Transcript
0:00 Hello, everybody, and welcome to Radio Abundance. I'm Steve Boyle. I'm the executive director of YIMBY Democrats for America. And I am here today with Angus King III, candidate for the governor of Maine. Angus, nice to meet you. Steve, great to be here. Thanks for having me. A couple of nice things about this for me. For one thing, you are running for office right now and not in office, which means I can call you Angus, which we can get straight to the point. Secondly, you know, when I did first talk to your team, I thought, I don't know, Senator Angus King always seemed to cool, but I don't know why he's talking to me. And it turns out you are a completely different person, though not totally unrelated. I also really like the name Angus King III. It is a very badass name, not such a democratic name, but I would love to go by King III. I was almost Richard Franklin Boyle III, which would have been Richard III, so I'm glad I dodged that bullet, but it is kind of nice.
0:51 Yeah, wow. Anyways, enough about me. Hello, Angus King III. Who are you? What's your relationship with the senator? And why are you running for governor of Maine? Yeah, thanks, Steve. Great to be here. Great to be here. I am, in fact, different from the senator, Angus King. He and I have been seen in the same room at the same time, so I'm pretty sure we can confirm that we're different. Look, a lot of people, though, do ask me, are you sort of riding on your dad's coattails? Is there some unfair advantage that you get from being Angus King's son? And I think it's a little bit like asking Wayne Gretzky's kid as he steps out on the ice, do you think it helped you that Wayne Gretzky was your dad? And the answer is, of course it helps, but not in the way you might think, right? The name on the back of your jersey doesn't matter when you're out there on the ice.
1:42 You still have to do the skating. You still have to handle the puck. So all of the work is my own. I am running as my own person. However, is there some benefit to growing up with one of what I think is, and I'm biased, but one of America's few truly inspirational public servants? You bet it is. Being able to grow up with him, learn from him, learn about character and integrity, the power of listening and what you can accomplish when you bring people together in a bipartisan way and really focus on solutions. That's a pretty great training ground. And I'm really grateful for that, but I'm running as my own person. And we'll get to talk a lot about my career and how I got to where I am and why I'm running in a minute. Yeah. You know, the San Diego Padres, interestingly, are not that upset that Fernando Tatis Jr. is a Nepo baby. They're pretty stoked when he hits home runs. And you didn't even do steroids. So you are better than Fernando Tatis Jr. I'm a Giants fan. But it's interesting because in that example, right, both father and son, they basically have the same mission, which is hit home runs.
2:48 This is politics. You might differ. So tell me what you believe in and why you're running for governor.
2:55 Yeah. Yeah. Look, what I believe in is people are struggling too much. Life is too hard. Life is too expensive up here. Right. And whether it's heat or health care or housing, it doesn't really matter. People are falling further and further behind, even if they're working hard and playing by the rules. And I think we've got to start doing things in a fundamentally different way. I think what we've been doing, what the system has been delivering isn't getting the job done. And I've spent my career solving hard problems, being creative, doing things in different ways, bringing people together, knowing how to get stuff done, and ultimately being accountable for the dollars that went in and for the results that came out. And I think that's actually exactly the kind of experience we need right now, as we're trying to solve some of these problems to make people's lives better.
3:42 Nice. Now, look, you are on a podcast called Radio Abundance. You're talking to someone from UNB Democrats for America. We like building houses. We like density. We like urbanism. And we're constantly trying to tell people in places like San Francisco and LA and New York that it's okay if those cities are cities. Maine feels different. Like, please build housing, but it feels like a different conversation, a different aesthetic. How do you think about housing and zoning and density in Maine and speaking with your constituents? What does that look like? Yeah. Yeah. So Maine, look, Maine still needs housing. We are about 80,000 units short in Maine, and we only have 1.4 million people. We are way short on the housing that we need here. And part of that is because historically we have had exactly the kinds of things you just described, zoning that was against density, minimum lot sizes, you know, height restrictions, all the things that actually keep you from building more housing. And ultimately, all that does is it makes you build sprawl.
