energy policy. the first was immediately after 9/11 when i believe president bush if he had made a new energy policy one of the challenges to the country in addition to invading afghanistan, combating terrorism, i believe we could have moved forward. but that didn't happen, and there's no need to dwell on it today. the second moment was before you, mr. president, were in the congress, that was the summer of 2008 when we did take action to raise gas mileage and energy efficiency standards, something i like to call building a fridge to the next century, but we didn't make that kind of comprehensive progress on a comprehensive energy plan that we should have made. the third moment was when president obama first came into office. i at that time advocated for a clean energy standard that could have i believe passed in the first six months, could interest have been combined with some of the other comprehensive things we were talking about. we had a bipartisan group going

at the time, a group of 1 of us --, 14 of us but instead a decision was made to focus on cap-and-trade later instead of starting with that clean energy standard and building from that. those were missed opportunities, a chain of missed opportunities. but until we get serious about building a new energy agenda for america, we're going to continue to struggle with the consequences which have created a vicious cycle of economic and environmental costs on not least of all those caused by climate change. climate change, as you know, isn't just about melting glaciers and rising ocean level. shifting global trends have the potential to wreak intense havoc on local economies, particularly those anchored in agriculture. the facts stand for themselves. in january 2010, the united states securities and exchange commission said for the first time that public companies should add climate change to the list of public financial or legal impacts that they actually disclose to investors. the bureau of economic analysis

at the department of commerce estimates that at least one-third of the u.s. gross domestic product is weather and climate sensitive with the potential economic impact of $4 trillion a year. much of that impact would be wrung out of our farm communities and from states with large rural populations like my own. any farmer will tell you that a change in weather can mean the difference between a bumper crop and a complete disaster, regardless of how hard that farmer works. so it goes without saying that any kind of significant swing in climate paired with increasingly unpredictable rainfall could pose a problem to americans who make their living off the land. in 2008, our country's farms, forests and ranches produced $18 billion in goods and exported close to one-third of that. this is a sector that is critically important to our economy and we can't afford for it to be jeopardized. we also can't afford the rising costs of fire management as

forest fires have become increasingly intense in recent years. the current path is not sustainable and that's why i'm on the floor today in the hope that we can spark a meaningful conversation. but most specifically, that we look at extending those energy tax credits. i believe we can take a page from our state, the state of minnesota. my home state is proof that policies promoting homegrown energy can also promote business growth and job creation. the unemployment rate in the state of minnesota is $5.7%, well below the national average, and part of that is thanks to our energy policies. in fact. a recent report by the pew charitable trust shown shoaz in the last decade, minnesota jobs in this sector grew by 11.9% compared for 1.9% for jobs overall. as i travel around the state, you can see the progress that has been made. i think of places i visited like sebeca, minnesota, a small town where a small telephone company felt that their customers, who

were in extreme rural areas, needed backup power supplies. so what did they do? they found a way to combine wind turbine and solar panels so that they could actually purchase, their customers could purchase backup power. they did it themselves and they sold it to their customers. well, it was very popular and at one point, an 80-year-old man came to see them and he said, you know, i'd like to purchase more, i want to do my whole house in solar. and the telephone company said, sir, you know, you can do that but it will take you about ten years to get your investment out. but it's going to be worth it if it takes ten years, but do you mind if we ask how old you are. and the man said, yeah, i'm 85 years old but i want to go green. those are true stories from the state of minnesota. then there's pent air, a minnesota appear lis-based water solutions company that has donated a custom-designed rainwater recycling system to the new and great target baseball field. that technology will capture, conserve and reuse rainwater, saving the ballpark more than

2 million gallons of water each year. and in one of general mills' manufacturing plants, they've developed their own innovative way to re-use water, diverting it to the local municipal golf course to water the grass. these are just a few examples of minnesota's commitment to energy innovation. there are countless stories out there but it isn't just a minnesota story, it's an american story. and he would note that the renewable energy standard in minnesota, 25-by-25, one of the most aggressive in the country -- 30% for excel -- and yet our unemployment rate is so much better than the rest of the country. the quest to develop clean, sustainable homegrown energy isn't specific to one part of the country or, for that matter, for one political party. our renewable energy standard was actually nearly unanimously adopted by the legislature, democrats and republicans, and signed into law by a republican governor, governor polenti.

this is an issue that i believe we can and should unite us and a way to address these concerns because it builds a coalition across a broad spectrum and that is energy policy. it saves you money, it's better for the environment and it is certainly better for our national security if we're producing our own homegrown energy. in the past, democrats and republicans have managed to come together to confront tough challenges. from the civil rights act in the 1960's to keeping social security solvent in the 1980's to welfare reform in the 1990's. but perhaps the most fitting example in the context of combating climate change is the clean air act. as you know, that landmark bill took the first steps to address acid rain and expanded efforts to control toxic air pollutants. when the bill passed in the 1990's, it had strong bipartisan support from democrats and republicans alike. it's worth mentioning that all ten members of the minnesota delegation at the time, which

included five democrats and five republicans -- that's our federal delegation -- supported the bill, including republican senator dave durenberger, who is among its chief authors and staunchest supporters. since then, the clean air act has helped prevent more than 18 million child respiratory illnesses and 300,000 premature deaths. policies to protect our rivers, lakes and streams have also had a positive impact on people's health. coming from the land of 10,000 lakes, i have a unique appreciate for the importance of clean water. it is the resource that sustains our lakes and rivers, that provides critical habitat to countless fish and millions of migratory birds that fuels our thriving outdoor economy. hunting and fishing are more than just hobbies in our state, as you know, mr. president. they're a way of life and they are critically important to our economy. every year, nearly 2 million people fish our lakes and our streams and close to 700,000

people hunt our fields and forests. nationwide, the hunting and fishing industry is valued at $95.5 billion a year and brings in $14 billion in direct tax revenue. mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. ms. klobuchar: okay. i can continue on. i see that senator thune is here, is that correct? and i can continue when he's completed his -- his words. senator thune. mr. thune: i would ask the senator from minnesota, how much time do you need, how much to finish? ms. klobuchar: about five minutes. that's why i thought i could wait. mr. thune: okay. all right. i thank the senator from minnesota. the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, there's an old political axiom that's attributed to thomas jefferson, more recently gerald ford, that says a government that is big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to

take it all away. those words took on a whole new meaning this last week when we found out that the secretary of the health and human services department, kathleen sebelius, was issuing new regulations with regard to the health care act that passed last year that would apply to religious affiliated universities, charities, and hospitals. and i think we have to remember exactly why it was that many of our forefathers came to this country in the first place. they came here in many cases because they were trying to get away from religious persecution in their homelands. and so they came to the united states with a desire to start anew and to assert that in this new government that they form, that they would protect freedoms, basic freedoms like religious liberty. and so in the declaration of independence, they say we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,

they're endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. and in order to secure those rights, governments are instituted among man deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. and so that was a foundational principle of our democracy and it was enshrined when they did -- when they wrote the constitution, in the first amendment of the bill of rights when they said that congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. it was the very first right that they enshrined in the bill of rights in the constitution of the united states. that was the weight that they attached to the -- the important issue of religious liberty acciden, andit was consistent ie statement in the declaration of independence where it says that those rights are endowed by our creator. they aren't given to us by state, they aren't given to us by government. they are something that are endowed by the creator. government is here to protect those rights. and so when this issue popped up on the -- many people's radar screen, and, of course, it's

been percolating out there for white awhile but there -- quite awhile but there had been an opportunity to weigh in and provide comments and hope that the department of health and human services would come to the right conclusion and exempt religious affiliated schools, hospitals, and charities, that that wasn't going to be the case and that they were going to require these very organizations to do something that violated their consciences and violated the teachings and the practices of their faith. and so many people across this country -- we've all heard from them -- have gotten very engaged on this issue, mr. president. and it seems to me at least that there is a very simple answer to this and that is that the administration could go back and revisit this issue and more broadly make this exemption not just about churches, which is where it is today, but also church schools, church hospita hospitals, church universities. and it was interesting this

