NCSL Podcasts

Data centers, the increasing use of AI and reindustrialization in some parts of the country are driving a big increase in energy demand that concerns officials at all levels of government. State legislators in particular, are concerned about the ability of their state utilities to meet that growing demand and the effect on the price residential and business customers pay for energy.

We sat down with two experts on data centers to find out what’s coming in the next several years. Our guests are David Porter, vice president of electrification and sustainable energy strategy at the Electric Power Research Institute or EPRI, and Mukul Anand, global director at Johnson Controls dealing with data center cooling and energy management.

Porter explained the range of energy demand scenarios and the very significant demand that will be put on both the generation and transmission of power in the next several years. Anand discussed the work he does to help data centers explore alternative energy sources and find innovative ways to dissipate the extraordinary amount of heat generated by the racks of servers in the centers. He also expects a tremendous increase in power demand and suggests more planning may be needed to be ready. 

Resources

• Powering Intelligence: Analyzing Artificial Intelligence and Data Center Energy Consumption, EPRI

This is the third of a three-episode series exploring the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic in legislatures and how it affected state legislative staff. 

We sat down with Jill Reinmuth, staff director for the Office of Program Research in the Washington House; Eric Nauman, principal fiscal analyst for the Minnesota Senate; and Sabrina Lewellen, assistant Secretary of the Arkansas Senate and the current NCSL staff chair. 

The three legislative staff leaders discussed how procedures changed in the aftermath of the pandemic, what they learned personally about leadership and how their staff performed under the extraordinary challenges of the health emergency. 

Resources

• Lessons Learned: Legislative Staff and the Pandemic, NCSL's OAS podcast
• Dr. Melissa Furman on the Pandemic and the Workplace, NCSL's OAS podcast

Housing historically has been a local issue that was handled by cities and counties. The rising crisis of housing cost and availability, however, has brought more attention from state governments. States have enacted more than 700 laws in 2022 and 2023 related to housing.

The focus of this podcast is the nexus of housing and transportation, and particularly transit-oriented development. We sat down with Cameron Rifkin, a policy expert at NCSL who tracks housing legislation, and Doug Shinkle, who heads NCSL’s transportation program, to discuss housing, transportation and the efforts by state legislators to take on challenges in both those areas. 

They discussed the types of legislation passed, how some states have passed legislation directly addressing transit-oriented development and why parking requirements for housing developments are sparking conflict.

Resources

• Characteristics of Middle Housing, Missing Middle Housing
• Economic Mobility Enacted Legislation Database, NCSL
• Expanding Affordable Housing Opportunities: Zoning and Land Use Case Studies, Bipartisan Policy Center
• Housing and Homelessness Legislation Database, NCSL
• “Housing and Homelessness Toolkit,” NCSL
• “Increasing the Housing Supply by Reducing Costs and Barriers,” NCSL
• “Middle Housing: Filling a Gap in Available Housing Options,” NCSL
• A Series of Policy Briefs on Zoning, Land Use, and a Solution to the Nation’s Housing Shortage, American Enterprise Institute
• Transit-Oriented Development, Federal Transit Administration

Enrollment in higher education has been on the decline for a decade, and research indicates a growing skepticism about the value of higher education. In response, many state legislatures have enacted laws aimed at creating greater accountability in higher education.

To explore the issue, we sat down with Brian Bridges, the secretary of higher education in New Jersey, to discuss legislation passed in that state. A 2021 bill established new requirements for academic programs including sufficient academic quality, evidence of labor market demand, lack of duplication, and requirements for additional state resources. Another bill in 2022 created performance quality standards for career-oriented programs and required the higher education secretary to develop minimum standards for state programs. 

Also on the program is Andrew Smalley, a higher education policy expert at NCSL, who discussed the trend in state legislation and what the statistics tell us about the value of higher education.

Resources

• Postsecondary Bill Tracking Database, NCSL
• “Nondegree Credential Framework,” NCSL

Melissa Furman is a trainer, coach, and consultant to professionals and businesses who's worked with legislative staff. Furman was a college professor and Dean before founding her firm Career potential. Her expertise includes generational diversity, emotional intelligence and leadership.