4:51 And so we see housing sort of, or you don't have enough housing. And to me, not enough housing and too much sprawl seem like kind of the worst of all worlds. The city of Portland where I live actually just passed some fairly thoughtful changes to the zoning rules about how to make sure, can we have taller buildings? Can we have more density? Can we reduce the parking number of parking lot restrictions so that we can actually have more density and have more urban life? So people have been thinking about it. And that's the kind of thing I think we've got to do. We have got to think differently because any town where we are right now in Maine, look, every town is going to have its own unique set of needs. And you've got to be thoughtful about what about sort of what you allow for for home rule. But that doesn't change that every town should have a place where their firemen and their teachers and their nurses should be able to live, right? They shouldn't have to commute to work. And so I think across Maine, it's no different from the rest of the country. We really do have to figure out and work really hard to try and make sure that we don't have things like minimum lot sizes, for example, that just prevent density and prevent people from building housing. It feels to me like there is an exceptionally important point kind of wrapped in this, right? Which is if you love suburbs and you love rural areas, at first glance, it may seem like Yimbyism is not for you. I'd argue the opposite. If you love suburban areas, and especially if you love rural areas, then Yimbyism abundance is maybe the most important thing. Because if cities can be cities, and the people who want to live in cities can live in cities, then then they can, and they leave you alone, right? The sort of de-suburbification of the suburbs, much less development in rural areas that are like nice and rural and pristine, much less development in total green fields, gorgeous natural areas. What is driving that is people who would actually much rather live in the East Village, or in the Mission District and are getting kicked out, and are having to go further and further and further and further away until all those city dwellers mess up your beautiful Maine countryside.
6:59 So it does seem to me that letting the downtowns be downtown is the best way to preserve beautiful nature and charming rural areas and lovely suburbs. That's right. The quality of life here in Maine is second to none. Everybody who lives here, we're all incredibly fortunate to be able to live in Maine, and that's a lot because of the natural resources and the real beauty that we have here. The woods, the waters, the coast, all of those things are incredibly important, and we've got to do what we can to preserve them. But to your point, if you don't have thoughtful planning around it, you're going to end up with more farm fields getting converted into housing, and sort of you get more and more sprawl and less and less of the things that we all love. You get more traffic, and you don't get the things that I think density brings. You get more inefficient transportation. I mean, they're just, the list is fairly long of why you want some more density. And I think again, we've just got to start thinking about things differently. I spent a lot of my career in the affordable housing business, taking old apartment buildings and turning them into new, but keeping them genuinely affordable for the people who live there. And that kind of thing, I think is the kind of thinking, the kind of innovation, the kind of hard work, but really focus on how a community operates that I think is going to make a difference if we're going to kind of work our way out of this problem.
8:22 Yeah. Now look, the whole point of nimbyism is that actually people agree with us. They just think like, oh, not near me, right? Like there's this whole group of left nimbies that don't want anything, which is actually not nimbyism. That's just degrowth there, right? Nimbyism is about saying, oh, Steven Angus, I agree with everything you just said. It just doesn't belong in the streets that surround my house, right? And that's, that's like hard. That's a hard conversation. And you kind of need those people to vote for you. So, I mean, how do you plan, how do you plan to have that conversation? It's not an easy one. No, it's not easy, but look, I've been in essentially that business most of my career. When you're building affordable housing, everyone says, I love affordable housing. Just, I think it would be great in the other town, right? When you're building solar and wind farms, people say, I'm totally for renewable energy, but I'd love it on the next, on the next field over.
