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Politics For Happy People
NC Ranked 8th worst at Protecting Religious Freedom. Why?
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North Carolina ranked 42nd in the nation for protecting religious freedom—but why? Joseph and Ashley unpack a surprising new report, explain the legal protections the state is missing, and discuss what lawmakers could do to better safeguard religious liberty.
Plus, they debate whether America should finally eliminate daylight saving time and examine reports that the Department of Energy approved $96 billion in energy loans during the 76 days between Election Day and Inauguration Day, raising questions about government oversight and taxpayer dollars.
Welcome to Politics for Happy People, where we have fun conversations about serious issues. I'm Joseph Backholm, as always, joined by Ashley Vaughn. And today on the program, the big story of the day is North Carolina came in 42nd out of 50 in religious freedom protections. Why are we so behind? We will tell you. But first, Ashley, we're going to assess our outrage.
SPEAKER_01Something even more important than religious liberty.
SPEAKER_00Something even more important than religious freedom is, of course, daylight savings time. And here's the thing, folks, here on Politics for Happy People. We're trying to figure out how happy, how upset should we be about the things that the internet is yelling about? And one of those, right now, is daylight savings. And Ashley, do you have strong opinions about this yet? Because I'm going to make you give us a number in a moment.
SPEAKER_01I wouldn't say strong opinions, but I have opinions. Yes.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So let's set the stage before we uh before we compare notes on this. Uh, how upset should you be? Because July 14th, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Sunshine Protection Act, right? And who doesn't love the Sunshine Protection Act? A bill to make daylight savings time permanent and end the twice-yearly clock changes, which I will say is a um it's just a popular thing to complain about. Every time it happens, everybody moans and groans about it. Is it really that big of a deal? I don't know. But the Sunshine Protection Act passed with strong bipartisan support, a 308-vote majority now heads to the Senate. And the Senate will determine whether they can get 60 votes and put this into law and actually end daylight savings. Now, let's talk about the concerns here. Is in certain places the sun will rise very late if this happens. Um, places like Seattle or Grant Grand Rapids, the sun will not rise well into second period for a lot of school kids, right? So we think about what's going on in the morning, we wake up, our kids wake up, everybody goes to school, and they're doing the whole like morning ritual at home, have breakfast, get out the door, go to school, go to your locker, kind of all that routine, and it's totally dark until the middle of second period in several places in our country and you know, up north, like North Dakota. That could happen for like a couple few months. But people also are annoyed by time changes. Ashley, on a scale of one to ten, I mean, how upset would you be if they decided to do away with daylight savings change and we never change our clocks again?
SPEAKER_01I would not be upset. I would like it for the time to stay the same and to not change, and that's mostly being a mother of little children. You can change the clock, but that doesn't change their little bodies.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01And they're still waking up at the same time, and they don't know that it's different, and it's it takes weeks. And you actually talking about like what?
SPEAKER_00Like the idea of eliminating.
SPEAKER_01Oh yes.
SPEAKER_00Yes, so you're like a one out of ten in the upset scale because you're actually excited about it.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I can understand why some states would want to keep it this way. Like maybe the states should decide. Well Because the more northern states, it's more of a problem for them.
SPEAKER_00It's different. I mean, and we know Arizona opted out a long time ago, right? Because you can't do that. And and Arizona has been on the same time schedule for a long time, and they have more sun, certainly, than than North Dakota. Um, I actually don't think I like this.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Why is that?
SPEAKER_00Not by a lot. I think I'm I I I'm not, it's not going to change my life. Um well, basically, I I'm kind of falling back on the old adage that I've heard that you you should not tear down a fence until you understand why it was put up in the first place. And my suspicion, just because of my beliefs about human nature, are that we like to complain about things, and this is something that you can complain about, right? But I'm a big fan of just remembering in all policy choices and basically all of life choices, there are no solutions, there are only trade-offs. And daylight savings was something that we came up with in order to solve a problem that people felt at some point in the past, which is in significant parts of the country, the sun's not coming up until nine o'clock. Right. Our kids don't wake up, all of those things. You know, you express the challenge of the the body clock has does not know that daylight savings time happens. And, you know, I've had young children as well. I now have older children, but that that is true, and that is part of the challenge of twice a year we're going to change the clocks. But what I think we are not aware of because we haven't lived through that world is the challenges associated with never changing the clock. And I think if we do this, I think within a couple years, everyone will start complaining because we're only familiar with the risks associated with the current choice. And we don't know anything about the costs associated with the other choice because we haven't lived through that. And we're gonna complain either way, because that's kind of what we do. Um, but my guess is, and I'm just theorizing because my whole life has been in this we change the clock twice a year world. But I think we may end up regretting that choice should we make that choice. And it looks like we're going to.