morning, the minority leader in the senate, senator mcconnell, was out here talking about this issue and he mentioned that one out of six patients in america is treated at catholic hospital. catholic charities is the largest provider, private provider o of services to poor children. he goes on to say these institutions have thrived because they've been allowed to freely pursue their religious convictions in a country that until now has respected their constitutional right to do so. he went on to say in that statement that if the rights of some are not protected, the rights of all are in danger. and i think what has many of the churches across this country and many of the universities and many of the hospitals concerned about is that this is going to become the law. now, the -- the proponents of this particular -- or is going to become a finalized regulation. the proponents of the regulation are saying that there's a year to comply with it. well, mr. president, i would submit to you that asking people

in this country to check your principles at the door, not now but a year from now, isn't really making any kind of an accommodation. this needs to be reversed. this is clearly a violation of the religious liberty, the protection and right that we have in the first amendment of our constitution and our bill of rights and i hope that the administration will do the right thing and acknowledge that they have made a mistake, that they have gone too far, that they have overreached, that they have treaded in an area that they shouldn't tread and -- and make this right. and the way to make this right is to reverse this decision. now, some have argued, well, what is that going to mean? does that mean that people in this country are not going to have access to contraceptive services? the answer to that is -- is absolutely not. the contraception would be widely available. it's just that religious affiliated employers would not be forced to fund this coverage which violates the tenets of their faith.

and so it's -- it's not -- doesn't have anything to do with contraception, it doesn't have anything to do with that issue at all. what it has to do with, mr. president, is the issue of religious liberty and whether or not we're going to respect that or are we going to allow that to be eroded and who knows where this goes next. the other point i would make, mr. president, is that this is also i think an example of what happens when you get a government that is so big that it can give you everything you want but also big enough to take it all away. there are a lot of people who when this was debated when the affordable care act was debated argued, myself included, that this would lead to government running more of our lives, making more decisions, intruding more, having more control and making decisions with regard to people's health care. well, i would submit that this is a -- an example and perhaps example number one of that very fact. what we're seeing today now is the affordable care act as it

gets implemented, you giving more and more power to a federal government and when you do that, when you get big government gets bigger and bigger, it has more latitude when it comes to -- to running over the rights of ordinary americans. this is a perfect example of that. i could go down the list of other regulations. i've come down here to the floor many times to talk about regulatory overreach, excessive regulations that go way beyond common sense, that don't deal with issues of public health and safety but are simply regulations for regulation's sake. i -- people have heard me talk about the department of labor's efforts now to regulate the young people who work on family farms and ranches. and the overly prescriptive way in which they are trying to keep young people from performing duties that they learned growing up, that they are trained to do, that they contribute to the overall success and prosperity of family farms and ranches. the department of labor's proposal right now would require

young people -- i should say restrict young people from working at elevations that are more than six feet from working with farm animals that are more than six months old, from working around grain elevators or stockyards or operating certain types of equipment. in fact, many pieces of equipment, types of equipment that are fairly standard on farming operations. it strikes at the very heart of what makes a family farm and ranch operation tick. and it is an assault on the heartland of this country and cultures and values that have shaped it and make it great. this issue of overreach is an issue, mr. president, that i think is symbolized by this debate. what we're having is a debate about the reach of government to where they can start coming up with regulations under the new health care law that clearly violate the religious liberty and protections that are afforded for people in this

country under the first amendment and which i think our founders, if they were around today, would find incredibly offensive. this is an affront, an assault on those liberties. it is an assault upon our bill of rights, upon our constitution, and it is something the administration should walk back from and make right. they can do that very simply by just reversing this or widening or broadening this exemption to cover religious affiliated schools, universities and charities. and they could do that right now. i would hope that that would be the case. if it's not, there is legislation that's been proposed here. a number of my colleagues have filed bills. in fact, spwhroupbt was down here -- senator blunt was here earlier today and asked to call up an amendment that would address this issue. it was objected to on the grounds it was not related to the highway bill. if it's not related to the highway bill let's provide an opportunity for congress to weigh in on this. the american people are weighing in on this. the congress of the united states as their representatives,

needs to stand up for the american people and more importantly, needs to defend the constitution of the united states. if the administration is going to take this step and if the administration is not going to walk back from this, the congress of the united states needs to be heard. and so there will be numerous attempts until that opportunity is presented by my colleagues and i to make sure that this is, this wrong is fixed, is corrected and that the religious liberties for which our founders came to this country and for which so many have fought and died over the years to defend are protected, and those rights that are enshrined in our declaration of independence and our constitution, our bill of rights are protected for the american people. mr. president, i yield the floor. ms. klobuchar: mr. president? the presiding officer: the

senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: mr. president, i ask that the remaining remarks be included in the record in the same place as my original remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. klobuchar: very good. i was talking about the fishing and hunting industry and how important it is to the state of minnesota and how in fact every year nearly two million people fish our lakes and streams, and close to 700,000 people hunt our fields and forests. nationwide, the hunting and fishing industry is valued at $95.5 billion a year and it brings in $14 billion in revenue. clean water is a fundamental pillar in supporting this economic sector and to protecting people against dangerous toxins like mercury. minnesota has passed, as you know, mr. president, some of the most stringent mercury rules in the country. in 2006 our state legislature passed laws requiring our largest power plants to cut mercury emissions 90% by 2015.

the federal government is finally catching up and will publish a requirement in the coming days to make similar reductions by 2016. yet, despite everything we've done to combat mercury pollution, we're still grappling with its consequences. a recent analysis of 25 years of data found an unexpected rise in average mercury levels in northern pike and wildlife in minnesota lakes. after declining by 37% from 1982 to 1992, average mercury concentrations in these fish began to increase in the mid-1990's. during the last decade of that period, 1996 to 2006, average mercury concentrations increased 15%. these numbers make one of the clearest possible arguments for supporting federal protections, because we all have a stake in protecting the health of our fish and wildlife, and we can't do that if we can't keep

dangerous toxins out of our air and water supply. this is important to our economy, but it's also important to maintaining a certain way of american life. a way of life that many of us grew up with that we ought to be able to pass on to future generations. i grew up in a family, mr. president, that valued the outdoors. i was 18 years old before i took any vacation that didn't involve a tent or a camper in one way or another. this didn't just start with my parents. my grandpa was an avid hunter and fisherman. he worked 1,500 feet underground in the mines in minnesota. you can imagine why for him hunting was his way of life. this was his way out. this is when he got above ground from those mines. it was something he loved to do. i want future generations of minnesotans to be able to enjoy these same past times. i want them to be able to fish in clean waters, to hunt in abundant forests and to camp out in our beautiful wilderness.

but i also want them to know the same america that we know, an america that is innovative, that is forward-thinking, that is willing to come together and hammer out hard-won solutions to tough challenges. nowhere is this more important than our quest to move america forward through smarter energy and environmental policies. i can't help but think this is our generation version of the space race and energy race. that the finish line won't be neil armstrong hoisting a flag on the moon. it will be building a next generation of energy-efficient windows and doing it in northern minnesota instead of in china. or an electric car battery factory in memphis, tennessee, instead of mumbai, india, or a wind turbine manufacturer in san jose, california instead of san palo, brazil. this is my vision for an energy america that is energy independent. a stronger, more innovative america. and i know you all want the same

thing. that's why i'm here tonight floor today, because i know we can't continue to get by with piecemeal energy policies. we cannot play red light, green light with our tax incentives as we are doing this year. and that is why we have to put them in place again. what we need now is a comprehensive national blueprint for energy policy in this country, a solution that preserves the integrity of our air, of our water and natural resources, that gives businesses the incentives to research and develop new sources of energy that invest in the next generation of american innovation. that is our challenge. it's not going to happen overnight, but i believe that we will get it done. we have before. we will do it again. one way to start is to make sure that we extend these energy tax credits. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