9:17 And what you have to do is you have to sit down with the community and you have to listen and you have to work with people and you have to talk to all sides and you have to figure out what is it that's important in our community? What is it that's going to make this place a welcoming place for the people who live here, including the teachers and the firemen and the, you know, first line of defense, first responders? And can they afford to live there? Or are they going to have to drive 45 minutes or an hour in order to get to work? And I think when you start thinking about what do we want as a community, I think that's when you start to get to a more productive conversation. But look, there are always trade-offs. I think that's the other piece is that I think sometimes we've gotten to a place where we think we don't have to make trade-offs, right?
10:02 Energy can just get produced somewhere else or housing can just get built somewhere else and we'll be able to live through that. But the reality is anytime that you build something, there is a trade-off. And I think we've gotten pretty bad at managing those trade-offs, trading, you know, having a real discussion and then landing on an answer. I think we've also, we can talk about process in a minute, but I think we've also put ourselves in a place where we end up in processes that are so long that that by itself kills the project, right? I'm sure you saw the Brookings study that says that projects are now, you know, building a road is now three times as expensive as it was in the 60s, excluding inflation. And that's just process. And that's not to say that there isn't room and important room for public dialogue, for local engagement.
10:53 All of those things are important, but we've got to figure out how to make those processes more streamlined, more straightforward, less zigzagging. And because right now it's just too easy to kill anything. And if you never have a trade-off, you know, you're going to have a hard time actually building anything. Well, I mean, the follow-up question here is too easy. How are you going to do it, man? Yeah, yeah. Look, the good news is there are a lot of people who are sitting in your seat who are, who want to build more housing. And so I think part of it is how do you encourage the people who want to do it? How do you help the towns? There are towns here in Maine, in Biddeford, for example, or Brunswick that are building a lot of housing. And they are responding to the needs of the community. And the question is, what can we do to help you?
11:40 And then the second piece is, what can you do at the state level? I think there is, again, part of it is there are a lot of well-intentioned rules that have been put in place over the last, call it 50 years, that make everything just a little bit harder, every one that you pile on top of the next. And you ultimately end up with sort of death by a thousand good intentions and you can't get through it and you can't get to an actual yes on a project. I think the other piece, though, is there's sort of a cultural piece around thinking about not how do we get to process, but how do we get to yes? And how do we think about let's have a goal? We need 80,000 units. Let's build 8,000 every single year. How are we going to get there? And you start getting everybody involved and you start getting good ideas on the table and you start, getting everybody, again, focused on how do we get to that good outcome, not just how do we listen to how do we sort of work through a process.
12:39 And if we only get 400 at the end of the year, that's that. And look, I'm not saying that there aren't people working hard at it. I just think given the numbers that we're talking about, we can lean in a lot further. And again, that's what I've done most of my career is how do you lean in? How do you think creatively? How do you think in a big way? And how do you risk failing sometimes? Right. I think that's the other piece is sometimes we're going to fail and that's OK. You just have to get back up, try again and listen to the next new idea and try and implement it. So I think as long as we're energetic about it and focused on it and we can say this is a statewide priority, I think that's a that goes a long way toward getting the job done. Well, it sounds like you have some experience with this. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your background and maybe tell us some stories? Yeah, happy to. You know, I spent a lot of my career in the affordable housing business and there are a lot of opponents to affordable housing.
13:32 Again, to your point, most of them say I love affordable housing, just not right here. And so you have to work with communities. You have to be you have to work with state agencies. There was one state where I was working on a project and in order to get through their process, there was a first come, first serve moment. And so I rented an RV because people were lining up on January 1st. This is a northern tier state and sitting outside in the cold to wait to get first come, first serve. I decided that was crazy. So rented an RV, sat in there, watched college football for a long weekend, got got a place in line. And then and then when they opened their doors on January 1st or January 2nd, there I was in line and had gotten the entire parking lot to agree on who had gotten there at which moment.
14:23 And we ended up getting the project built so you can overcome a lot of challenges, but you've got to be creative. You've got to be thoughtful and you've got to work with people. After the housing business, I was in the solar and wind business and it's the same. It's actually very similar. They have complicated financing. They have neighbors who don't like them. They have big construction components. Housing and renewable energy are actually quite similar. And again, you're working with how can I get this whole project together? And the only way that it works is if you get everybody on board. You cannot build a project if you don't have your engineer on board. You can't build it if you don't have your lending on board. You can't build it if you don't have the town on board. And I think that's a very different perspective in how you actually get something done.
