Buckeye Institute - Licensing requirements and Ohio energy program

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now Biden's lust for war. Top of the hour, State
Reverenden Representative Jennifer gross On a new speaker, among other issues,
and the meantime, welcome back from the Buckeye Institute, which
you can find online at Buckeyeinstitute dot org. Greg lost
and good you have it back on, Greg.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hey, It's always great to be on with You really
appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
And I appreciate what the Buckeye Institute does. And one
of the things, and you and I have had conversations
in the past about licensure requirements and the number of
people that need a license to do their jobs is
just it's batcrap insane. If I can boil it down
to that simple term, you know, like for example, I
was joking this morning. You know, my daughter and her
friends used to braid each other's hair. You know, if

(00:41):
any monetary exchange was made, then they would be in
violation of law because they don't have a license, a
cosmetology license or something. Hair braiding, fingernails, the simple things
that require a license obviously are a huge impediment that
people joining the workforce. So I see that the Buckeye

(01:01):
Institute is all over this house built two thirty eight.
So what's that about, and what can we do to
open more doors to occupational licensing reform here in Ohio?

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Ken or Great, Sure, it's it's been an issue that
we've been telling for a long time, licensing issues, and
so House Built through thirty eight is actually the result
of previous legislation that passed a couple of legislative cycles
back that created an entire process for reviewing occupational licenses
that made the legislature have to have every single license

(01:35):
and every single licensing board come before a committee in
both the House and the Senate and essentially justify what
they were doing, explain licensed by license.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Bass I love that, Yeah, explain yourself, justify your existence.
That's beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Well, and we're actually oneed to kind of put that together.
We worked with some folks who are really good at this,
and we put together the entire pack. It's actually the
bill that created this whole process is something that we
did and some wonderful legislators took it up, including actually
the next probably the next Senate President was one of
the key sponsors of this legislation several cycles back. So

(02:14):
that that I think is a good sign. So we
were really happy with it. So what they have to
do is they have to look at essentially every two years,
they had to look at one third of all licenses
and renew them, or if they didn't actively proactively renew them,
they would sunset go away and essentially deregulate them. So
what that's done is this is the last of the

(02:35):
initial review process. So this is the last basically grouping
of all the licenses in the state. So over the
last six years, the General Assembly has looked at every
single license and every single licensing board in the state
and has had to and again have them explain themselves
and justify themselves. And so the legislation two thirty eight

(02:55):
is basically this particular General Assembly's version of the review
looking at the ones that hadn't yet already previously been examined.
So the House did some really good work. The sponsored
the bill, did a great job. Chairman the Committee did
a great job. The spot the chair of the committee
in the Senate is an incredible legislator at Christina Rodener.

(03:16):
Can't say enough nice things about her. So this is
really a great opportunity to pair of things back. And
what's happening is you're getting rid of some licenses. But
sometimes the other thing that happens is that you'll find
that Ohio will stick out like a sore thumb when
you compare it to other states. In other words, we
have much higher burdens or license fees, or you have

(03:38):
to renew every year. It's that every two or three years.
There's so many different, you know, ways that this breaks down,
but Ohio tends to sometimes even in the things that
are going to retain their license, we overdo it in
terms of the requirements. That's another thing that they are
doing is they're looking underneath the hood of the car
here to this examination, and they're undoing a lot of things,

(04:00):
scaling things back to make sure that Ohio is essentially
in line with other states, so that we're not at
a competitive disadvantage for people who want to come here
and start their career here and whatever that profession is.
Because again, you know, some things need to be licensed.
We're not going to argue about everything in one of those.
But the key thing to always remember is each license

(04:20):
is essentially a permission slip from the government that you
have to obtain in order to earn a living. And
so we use that phrase quite a bit when we're
talking to legislators permission slip policies, because that is essentially
what these things are. And so you know, if you
have to go to say mother, may I to government,
first of all, you shouldn't in many cases. But secondly,

(04:42):
if you do, you better not be doing it having
to do it in a way that is completely over
the top and more burdensome than what you would have
to do if you were in Kentucky or Indiana, or
West Virginia or that state I dare say up North
or Pennsylvania.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Well, the point being, we need to become more competitive.
And I understand and agree completely that you know, you
shouldn't eliminate all licenses. There's critical information. Many people have
to operate in their field safely and responsibly. It's for
the good of their own health, the good of community safety,
and the good of the people that they're providing assistance too.