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mr. reid: i ask consent the call of the quorum be terminated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i now ask that we proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 437. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination, the judiciary, adalberto jordan to be united states circuit judge for the 11th circuit. mr. reid: i send a cloture motion to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion. the clerk: cloture motion, we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, hereby move to bring to a close the debate on the nomination of adalberto jose

jordan of florida to be united states circuit judge for the 11th circuit, signed by 18 senators as -- mr. reid: i would ask that the names not be read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that on february 13, 2012, at 4:30 p.m., the senate proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 437, an hour of debate divided in the usual form. further, that a vote on rule 2 be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i now ask unanimous consent that we resume legislative session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask that we proceed to s. res. 371. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 371, designating the week of february 6-10, 2012, as national school counseling week. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, there being no intervening action or debate and any statements relating to this matter be placed in the record

as if read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i now ask that we proceed -- pardon me. i ask consent that the senate adjourn until 2:00 p.m. on monday, february 13. that after the prayer and the pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning business be deemed expired and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day. following any leader remarks, the senate be in a period of morning business until 4:30 with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. and following that morning business, the senate proceed to executive session under the previous order. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: so, mr. president, the next roll call vote will be 5:30 p.m. on monday. if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until senate stands adjourned until

>> do you or that 60 days affect of april 1, 2012 japan will lower corporate rates from 30% with the united states with a high ascorbic tax rate in the

entire industrialized world are go this dubious distinction will make it that much more challenging to attract businesses to home where we need jobs. >> seeing tax law made is like seeing sausage made. you just don't want to see it. >> it's time for american businesses to put aside our industry-specific wishlist and to work collectively to support a more coherent and equitable tax policy and corporate taxation structure. >> last month the department of health and human services proved a provision that requires all employers including religious ones to pay for contraceptives

their health insurance plans. earlier this week the u.s. conference of catholic the ships announced a protest of the new plan because they believe this provision forces almost all americans to fun procedures regardless of the ethical objections. the catholic information center held a discussion of the impact this health care mandate will have on religious institutions. today nate two programs visit our web site. on january 20 this year the u.s. department of health and human services approved a mandate that will force catholic institutions to provide contraception, sterilization procedures and in their health care programs. effectively forcing employers to violate their consciences and fund practices that are morally offensive. this has received critical backlash not only because it forces religious institutions to

fund procedures regardless of their ethical objections but because a gravely violates the first amendment. the january 20 statement by the secretary hhs secretary kathleen sebelius says we will continue to work closely with the religious groups during this transitional period to discuss their concerns. this decision was made after careful consideration including important concerns raised about religious liberty and she believes this proposal strikes an appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to preventative services. on january 23, timothy dolan archbishop of the diocese in new york and head of the united states catholic conference of the ships timothy dolan wrote the obama administration decision to force religious employers to violate their conscience will not stand. americans will recognize it for the constitutional detour that it isn't urged their elected representatives to repeal it.

he also recalls in his meeting with the president november that the president seemed earnest at the time to consider protection of conscience sacred and he did not want his administration to heed the work of the church and he claims he held in high regard. but after the last month dolan and over 150 bishops have since spoken out against the decision. in effect dolan says the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences to force american citizens to choose between violating their consciences and for going their health care is literally unconscionable. historically this represents a challenge and compromise of our religious liberty. "new york times" columnist says the government has given religious institutions and impossible choice, played by a rules even if it means violating

deals that nixon inspired your efforts in the first place or get out of the community building business entirely. he continues the obama by cal's decision is a threat to any kind of voluntary community that doesn't share the moral sensibilities of whichever party controls the health care bureaucracy. tv host chris matthews has said it is the duty of religious leaders to follow their consciences. it will be the work of politicians he says, to work this out. so people in all ranges of the media have been commenting on this. in addition peggy noonan calls this a battle of the president cannot win. on monday it was reported that the signatures to resend the mandate on the whitehouse.gov petition page that there are many more signatures by 5-1 objecting this decision of the hhs but since today there are 2700 signatures opposing the

mandate and fell behind with 18,000 signee. on capitol hill senator marco rubio of florida has introduced the administration after 2012 in an attempt to counter the mandate and also on capitol hill we see john boehner has given a floor speech saying if the president does not reverse the administration's attack on religious freedom in the congress acting on behalf of the american people and the constitution we are sworn to uphold and defend must. causing a lot of speculation of the obama administration may compromise and make a compromise on this issue. axelrod, one of the campaign strategists said on tuesday on a tv show "morning joe" we certainly don't want to abridge anyone's religious freedom so we are going to look forward to mow for that provides women with the preventative care they need and expect the prerogatives of religious syndication -- however white house aides have assured applicants during a meeting

tuesday morning that outsource comments did not mark a shift in the policy administration. so we have here to discuss and settle all of this for us and help us see your way forward with their ideas some great panelist to join us. we have joining us richard from the u.s. council on catholic bishops and gem from the ethics and public policy center and kyle duncan from the fund for religious liberty and we are thankful to have ryan williams as moderator. i'm happy to introduce the moderator brian williams before passing the microphone onto him. ryan williams received his b.a. and m.a. with distinction in philosophy from -- and moved east africa to work for the conference in kenya to develop and implement the program for the national -- relocating to romp. he received his baccalaureate and sacred theology summa cum laude. he is now a doctoral candidate in a teaching fellow at the school of philosophy at the catholic university of america. i would like to introduce and

pass the word to ryan to continue further the discussion. >> tonight as you know we are having a panel discussion on the hhs mandate in i just want to introduce a three panelists, experts in the topic. the first is richard. as you know he works at the united states conference of catholic vicious. he is associate director of the secretary of pro-life activity where he is worked for over 30 years. month his duties he prepares policy statements educational material in and congressional testimonies on abortion and euthanasia conscience rights and health care embryo research and other medical moral issues for the bishops conference. yields a b.a. degree in m.a. from the university of chicago and conducted doctoral studies in theology. mr. james capretta is a fellow at the ethics and public policy center. he was associate director an associate director at the white house office of management and budget from 2001 to 2004 we had

a responsibility for health care social security education and welfare programs. at the ethics public policy center he studied and provided commentary on a wide range of public policy and economic issues to focus on health care and entitlement reform, u.s. fiscal policy and global aging. mr. kyle duncan as general counsel of the becket fund for religious liberty. he joined the fund is a senior counsel in january 2012 after serving for three years as appellate chief of the louisiana department of justice. he taught constitutional law the university school of law and served as an assistant solicitor general under solicitor general greg coleman. he also practices appellate law with vinson and elkins in houston texas. the way the evening is going to go we are first going to have remarks given by each of our panelists on the issue discussing this evening. after that, there will be a small discussion among the panelists themselves and a few questions to get the discussion going.

afterwards we will open the floor to questions from all of you. as we listen to this topic think of good hard questions to ask the gentleman. if there ever answers to have here is where they are. to begin we are going to start with mr. richard derf langer and if you would sir. >> thank you very much. that you began by putting this in a slightly broader context because the debate about this mandate begins with health care reform act itself. some call it pack a patient protection and affordable care act. it was ultimately passed in march of 2010 and during the whole process of the bill the catholic the ships had said look we are not experts on how you structure health care but we do have certain moral principles that are very important to respect. one of those was protection of conscience. that was a principle largely ignored through much of the various efforts to address that issue. but the final bill was deficient

on that and a number of other areas and we ended up asking for vote against the final bill but in the end it narrowly passed over her objections. the major problem coming out of this legislation for the first time the federal government was creating mandated benefits list that every health plan in america would have to include in order to be seen as a qualified health plan and therefore be authored on the market. there was an essential health benefits list whose details will be worked out later by the department of health and human services and late in the process there was a separate requirement for preventive services, including a separate list that was going to be preventive services just for women and in fact love the floor debate about the need for preventive services for women i would say 90% of it was about breast cancer screening, which of course we had no objection to what do whatever. there were members of the congress who wanted to use that as a wedge to create for the