15:12 You have to be able to work with everybody. You have to be able to get things across the finish line. And that's different from, you know, if you're in a state legislature where you have to only win 51-49.
15:24 And so my experience is getting things done, is bringing people around the table, setting a vision, getting it clear, and then getting us across the finish line and, like I said, being accountable for the result. And I think that's a pretty unique skill set and one that I think will be really helpful as we start trying to figure out how do we build a better state.
15:45 And then to finish up, we can talk about the gas business. I worked for a gas company, but my job there was I built a renewable energy company inside the utility, which a lot of people thought was a crazy idea. But I thought if we were going to have clean air and clean water and clean energy, we needed everybody involved, including utilities. So I got utility executives and clean energy advocates and dairy farmers and local town officials and thousands and thousands of cows. And we turned that crazy idea into that crazy idea into the Peaks Renewables Dairy Digester up in Clinton, Maine. And it's now turning manure into clean energy, heating thousands of homes and factories, lowering emissions in Maine, creating some good jobs, and doing it all without adding costs to Maine families, which I think is a pretty great outcome for a pretty crazy idea.
16:38 So I think that's the kind of resilience and the kind of focus and the kind of can do that we need in our leaders right now if we're going to get through some of these challenges. Nice. I mean, oil and gas companies, it does feel, I don't want to say they're the good guys, but it does feel like they have had 20 years to prepare for a time where green energy would be an important part of the economy and now is. And I bring this up only to say, I remember early this year, I think the Trump administration was like, you guys, great news. We're going to do oil and gas again. And they were like, oh, actually, we've bet pretty heavily on this green energy thing. Like we've been planning to diversify. We need to keep doing that. Am I right? Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I mean, look, we need more energy. We need lower carbon and we need lower costs.
17:25 Those things are what we need as a species right now. And the good news is solar energy is the cheapest and probably the fastest to deploy right now. So anything the administration is doing to slow that down is just nuts. And, you know, I couldn't disagree more strongly. But look, I think the long arc is toward more decarbonization. And I think those projects in the long run are going to be successful. So I think the industry is still critically important. And I think there's a lot we can do. Getting back to what can you do, given what the administration is doing. I think in Maine, there are a couple of things. The first is you can work with other governors in terms of how are we building out our transmission system? How are we looking at the ISO here so that we're actually making the grid more ready for more renewables down the road?
18:19 Right now, getting renewables onto our grid is actually incredibly difficult and time consuming. And I think there's a lot of really thoughtful work that people are trying in order to get that ready for when things turn around. The second is around permitting reform. It is very, very hard. If you want to build a hen house or an outhouse or a warehouse or a solar energy project, it's hard. And again, no one is arguing about the standards. They should all be high. Our quality of life here is great because of the natural resources we have and we have to protect them. But we also have to make it so that people can get through a permitting process in a reasonable amount of time with some reasonable degree of certainty so that we can actually build these projects. So in some of this stuff where the governor can have a big old impact, do you feel like if you win, the legislature is going to be like, all right, I'm with you.
19:09 Let's go. Or is there is that going to be a big battle, too? I mean, how do you see that playing out? Knowing that some of this also involves future casting of who's going to be in what seat. But how do you how do you how do you how do you see that? Yeah, I think in Maine, people value the climate. People value the natural heritage that we have. And so people in general, they want again, they want more energy that is lower carbon and low cost. And so as long as as the solar business and the wind business are producing more energy that's lower carbon and at lower cost, that's what we're going to do. So I think there are a lot of policy discussions. There are a lot of good ideas and a couple of probably not great ideas. But, you know, they're always going to be opponents. But again, that's the essence of building something is you got to bring people along and you got to compromise and you got to find a way to get something over the finish line.
