The 9:33 Experiment-Has Your Electric Bill Gone Up?

Warning, the following segment contains unscripted opinions, unexpected conversations, and callers with absolutely no filter. Rich insisted this was a good idea. Management remains skeptical. Welcome to the 933 experiment. This is News Radio WRVA. All right, 934 this morning here on News Radio WRBA. We call this the 933 experiment. Why? Because Dave unleashes the phones, we take your telephone calls and your text messages about the show and whatever topics we happen to throw out at this part of the program. So let me throw this out. Have you gotten your energy bill? Have you gotten your power bill? How much did it go up? Now here's where the rubber meets the road. Now here's where the rubber meets the road. Our governor ran on bringing the cost of living down in the Commonwealth of Virginia. She sincerely ran on that. I'm going to help you because Donald Trump has ruined the economy. I'm going to help you with the cost of living. I will bring the cost down. Okay, great. I'd love for you to do that. In fact, Abigail Spanberger, if you're successful doing that, that's awesome, and you'll have my support. I think everybody would support that. Republican Democrat, and let's get out of our lane, let's get out of our little tribe. If there is a Democrat that could help bring down the cost of living in Virginia, they certainly would have my support. Two things. The government doesn't control the national economy, so for you to make that kind of claim, is a little disingenuous because you're not going to work on monetary policy imports, all the rest of that. But again, you ran on that. Okay, fine. Whatever little things you can do, maybe it's regulation, maybe it's local taxes, whatever. So let me ask you this. First example, she's been in office for eight months. Has your cost of living gone down since Abigail Spanberger has become our governor? Here's a real simple one, something that she has direct control over, the cost of your electric bill here in the Commonwealth of Virginia. So as you're getting your Dominion Energy bill, did your bill go up or did it go down? Send me a text message. Let me know. 833, 8041140. 833, 8041140. I am gasping because I haven't seen mine yet. I'll probably be there today. I know other people in my neighborhood have gotten theirs. Oh, boy. Car taxes are coming out as well. That's going to go out soon. I think some people might have already gotten them. 833, 804, 1140, James River Air Tech sign. Did your electric bill go up or did it go down? Bob Chesapeake says, good morning, my electric bill went up $200 and I use less than a month ago. Is he the only one? Did yours go up? I just want to know. Maybe I'm going to be like Gisala Hashmi and this will be my listening to her since she's going to go around talking about the Dominion Energy next gen.

merger, and she's going to go around the state listening to people. All right, I listen to people every day. In fact, Lieutenant Governor, I'll let you sit right here with me. I'll let you listen to people all day long if you want to come on the radio with me. 833-804-1140, 833-804-1140. Their text line number for you to join me here on the program. The cost, and that's the part that I'm trying to. Listen. I'm relating to this as many people as I can. Lawmakers both on and off the air, candidates both on and off the air, Republicans on and off the air, I'm telling everybody in their brother, listen, I hear from you. I know what it's like in my house. The cost of living is getting really out of control. So if Abigail Spanberger says, boom, let's do this. Let's make the cost of living more affordable for everybody. Great. How are you going to do it? Um, people are, now people are hitting me up on this. I want to hear, somebody call me. I need to hear this, 833, 804, 1140, because I'm just getting in a day with text messages. My electric bill went up $80 since last month. It's the highest electric bill ever, and I've been in the same house since 1992. And the previous bills, yeah, I get where you're going. Compared my electric bill for July to my bill from 2019, and in 2019, I'm now paying 60% more per kilowatt than I paid in 2019. Rich, my electric bill averaged around $78 a month before that I got. Now my electric bill is over $140 a month. I live in a 900 square foot home by myself. My water bill range for $48 every two months, now $78. And if I've been in Gaelax, I would have booed to and throw rotten tomatoes. No, you can't throw rotten tomatoes at the governor. You'll get in trouble for that. But I get where you're coming from. And that's the part that Democrats better know, and Republicans better start talking about this. That's where I said yesterday. I made a bunch of people mad, but I don't care. I'll say what I think. It's my show, my opinions. Donald Trump better figure out how to connect back with us, the American people. That's what his superpower is. For a guy who's incredibly wealthy, he understands or gets the plight of everyday people. That's where he shows of the garbage truck, shows of McDonald's, lets people know, okay, I get what you're saying. And that's the point where... I see these people in Capitol Square. I see the people at Capitol Hill. I see the people in City Hall, and I hear them, and it's the first op-ed I ever wrote. I said, listen, your decisions, you're making over here, you're squabbling over policy, that policy has real world impact on everybody else that's not sitting in here. 833, 804, 1140, 833, 804, 1140. How much, how much, how much, how much, how much, how much, how much, Did your electric bill go up? If the first thing you tell me is you're going to, when you're running, is you're going to lower our bills, and then you put us in the regional greenhouse gas initiative, you said one thing and did another, and that's the pattern that I keep saying with this governor. I'm going to get involved in the...

