarter of our economy. Billions in payroll and revenues tens
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of thousands of jobs. So that issue. We are in
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an energy state, and as goes energy, so it goes Louisiana.
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You know, Reb Gamon, as the chair of the House
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Environment and National Resources Committee, has has really been engaged
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in a number of issues, in particular the carbon capture
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issue and his last session with his HB eight O four,
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which you know, is designed to to protect Louisiana from
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from future litigation arising out of greenhou you know, the
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sort of greenhouse gas lawsuits that are floating around the
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country in other states. And with this panel we started
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out with Chairman Gaymon had an opportunity to talk about
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that bill and why it was important to ensure that
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business is coming to this state have some predictability about
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what their exposure is going to be. They're not setting
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up in Louisiana only to find out that they're going
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to be sued for some nebulous greenhouse gas suit down
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the road. So to hear from from the author of
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the bill on that was a fantastic opportunity and to
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get input from the other panelists on how it's impacting
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their businesses as well was great. But I'm going to
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tell you, Brian, what was really interesting to me about Rep.
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Gamond's discussion was this is not a bill that just
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all of a sudden came up. This last session. You
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followed this, This evolution of the energy discussion over the
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last three years when he's been chairman has really changed
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and progressed, and last session was better than one before that,
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and that was better than one before that. Head into
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twenty twenty seven, you know, it's going to be exciting
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to see what comes up in this last session of
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the term on that energy front.
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Stick with HBAO four for just a quick second, because
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the amount of work that went into that bill, in
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particular to make sure that, yeah, if you're moving into Louisiana,
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you're going to be protected, but at the same time
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you still have to maintain a standard as a good
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steward as well. Rep Gamon went to great links to
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walk both lanes.
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He did, and he did, and I told jam that
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was a master class in terms of leadership and how
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he scheduled those meetings and the discussion, because it is
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important that if you don't just have people in here,
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we have to balance the interests of citizens in our
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environment with the needs of industry and the opportunity presented
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by economic growth. And what that bill does was to
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industry violates permits, existing statues. They are still on the hook,
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they're responsible for complying with those provisions. But what it
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does is keep some future lawsuit it's based on, you know,
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questionable science from being fired and then being used to
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leverage these huge, multi hundreds of millions of dollar.
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Settlements, right right exactly. And I think we ended up
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with the best of both worlds.
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Absolutely.
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I don't want to spend the whole time on Representative Gayman.
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Let's talk about a few of the other panelists and
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what they had to offer.
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Well, I'm gonna say we got Larry hand from Energy
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and Energy sponsored Business Forum, and so we were really
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pleased to have Larry as part of this panel. And
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now I'm going to tell you I stole a little
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bit from you. You had a fantastic segment with Laura
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Beacham about a week before the storm, and I cut that,
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I took the link and I sent it to Larry
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and I said, look, we've got to be able to
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cover this because so much of the opposition to so
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many of these opportunities. Well, yeah, they say that jobs
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are coming and they say they're going to do this,
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but none of that ever materializes. What Laura said and
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what you and what Larry confirmed in this in this
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panel was no, those those jobs, those revenues, those are
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coming to fruition and you are seeing, you know, the
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fifty thousand dollars teacher bonuses in Risk and Paris, you know,
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to be construction jobs are being they're being provided. I
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think Laura mentioned that something like ninety percent plus plus
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of the work they're doing up in northeast Louisiana is
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with Louisiana contractors. So all of those things are jobs
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that are coming to Louisiana, opportunity coming to Louisiana. And
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to be able to underline that story and say it's
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happening now. It's not something that's being promised in the future.
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It is a current benefit, I think was important.
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Same absolutely, and the recognition that what's going on in
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Richland Parish as a result of sales tax dollars and
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not just META cutting a check to teachers.
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The fact that it's sales tax dollars.
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Generated that revenue means that META is actually living up
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to its promises.