20:00 So I think the governor is going to have a big role in working with the legislature. I mean, whether it's in Democrat, whether it stays in Democratic hands or not, you've got to be able to work with them and and and be able to think about ideas and present ideas and make the case. But I think right now, Mainers in general, they want they want energy that is lower carbon and lower cost. And I think that's what we're going to be able to deliver. And how do you think about tell us about your own race? I mean, first of all, the question for just to say to the audio, say the audience, right? Are you in a 2025 race or are you in a 2026 race? And then, like, how do you think about the field, the strategy where you're at? You're feeling good. What? You know, let's start there. And then I'll ask you many follow ups. OK. Yeah. The answer to your last question is I feel great.
20:48 I feel like I'm in exactly the right place at exactly the right time, because I really genuinely feel like people want somebody who is more pragmatic and moderate and focused on how do we get things done and focused on the essential things that help people get through there every day. And we can talk about that more. But in terms of the race, it's a 2026 primary in June. There are three other people running with me for that, for the Democratic nomination. They are all really good people. I think the good news is, you know, you want a primary with good people who I think are going to all add something to the conversation. And so I think primaries are a critical part of how democracy works, and I feel good about about the race.
21:34 And my opponents have long histories in our state capital, in Augusta, you know, in public service. And so I think those are that's a laudable and good thing. But I think, you know, the reason I'm in this race is because I think we've got to start doing things differently. I just think we've got to start the system is not working what we have, what we're delivering for people, again, whether it's a health care system or our education system or economic development system or housing, it's just not getting the job done. And so I think someone who comes from the outside, someone who understands a lot of these businesses because I've spent a lot of my life in them, and someone who knows how to get things done, I think is an outside perspective that's pretty valuable.
22:19 So I feel very optimistic about the race, and I am having a great time going around the state, talking to people who love our state and want to make it better. That is a terrific job to have right now, and I feel lucky to do it. You know, the administration has come up a couple of times, right? Like, ideal world, what we want to say is, look, you're running for governor. That is not about national partisan politics. Like, that is about your state. You want to be bipartisan, work with anybody. That's what we want. That's, like, the normal year. They're making that all real hard. So how do you think about being, like, the governor of a state where that is your scope of responsibility and how you will have to deal with, think about, maybe sometimes, like, work with in very complicated ways, the Trump administration?
23:07 Yeah, look, we have a corrupt arsonist in Washington right now, and he is lighting everything that you might care about on fire, right? It doesn't matter if it doesn't matter if it's climate or the national debt or national parks or immigration or international relations or higher education or research or, I mean, like, literally the list goes on and on and on. So we are going to have to do a number of things. Number one, there are going to be moments where we're going to have to really fight. And, you know, I've built a lot of projects. Sometimes you get in fights, and that's okay. I feel comfortable in that arena. But I also think you also have to think about the world is not always zero-sum, and you have to figure out how to work with people.
23:53 And because fundamentally, the federal government does, in fact, have a huge impact on the state of Maine. And so we've got to make sure that we're working with them when we can and fighting against them when we have to. And that's – and fighting against them sometimes on our own, but sometimes with – through the courts, and sometimes in concert with other Democratic governors. I think there's a lot of really good work that's being done by Democratic governors now who are banding together for this very reason. Banding together to work on transmission for more renewables. Banding together to work on health care to fight the disinformation that's coming out of Washington. Working together with their attorneys general to fight a lot of these cuts that are going to really decimate a lot of these states if we don't work our way through it.
24:42 So I think you're going to have to – it's going to be all hands on deck. We're going to have to keep protesting in the streets, fighting in the courts. I'm going to have to fight, and I'm ready for that. But you're right. There are also going to be moments where you're going to have to get people in the room and figure out how are we going to solve these challenges. And some of them we can solve right here in Maine, but not every single one of them. And we've got to be able to be really, really strategic, but also tactical in terms of where do we lean in, where do we absorb, where do we yield and overcome, and how do we make sure we get the best possible outcome for the people in Maine?