Dominion next gen, but I'm not going to call back a special session. I'm going to do it my way, and I'm going to say one thing and then not exactly do it. We're not a sanctuary state. We cooperate with ICE. We're going to ask ICE to do something that they're really not designed to or capable of doing. That way I can say we're not a sanctuary state, and I cooperate with ICE, even though I know they work with civil warrants and they work with immigration judges. Now I'm going to ask them to work with... the criminal justice system, which is something they're not a part of. So that way I can tell you, boom, I am cooperating. I am making this make sure that we're going to stay safe. I'm not going to be a sanctuary state, but then I do something that's just enough that I can keep my word, whether it's really I'm following through with it. And again, I keep, I say this all the time. You met my son. He was here last week since he was a little kid. He, you know, the first time I caught him doing something where he left something out. I just, he got a spanking. And I told him, I said, dude, a lie of omission is worse than just a bald face lie because you're looking at me like I'm stupid and I can't figure it out. Super Dave, you know what happened when he came home? He found his bad boy spoon. His bad boy spoon. Oh, he was so mad. What's that? When he was a little kid that had a wooden spoon that he got spanked with. And I wrote Rigney's Bad Boy, Rigny's Bad Boy spoon on it. And he found it in the kitchen. He was going through looking for something. He found the kitchen. He goes, I can't believe you kept that. I go, do you behave yourself? He goes, yeah, I go, do you want the spoon again? No. So when he was little and he would be in, and when he was in trouble, I'd send him to the room, and he'd have to sit in his room. And I didn't want to spank him when I was mad because I just knew that that wasn't a good idea. So you have to sit there and then I make him go get the spoon, bring it to me, he'd get a swat, and then I make him put the spoon back, and then think about what he did and how he was going to correct himself. It was like a three-hour process. Yeah, that's a lot of work. That's a lot of work. But... He knew and the fact he said the thing that he dreaded was having a walk over to get the spoon and bring it to me and then go back in his room and just wait for me to come in. He goes, you are horrible torturing me. Along those same lines, this was, I think it was a listener one time called this and then said that when he was a kid, he was, when he did something bad, his. mom or dad would say would get okay it's just i got to give you the switch oh and they would make him go out and pull it get a branch off a tree and bring him back and then get hit with it But they would actually make it. And if he found like a small twig or something, and he brought that back, then he got even more trouble. That don't fly. That's funny. All right. More text messages. My bill went up $80 per month, and I am on a budget plan, which means that that will remain the case until they reevaluate it in six months based on my usage.

We residential customers are subsidizing billion-dollar corporations. If you sent that to me, give me more of an example. We in Virginia are paying for the infrastructure required by these data centers and why the data centers are locating in Virginia. I think I need to do more of a deep dive into these data centers. So I sat down with a lot of different experts. And Dave knows this. I go on, I spend a bunch of time on the phone afterwards because I ask the questions that you ask and I want to get answers from people. When it comes to the data centers, nobody wants the data centers in their backyard and they all think they're evil and bad and horrible people. But I still need the data centers somewhere in America. If not, you're going to allow China. because it's the World Wide Web and we're all going to be competing for it. Either you have the data centers here, you can have them in China. I'd rather have them here. Now, the original data centers, yeah, they sucked up a lot of water and took a lot of energy and they still take a lot of energy. But it's like your car. The car that you had in 1999 is a lot different than the car you have in 2026. The technology has gotten better. Do they take as much water? No. Do they take as much electricity? Yeah. Do we have a grid that is old? Yes. Do we have enough power plants? No. So yeah, absolutely, they put a stress on all that we do. What is the net, net, good or bad for the Commonwealth of Virginia? We'll have to talk more about that. But I do think, I do think that... There's a lot of people that are just against them, and I think some of the information they have might be just a little bit, a little bit of outdated information. Outdated information. Virginia has more data centers than any other state in the union. Christine, absolutely. And that's why we have a license plate that says data center of the world. It's an emerging technology. This is the fourth industrial revolution. You know, you have the Bronze Age, Industrial Revolution, and people hated the Industrial Revolution, and people hate this next digital revolution. But your choice is, do you want to embrace it, or do you want to see it go somewhere else? Let's go to John. I think he's online. Hey, John, welcome. You're on News Radio, WRVA. Yeah, you wanted to know how the residential customers are subsidizing their data centers? Yeah. Yeah, in Virginia, by law, Virginia power or Dominion Power has to spread out the cost of infrastructure amongst all the ratepayers. Right now, they're spending tremendous amounts of money to improve the infrastructure for the data centers, and they are passing that cost on to the residential. rate payers and that's why in the last two or three years you have seen your price per kilowatt hour spike but i've also seen expending huge amounts of money hold on listen we have a conversation i'm not going to catch off but i was also under the impression maybe i'm wrong you tell me that we've now changed the roles where they do have to pay for quite a bit more of their infrastructure than they did five years ago