(05:20):
And I think, like you know, a cosmetology degree is
going to require all kinds of knowledge and learning about
cleanliness and hygiene and how to avoid the spread of bacteria,
diseases or otherwise. But that once that information is known
and learned, it shouldn't be something you have to reapply
for every single year unless the state of the business
or the nature of the business is being regulated, has

(05:41):
dramatically changed or is subject to rather dramatic changes regularly,
which would obligate maybe a more regular licensure requirement. But
if it's not, And once you've learned it seems to me,
once you've crossed the finish line, you'd be free to
go ahead and back your your job.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
Well. Absolutely, and and and I'm gonna give you two
examples of things. One is something that I think we're
making some real improvements on this legislation. One this is
the one you just mentioned. Cosmetology is one that unfortunately
is a kind of like a little bit like crench
warfare at the State House could get a change, believe
it or not, it's a they were they were reviewed
this time, and we couldn't get the changes in that

(06:20):
we wanted to see there. But there's been bills the
Senate's passed legislation reduced hours, for example, several cycles in
a row. So this has been going back, gosh, I
don't know, six to eight years. I've been working on
this along with a lot of other folks. And I'll
tell you this, you would be raised at the amount
of lobbying that is done by private school Costology school

(06:45):
to keep it, and they are they have to have
one of the best grassroots efforts. You know, they get
kids like free uh credit out credit and like took
time to come down to testify with T shirts on everything.
I'd tell you every single side and this is what happens.
So this is one that we really need to zero
in on because this is one of the ones I
think is less unconscionable. Is we're way out of step

(07:06):
because what a lot of other states are doing in
terms of the hours, and we should be reducing these
because these are good jobs, good jobs for a lot
of folks who you know, it maybe takes a little
bit of time to get the money back. So every
minute that they're not actually earning money because they're having
to do continuing more and more education and every hour,
every dollar they have to spend on the actual programs

(07:29):
is really a burden on them. That's something we need
to work on. But one thing I'm really proud of
that's in Houspital two, that is in Houstial two thirty
eight doesn't seem like it's that huge of a thing.
But real estate worker license. Ohio is one of the
only states, and I think it's the only state in
the Midwest that requires you to go to at least
a two years to get two years of post secondary education.

(07:50):
Now you can go. Instead of doing it through like
a credentialing program or a variety of other providers of
the education, you had to basically go to somebody that
was effectively college. It was a mandate. We really say
that did that, which meant that our programs to run
people through are essentially way more expensive than many other states. Well,

(08:11):
of course, now I'm not saying you shouldn't license it,
because there's a lot of information to your point. You know,
you don't want to have people who don't know what
they're doing when they're selling people houses, right, and maybe that,
but we had a requirement that no other state had,
and this bill is going to get rid of that,
which I think is a is a really good thing,
especially given the fact you know that we have all
these housing issues that we you know, going on, and

(08:33):
we want to make sure we've got knowledgeable people out there.
But we need a good market for people. But it's
ridiculous that we had to have this requirement that simply
doesn't exist in other states.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Wonderful, wonderful updates on that. I appreciate the work as
that that you do at the Buckeye Institute on behalf
of making Ohio more competitive. Let's pause, We'll bring Greg
Lawson back and talk about Ohio energy policy. Is connection
with Senate the two seventy five. We'll see if that's
going to help us out or hinder us or with

(09:04):
Greg lass to the Buck Eye Institute. Go to Buckeye
Institute dot org and check out what they do each
and every day, and click that donate button while you're
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five KRC, the talk station Automatic BREAKAG now seven fifty
five KR City talk Station. Buckeyeinstitute dot org is where
you can find what the Buckey Institute does each and
every day looking out for Ohio and Ohio's best interest,

(11:12):
which means you're in my best interest. Bring your Ohio
back to a more competitive level with the rest of
the United States. And one area is we seem to
be struggling with going back to the criminal problems we
faced in Columbus with energy related issues. I know you
actually testified as you in your capacity as a research fellow,
Greg Lawson with the Buckeye Institute before a committee in

(11:35):
Columbus about Senate Build two seventy five, which addresses at
least some of our energy issues here in Ohio. What
will that bill do? And maybe we can even touch
a little bit upon what it doesn't quite do, because
I know you pointed it out. It helps a lot,
but it doesn't go as far as we need to go.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
That's right, And no single piece of legislation is probably
going to be able to do everything in one thing
because it's it's really a complicated issue with energy. We've
got everything from how much energy do you produce to
how do you transmit the actual electricity to locations? And
you know, we're growing a lot of high end users
that have frankly a voracious appetype for proclicity, especially here

(12:17):
in central Ohio. We've got in dellth Coming, we've got
data centers, which one data center is basically like a village.
You know, its thousands of houses or you know the
amount of power consumption that uses. So we need to
really produce more like this, and we need to do
it fast. A lot of times you build bigger plants
that can take a long time. There's lots of permitting issues,

(12:38):
there's a whole host of things. Plus there's a whole
complicated process for how you basically connect new plants and
new generation capacity to the overarching of elect grid because
Ohio doesn't have its own grid right part of a
thirteen state grid, so we actually are interconnected with other states.
So it's a very complicated and very regulatory intensive sort

(12:58):
of process. At the bottom line is we need more
generation because that is what the technology of the twenty
first century. If we want data centers, if we want
to deal with things from AI and stuff like that
and be at the cutting edge, that is what we
absolutely have to do. We have to do it in
a way that doesn't cause problems for residents because you know,
you start pulling a lot of electric off the grid.