SPEAKER_01Well, I think about it primarily as a mom. For myself, I don't know that it makes a big difference. I just sleep in a little bit longer, wake up a little bit earlier. It does make me a little bit sad for the kids that have to wait for the bus in the dark longer in the northern states. Yeah. Because they have larger seasonal changes with daylight and all of that. And so I can see how like a countrywide policy change might not be the best.
SPEAKER_00Well, and to be fair, though this is the Sunshine Protection Act, we need to remember this does not actually change the amount of daylight you have. It just changes the time at which the sun rises and sets for you.
SPEAKER_01But we're not going to change the start of school time.
SPEAKER_00Probably not, though who knows? Yeah. Who knows how communities and school districts might adapt to this. But the northern states will still have relatively few, you know, seven, eight, nine hours of daylight during the winter. The the more southern states will always have more. It's just when does the sun rise and when does the sunset, and which do you prefer? So um, I don't think it's worth truly being outraged by either way, but I just think we are prone to complaining. And is it slightly inconvenient when the time changes? Yeah. And and I I appreciate your dilemma as a mother and trying to get your small kids doing that. But I think they might not like going to school in the dark all the time as well, which is just a different challenge. So I don't know. Um, we'll see what they do. But I my guess is we experience buyer's remorse if we do that. So, on to the big story of the day, of the episode. North Carolina is 42nd in a report from the religious uh from First Liberty Institute, First Liberty Institute, uh based in Texas. Uh, a lot of good friends there. They have a Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, and they have been publishing a report since 2022 on the uh states and how they compare with respect to honoring and protecting religious freedom in the 2026 version. North Carolina comes in 42nd. Ashley, did that number surprise you?
SPEAKER_01Very much. Because Well, we're in the South, you know, what's referred to by many as the Bible belt. Uh, we're not solidly red, but I would say lean red.
SPEAKER_00For sure.
SPEAKER_01There are lots of yeah, there are lots of um lots of blue states that are beating us in the category of religious liberty in this ranking.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Um, and I think I I agree with you. This kind of surprised me because we see ourselves as somewhat conservative, but I think there's some things in here that that help uh North Carolina North Carolinians understand that we are we're kind of an anomaly in some important ways and talk about why that is. And and I want to go through the uh the specific uh religious freedom protections that do not exist in North Carolina, that do exist in other places, that have given us the lower ranking than many may have uh expected. And the first is RIFRA, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. And this is something that we have tried to get into law here, and we have failed to do that. And RIFRA, to be clear, is not actually a specific legal protection, it is a standard. And it requires the government to prove it, and it it applies something called strict scrutiny in the constitutional analysis of um taking away uh civil liberties. It requires the government to prove if they do anything to restrict your religious freedom, like um you can't say that thing, you can't go to that church, church you must close down, um, business you must provide this service for this event that you don't like, if they do anything that restricts religious expression, the the government must prove they are pursuing a compelling interest and they are doing it through the least restrictive means possible. And that is a standard that the Supreme Court has set up to that known as strict scrutiny, that if the government is going to restrict speech, restrict religious expression in some way, strict scrutiny is the highest standard that exists in the law. And the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was passed at the federal level. So this already applies with respect to federal actions. But the Supreme Court says that the federal RIFRA does not restrict what governments can do. So if every state wants their own RIFRA with respect to the state government action, they have to pass that themselves. We've not done that in North Carolina.