first time a nationwide contraceptive mandate, something that congress has never passed before and in fact over the 30 years i've been at the conference i think there've been at least 20 bills introduced by that which ever got out of committee. this is an entirely new thing. there are states that had religious exemptions of various kinds but for the first time you had a hook in a statute passed by congress that could be used to create a band-aid for contraception and sterilization. that in fact is what turned out to be the case. the department of health and human services delegated the task of creating this list to a committee of the institute of medicine. we later found out at least five of the members of that committee were board members of planned parenthood affiliates and inevitably given that personnel view ended up saying contraception and sterilization are essential preventive services for women, which was

uniquely odd because every other preventive service in that list was about preventing a disease and until now the american people had not voted for the proposition that babies are a disease. at any rate, that was proposed last august. we objected strenuously to that and we filed comments against it on three grounds. first, contraception, sterilization are not a sick health care needed by women to prevent disease. pregnancy is not a disease. this is an elective and it should remain an elective which means you don't force it on people and for that matter contraception is most often used for things that are not urgent medical needs and lifestyle choices. they do in fact half serious, sometimes deadly effects, side effects of their own. one of the ironies of this whole thing was that around the same time this was being debated the front page article in "the new

york times" about the latest study showing that hormonal contraception increases women's risk of contracting aids. and preventing aids was one of the legitimate purposes on the preventative service list. some services to prevent aids and some to increase the risk. our second was that particularly the scope of this mandate included drugs that are saying as -- sanest morning after pills. in our view and that of many others -- and at least one drug which is a very close analogue to the abortion pill ru-46 and cause abortions by anybody's definition whether before or after implantation was marketed as emergency contraception. you have an abortion issue raised in third of course was the fact that if any imposition to this mandate would violate

rights of conscience and religious freedom of anybody who objects to them and therefore departs from a very long and bipartisan consensus in congress that when you pass major health legislation like this you have some protection and that has been true since the original church amendment of 1973 named after senator church of idaho, not after the catholic church, that it's been in place without controversy for 38 years. the hide waldman amendment against abortion, the religious mandate on the health benefits program and so on and so on. just a list of all the conscious provisions of other health programs takes eight pages on our web site. some of those are put in by example the clinton administration. this is not been a partisan issue so he said they are huge problems with this and all these areas. we were ignored.

planned parenthood mounted a huge campaign to save states often do this anyway and one of the amazing things is that the final interim rule, the interim final rule is the whole approach to religion. it has four prongs. you have to meet everyone of us bronx in order to qualify for the exemption. you have to be eligible for tax exempt status and a very narrow part of the tax code that covers churches and houses of worship, religious congregations. you have to have the inculcation of religious values as your purpose. you have to hire people of your own faith and you have to serve chiefly people of your own faith. which means that as i have said before, that jesus does not qualify because though he certainly did inculcate religious values he went around healing roman centurians. mother teresa does not qualify because notwithstanding being a

saint she picked up hindus and atheists and muslims off the streets of calcutta and heal their wounds. it is a ridiculously narrow field of religion and trying to put the church at war with itself because if we were to stop doing those things in order to qualify for being religious enough, we would stop eating christian enough. we would stop treating people who are needy simply because they are in need. as the bishops have said we treat people and our charitable institutions and their health care and our schools. we help them not because they are catholic but because we are. and to compromise that would truly be to stop being the kind of institution anyone following christ would be so it puts us in an untenable position. so, the bishops have reacted strongly to this and i've heard people say oh it's because it's an election year and they don't

like obama. it has to the fact that for the first time there is a kind of a social compact that has been growing here because we have had many debates about abortion and family planning but for the first time the government is reaching into a life of our own institutions, ron charitable institutions and organizations and saying we are going to drag you into promoting what we see as a good thing for society. we are going to make you violate your religious freedom even within your own employee employer relationships, perhaps your university within your own student health plans and so won in order to meet the social goal. that is something quite new and it's not something that has been done to us by democratic or republican administrations in the past. in response, besides the public outcry to the catholic church and some catholics who supported the health care bill, liberals,

conservatives, moderates and many non-catholics, we have also been supporting legislation, to respect the rights of conscience act we have been supporting for over a year now. senator rubio as mentioned earlier has a newer build targeted on this mandate. we are considering all of that and we hope some of that will move forward but basically in the end this is not about politics. it is about a fundamental freedom and one that was very dear to the hearts of our founding fathers of this nation, that people should be able to live without government invading their consciences and making them violate their religious freedom and with that i will turn it over to our next speaker. >> thank you, richard. again my name is jim capretta. and a fellow at the ethics and public policy center. i'm a fellow at the ethics and policy center here in washington and i want to thank the cic for

sponsoring this event. it's obviously incredibly timely and very very important and i certainly am pleased to be here with richard and kyle who are really experts on this. i want to pick up a little bit on what richard described as the context of how this came about but go at it from one particular angle. the debate as it has been heard over the last week has centered rightfully around the rights of religious organizations that are being told that they have to violate their collective conscience and provide coverage for contraception and it there'll as asian products that run against the beliefs of their faith and obviously huge issue violating the rights of those organizations and the church, but you know maybe it is going to come back and i think there is even a more important question, how do we get to the point where the government was

allowed to do this for the average citizen anyway? for the average catholic out there working for a private employer who doesn't have any religious affiliation whatsoever they are being told by the government through this requirement that they too have to pay premiums into a plan that covers all of these things and there is no way to get out from under it. there is no exemption and there is no even contemplation in the administration toward the religious liberty rights of the average citizen. and this is a very big deal. there'll be tens of millions of people who forevermore and begin a will be forced every two weeks in their paychecks to pay for a number of things that they find objectionable. how did we get to the point where this happened? as richard indicated, there have

been bandying about in the last two decades amendments that were considered with various points to impose a contraceptive mandate on insurance products of various types and kinds in various formats and as richard indicated those usually stalled for a lot of the reasons why there are objections to what has taken place now. however in the context of this gigantic health care bill that passed in 2010 there is a whole slew of things now that the government can do. this is one of them. it's not the only one. the delegation of massive massive amounts of power to the federal government is really remarkable. and this is i would say one of those watershed moments where the public is getting at glimpse into what is coming. just the specter of people having to go to the government for their hat in hand begging to get exempt from the should be a clear indication that something

is amiss here. something has gone terribly wrong. why did the federal government get this power to make this decision affecting 10 million people and there is no recourse whatsoever. so there is something fundamentally wrong here. that rings me to my next point, which is that this is a principle of catholic teaching that decision-making authority should be located at the lowest level possible and is confident to do it. i very much agree with the notion that this is a question that people of faith and consideration can come to different conclusions on. there can be great debate about how appropriately to organize societal questions. there is often lots of debate and great debate should take place around about my own judgment is that looking at the balance of what has happened in the health care law, that this is one manifestation, one

manifestation of the general phenomenon of in entirely too much delegation of health care power to one central bureaucracy if you go through the health care law there are so many -- it would stun you. there is a regulation coming out every three months reorganizing various aspects about health care is going to be run and this is one of them. but there is many others. they're all painted things are go there things about how to run, how doctors and hospitals will actually be organized over time. there have lee influencing how that is going to change over the next few years. there is all kinds of requirements about where you can buy insurance beginning in 2014. so i am not here to read medicaid all specs of the health care debate but it's very hard to see how when you delegate so much power, so much authority to

let's be honest with ourselves, federal government that has developed over the last at least half-century a point of view that is secular in orientation and in some ways hostile to religious sentiment. if you delegate so much power and authority to that government to run the various aspects of our lives, this kind of thing is going to happen, and you know we should be very careful as we take this moment where people are focused. we have the public's attention and focus on this. we should be careful to return to first principles and make sure that whatever comes out of this is something that really protects our rights. not something that gets us through the next six months, not something that gives the president reelected and he can move on and maybe reverse this later but something that really protects people's rights and