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Absolutely, and one of the things that the panel brought
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up was a discussion of lessons that we've learned from
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watching other states. One of the concerns is that, you know,
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the expansions to the power grid are going to be
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put on private consumers. What Secretary Davidson talked about, what
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all the panels talked about, was no, we have seen
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what's happened in other states, and we are going off
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of those lessons and we are putting in protection to
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ensure that META is the one that's going to pay
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for the power grid expansion, that this is not going
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to be a cost that is passed down to consumers.
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Walk me through a little bit of what David Cresson
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had to offer, because I know when it comes to
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the LCAs, he's been such a great ambassador already and
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he's just getting warmed up.
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Absolutely, and David covered one of the issues that has
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to be addressed in this discussion. A lot of misinformation
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and myths and anecdotes that come up they really have
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no no background. I'll tell you that my favorite story
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about David is we sat down at the committee table
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at some point and a young man was it was
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David and me and a young man who sat down
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who just put in his card, and we assume that
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he was on the same side of as we were.
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But he immediately his position was not that it was
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not local options, I believe, and it wasn't that local
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options were bad. It was that local politicians weren't even
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better than stay politicians, and he didn't like any of them.
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And he started into a discussion of the cancer. Ally,
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you know the story that that the companies a lot
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of this and David h and LCA have done a
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fantastic job of collecting the actual data and the facts
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on this, and so David was able to go into
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a discussion of these jobs provide fantastic benefits, including health
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insurance that allows sit as is living in the river
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paris Is in particular, but wherever these projects are going
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on to have better health insurance, to get better health care,
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and to have better health outcomes than the average population.
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And David does a fantastic job of presenting that story,
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and it's a great.
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Story, which it's not just pulled out of thin air.
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He's using numbers from LSU Health right, and the LSU
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Health has been all over it because because of.
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The myth in the first place.
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It's just it's amazing how many people hop on and
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just repeat what they hear without any kind of verification.
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And look, I'm a Reagan Republican, trust, but verify right yep.
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Yeah, at the end of the day, walk us through.
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When we got to the end of the and we did,
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we didn't have time to break down on the other
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two sessions.
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Here's the key thing that came out of this for me,
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where it came from from Sextuary Davidson, because I asked
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him a question, you know, what do we do we're
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making all these changes, what do we do to ensure
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that they go beyond you know, Dustin Davidson, beyond Jeff
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Landry and that they are things that persist in Louisiana.
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And I put it in terms of five six years.
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He pointed out, we're not talking five to six years.
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We're talking forty fifty years that we are building this
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stay for our grandchildren's grandchildren. Right, That's what all this
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work is for, to create opportunity for that generation in
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him thirty forty fifty years, so that they have a
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Louisiana that is going to lead the pack.
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Yeah, absolutely, and each one can hold the other ones
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accountable here. That's why, you know, you got someone from
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the PSC and from the Department of Conservation and Energy.
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That's I mean, it's you've.
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Got those who are in the game, those who watch
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the game for you know, an instant replay, and those
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who are moving the game forward. It was all together
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very very productive.
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Yep, it was, and I would be remissive I didn't
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point out that on either side of those were fantastic
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panels by Mary Beth Dereks and Shelby Dunbar, who are
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my colleague and much more skilled at asking and answering
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the questions that I am. But the Holy Event was
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I think, far beyond what we hope for and a
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great way to start off Legucator.
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All Right, we got about a minute left.
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Let's give the quick tee off of the quick preview
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of what's coming on Workers Comp. Yep.
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You know, we moved from one event to the next
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at Lobby and we've got next week kicks off our
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I think it's our forty third Workstomp conference. That's going
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to be at Little Bears and Baton Rouge, and we
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have a great lineup which includes Mornings with Brian Haldane
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on Thursday morning, which is the second day of our conference,
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but we have speakers coming in from across the country,
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experts in Louisiana, Secondary Shallon. We'll be there to give
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an update on the agency. So we're really excited about
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it and looking forward to getting all of the workhof
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professionals in Louisiana together to share information, compare stories, look
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at what the issues are, and see where we go
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from here.