25:17 Angus, I have a stupid question. But some of the fun of this podcast is that I get to ask stupid questions for anybody else who has them but can't ask. Sure. So I have a fun American ancestral background, which it goes from – the earliest would be genuinely the Haudenosaunee, if I'm saying that right, because the more common phrase is the Iroquois. But I think in French Canada, I have very early English colonists, very early French colonists, mid-1800s Scotch-Irish, and nice, like, early 1900s Italian Ellis Island. And within that is a guy named Alexander Shapley, who would have been probably about one of the first 300 or so colonists in Maine in the 1630s. But, Mr. King III, I am a coastal cosmopolitan posho fancy boy. I bet some of our listeners are too.
26:05 What should we know about Maine? Just tell us about Maine. What should we know about Maine? Oh, well, Maine is the place that most people think about 50 weeks out of the year, and then they come here for the two weeks. And then they go home, and they think about Maine again for the next 50. It is a wonderful place to be. It starts, of course, with there are great people here doing really great, interesting things. As I mentioned, the best part of this job is the people I get to meet who are really working just as hard as they possibly can to make it a better place. But if you don't live in Maine, it is a wonderful place to visit. I recommend it. I recommend it any time of the year, candidly. It's pretty cold in February, so you've got to want to do something outside.
26:51 But if you want to ski or snowshoe or skate outdoors on a river, man, there's nothing more freeing than skating down a river on a black ice day. And then the rest of Maine is just the most beautiful place you can imagine. We have unbelievably great forests and mountains. We have beautiful rivers full of fish.
27:13 I'm a big fisherman, so as much time as you can spend on the water, I'm in. And then we have this unbelievable coastline that is just second to none. It's the longest coastline in the country. It's mostly rocky, but there are enough beaches to give you a place to sit down and throw down your umbrella. And then there are also unbelievable restaurants and great food. As most people know, there's a lot of lobster and wild blueberries here. And you just really can't go wrong on a visit here, really, no matter what age you are or what age you feel like you are and what gets you out of bed in the morning. There's a very vivid pitch. You should work for the Tourism Bureau when you're done being governor. But now I want to ask the fun question, because we're always talking about the vision thing, right? And really painting a picture of what life will be like after we win and are effective.
28:02 So now that you give us a gorgeous view of what Maine is like today, can you paint me a similarly evocative picture of what it will be like at the end of your term? Yeah. So let me give you a slightly less tourist version of what Maine is about right now. Right now, Maine people are struggling. Groceries are expensive. Heat is expensive. As I mentioned, it is really damn cold here in February.
28:27 Housing has doubled in cost in the last five years, doubled in cost, right? So if you're a young family and you're trying to get the next home because you just added a child, it is almost impossible. If you want to move here for a new job, it's almost impossible for you to find a house. And so when you think about the cost of living and the struggles for people, I think that's the other piece that's very, very real and that we've got to pay attention to. It's sort of a second five alarm fire. You know, Trump is setting this first five alarm fire, but you can't get away from the fact that there's this other thing that's been smoldering for a long time where people who work hard, play by the rules, are falling further and further behind. So what does it look like in four years after a successful first administration or first term?
29:17 Look, number one, we've built more housing and it's more affordable. And that's up and down the economic ladder. We need to build more housing at sort of every range. I mean, I'm not worried about the multimillion dollar mansion crowd, but for really everybody else in that range from starter homes all the way up to sort of the missing middle and even above, we just need more housing stock. So number one, we've set a goal, we've gotten everyone oriented toward the goal, and we found our way through to building more housing. Second, our schools are better. Our schools 30 years ago were in the top 10, top five in the country. They are now in the bottom 10 in the country.