SPEAKER_01So to summarize, what you're saying is what the RIFRA does is it says that the government has to have a really, really, really good reason to compelling government interest.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, it's legal speak for really, really, really, really good.
SPEAKER_01So I have to convert it in my mind. That's right. They have to have a really, really, really good reason to take away any religious expression or religious freedom that you have. And they have to do it in a very gentle way, the least restrictive way.
SPEAKER_00The only way to accomplish the goal has to be the thing they have proposed. Gotcha. The least restrictive means. There can't be another way to accomplish that goal. Let me give you uh an example of how that works in a different context. The government has said that um with respect to pornography regulations, they say that pornography is First Amendment. It's speech, therefore protected by the First Amendment. And I'm gonna set aside the challenges of that for a moment for these purposes. Some states have attempted to regulate the the promotion of pornography. And what the Supreme Court has said, that there is a compelling interest in protecting children from explicit material, but actually shutting down websites is not the least restrictive means of doing so because you can put an internet filter on the internet on a home. They can install an internet filter that will block the content. That's less restrictive than shutting down the website. So that is how the courts have dealt with that. Now, that specific case is actually probably and hopefully going to be thrown on the proverbial ash heap of history because it doesn't work in the real world with respect to pornography regulations. But I'm trying to explain how what a least restrictive means kind of test is.
SPEAKER_01That makes sense. Okay, so we don't have this in North Carolina. We didn't pass Rifra here.
SPEAKER_00Correct.
SPEAKER_01Let me ask you a question, since you're an attorney.
SPEAKER_00Fire away.
SPEAKER_01Article 1, section 13 of our state constitution says all persons have a natural and inalienable right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences, and no human authority shall, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And that sounds like very strong language, right? And that is actually one of the uh objections, and I don't even know if objections is the right word. There are people who share our interest in protecting religious freedom in North Carolina who say we do not need a RIFRA because of what you've just read. And if that is true, then the problem here is with the assessment, not with the legal standard.
SPEAKER_01The assessment of the ranking, yeah, the the ranking itself.
SPEAKER_00That was the same. And we have to be open to that, right? And so has uh First Liberty uh fully taken into account what the North Carolina Constitution says about religious freedom and whether or not it actually already provides that language. I think it's a fair question. And there are some in the legislature who say that's why we don't need uh RIFRA. So take that into account. I I think that's worth considering in the rankings. So, but we do not have a RIFRA. Is it gonna be harmful? Uh I don't think so. Is it necessary? Um, some would say maybe not, but that that is a we'll continue to have that conversation. But let's go to the second area because there are others. There is no general conscious protection for healthcare providers in North Carolina. And that's something that uh many states have passed laws that basically uh explicitly allow doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and sometimes entire institutions to opt out of procedures that violate their conscience and things like, of course, abortion, uh gender reassignment stuff uh related to hormones, all of those things. Uh sometimes it's like you know, vasectomies that Catholic people, because of their beliefs about you know contraception, would not would not want to participate in. And North Carolina does not explicitly protect healthcare providers.
SPEAKER_01So without that protection in the law, any sort of case that comes up about that would be decided in the courts.
SPEAKER_00Well, any kind of case, I mean, it's always going to be decided in the courts, yes. But yes, it's it's the question of what the standard is of um, and again, we just talked about the constitutional protections that exist in our state constitution, which seem very robust.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00However, if the statute does not explicitly say healthcare providers do not have to, they cannot be compelled to provide certain services that violate their conscience, then it's left up to the court system to determine whether the constitutional language that you read actually allows a doctor not to dispense an abortive facient drug if they don't want to, or a pharmacist not to do that. So there's ambiguity, and then you have to go to court and try to assert the right that you believe the First Amendment or the state constitution gives you, and hopefully the courts agree with you. But if there's a statute that explicitly says a pharmacist cannot be forced to do this, a nurse cannot be forced to do this, then it's then there's less to argue about.
SPEAKER_01Another safeguard that's noted to be missing for North Carolina is the recusal of counseling providers. And this is the safeguard that protects counselors or therapists from being required to counsel or serve a client as to goals, outcomes, or behaviors that conflict with their sincerely held principles. Um, this made me think of the Charles Verstaulzar case that the Supreme Court decided because Colorado actually passed this censorship law that forbid counselors from trying to help kids regain comfort with their biological sense.
