Florida governor's race: Byron Donalds' vision

First here at five, just four days to go until the midterms and the race for governor appears to be very close. Tonight we're drilling into where the candidates stand and what they would change if they were elected. Our political editor Craig Patrick just sat down with Republican nominee Byron Donalds. Craig. Well, one of the big differences between the candidates is on the issue of data centers. Democrat David Jolly would put a one year moratorium on new data center construction pending further study and potentially a permanent ban after that. While Republican Byron Donald would allow data centers if approved by local government. So we started with that. The law requiring data centers to bear their full utility cost applies to the major power suppliers. I don't see that it applies to the municipal utilities or the rural co-ops. So if they are approved by local governments, what at this point would stop data centers from going in some places where the consumer protections would not apply? Well, first of all, let's be very clear that first, a local community has to approve one to be constructed. The state of Florida is not gonna make those approvals. A local community, local governments do. Where you typically have these co-ops is in the same places where you have more rural local governments. And so that's something that the local cooperative and the local government would have to work out. In terms of the large utilities, they are regulated by the state of Florida. That's why state law is very clear that utility bills will not go up. When it comes to a data center, we're not going to allow those costs to be passed on. In conversations I've had with the co-ops, the co-ops have no interest in doing that because they understand, first of all, they're owned by the members of that segment of where the grid is. And so they have no plans at all to do that. But we will make sure that even if it's in a rural cooperative, it's not one of the big utilities, that utility bills don't go up for those citizens as well. Well, you just stressed that local governments should decide whether to allow data centers in their communities. But Florida's Republican-led state government has long preempted local governments from deciding whether to do a lot of different things and a range of issues. On data centers, though, you oppose state preemption. What's the difference? Because you're talking about a facility that's several million square feet. The state of Florida does not issue building permits. Local governments issue building permits. So when it comes to these issues, we think that communities should be able to decide if one gets constructed or not. Donald's also said he can grow business in our state and protect our environment, though he did not embrace the scientific consensus on climate change. And on the broader environmental challenges facing our state, do you believe that human activity and particularly the burning of fossil fuels is contributing to climate change? And do you believe that climate change is making certain extreme weather events more severe? No, I don't. What I do believe, though, is that we need to be focused on how we make energy more affordable for people and we lower energy costs. I think, you know, part of the reason that we've seen higher energy costs, obviously the conflict going on in the Middle East, but it's also been energy policy coming out of Washington, D.C. that favored essentially climate change policy, which has raised utility costs all across the country. And we've seen We've seen those impacts in Florida. And in terms of energy policy, Donald said that he wants to focus on nuclear power and natural gas. We also discussed education reform in depth and Donald's support of school vouchers and whether they give private schools incentive to raise their tuition. We covered a lot of other ground as well, from health care to disability rights, transportation to home insurance and affordable housing. So please watch our full. 30-minute interview with Byron Donalds on the Fox Local app. Yeah, it is absolutely worth your time, whether you're still on the fence or you think for sure you know who you're voting for. It is absolutely worth knowing, you know, who and what your vote goes to. Craig, thank you. Thank you.