Where did you find that information? I got that from the state. The Virginia Power has to spread the cost of infrastructure improvements out amongst all the rate payers. See, I think that's where I need to figure out exactly what that is. So no, if that's the case, yeah. Well, okay, back up for a second. Do we have a grid that needs to be updated no matter what? Yes. Okay. Well, not nearly to the extent that it needs to be updated for the data centers. Okay, stop. If you're just going to yell, then we can't have a conversation. Let me just, let me ask you this. Do we need to upgrade the grid, correct? Yes, I'd agree, right? Yes. Okay, so let's, how do we do this? If data centers are taking all of that, do they need to pay their fair share? I agree with you. Would you say yes? Yes. Okay, so then we have to find the, okay, but that's not what I asked you. I'm asking you, do they need to pay their fair share? Absolutely. So that's what we need to hold accountable to our legislators and to Dominion and all the rest of these people. Hey, people need to pay for these as they're coming on. Let me ask you the difference. And you're going to get mad at this, but I just want to ask you the difference. If I've got a new subdivision that goes in, do those people need to pay for their upgraded transmission lines and what they do to the grid? Well, as current law currently states, that expense is going to be spread amongst all rate payers across Virginia. Right. And I understand that when it was just residential customers, but when you have giant multi-billion dollar corporations requiring 10x the amount of electricity that residential customers require. Is there a net? Okay, let me ask you this. Is there a net net good that they bring? Not necessarily because once they're built, a huge data center might employ like 12 people. Right, but they employ. So, okay, how much money do they bump? And they're getting a reduced rate on their electricity because they're buying it in bulk. Okay, but hold on a second. So let's talk what you were talking about. And here's what I, here's my research, okay? If I build a big plant. And I'm building cars. I'm going to have 100 people and they're going to make 50,000 a year and that's what they bring into the economy into what we're doing. If I build a data center and I only have 12 people, but each of those people are making $120,000, is that the amount of income that's coming into the community? Yes. Okay. So we have people that have better paid. We don't know that they're going to be making that kind of money because Sam Altman said that we're going to spend this money to build AI and then we're going to ask it how we generate revenue with it. Okay. That's just insane. Okay. See, but do you understand my point of this is an industrial revolution and we're really not sure where it's going? Just don't you? What's that? Usually you have a plan on how you're going to generate revenue with a business before you invest a bunch of money to start a business, don't you? So when the last industrial revolution was beginning, did they have a master plan of how it was going to work?

Uh, yeah. They did? They did? Rockefeller. Rockefeller had a plan on how he was going to make a better kerosene, and he was going to saturate the market with that better kerosene. And if he had failed at it, and if he had failed at it. If he had failed at it, then what would happen? He failed at it, but he didn't fail because he had a plan on how he was going to generate revenue beforehand. How many other people do we not know? Okay, thanks for the call. Thanks for the call. Thanks for the call. See, this is the part where I got to jump in because you're not listening. How many other people have that same plan? I'm not saying the data centers are good. I'm not saying the data centers are bad, but I think we have to have an open mind to this because... It's the next industrial revolution. Do you want to go, you want to get ahead of it or do you want to fall behind it? That's my big question. I'm not saying they're all great. I'm not saying I want one next to me, but I do want some leadership when it comes to this. And by the way, thank you for the call because I get it. I get the, I don't want to say. I get why people are so bent out of shape, and you should be. Let's get all the answers. All right, that's it. I've got to get out here. Dave's telling me shut up and talk. All right, today's program brought you apart by your friends at Freedom Services and Training, the biggest little gunstore in town located in Mechanicsville. All right, there's a reason we get up every morning. It's to discuss things, talk with you, and to... Stand up for this country. There's a couple things I believe in standing up for every day. That's my family, and that's this great country. That's why we get up every morning to bring you Richmond's morning. I'll see tomorrow morning, 6 a.m. Sometimes historic events suck, but what shouldn't suck is learning about history. I do that through storytelling. History That Doesn't Suck is a chart-topping history-telling podcast, chronicling the epic story of America, decade by decade, from the 18th century to the 20th. Original music and immersive sound design accompanying us on our storytelling journey. Listen to and follow History That Doesn't Suck. An Odyssey podcast, available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.