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He is Pat Robinson from l a BI.
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It'll be my third time out there, and I could
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just say this independently, small business owners, listen up. You're
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going to want to know everything that goes on at
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that conference. In the meanwhile, Patrick, always appreciate the time man.
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I talk to you soon.
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Thanks Brian, Taking care you too,
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Right now, though, in fact, we might be taking a
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look forward to another big event on the calendar in
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just a little bit. But first we're going to take
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a look back. Patrick Robinson with labies on with us.
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How are you man, I'm good, Brian, how are you fantastic?
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So well, talk workers comp in a little bit, but
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we got to rewind the clock actually before we get
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into Wednesday. Did I see you on Thursday walk through
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the room at LDI.
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Yeah, you and I were crossing path on one end
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of the state to the other.
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It was all over the map last week, and I
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was like, after.
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The show was over with, I'm like, I'm pretty sure
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Patrick walked through the room at some point, and I'm
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pretty sure I waved and said hello, but like the
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Thursday was a blur.
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He did, but you looked very intense, and I didn't
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want to distract it.
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If I'm looking intense, it means the caffeine is kicked in.
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So all right, let's rewind the clock back to Wednesday. Uh,
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the LABI Policy Forum at Legislator walk us through it?
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Yeah, and I think, well you talk will about this
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a little bit heading into it. Last week. This was
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just yeah, you know, the context wise Legislator's been going
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on for many years, a great event, a great opportunity
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to talk with with representatives and policy makers. And of
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course this year between Will Green with Lobby and then
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Adam Napp with Leaders for Better Louisiana and Scott Walker
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with the Economic Development Alliance, they got together and decided
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to really expand this event and make it, I mean,
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just a showpiece of policy makers, and I think it
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turned out to be that. And the way it started
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was we kicked off Wednesday was a really solid, uh
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and exciting policy form that we've been working on for
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several months to put together. Fortunately, we had three sessions
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and broke them down to insurance re armed, the key
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issues that you've talked about that we've talked about insurance reform,
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workforce development, and energy, which was my area and had
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panels on each of the.
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Okay, let's talk about it first. I want to hear
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about energy first. This was your wheelhouse, this was your baby,
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so let's dive into it because you know it's you got.
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When you look at those who were on the panel
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for your breakout h you had Secretary Dustin Davidson from
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the Department of Conservation Energy. You had Representative Brett Gyman,
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Jean Paul Cusson from the Public Service Commission, you had
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David cress On from LCA, and Larry hand, the vice
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president of Regulatory and Public Affairs over at Energy. So
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tell me all about the breakout, tell me all about
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the session we did.
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And I'm gonna tell you. I'm been in the Energy
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and Environmental Call of the Issues Council director role for
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about a year now, and you can't be a Louisiana
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guy without wanting to jump into this energy discussions as
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big as it's been the last several years. So I've
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had a fantastic time just as meeting these folks learning
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about these issues. Putting this pannel together was a tremendous
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opportunity for me. You mentioned all the panelists, and they
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are the guys that have been leading this discussion for
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the last several years and will continue to lead it,
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you know, as we move forward in the next session
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and beyond that. You know, if you've grown up in Louisiana,
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you know how important energy is. If you're not really
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close to us, you don't understand we're talking about a
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quarter of our economy. Billions in payroll and revenues tens
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of thousands of jobs. So that issue. We are in
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an energy state, and as goes energy, so it goes Louisiana.