SPEAKER_00Conversion therapy is the term.
SPEAKER_01And only allowed them to encourage children towards gender transitions. Correct. Um, which we know leads to harmful, often leads to harmful this social transitioning, often leads to harmful drugs and other procedures. So the Supreme Court rightly said that these counseling conversations are speech and that the states can't unfairly silence certain viewpoints in the counseling room. But uh this protection that is noted to be missing in North Carolina is states, I guess, positively saying that uh you can't require a counselor to speak a viewpoint that they either don't agree with or believe is harmful. Do we need that kind of protection after that Supreme Court case?
SPEAKER_00There's a decent argument to be made that you do not, because the Supreme Court has spoken to the question. But what the Supreme Court, I mean, maybe I'll actually disagree with what I just said, but the Supreme Court said that you cannot have a statute that compels right.
SPEAKER_01It's different.
SPEAKER_00Compels that counseling. What First Liberty Institute, through their index, would clearly like to have is a statute that explicitly says they cannot be compelled to do this, that that counselors are free to counsel.
SPEAKER_01Kind of the opposite of what Colorado did.
SPEAKER_00Correct. They want the state legislature to affirmatively state the right of counselors to counsel in a way that is consistent with their conscience and not be forced to do things that are inconsistent with their conscience. And that is an improvement, but you're right. You just you just noted the Supreme Court case that has settled this issue, at least for the time being. And again, there's the at least for this time being, having a state statute is always more enduring than depending on the moods of whatever the current court majority is. So it would always be stronger and better if there was something explicitly, um, especially when we're dealing with federal constitutional protections, which the courts sometimes their interpretations of that change. But if you had something in the in state statute that said we don't force therapists to say things they don't believe, or uh or, you know, yeah, to say things they don't believe, then great. That's what they would like to see. I think that would be an improvement.
SPEAKER_01Our organization has taken an interest in this uh situation with counselors being able to practice according to their conviction. We filed an amicus brief in the Charles versus Alazar case, and we argued for the counselor's right to work according to his or her personal convictions, and also noted that uh there is an inherently religious nature of counseling. There's always uh meaning behind it.
SPEAKER_00Correct. There's yeah, correct. And and so this is I I think this is a uh an opportunity um for the the state legislature to you know reassert something that the Supreme Court currently is always doing, but we know that changes. Let's talk about the next one. Uh, protections for houses of worship against forced closure.
SPEAKER_01Let's take a little trip back to 2020, Joseph.
SPEAKER_00Lord willing, we never confront this again, but history, you know, suggests that there will be another time where the government thinks there is an emergency and a reason to tell churches you may not gather. And many states, in response to the fever dream of COVID, have explicitly written into their state statutes that the government cannot tell churches you cannot meet. And that would be good. Now, uh in theory, there is a I can imagine a moment in the future where there is a health outbreak that uh does reasonably justify an ex you know in uh people not gathering together because plagues happen and health outbreaks happen. But I think that is something that free people should be able to decide for themselves. And the the precedent of government saying it's illegal for you to gather as a church is a huge problem. Again, there's never solutions, only trade-offs. So there's always risk associated with whatever choice we make there. But the choice of a government that can tell a church you cannot the the risks of having a government that can tell a church you cannot meet are greater than the risks of having a society where people are free to get together and sometimes transmit a disease, in my judgment.
SPEAKER_01Well, North Carolina has a little history with this. In 2020, May of 2020, U.S. District Court judge James Dever blocked then governor Roy Cooper's executive order, executive order 130. Which capped indoor worship at 10 people, while airports, transit stations, medical facilities, libraries, and shopping centers faced no such limit as long as they followed social distancing guidelines. So this block, the judge blocking this executive order was the result of a lawsuit that was filed by several churches claiming that the executive order violated their First Amendment rights by holding uh religious gatherings to stricter standards than secular ones, um, exceeding the cap for worship uh carried potential criminal penalties. And while an ex exception existed for when outdoor worship was impossible, the ruling noted this standard was vague and didn't apply to other gatherings. So we talked about go ahead. We talked about Roy Cooper, you know, that remember the church and football guy?