30:00 And, you know, we just fell behind Mississippi and reading. And with all due respect to Mississippi, that has not always been the case. And so we have to start working on bringing back our schools. There are a lot of different things we can do, but, you know, that's got to be a focus of the next governor. So if we get our schools to a place where our kids are ready, not just for the jobs of today, but also the jobs of tomorrow, I think that's a huge win. The third piece is around health care. Health care here is no different from everywhere else in the country. It is fundamentally a broken system. The difference here in Maine is we have some urban areas and then we have some very rural areas, and rural health care is in very precarious shape right now. So I think the third thing is we've managed to shore up and create enough innovation in the system so that we're actually serving patients more effectively.
30:58 One aside on that, someone told me the other day, the health care industry right now sends five, sends nine billion faxes per year.
31:08 Nine billion faxes. I don't know the last time you sent a fax for me. It was like nine billion years ago. And, you know, it's about one and a half trillion dollars worth of excess administration that doesn't make anybody healthier. So I think there are, again, good people working on trying to resolve that, both at the state level and across the country. And we've got to lean in on innovation there to make sure that health care is more accessible and more affordable. The last thing for me is we've made a government that is more responsive to the people who need it and not in the way to the people who are raring to go. I think that's a big challenge. But when I worked for President Clinton when I was younger, Vice President Gore spent a lot of time working on that is the kind of work we're going to have to do.
31:56 It's long. It's slow. But ultimately, it's important because, again, that pile of death by a thousand good intentions gets in the way of building things. And we've got to figure out a way for how can we make it so that someone can permit a house if they want to build it, can permit an addition to their factory, can permit their aquaculture oyster farm in less than four or five or six years, which is what it takes right now. So I think there's a lot of work we can do on the government side to just make it more effective and so people are getting more for their tax dollars, honestly. You know, you named a couple of, I mean, many interesting things. Excellent. But a few things like, you know, you talk about preparing people for the jobs of tomorrow or innovation in health care.
32:41 You know, sometimes I wrap up episodes and people say to me, I'm sorry, did I get too much in the weeds? And I'm like, oh, my God, no, this is the place for the weeds. This is the weeds? This is the weeds. And guess what? The people that would be bored by that will just see the clips anyways. And you already said the high level stuff. So I'm not trying to put you on the spot, like put meat on those bones, sir. But what I am trying to do is invite you, if there is something you think is so weedsy, nobody will care about, I think this is the audience for it. And when you talk about innovation in health care or the jobs of tomorrow or really any bits of this, if there's anything that comes to mind that is a little weedsy for most shows, boy, we'd love to hear about it. All right. I've probably got a couple. So first is on the energy side.
33:24 Our grid costs keep getting more and more expensive, and we keep wanting to add more and more renewables, which ultimately can be cheaper, as I described. But we've got to figure out how to get those two things together. And there are a lot of utilities that are doing really interesting work across the country in how do we have distributed energy, things like solar and batteries, help make our grid stronger so that it can absorb more renewables, but also be less costly to build and maintain. So DERs and gets and all these things that make ultimately our electric system more efficient, more effective, and less expensive to operate and maintain and build, and also allows more renewables and lower carbon power under our system, I think is going to be absolutely a big part of the next wave and something that governors and policymakers can lead on in working with utilities and grid operators and the rest.
34:18 So that's really sort of idea number one on education, I think it's it's a little less weedy, but there are a couple of things number one, we've got to focus on zero to five, right now, too many kids are arriving at kindergarten, not ready to learn. And I've talked to kindergarten, and I've talked to kindergarten teachers about that, and so you've got both the data and the anecdote telling you the same thing. And if you're not ready, and if you're not ready in kindergarten, you're definitely going to fall behind in first grade and second grade and middle school and high school, and it gets harder and harder to bring someone back up onto the curve, and ultimately more expensive or just you don't get there. And you think about what our students are today is our workforce tomorrow, they are the future of this state, it sounds cliched but literally teachers are creating our future, and if they're if the kids aren't ready, when they get there.