doesn't have the government impose such an awful awful mandate. and that is going to take some work. so i am very hopeful that this moment has captured a lot of peoples attention and can be used to reorient what we need which is very fundamental. i think with that i will stop. >> thank you, jim. it is a real honor and pleasure to be here with you. my family and i have just moved to washington d.c. from louisiana where i was in state government there and i look forward to a gentle introduction to my duties and instead we find ourselves in the midst of what we see correctly as one of the most flagrant attacks on religious liberty that we have

ever seen in this country. that is really not exaggerating. what i want to talk to you about is we have heard some broad structural and thematic discussion about the mandate. we at the becket fund have been the first to offer this debate on behalf of catholic college and evangelical college to overturn the mandate violating the constitution and federal law and in these few brief moments i would like to highlight what we see at the becket fund as really unconscionable violations of a sick religious freedoms. a whole so wide you can drive a truck through it in this assault. in many ways and i don't want to overstate our case but this is not an easy case because what the has done is over reached on such a number of basic issues of religious liberty and i would

like to highlight those for you without rehearsing the technical legal arguments in our love for giving you an idea of why. everyone has the intuition that this mandate violates something very basic and i would like to try to unpack very briefly why. we have brought lawsuits effective on behalf of the college which is a catholic liberal arts school and college in north carolina founded and run by benedictine monks and who has brought a lawsuit on colorado christian university which is an evangelical university outside of dinner. blames on behalf of both of those schools are quite similar and we have brought claims under the constitution and also under a federal law called the religious freedom restoration act and i would like to highlight for you the basic ways in which this mandate and also

the exemption as you have heard about violated religious liberty so a couple of ideas here. first, it's a very basic idea that this mandate is a form of root core version of religious conscience. it's really so obvious that it's surprising to even sort of articulate it. the mandate says, if you want to continue to practice your religion and abstain from offering services that your beliefs tell you are gravely immoral, even tantamount to the destruction of innocent human life, you must pay a fine. just let that sink in for a minute. you must pay a fine to be catholic. you must pay a fine to be an evangelical christian. your alternative is to kick all your employees off of health care. pay the fines which can going to the hundreds of thousands of

dollars. if you're notre dame friend since he will be paying millions of dollars in fines. if you have 100 employees you will be paying $120,000 a year in funds. the other alternative is to give up your faith. basic amendments religious liberty that we have held sacred in this country since our founding since we recognize that we shouldn't force quakers to pick up rifles is that you can't do that to people. another thing about the mandate that is really quite shocking is the idea that the government in order to provide greater access to contraception which is already available in 90% of employer health plans which the government already sees millions of dollars to programs like title x for the poor to provide access to contraception that on top of all of that the government has to take on religious employers and conscript them to violate their own consciences to fill in what

someone once called the catholic yap insurance coverage. so this has nothing to do with access. this has to do with imposing a vision of what constitutes appropriate health care on everybody including religious organizations to object. another aspect of this that i think deserves mention is that this mandate is by no means a one-size-fits-all kind of mandate. instead if you look at it closely it looks like swiss cheese. everyone knows the government has been granting waivers by the hundreds over the thousands to allow large corporations not to be subject to the act itself. the act also exempts small employers from the mandate or good exempts certain grandfathered health care plans from the mandate. it even has certain kinds of conscience exemptions for say smog groups who have a religious

objection to insurance per se. missing from all of this is an exemption for religious groups and individuals who don't want to be forced to violate their conscience. that is a fundamental violation of the first amendment, to take that kind of scattershot approach, but let me close because i really want to hear your questions. the most obvious and egregious violation of religious liberty is the so-called religious employer. let's take a moment to unpack that. as mr. doerflinger said this is an exemption that we have called the anti-good samaritan provision. this provision says religious organizations, here's the kind of religious organization with the government want to see a operating in civil society. religious organization that stays within the courts alone

and doesn't hire anyone outside of the state and doesn't serve anyone outside of the state so if you are running a soup kitchen and you want a catholic soup kitchen and you want to serve a hungry jewish or atheist person or a hungry evangelical christian person your conscience is not protected. it is sort of a grotesque inversion of a public policy one with think we would want but regardless of public policy at violates a basic proposition of the first amendment which is to say government does not get to pick the kinds of religious organizations it likes and doesn't like according to whether there is outwards facing her or edwards facing evangelical or non-evangelical quiet or disruptive in the public sphere. governor and -- government does not get to do that. is a clear and basic relation of the establishment clause. the establishment clause we have all heard about, this part of

the constitution where we are worried about the menorahs in city halls. this happens to be a really clear violation of the so-called separation of church and state which harkens back to the original purpose of that provision which is to keep government out of churches business. this is a very clear violation of our basic traditions of religious freedom. it's about not forcing employers and individuals to pay for things that violate their conscience. most importantly from our point of view it's not about striking the appropriate balance. we have heard that a lot in the media. have cheese just justice john roberts said in a recent case which had to do with religious organizations rights to hire and

fire their ministry chief justice roberts said we don't need to be balancing anything here. the first amendment has struck the balance for us. that balances in favor of religious liberty so with that i i will turn it over to the moderator. >> thank you very much. that's a lot to think about. [applause] mr. duncan you have mentioned that the balance has been struck already with the first amendment and i think the recent media coverage of this issue has shown that the administration, don't know if they were surprised but they were starting to acknowledge that there is a bigger issue here and the axelrod's statement that there is a possibility we are willing to compromise a little bit and willing to go a little bit further. do you see with the balance being struck already is there any possible way that this compromise can come about? i know that they mentioned this

hawaii law which in an interview for the national catholic register mr. doerflinger you said that's no middle ground at all. that is not an acceptable solution to this. the hawaii law of laos for religious employers to basically not pay for contraception's providing direct employees to a place where they can get it so could you maybe flush out more the middle ground and the balance that is our to construct and whether it's possible to strike another balance? >> well the balance looks very much like the first amendment to the constitution and that is the basis which is this is not a matter of politics. this is a matter of respecting our basic american constitutional tradition of respecting people's conscience. it goes back to the quakers. is why in our constitution we allow for the past for missions. is why we don't force witnesses to say the state -- pledge of allegiance. these are basic crucibles of

american religious freedom that this administration has developed with amnesia with respect to. let me answer the hawaii plan because i have heard this mentioned a lot. there a number are a number of so-called state mandates. i've heard him number 28. this is a red herring. the state mandates are not the sort of straitjacket that the federal government has created with the federal mandate. with a state mandate even where a state mandate would not allow for an exemption for religious organizations, religious organizations have an opt out. they can sell for sure and come up with a plan under the federal law. there is a way out. there is no way out of the federal mandate unless as mr. doerflinger said you become a religious organization and you become a religious organization and abandon any christian

organization for example. the hawaii plan is no plan at all. the hawaii plan as you just said in introducing it would force a religious organization to direct its own employees as to where they can go and violate the religious organizations own teachings and that sound sounds like a violation of the first amendment by another name and also a violation of the free speech clause. not a solution at all. >> anything to add to that? >> i would say that as i indicated in my remarks, taking a step back from the current back-and-forth about the narrow language being discussed and try to reflect on what is the basic principles we want to protect and how to go about that. me, i can go pretty far. but, i think you know just to be a little bit provocative, the idea that we really had to have

a new federal statute to delegate all this authority around preventive health benefits, secretary sabella said her team to for everybody else, i question that. we have a lot of employers out there that are responsive to the needs of their workers. we have lots of state legislatures that are responsive to the needs of their citizens. i really question whether we needed as a country to delegate a once and for all requirement for the department of health and human services and the proposition across the board for everybody. that was in my judgment problem number one. the second is if we go now to kyle's point about protecting, how do we go about protecting our constitutional liberties, i think we should do that in a very fulsome way. we should not be just protecting in my judgment to protect the urbanization's that they are religiously affiliated by protect people at the consciences objection to all of this.