SPEAKER_00Right. Shut down. I mean, and and in California, I think they actually explicitly exempted strip clubs, which was part of the outrage of that. Churches cannot gather, but you can but you can get together in a strip club, um, which is just kind of on its face, super offensive. Um, I don't know that that was done here, but the point remains, yes, uh it would be good to clarify in state statute that the government does not have the authority to tell people not to meet at church, to tell churches not to gather. But North Carolina does not have that. Other states do. Um, I think it would improve our religious freedom climate and improve our rankings in this index if that happens. Let's talk to another one. Uh move on to another one. Clergy penitent privilege safeguards. Now, this one actually, I think for me is really hard. This is one of the more challenging ones because there is no protection um specifically for clergy penitent privilege. Now, what is clergy penitent privilege? Things like confession. You and I are Protestants. Um, so this is less of a thing in the Protestant world. It's a really big thing in the Catholic world, um, where confession happens. And when you are confessing sin, sometimes the sin that you are confessing is criminal.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00And we also know that there are certain members of the public who are mandatory reporters. My wife is an educator. Uh, she is, by law, a mandatory reporter. If she uh comes upon information that she thinks reasonably uh would lead a reasonable person to believe that there is abuse happening, the law requires her to report that.
SPEAKER_01Otherwise, she could be charged.
SPEAKER_00And if she does not, and later it is discovered she knew and said nothing, she could actually be in trouble with the law. So that's those are mandatory reporting laws. And the the interest in children being safe, of course, is is as high as an interest gets, right? And so we understand why that happens. The question is, should this apply to clergy when, in the course of being clergy, taking confession, they learn about something like sex abuse, right? What should a priest do if somebody comes in and says, hey, I sexually abused my neighbor, my neighbor's child, and I want to be absolved of this sin? That's the question of should the should the law require that priest to be a mandatory reporter who has to then go to the go to law enforcement and say, I learned about this crime, because that is uh it is a religious, obviously a very sacred religious activity and expression that deals with from the Catholic perspective, the absolution of your sin or not, and the eternal state of your soul. And so these are big religious questions. Um but making sure that sex abusers are not just running around when somebody knows about it, we want them to be stopped. Ashley, thoughts.
SPEAKER_01I think this is this is deep and it is really difficult because on the one hand, you have you don't want to put barriers up to confession and things that could have eternal implications on someone's soul. On the other hand, protecting children especially, protecting victims, but especially children, I think is um a compelling interest. Is that the legal term?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it is a compelling governmental interest.
SPEAKER_01And so, you know, I'm not sure I've resolved that in my mind. I see there is a lot of tension here, and I'm I might disagree a little bit with what you said about this being more relevant in in the Catholic Church. I think it's actually equally relevant in the Protestant church because you have like, you know, church counseling situations and pastoral counseling and things like that. I think even Protestant pastors end up with a whole lot of information. Yeah, you you learned this for sure. Yeah. I mean, I think if yeah. It's it's a difficult I mean, if a priest or a pastor wanted to disclose information to law enforcement, they could, they can still do that if their conscience binds them to do that. It's just that they're not required to right now. Is that no?
SPEAKER_00Well, they cannot. Oh, they cannot. Under the religious conviction, under the religious instructions, it's excommunication if the priest violates that parallel. That that that's that's the issue, is they are they are doctrinally and traditionally and religiously forbidden from making who communicate that information to us. Because it is the confessional absolutely sacred. That's right. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's a really tough one.