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You know, Reb Gamon, as the chair of the House
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Environment and National Resources Committee, has has really been engaged
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in a number of issues, in particular the carbon capture
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issue and his last session with his HB eight O four,
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which you know, is designed to to protect Louisiana from
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from future litigation arising out of greenhou you know, the
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sort of greenhouse gas lawsuits that are floating around the
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country in other states. And with this panel we started
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out with Chairman Gaymon had an opportunity to talk about
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that bill and why it was important to ensure that
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business is coming to this state have some predictability about
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what their exposure is going to be. They're not setting
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up in Louisiana only to find out that they're going
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to be sued for some nebulous greenhouse gas suit down
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the road. So to hear from from the author of
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the bill on that was a fantastic opportunity and to
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get input from the other panelists on how it's impacting
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their businesses as well was great. But I'm going to
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tell you, Brian, what was really interesting to me about Rep.
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Gamond's discussion was this is not a bill that just
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all of a sudden came up. This last session. You
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followed this, This evolution of the energy discussion over the
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last three years when he's been chairman has really changed
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and progressed, and last session was better than one before that,
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and that was better than one before that. Head into
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twenty twenty seven, you know, it's going to be exciting
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to see what comes up in this last session of
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the term on that energy front.
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Stick with HBAO four for just a quick second, because
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the amount of work that went into that bill, in
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particular to make sure that, yeah, if you're moving into Louisiana,
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you're going to be protected, but at the same time
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you still have to maintain a standard as a good
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steward as well. Rep Gamon went to great links to
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walk both lanes.
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He did, and he did, and I told jam that
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was a master class in terms of leadership and how
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he scheduled those meetings and the discussion, because it is
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important that if you don't just have people in here,
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we have to balance the interests of citizens in our
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environment with the needs of industry and the opportunity presented
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by economic growth. And what that bill does was to
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industry violates permits, existing statues. They are still on the hook,
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they're responsible for complying with those provisions. But what it
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does is keep some future lawsuit it's based on, you know,
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questionable science from being fired and then being used to
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leverage these huge, multi hundreds of millions of dollar.
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Settlements, right right exactly. And I think we ended up
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with the best of both worlds.
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Absolutely.
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I don't want to spend the whole time on Representative Gayman.
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Let's talk about a few of the other panelists and
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what they had to offer.
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Well, I'm gonna say we got Larry hand from Energy
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and Energy sponsored Business Forum, and so we were really
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pleased to have Larry as part of this panel. And
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now I'm going to tell you I stole a little
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bit from you. You had a fantastic segment with Laura
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Beacham about a week before the storm, and I cut that,
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I took the link and I sent it to Larry
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and I said, look, we've got to be able to
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cover this because so much of the opposition to so
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many of these opportunities. Well, yeah, they say that jobs
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are coming and they say they're going to do this,
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but none of that ever materializes. What Laura said and
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what you and what Larry confirmed in this in this
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panel was no, those those jobs, those revenues, those are
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coming to fruition and you are seeing, you know, the
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fifty thousand dollars teacher bonuses in Risk and Paris, you know,
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to be construction jobs are being they're being provided. I
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think Laura mentioned that something like ninety percent plus plus
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of the work they're doing up in northeast Louisiana is
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with Louisiana contractors. So all of those things are jobs
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that are coming to Louisiana, opportunity coming to Louisiana. And
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to be able to underline that story and say it's
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happening now. It's not something that's being promised in the future.
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It is a current benefit, I think was important.
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Same absolutely, and the recognition that what's going on in
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Richland Parish as a result of sales tax dollars and
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not just META cutting a check to teachers.
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The fact that it's sales tax dollars.
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Generated that revenue means that META is actually living up
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to its promises.
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Absolutely, and one of the things that the panel brought
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up was a discussion of lessons that we've learned from
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watching other states. One of the concerns is that, you know,
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the expansions to the power grid are going to be
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put on private consumers. What Secretary Davidson talked about, what
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all the panels talked about, was no, we have seen
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what's happened in other states, and we are going off
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of those lessons and we are putting in protection to
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ensure that META is the one that's going to pay
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for the power grid expansion, that this is not going
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to be a cost that is passed down to consumers.