practitioners in their own faith. i don't see why we should settle for having the federal government impose this on tens of millions of people who might object to something like this. >> let me make one comment. the hawaii laws that. it's almost, it's religious exemption is not quite as narrow as the federal one but it's a requirement that if you are going to claim a religious exemption what you have to do instead is give all your employees, all your enrollees information on how they can access all of these services including the -- ones quote in an expeditious manner. up until now, one of the points on the white house log trying to explain away this mandate was to say hey this is just coverage. this is not about providing services. we don't know if anybody is going to use it so now the compromise is to violate that

and say if you are going to have to send people directly and expeditiously for services you won't have to pay for birth control but you have to send your priests and nuns and lay the two planned parenthood down the street. that is a compromise between the administration and planned parenthood. they are compromising with the wrong people. it's not a compromise with us so i don't see in it the reasons developments as serious at all. >> all three of you have mentioned at least implicitly that this seems like a direct attack on religious freedom. a direct attack on religious freedom as opposed to an overarching attempt to overstepped the bounds of the constitution. the question i have is that all of the news media, liberals and conservatives alike are saying what is the political end game here? it doesn't seem to have any

political grip. i mean everybody's angry about this on both sides and they are angry about it because of the -- so the question is if the religious aspect, could the religious aspect of this be serving as a smokescreen for a grander scheme? could the religious aspect service a smokescreen for something bigger and should we worry that the obvious political ramifications of this decision do not own mind with somebody trying to be reelected? could there be something else here? i don't know but it is something that is interesting to me. everybody is saying that it puts a bad light on the administration so surely they know that. >> let me try to speak to that for one second because i'm not so sure, i'm not so sure that the obvious is not the answer which is the this is a deliberate attack on religious

freedom. this is not an isolated incident with restriction. it is part of a pattern. for example just working backwards from where we are right now, the of in the hosanna tabor case that i talked about a second ago, the ministerial exception case that the supreme court decided 9-0, to make an argument about the autonomy of religious organizations to hire and fire ministerial employees that manage -- chief justice roberts, justice scalia and justice kagan brought everyone together in the incredulity. they have basically said a religious organization doesn't have any more rights than a social club. so bad is the notion that the

administration looks at the religious argument and does not see it. as mr. doerflinger says if the administration cuts the grant for combating human trafficking because the u.s. ecb would not agree to refer victims of human trafficking to abortion services. that is a pretty stark attack on a very basic principle of religious liberty. the administrative -- rescinded the o'shea or conscience protections for health care workers last year and let us not forget that this is the president who when campaigning said that when people get frustrated they literally cling to their religion. so this is perhaps a larger pattern. >> you no, too, little bit further on this, first of all you have to understand this has been brewing for a couple of years so the normal, the normal

pattern here is held a little bit in the sense that they have this provision enacted which delegated huge authority to hhs. they knew what they were doing by enacting such a provision. if you get this put into lovely get to write this whole thing as we see fit. then they said let's give it to a scientific panel that decides sort of the usual suspects involved in that in terms of defining what is considered scientifically good preventive benefits with a predictable outcome. all of the interest groups that are promoting a contraception culture, and abortion culture and pushed her of this for a couple of years so the obama administration in some ways has the power to do it and has a lot of activists on their site-seeing to it. and they have this gigantic line

spot, so i think you know in some ways it's the opposite, that they have a power grab. they got the power. their supporters push them to do this. they said, why not? they did it and they have a big blind spot to the reaction they are now receiving. >> mr. doerflinger to respond to that, what are the possibilities that all of this work they have done will be undone if they don't get reelected? >> i sure hope so. [laughter] >> my question about the policy involved, surely they would have known that this quick grab would have would have been undone if they don't get back into the white house the next time. surely they know that, right? so was this just a misjudgment? they were unaware of the blowback that they were going to get. >> i think they have a very large blind spot that i also think in their political --

there was a story in political 10 days ago before the blowback reach this level it has reached a day where it essentially said they didn't internal debate inside of the administration i don't know how accurate is. they calculated the intensity of supporters would outweigh the intensity of the opponents who would not likely vote for the present anyway so they did on a political basis. >> i think in terms of the politics of this what is happening is a battle between two groups that most presidents seeking re-election want to appeal to particularly someone in president obama's position and in one one is the catholic e and the other is in terms of the reproductive rights movement. planned parenthood and pro-abortion groups. they are very strong on this. they are capable of generating

enormous traffic by e-mail and blog and making the media bend to their narrative of whatever is going on in that was very apparent in the coleman foundation in which they basically were willing to bring a major women's health care organizations to its knees simply in order to be able to continue to provide the cover that they allow women who are in a planned parenthood clinic for exams. in order to save half a million dollars a year in money and the symbolism that goes with that, they were willing to all but destroyed the widest known cancer charity on earth. every time the administration has shown any sign of being deferential to religious concerns. this happen in november when the

president met with archbishop dolan and said we are going to find a way to accommodate these concerns and that came out. i think archbishop dolan said to a reporter that he feels a little bit more positive now about the administration understanding the religious freedom concern here. that sparked outrage throughout the pro-abortion -- and they really think that this idea of mandatory birth control in everyone's coverage is the way to a better america and frankly that is just the first step because already in washington state, a bill is very close to passing that takes the next logical step and says every health care health care plan in the washington state that has coverage for childbirth have to have equal coverage for abortion. and once they get a few states

to pass that you will see the federal government say well the state is already mandating this. we need to get with the program here and make sure there are not only unintended pregnancies but no unwanted births. it's an extreme ideology but it's a group of people who unfortunately some of the administration -- >> that is kind of frightening. maybe one last question and then we will open it up to the audience. i was just reading an article today and one of the justifications for this was given by the aclu. she said this removes gender discrimination for women citing that their health costs rise by 68% without contraception during their reproductive years. you have mentioned this mr. doerflinger that pregnancy is viewed as a disease so the question i suppose is what does this imply about things like reproductive tiffany -- free

productivity, and a legal precedent being sent -- said here. >> let me take a stab and then let others. >> too. planned parenthood's problem is that the aclu reproductive freedom project is on the one hand they keep citing the statistic 98% of women have used a family planning method at one time or another. the more relevant statistic is 69% of sexually active women who don't want to be pregnant are using one of the methods covered by this mandated prescription contraception and the rest are using nothing at all or barrier methods or whatever. some are even using natural family planning but these are in their mind the most effective but the most effective of all are the things they have been spreading throughout the third world for so many years and now

american women, implantable sand and checkable, depo-provera and vaccines to vaccinate yourself against pregnancy that are long-lasting. these methods, i'm afraid -- afraid they are quaint. they are much better for use in a corset population program but two american women it means if you forget your pill you are still cover. this is where the money has gone and there are a lot of surgical sterilizations are expensive and have a high co-pay. injectables and implantable's have a high co-pay. they want to make them free. what they mean by free is there won't be a co-pay anymore, it will be loaded into your standard premium and the standard premiums of everybody else in the country who did not want this to spread the costs among us.

all of us are being requisitioned in order to meet their goal of getting american women to use the more long lasting and more effective contraceptive that are also by the way the most dangerous for women. so you know this is the situation we are thinking but there is a broader agenda from their point of view and all of this and it's not to just reflect reality. it's to change reality and get american women doing more of what they think women need. >> i would very much agree with richard that there is an agenda here to push the american culture certain practices that, certain segment of the pro-portion point of view view is the right way and the cost is very much a red herring here. the idea that the federal government is subsidizing the

distribution of contraception and a very abundant way. the idea that there is this gigantic barrier to people getting contraception if they want to use it is really not true. if they are doing here is trying to put into the mainstream of america insurance coverage that will allow introduction of other things as richard indicated and also just increases the validation points i find very important and you know, it is a long-term agenda that they are pursuing for decades now. >> i don't want to comment on the public policy ramifications of these issues because they are very interesting in their own right but we are conducting a public policy debate and we forget about certain nonnegotiable parts of our political structure in our constitution, then we have completely missed the boat.