She's the guest on the podcast, the second in a series focused on legislative staff, the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and how it changed the workplace. She addressed the persistent problem of burnout in the workplace, how leadership was critical to success during the pandemic, and some lessons to take away from the emergency. 

Resources

• Career Potential

The Americans With Disabilities Act was signed into law in 1990, but who and what it covers has evolved over the decades. Behavioral health issues, long COVID or other conditions that substantially limit one or more major life activities can fall under the ADA. 

Joining the podcast are Eve Hill, one of the nation’s top disability rights lawyers and the policy and legislative counsel for the U.S. Department of Labor’s State Exchange on Employment & Disability or SEED, and Nevada Assemblywoman Tracy Brown-May, who has worked on numerous initiatives to aid those with disabilities. Both joined the podcast to discuss the current state of the ADA.

Hill explained how interpretation of the law has changed since the early ’90s when she started her law career, how it has been further altered by legislation and the substantial role state legislators can take in their states around the issue. Note that’s Hill’s personal observations do not represent those of the U.S. Department of Labor.

Brown-May explained how her background working with people with disabilities has informed her legislative efforts and her experience with fellow lawmakers who come to her for advice on how to address a disability-related issue in legislation.

Resources

• Assemblywoman Tract Brown-May, Nevada Legislature
• Eve Hill, Brown, Goldstein and Levy
• State Exchange on Employment & Disability, U.S. Department of Labor

This podcast kicks off Legislative Staff Week, an annual NCSL effort to focus on legislative staff. This episode is part of three-podcast services focused on legislative staff that will roll out over the next couple of months.

Our guests include Sabrina Lewellen, assistant secretary of the Arkansas Senate and the current NCSL staff chair; Anne Sappenfield, director of the Wisconsin Legislative Council; and Jay Hartz, director of the Kentucky Legislative Research Commission. All three joined to talk about the long-term effects of the pandemic and how their institutions coped with the emergency.

They talked about how their institutions were affected, some of the innovations staff devised to cope with the emergency and some of the lasting changes resulting from the pandemic. There was even discussion of how a stack of table, a laptop and a camera helped ensure transparent government.

RESOURCES

• Legislative Staff homepage, NCSL

College enrollment among young people has been in a steady decline, according to research from Pew. Some indicators show young people increasingly turning toward apprenticeships and other work-based learning and credential programs that help them get a good job.

Indiana and Maryland have been leaders in the field and on this podcast, we sat down with two legislators intimately involved in the issue--Rep. Bob Behning (R-Ind.) and Sen. Malcolm Augustine (D-Md.)

Behning said participation in an NCSL study group helped inform legislation he has pursued to ensure more options for youth employment and to destigmatize technical education. Augustine explained the approach Maryland has taken to youth employment and the role of the Maryland Apprenticeship 2030 Commission in shaping future efforts.

Resources

• Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, Maryland Public Schools
• Nondegree Credential State Policy Framework, NCSL
• Office of Work-Based Learning and Apprenticeship, State of Indiana
• Strategies for Youth Employment, NCSL

It's budget season and in the 46 states that start the new fiscal year on July 1, people are hard at work getting their budgets ready. Those state operating budgets amount to more than a trillion dollars a year. 

But what exactly does getting the budget ready entail? To discuss that, we sat down with Krista Lee Carsner, the executive director of the Fiscal Review Committee for the Tennessee General Assembly and the president of the National Association of Legislative Fiscal Offices. 

She explained the importance of accurate revenue forecasts, how the budget hearing process works on both the executive and legislative sides of state government and how individual legislators can get a say in the budget process. 

Our second guest on this podcast was Erica MacKellar, a fiscal policy expert with NCSL. She broke down the fiscal condition of the states, how they're coping in the post pandemic period and how revenue projections are very much on the mind of those crafting state budgets. 

Resources

• FY 2025 State Budget Status, NCSL
• VIDEO: State Budgets and Taxes, NCSL