SPEAKER_00But that's you know, sex abuse issues within the church aside, most people in within these religious institutions are still people of goodwill. They're not trying to take advantage of people. They understand we do not want sex abuse happening, right? But they are also bound by a religious vow not to disclose the things that they learn. And so should the government have an ability to punish a priest who fulfills their religious vows in that way? Um that that that is a difficult question. And I and I will say, Washington state has been dealing with this issue recently. Um, they passed a law uh requiring the uh priest to make that confession. The Catholic Church sued and they ultimately settled, and the state has agreed not to enforce that on religious freedom grounds because it kind of created a standard for them that didn't necessarily apply to everybody else. And so it was uh an unequal application of the law. But um, that is a it's a tough, it's a tough legal question because there's two really, really compelling interests, it seems, religious freedom and the protection of children, and certainly protection of children from sexual abuse that sometimes seem to be in conflict. And those are the hard choices that you have to make in law. And again, there's no solutions, only trade-offs. Everything has challenges. Let's talk about a couple more of these real quickly. Protections against religious discrimination in financial services. Um, this is language that many states have drafted, put into state statute that represent that prevents banks, payment processors, and other financial institutions from denying or cutting off services to a customer because of their religious beliefs in recent years. At kind of the height of cancel culture. Fortunately, this is receding a bit, but we've seen many institutions say, hey, we will not uh you cannot bank with us anymore because we don't like your beliefs about marriage and gender. And those kind of things have happened. And it would be good to have something in state statute that specifically prevents financial institutions from doing that, but we don't have that yet.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That does seem that's important.
SPEAKER_00I will say on that subject, that we've seen real progress kind of uh moving away from that. Um and our friends at the Alliance Defending Freedom have a corporate equality index, I think is what it's called. Um I'm forgetting the name at the moment, but it kind of ranks these financial institutions to make sure that they are uh treating people um fairly and well and not discriminating against certain people for being Christians, right? D banking people. And and I know lots of friends with organizations whose you know payment process, uh CRM service provider, that's a constituent relationship management system. It's basically the back end of every organization, like a nonprofit, and you pay somebody to maintain your database and use their software. And a lot of those companies have gone to you know Christian conservative organizations and said, we will not provide these services to you.
SPEAKER_01So it's actually happening.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, it's it's actually happening. I think it's now happening less than it was maybe five years ago, um, but it does happen, should that be uh specifically protected. And then finally, protections against religious discrimination in foster parent eligibility. And this is something uh that feels a little personal because we've been working on this for the last couple of years in the state legislature. I have personally been working on this. Um, but the issue is we've seen in a couple different states lawsuits have arisen. Illinois, Washington, Oregon, some of these states where the where the um state social service agencies or the state legislature themselves have created rules that say if you do not affirm that boys can become girls, you are ineligible to be foster parents. And what the religious liberty, uh first liberty is saying through this index is that you should have a state statute that specifically says foster parents cannot be required to affirm a certain set of beliefs about gender in order to be foster parents. You can't discriminate against them based on their religious beliefs. We have not yet done that. We thought we have been close a couple of times uh recently, but uh interestingly, even our very Republican state legislature cannot get this through.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's important because a large portion of foster parents are Christians. That's been a big focus of multiple churches I've been a part of is opening your home uh to children in need, whether it be through fostering or adoption. Um, this is very much an area of Christian service um that is near and dear to many of my friends' hearts. And so to think of them being essentially um weeded out as potential foster parents because they cannot affirm that a boy can become a girl or that girl can become a boy, that's a real problem. I mean, that harms the children.
SPEAKER_00That that's exactly right. Um, and you know, that's James. Pure and undefiled religion before God is to take care of orphans and widows in their need.
SPEAKER_01That's right.
SPEAKER_00And a lot of Christians read that and say, I need to take care of orphans in need, and that's the foster care system. And and uh that is the right thing to do.
SPEAKER_01And it's what God commands us to do.
SPEAKER_00Commands us to do, and the church needs to be the solution to that particular problem. And what this would say is that um those who believe Orthodox Christian teaching about gender and sexuality and identity and all of those things are disqualified. Now, to be fair, we have, I am not yet aware of a the the uh of like categorical class-based discrimination against Christians on this basis. The concern is there are agency rules that currently exist that if you have an activist social service worker, they could reasonably interpret this to mean Christians can't do this. And so there is some concern that it could happen. And if it did happen right now, no one would know. Um, and it would be an improvement for the state legislature to officially say it is not abuse, it is not hateful to say boys can't become girls. And that would be an improvement specifically protect uh or prohibit the state from discriminating on those grounds.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we need to make sure that doesn't happen.