one of the geniuses of our country is that there is a pluralistic stage iv people to order their lives as they see fit and they can do that individually and do that in religious communities or religious organizations. they can have different views about what the proper way of ordering marital relationships, sexual reproduction and that is good to the point of view of pluralism. the administration is trying to crush that by forgetting that when you make these kinds of public policies you don't take into account people's conscience you have betrayed something very basic in the fabric of our nation. >> now we would like to open it up to questions from the audience. we have a microphone being set up here. right over here, please. >> thank you.

i thought mr. capretta raised an interesting question. frankly how did we get here and it was only couple months ago that we have this well-established principle in this country that we would not use federal funding for abortions because it would violate people's rights so how did we get here. you gentlemen have been very kind to two words come to mind, coercion and conception. nobody wanted the health care act. its polling was 65-35 against the act. they forced it through congress by bribing people, by deception. ..

oversee a new definition of preventive health care services that would be applied to all health care plans. lots of people object at the time saying we imminent do we really want the department of health and human services writing a one-size-fits-all for this country? is that necessary? is there some huge public policy reason that allows that to happen and of course everybody who understood what was going on knew what they were going to do with it, the dow's richard indicated, wants the floor of i

think it was the house chamber, i can't remember which chamber basically argued this was necessary for all of the health benefits everybody supports, trying to prevent aids and prevent cancer and diabetes and everything else, but they then use that to impose what they tried to impose going back a couple decades and had been unsuccessful which was the contraceptive mandate and so sure a thing strong language is needed here and i would tend to agree with your point of view. >> the gentleman here. >> thank you for coming. my question goes back to the

intervention into society and the economy so we see the inherent volumes that come out of just sweeping the laws from congress whether they be the congress forcing people to do things that are not normally opposed to or whether it is growing out the social the institutions and the reverend acres to provide services which is the catholic church, where would they ever support anything like sweeping the laws from congress? when if [laughter] >> we didn't in the and support the health care reform law. what we said in the whole process is we want to see a way for congress to move forward and making a dent in the tens of millions of americans who don't have basic health insurance now. we are not saying you should do

single-payer or big government market reforms and small government. we are saying we want to see that goal met, and we want to see these other principals respected as well. it first came out in favor of everyone in america having basic health coverage. in 1919 in a statement on the reconstruction after world war i. and so, we have sort of given subsidiary 95 years or so to work and get the number of uninsured keeps going up and so if congress wanted to take a shot at it there was no catholic teaching that says they can't try to do it but we wanted those principles. in terms of the big government being bad on these things i think what matters more is what principles government is acting on and what it's trying to do because some of my more

conservative friends before, if you want to find a health plan that doesn't have abortion today where are you going to find outside the catholic church and the answer is from the federal government because of all the work that we and others have done medicare and medicaid, federal employees, the children's health insurance program. they all have almost all abortions eliminated. where do you go to find a plan that has abortions you can't get rid of them that in private health plans because most unfortunately in the private health care companies think abortion is a big cost saver. so i'm not against free-market capitalism by and large. i think when you apply to questions of human life has its own dangers to the it's to say that we are not lead to take sides on this little conservative about the role of government. we are going to say here is what needs to be done you work this old and we are going to tell you if you are doing something that

is wrong and we did and they didn't listen. >> my question is for mr. duncan. the article of the declaration of human rights everyone has the freedom to conscience and religion and goes on to elaborate. i'm curious to what extent that applies to this case given that we are signatories in that declaration. >> that's an interesting question. i'm not sure i can give you a good answer to that right now. certainly the origin of the declaration of human rights, what were to was the product catholic thinkers and i think

the notion -- i'm a little skeptical of the idea that you might be able to find some protection these days in that kind of formulation. we are grateful that the formulation is there and that is as freedom of religion and not something like freedom of worship, which time i had this administration has taken to using the formulation. i think we find more comfort in looking to the more concrete guaranteed and on our own constitution, and i might add to that that when we are protecting freedom of religion we are not merely protecting sort of the rights of individuals who to believe whatever they want to believe and sort of splendid isolation. we are protecting the rights of individuals and groups with to buffer against overreaching government. and as some part of civil society that does not involve

the state. sometimes i think the net ministration is acting on the premise that there isn't a civil society in this country that doesn't involve the state which is a frightening thought. so, that is about as good of an answer as i can get. >> thank you were very much for doing this. barney frank, congressman barney frank said recently that the government the name we give things do and, in sort of it speaks what for the article regarding all social institutions so the point is well taken. with this is a two-part question. [laughter] but first, these points that you've mentioned, the -- were cleared for, the houses of

worship and that sort of thing, those are in the of law itself or are those in the findings coming out of hhs, the sort of post legislature stuff to the >> in the interim final rule with by the federal register. stomachs of the are not the law itself there the findings that follow from the law. spec the contraception should be isn't itself. it is a statute. the year devotee of the task of defining those to the hhs. estimate these things have challenged don't have to bump up against the constitution, they can bump up against other federal law. >> they could finally other federal walls come and in our lawsuits we allege that they do but they do have the force of law so they have to comply with the constitution so they are as if they were passed through legislation. what i'm thinking of as you were

saying about these issues going beyond what i was listening to memoirs of some of the people that the time when it was under assault, when the church was under assault and the archbishop was dealing with that and he refused to let it become simply an issue of the catholic church said this is a crisis for man it's not a crisis for the church. how do we deal when we are framing this for a practical legal matter how do we go forward framing this as a crisis of man and not just of the church but also eminently practical because this is very serious. we are here because this is mary real practical implications for all of us in the future. >> i would say the second part of the two-part question is an excellent one, and i would say that it is incumbent upon

leadership, people in the positions of leadership that is in congress and institutions around the country and the bishop's conference and other places that are weighing in on this question to try to make sure that it becomes a more fundamental discussion and debate on just around cutting a deal with david axelrod but a question of something of enduring value, something the would protect and not allow us to happen again. and at a minimum that would require the statute, but you know, how that all comes about i'm not quite sure. >> we think it might require some lawsuits. [laughter] and perhaps more. it's not really a question of religion. it's a question of liberty.

an atheist should be as troubled about this as a catholic should be. if they can do this to the catholics and evangelicals and whatever other religion which are many so we brought lawsuits on the tentacles as well. what are they going to do to the acs next and to the secular humanists? it is a question of liberty and of the fundamental overreach. and everyone has a conscience. everyone has a place in their inner selves that the government ought not able to be able to intrude coming in here we have exactly the opposite of that. so we have the question of liberty and not really primarily the question of religion. >> if i may just make one addition to that, the legislation that we have been supporting in congress this is also true of senator rubio's build its focus on this mandate.

both of them say that the government should not be requiring people to offer or provide or purchase coverage that they have a moral or religious objection to for the individual. and so, it is framed in terms of the freedom of conscience for all but organizational and individual, and it's funny that when i argued the issue of conscience before, sometimes what comes back at me is i think individuals have a conscience but i'm not so sure an organization does. and if it is the catholic congress i can say you and i go to church every sunday and say look not on our singh, but on the fifa of your church. is in the face of something that belongs to our command the first and that's how we guarantee our individual cases that we have an institution that is answerable to god, but tells us, god leads

us in that faith? but now we have this saying maybe we can figure out a way to broaden this little thing here about religious employer and leave people out in the cold still a must be able to flock to the catholic church and start working for us which would be nice in one way. it is a broad question than just religious institutions, and it's not a matter of saying if an individual objects to this one thing and health care, health insurance company has to accommodate them. that isn't true now, but we have had the freedom especially if we can gather together in groups or increase our clout we can go out there and negotiate for the health plan that meets our needs and the government isn't putting its thumb on the scale and saying whenever you go to a health plan say i want this kind

of coverage and not that at the government says the answer has to be no pity it is, all we are asking for is to maintain the freedom that people have always had and that hasn't been a world of chaos. might not heard about the health care system breaking down because people have the freedom in the absence of the federal wall saying anything to the contrary that people now have the freedom to negotiate a plan they like. for reasons other than anything else but i keep being reminded the president of the other side of this health care reform act, if you like the plan you have now, you get to keep it. it turns out that expires in a year from now. [laughter] >> i guess you did have to read the bill in order to know what was in that. whatever that was on capitol hill that was so convoluted. we've only been enlightening in this discussion, and i'd like to find out what you would like the

average catholic to do to advocate on behalf of our objections to this and what would you recommend that we do? >> i didn't find this question in the audience. the conference has a website we have a special case of this issue called u.s. ccp.org/conscience, and among other things, it has a lot more material on this issue so usccb/conscience and urge them to support legislation to fix this centered on the respect for the rights of the conscience act faugh and over 150 sponsors in the house and 28 in the senate including a number of democrats and i think also there's been an enormous public debate about this and i've been very gratified to see it.