35:15 It's harder and harder job for the teacher so I think number one, we've got to focus on zero to five number two, we've got to help teachers.
35:24 Teachers love to teach, they are not there to get rich, but they also did not take a vow of poverty. And you've got to make sure that you're paying them enough to do the job, but you also got to make sure they've got the tools, they're not buying school supplies for their students. You also want to make sure that in a situation like that, there are other things you can do for them. Can you create career paths that make it that give them something rewarding and ways for them to earn more money as they go up a career path. Are there things that you can do with recognition, and then those are on the positive side, and on the negative side, what is the grit and the gears that we can remove. We have a lot of complex certification processes here in Maine and it's just, I have a friend who left teaching just because the certification process was such a pain.
36:14 He was a teacher for 20 years, he had another decade in him and he was a great teacher, and that's just a loss for the state and ultimately for those kids. And so we've got to be able to get the grit out of the gears so that my friend Mark can keep teaching. And, you know, I mean, I think right now, Tom Brady wouldn't be able to teach phys ed here in Maine. And that's crazy. He shows up, I want that guy on the field.
36:37 So I think there's some grit that we can take out for people as well as providing, again, career paths and recognition, things that really do help make it a more positive experience. You just promised me three themes. We've done two, and three is just such a good dramatic structure. You've got to give me the climax. Sure, sure. On the healthcare side, I talked about the 9 billion faxes. There are two things that I would talk about. Number one, there's a company that is working here in Maine on how do we provide more holistic care for a patient. And as a result, the patient gets more and better care. They get a lot more touch points with their care team, but it actually takes less of a physician's time. And so what they're finding as they've been building out this company is three things.
37:25 Number one, they get better healthcare outcomes. So it's better for the patient. Number two, it's lower cost. Because of the care they're getting, they're getting less ER trips, fewer specialist trips. It's ultimately lower cost. And finally, it's allowing physicians to have a larger panel of patients. So we in Maine are short on physicians. It is very hard to get a primary care provider if you need one right now. So if you're short on physicians and you can create a situation where physicians can actually have more patients, that's the same as creating more physicians. And so I like that sort of triple bottom line solution that they're working on. And I think those kinds of innovations are going to be really important as we try and break free of this really fundamentally broken fee-for-service model.
38:15 So there are your three weeds for the conversation. No, that was real good. I liked it. We're coming to our close in a second. What should I have asked you that I didn't?
38:24 Yeah, I mean, I think you asked why I'm running, but I probably, you know, what is it about now, maybe, is the question that might be worth answering. You know, I've spent my life solving hard problems that fundamentally are about helping people. And this is, and affordable housing and renewable energy and building companies and creating jobs is not the ordinary path to running for governor. But I really don't think this is an ordinary moment. But I really don't think this is an ordinary moment. I really don't think that leadership only comes from the legislature. I just don't. And I think we are in a moment where we need a different outlook. We need a vision that is going to be willing and able to listen to all sides, be curious about different solutions, and then ultimately be able to get people together and get the job done.
39:16 So that's why I'm doing it, is I feel like I just couldn't stand by. I feel, you know, public service is an important thing. And here's my opportunity to make a difference here in Maine, given the background that I have and given the energy I've got for making a difference here. Excellent. Tell the people where they can find you and how they can help. Angus for governor is the website. And you'll find all the information, a video about the digester and all the cows. And there's always a donate here link as well. That's relatively easy to find. And, you know, please, please go and give me your feedback. I really appreciate it. Nice. Well, Angus King III, thank you for talking to this long-lost son of Maine today. And thanks for spending so little time on Radio Abundance.
40:02 You're welcome back anytime. Thanks for doing what you're doing, Steve. More abundance is good. You're welcome back anytime. I'll have to visit you in Maine, and you'll have to come back as the campaign progresses. Thank you so much, Matt. That sounds great. That sounds great. Have a great rest of the day.