SPEAKER_00That's right. And so all of those things, I mean, when you when we stack it together like this, yeah, it looks like there's a there's a lot um that has not been done in North Carolina that has been done in other places. Um and if we did that, not only would it improve our ranking in this particular uh assessment, but it would have, in fact, much more importantly, protect religious freedom in a more enduring way in North Carolina. So we'll continue to track those subjects um very quickly. But before we end our conversation today, Ashley, bet you didn't know. I'm gonna make you guess something. Okay. Okay, so we're gonna go to the federal level real quickly here. Um and the Biden Department of Energy, there was a hearing in in the U.S. Senate last week about the loan, the Energy Loan Program Office, the LPO, the loan program office, it's the Department of Energy. And this is an office that has been giving grants and loans to energy companies. And it was created 15 years ago to stimulate, you know, innovative, green, of course, energy programs that are gonna help us do better clean energy and save the planet. I s I assume that's kind of the premise. It's been around for 15 years, and in the first 15 years of its existence, it had committed $43 billion in loans or grants. That's how much they had dispensed.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Now, the subject of the hearings that happened last week in Congress is the 76 days between election day where Trump defeated Kamala Harris, and so the Biden end of the Biden administration, and inauguration day. There's 76 days between election day and Trump's inauguration. How much money did the loan program office deliver dispense in those 76 days? Do you think? Take a guess.
SPEAKER_01You want me to guess?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the history of this $43 billion all time. How much did they do in those 76 days?
SPEAKER_0110 billion.
SPEAKER_00That's wrong. A little higher.
SPEAKER_0120 billion.
SPEAKER_00Higher.
SPEAKER_0130.
SPEAKER_00Higher.
SPEAKER_01100 billion dollars.
SPEAKER_0096 billion dollars. 96 billion dollars went out the door in those 76 days.
SPEAKER_0176 days, okay.
SPEAKER_00When they had when they had dispensed 43 billion dollars in the previous 15 years. And we're not gonna go through every single one of these. There's a bunch of different companies. Some of them had um very personal ties to um LPO director Jigger Shaw, J-I-G-A-R, is how his first name is pronounced. And so I'm gonna go with Jigger, but I don't know that for sure. I don't think I've ever heard it pronounced. But it uh Shaw, S-H-A-A.
SPEAKER_01He is Director Shaw.
SPEAKER_00Director Shaw. He was the head of this um so 96 billion dollars. And the concern is in the subject of the hearings was was this just people like looting the storehouses for their friends? Because a lot of these businesses had personal connections to the people in the office. Was this just here's all our green companies? And and the concerns that were expressed during that hearing is a lot of the business plans were undeveloped, totally theoretical. They were not subject to the same scrutiny that you would historically subject them to in order to make sure this is a viable business plan. Several of them are already in bankruptcy after receiving billions and billions of dollars. But it's an interesting thing to know.
SPEAKER_01That's a real problem for me, though, that several of these companies are already in bankruptcy after receiving billions and billions of dollars in taxpayer money as a loan that they're clearly never going to be able to pay back.
SPEAKER_00Because they're bankrupt, right?
SPEAKER_01That's horrible. I mean, every this is why you have to go through this huge due diligence process to get any kind of a loan from the bank because the bank doesn't want you to default and lose all that money. So, you know, is the government doing that same due diligence? Do they do they have people that are capable of that? Well, in that timeline, it I mean I mean who is you know, who is doing this?
SPEAKER_00My kids would refer to that as sus, which is an abbreviation for suspect for all of you old people who don't hang around Gen Z ears. But yes, that's a fact. $96 billion. Uh, they're looking into it in Congress, and uh, you know, it just feels like more self-dealing. But I don't know all of the facts yet. But yeah, it's sus. Yeah. Friends, thanks for joining us today on Politics for Happy People. That's the show we've got for you today. Quick reminder new shows every Tuesday and Friday, so make sure you like and subscribe wherever you have found us so you don't miss the next one. And we will see you then.