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Walk me through a little bit of what David Cresson
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had to offer, because I know when it comes to
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the LCAs, he's been such a great ambassador already and
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he's just getting warmed up.
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Absolutely, and David covered one of the issues that has
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to be addressed in this discussion. A lot of misinformation
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and myths and anecdotes that come up they really have
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no no background. I'll tell you that my favorite story
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about David is we sat down at the committee table
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at some point and a young man was it was
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David and me and a young man who sat down
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who just put in his card, and we assume that
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he was on the same side of as we were.
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But he immediately his position was not that it was
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not local options, I believe, and it wasn't that local
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options were bad. It was that local politicians weren't even
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better than stay politicians, and he didn't like any of them.
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And he started into a discussion of the cancer. Ally,
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you know the story that that the companies a lot
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of this and David h and LCA have done a
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fantastic job of collecting the actual data and the facts
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on this, and so David was able to go into
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a discussion of these jobs provide fantastic benefits, including health
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insurance that allows sit as is living in the river
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paris Is in particular, but wherever these projects are going
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on to have better health insurance, to get better health care,
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and to have better health outcomes than the average population.
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And David does a fantastic job of presenting that story,
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and it's a great.
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Story, which it's not just pulled out of thin air.
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He's using numbers from LSU Health right, and the LSU
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Health has been all over it because because of.
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The myth in the first place.
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It's just it's amazing how many people hop on and
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just repeat what they hear without any kind of verification.
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And look, I'm a Reagan Republican, trust, but verify right yep.
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Yeah, at the end of the day, walk us through.
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When we got to the end of the and we did,
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we didn't have time to break down on the other
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two sessions.
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Here's the key thing that came out of this for me,
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where it came from from Sextuary Davidson, because I asked
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him a question, you know, what do we do we're
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making all these changes, what do we do to ensure
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that they go beyond you know, Dustin Davidson, beyond Jeff
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Landry and that they are things that persist in Louisiana.
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And I put it in terms of five six years.
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He pointed out, we're not talking five to six years.
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We're talking forty fifty years that we are building this
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stay for our grandchildren's grandchildren. Right, That's what all this
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work is for, to create opportunity for that generation in
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him thirty forty fifty years, so that they have a
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Louisiana that is going to lead the pack.
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Yeah, absolutely, and each one can hold the other ones
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accountable here. That's why, you know, you got someone from
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the PSC and from the Department of Conservation and Energy.
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That's I mean, it's you've.
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Got those who are in the game, those who watch
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the game for you know, an instant replay, and those
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who are moving the game forward. It was all together
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very very productive.
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Yep, it was, and I would be remissive I didn't
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point out that on either side of those were fantastic
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panels by Mary Beth Dereks and Shelby Dunbar, who are
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my colleague and much more skilled at asking and answering
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the questions that I am. But the Holy Event was
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I think, far beyond what we hope for and a
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great way to start off Legucator.
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All Right, we got about a minute left.
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Let's give the quick tee off of the quick preview
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of what's coming on Workers Comp. Yep.
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You know, we moved from one event to the next
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at Lobby and we've got next week kicks off our
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I think it's our forty third Workstomp conference. That's going
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to be at Little Bears and Baton Rouge, and we
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have a great lineup which includes Mornings with Brian Haldane
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on Thursday morning, which is the second day of our conference,
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but we have speakers coming in from across the country,
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experts in Louisiana, Secondary Shallon. We'll be there to give
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an update on the agency. So we're really excited about
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it and looking forward to getting all of the workhof
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professionals in Louisiana together to share information, compare stories, look
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at what the issues are, and see where we go
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from here.
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He is Pat Robinson from l a BI.
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It'll be my third time out there, and I could
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just say this independently, small business owners, listen up. You're
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going to want to know everything that goes on at
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that conference. In the meanwhile, Patrick, always appreciate the time man.
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I talk to you soon.
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Thanks Brian, Taking care you too,
