[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - We are honored to be joined by State Senator Joseph Cryan, who is the chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee in the Garden State.

Good to see you, Senator.

- Good to see you, Steve, as always.

- You got it.

Listen, you were part of a roundtable discussion at Stockton University on the future of higher ed.

What do you see, Senator, as the most pressing issues in the higher ed community right now in New Jersey?

- I think the most pressing issue is the actual determination of value for higher education.

I think families today are looking at the cost of higher education in New Jersey around the country and trying and making decisions as to whether or not it actually has the value that it needs for young people to move ahead.

I would say that's even more important than the financial pressures that are occurring in New Jersey.

As you know, we've had mergers, acquisitions, all sorts of things.

But the most fundamental pressing thing for me is that 62% of families in New Jersey value higher education, but many don't.

- Shift gears dramatically, the other end of education, if you will, more than education, our childcare series, you'll see a graphic on the screen, folks, for Start Strong NJ, which is a campaign that looks at the importance of affordable quality childcare.

Senator, you were also part of a round table discussion with Congresswoman MacGyver and others, including folks at the Union Township School District talking about childcare.

What are your greatest concerns about the childcare situation in our state right now?

- Well, it's affordable is one and we haven't provided the kind of access we need.

The school we toured with the Congresswoman and myself actually had open seats, but not the funding to work through it.

So the state needs to both from an education standpoint with local schools and from the state of New Jersey, provide opportunity and access for families.

It was one of the lessons learned from there.

It's one of the things we're fighting through in this budget.

And on a federal level, it's certainly got to be a priority.

Families, you know, Steve, childcare, we got to look at it a couple different ways.

I think the initial instinct is, okay, mom could go to work or families can provide other financial opportunities.

Reality of it is those young people at the earliest of ages become more educated, more socialized, and those benefits are proven and we're losing far too much when we don't provide that opportunity.

- And by the way, check out our website for previous childcare centric segments we've done in cooperation with the Start Strong NJ Initiative.

Senator, again, shift gears.

Could you make sense to our audience and for our audience, the situation as it relates to these data centers and AI?

What the heck are data centers and why is that?

This is a challenging and confusing situation, but it's tremendous policy implications and on the quality of life of people, not to mention the economics.

Please, Senator.

- Huge issue, my district.

A couple quick definitions.

A data center have been around, data centers have been around for 20 plus years.

All right I toured a data center in Piscataway that's been there for 12 years.

Others have been there for over 20.

AI data centers are more of the recent.

I smile only because it's been such a pressing issue.

In the 20th district, for example, in Kenilworth, there's a CoreWeave data center that's created quite a bit of concern among residents and quite a bit of passion among them as well.

An AI data center is a high processing, think Nvidia chip ability to utilize significant data in order to process AI, which demands the huge amount of data for our systems in order to process.

So the AI data systems are creating a significant amount of angst amongst among the public.

- I'm sorry for interrupting, Senator.

What are most folks worried about, concerned about?

- In the Kenilworth one in particular, the primary concerns are electric rates, the use of water, acoustics, use of noise, emissions, the idea that these things can create cancer, and in particular in the Kenilworth Center, there's been a huge tax credit provided by the state of New Jersey.

Given the amount of money CoreWeave makes, that has created a lot of animosity among folks as well.

- So I want to be clear.

- Sure.

- You believe there's a significant role for the state government to play as it relates to regulating data centers?

- I absolutely do, I think they, we ought to do the following, Steve.

First off, I'm not against them completely, even though I know the majority of the public is, but I do think they need to be regulated more.

And I'll give you an example.

They're permitted for, on air permits that they get tested on a regular basis.

Those should be more stringent.

Water, where there is a significant concern among the public that the, you know, the use of water by data centers is going to drain the water table, affect the quality of life.

There's videos of brown water, for example, those sort of things.

There should be more stringent water testing provided by the data companies, let me... The power usage, we are creating in New Jersey a two-tier system as you're, I'm sure, well aware of, with hundred megawatt users or more.

By the way, these data systems can use up to 250 megawatts, just to put that in perspective enough for 200,000 homes.

That there are two tiers in the bidding process again on the PJM so that the electric rates for a data center- - Are PJM the providers of energy?

- That's correct.

The electric grid that supports 13 states.

PJM meaning Pennsylvania, Jersey and Maryland.

It's 13 state cooperative.

And the idea is, is that the large users will bid against themselves for rates and not impact residential rates.

So folks are immensely concerned about their ability to stay in their homes, their ability to have their quality of life in their homes.

And I will tell you, people are offended at no level over the huge tax break that CoreWeave got.

- Okay.

I got a couple minutes left.

Senator, you and I, independently, but both of us are well aware of this, grew up in, let's say families that were engaged in politics, right?

You're laughing because you know.

And let's say the politics that we grew up around rough and tumble, aggressive, okay.

That being said, talk to us about, and you'll see a graphic on the bottom of our screen, you'll screen in democracy in danger.

Why, because it's my sense, Senator, and it's more important what you think, that the level of polarization is different from the past and the level of acrimony and political violence is different from the past, you say?

- I say absolutely.

There were, in the families we grew up in, there were at least limits.

There are no limits anymore.

And anything you can point to, the weaponization of the DOJ, to the incredible, I mean, just in our most recent discussions, investigating a governor's wife, what looks pretty- - Governor Newsom out in California.

- Correct.

Which looks pretty frivolous on its face.

You see those things, those kind of things that we'd like to think didn't happen before, but part of it's social media that we blame to, but part of it too is just this inability any longer to hold back in terms of what we're thinking and just kind of have a common civility.

It's part of the reason John Bramnick and I did the civility tour.

- That's right.

- Just to show that we could debate things in a civil manner.

But I am immensely concerned.

And Steve, it turns away, as you know very well, people from going into public life.

- That's right.

- And Senator makes reference to Republican State Senator John Bramnick, the civility tour with a Democrat, Senator Cryan, talking about disagreeing on policy and issues, but not being disagreeable and not making the other person the enemy.

State Senator Joe Cryan is chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee.

Senator, thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- It's always a pleasure.

Thanks, Steve.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] State of Affairs with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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- At the Turrell Fund, we know that all New Jersey families deserve access to affordable, high quality childcare.

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The Turrell Fund is proud to be part of Start Strong NJ, a statewide initiative to put affordable, high quality childcare within reach of all New Jersey families.

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