(13:20):
For big guys, well, the obvious concern would be what
does that leave back front of people? Does that mean
that they don't have like trist get brown out's like California.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
Yes, let them eat cake, pay an arm and a leg. Yeah,
that seems to me the point of all this, I mean,
lookt at that. What I'm a huge fan of nuclear
power plants, and the new modular nuclear plants can easily
be built one size fit so you can put them
pretty much anywhere. Small footprint generate gobs of electricity. It
addresses the nonsensical environmental arguments that are made every single

(13:48):
day and impact every single policy, but they work, and
lo and behold, Meta comes along and says we need
massive power plants. Hey, how about giving us a nuclear plant.
It's almost green lit from the very beginning. So yeah,
we the lowly masses are in the let them eat
cake department. That really irks me, and I think it
irks a lot of people, regardless of political perspective on

(14:08):
that one.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Greg, Oh, it absolutely does. And by the way, nuclear
and you mentioned it, the small modular ones. I think
there's no question that those are probably the future. One
great thing Ohio has today is natural gas copious amounts.
And you know nuclear is zero greenhouse gas mission. So
if that's something that you're really concerned about, there really
hits the mark on that the natural gas is likely

(14:31):
not then call we've got We've got a heck of
a lot of it. So we should be leveraging what
we have as opportunities here in Ohio. And what two
seventy five does is it helps to be able to
create generation quickly. It creates situation where we're using there's
a lot of undeveloped brown fields, former industrial sites, things
like that. People are trying to get them developed all
the time, but they're hard to do because it's usually

(14:53):
for pretty expensive to do it. So how do you
get private folks to come in so that's not all
government money coming into the private people putting private money
and to fix these areas up. Well, what this bill does,
and it's actually Senator Matt Dolan up in the Cleveland area.
He's obviously won a couple of times for the US Senate,
but this is a good bill that Senator Dolan has
a really really good bill because it allows you to

(15:15):
use these places that aren't already being used. You can
put solar panels up, but we all know that solar
panels don't always work when the sun don't shine, so
you have to have something else to make sure the
electricity continues to be generated on a cloudy day like
down in since am frankly up here in my neck
the wood in the Columbus area too. So it allows
for microcurbbines and smaller, not huge power plants with microturbbine

(15:38):
natural gas to use what we already have here in
Ohio to be able to make sure that there's no
lag time when the sun doesn't shine, and it allows
you to use these brown fields. It's smaller generation a
per unit, but when it allows a person wants to
buy the electricity to do is to what they call
virtually net meter and that's a really kind of complicated word,

(15:58):
but it essentially means you can package together electricity being
generated at multiple different location physical locations, and then buy
the electricity that way. And so that's what this would
allow you to do. And the great thing about this
is it can be done a lot quicker than really
big plants. It can be done on properties that aren't
otherwise being utilized for any kind of economic purposes, and

(16:22):
it can be done again quickly. And I can't stress
enough that you know, not quickly doesn't mean tomorrow, but
you can probably put one of these things up in
a year or so, or maybe a year two versus
four to five years at least, and maybe even a
little bit longer for some of the bigger kind of
power plants. So this is something that if you've got
this ball rolling soon, you can start to see these

(16:44):
pop up over the course over the state. And it's
not going to solve it because these aren't as big
a plants, so you're going to need more of them.
They're not going to solve all the energy issues and
the generation issues. But if we need to get more
and we need to get more fast. This is what
I said yesterday, and the Senate is one piece of
the larger puzzle, and so we think it's a great idea. Again,

(17:07):
it's not subsidies you mentioned before, so the problems will
have had with energy policy over the last few years.
To put it moldly, this is not a subsidy. We've
testified against subsidies for as long as I've been at
the Buckeye I've been testifying against special carve outs and
subsidies for specific utilities. Obviously thinks from Houspill six, the

(17:28):
fraught and the very poor bill that was done with
all the illegal stuff, but there was a lot of
other stuff besides House Bill six over the years, and
we've always been against that. What we like about this
is it's not a subsidy. It's not the government. It's
a way to make money.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
Let them build the natural gas micro turbines on land
that otherwise isn't being used. If they have excess power,
they can sell it out of profit to places elsewhere
who refuse to get generated through an electricity and we
and they will come.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
You build it.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
We have excess power to Ohio. It's inexpensive. Bring your
business here. It'll run day and night.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Greg.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
Tell you what Greg laws, and thanks again for all
that you do on behalf of Ohioans Buckeyeinstitute dot org.
Check it out listeners. You'll enjoy what you find there.
Keep up the great work, Greg, and we'll look forward
to having me back on the show really really soon.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
It sakes so much appreciate it. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
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