the op-ed in the column, the blogger, and just participate in that public debate. one thing that i think has been missing here is that the narrative that planned parenthood wants to present is that we have to balance out the religious to the united religious views of certain organizations against the needs of the women. if there are women who do not want this mandated coverage and like the fact that you can have a health plan that is in accord with their church teaching the need to be heard most of all because there are women and men in planned parenthood claiming to speak for all of them and saying what women need is all of this and it's just these guys who are saying they can't have it. >> this woman here. >> actually just picking up on what you said it's more of a question than a comment this

morning actually one of the news shows survey of catholic women and came up with i think it is either 58% of catholic women use artificial contraception and are in favor of that. what are the actual statistics? because that is something the was obviously being put out there to support planned parenthood's arguments. >> there's been a lot of polling. the claim is that catholic women are using contraceptives about the same percentage as other people. and whenever you who pull the catholic community of course you are pulling people and at all different stages of commitments or not so strong commitment to the church and its teachings, and we understand that's true. and i also understand that the church is teaching on something that has not been explained or

is projected to as much over the decades as it might have been making some improvements in that educational materials in the conference now trying to explain that, but the reality is if a woman catholic or not one's birth control coverage, its -- you can't turn over a rock without finding it. there are many plans that would be happy to get that to you especially since they think would save them money. in a few years whether you will be able to find if you are a catholic woman who wants to follow catholic teaching or somebody who wants to live a holistic lifestyle the prospectus women's health and doesn't try to change her body with a lot of dangers hormones or whatever joy meditation with and you will be able to find

anything different. >> if i may for a second this doesn't speak to a larger issue on the religious practice and liberty. we are taught to think that religion is supposed to be constraining and stifling coming and now we find when people in a certain religious in this case the catholic religion may not be practicing their faith as robust as perhaps they ought to be then we find that the state rushes in and takes their freedom away from all together and in some cases sadly it seems that they don't even know. >> one other comment, and that is the latest poll life seen by rasmussen that came out this morning was that not just catholics but they went out polling americans in general and likely voters and there was a plurality maybe they had some political view in mind, but it's an election year but a likely voter thing was 46% against the

mandate overall and 43% in favor of it and when you ask whether the mandate should be applied to the religious organizations that have an objection 50% against and 39% in favor of the mandate. i've seen some polls before that seemed to be the other way. so it may be that the american people in general are getting informed on this and realizing there's something more at stake with our people have birth control and they want it really is at out for you. >> it's too not frame this as a birth control issue. this isn't a birth control issue it is a sexy way of dealing with it and the law better eat that up. when you explain to people this is cohesion. this is something that's never happened before in our country, i think that is -- the other point is do you feel that the archbishop really were asleep on

the job here and that we have asked for this? that we didn't pay attention. we thought we should get something free and not pay for it, we get in bed with obama and think we don't have to pay for that. you feel now that you are paying for naivety? >> recently i was looking at a series of our letters to congress and the press release about it during the the whole health care debate. we were raising this constantly in fact one of the letters we laid out exactly the scenario that in fact happened a year later. so, that, you know, this preventive service thing hhs can use it as a framework for creating a nationwide contest of mandate. if they do there's nothing here about the right of the industry. so, i do think there is a problem that they are not being listened to, and frankly not listened to by ebbers in the community that said that isn't going to happen. you don't like the health care bill.

you are making things up. and now we find that worst-case scenario was the real one. i do think also that because of the battle about abortion funding in the bill which ultimately got settled in a way that we find very unsatisfactory and we still have to fix that, that sort of took all of the oxygen out of the air on these issues. when you try to save by the way there is no protection on things beyond abortion like sterilization contraception people say come on line already getting ripped up about abortion. so there wasn't much political will and i don't think the members of congress either realized what an enormous issue this had become. >> well, i mean, i agree very much with what richard said. but it seems like not much, not saying the idea you go to a member of congress and say i'm exhausted. i can't fix this other problem

it shows you the nature of what was going on in 2009 and 2010. it was massive. this was in the end of it. they have been delegated huge amounts of authority and it's not out of the question that they would use it in lots of other pernicious plays. and i'm quite sure that they will. and so, you know, just looking at the breadth of the legislation i do quibble a little bit with richard about the history of the subsidiary and how it's been debated and how we end up where we are. i do think greece and italy have a centralized health systems. they are not doing so well right now. answer, there are lots of questions at stake in the health care law we don't need to get in a big debate about that, but the breadth of delegation of authority that went on in the health care lot of the federal government is beyond anything that's been done in 50 years. and i am not just talking about

this particular commitment to its massive delegation of authority and obviously people can differ on the question of the subsidiary, but i really question whether most people when they know what is in there when one comes down and says wait a second, do you really want the federal government especially the part of health and human services which life worked in the federal government. i worked, they are great people. they are not motivated, they have a very much secular orientation towards all these questions. it doesn't come up. these kind sentiments we are discussing today really this doesn't enter their mind. and so, you are going to be fighting an uphill battle from day one when you delegated this much authority to them. spend just a question in the back. >> since the mandate from charles tayler's wonderful award winning but the secular age at which he says it is no longer

the west including the united states people believe in god, i ask this question, does this mandate posed less the following reality of the question on the table? are we a culture of before on believe? i ask that in particular because if you are a culture different by the gun believers, religion doesn't matter and the conscientious objection based on religion matters less. that's my view. i would like to see if there's any reaction to the panel. >> there's certain cultures that say christians or jews have to pay the tax to practice their faith, and now we seem to be moving towards a system where if you want to be robust catholic, fine, pay a fine. if you want to be counter cultural and that probably in human life, fine. i don't know if that describes the secular age but it seems like a pretty frightening regime to live under. >> i think that -- i don't know if it is between believe for one

believe but i think it is a very specific and very narrow view of the role of religion in the society and the aclu position which i think has been swallowed by people who are in charge of things in this administration is that if you are religious, that's fine and dandy. pray, stay in your church. if you go out in the public square then you have to play by the secular rules and the turn out to be made by the people who believe opposite of what you believe. and especially if you ever want to take part in any public program or serve the poor using federal funds or get involved in public works starting with common good, then you have to set your religion aside at the door and pretend at least to believe as the atheists do and i don't think that is a vision of america that the founding fathers had tall but it is

increasingly the secular world view that is encroaching on our ability. >> a follow-up leading into this, my curiosity led me to the selection in racial germany and one of those past for those that prohibited them from participating in the health insurance plans and on the legislative history of nazi germany was to say that jewish doctors could only jewish patient and there was a design to sequester and were about perhaps on the basis of often a city, but certainly on the basis of religion the participation of jews in the fall culture of germany. this reminds me of that. >> one more question coming yes, sir. >> this is a final question to the woman over here talking about the threats for the women to get involved. you know, certainly twitter messages, facebook posts and the

like is great and there's wonderful avenues. what would be some value in the on the ground protests upon the hhs? street side or can the organizations plan on doing something like that come organize that sort of thing to be involved or ever since the strategies you could interdiction sticky can go to our website and you can sign a petition we have and we have the occupied protest where we ought to apply in courtrooms and have to occupy more of those. >> the not-for-profit think tanks in washington, so we are doing more on the study of thinking done on the street side and i think the catholic community has gotten lots of me