lending standards of 2005. you are right to call attention to this but there was room between nothing and crazy lending standards and we just did not expand -- explore that before obama took over be clear. [laughter] [applause] . .

we had john hodgman from "the daily show" who came out and helped us to it. being in a bookstore on a friday night people, okay so all of us really, all of us. i want to say the most important thing of all and it will be the most important thing i say tonight is thank you. everything i say after that we'll be will be straight downhill and i will tell you some of this is a big thank yous to the end. but we are here to talk about is the "the fifth assassin." people say what you where do you get your ideas for the book? i will tell you about this.

nobody gets crazier e-mailed to me. the last time i was asked at the store for the inner circle someone brought me the holy grail. is that guy here? i have to ask first. he's not here? then let's talk about him because here's what happened. i promise you this is true. there was standing right of there and he comes up to me earlier and he is like red, do you want to see the holy grail? he had the crazy eyes going back and forth and i'm like you brought the holy grail all the way to barnes & noble how do i not say yes? in that i'll he takes out the holy grail. he pulls it out the holy grail. and he says to me, do you read hebrew? yes i do. and you will understand what this says and he holds it up and he hands it to me and i take the holy grail and i'm looking at it real close and i am eyeing this

ancient thing that he got from pottery barn and i'm looking at the thing and he says do you see now? i'm looking row close and there's not a single hebrew letter on the entire thing. it's like the head of the pen and that is all there is on there. he says you understand now don't you? and i said i understand completely. thank you very much and i'm walking backwards. security right here. i am a little disappointed tonight that no one brought me the fountain of youth. sometimes the good news is you get amazing letters from someone and a longtime reader of mine came to me and said rabbi work at a museum in washington d.c. that almost no one knows about and you have to see what our collection hats. i was like listen to tell me what you've got. he said to me we have pieces of abraham lincoln's skull. we have the bones of john

wilkes-booth and we have the actual wallet that killed abraham lincoln. do you want to come and see it? yes i want to come and see that. so i go down to washington d.c. and when i get there they don't have the artifacts that they have pieces of some of the other ones as well. when i am there and he opens up a drawer and in this drawer are a bunch of bones. almost like you took a skeleton from your biology class and dump them in a drawer. he had femurs and other bones that i can't remember the name of. my uncle who doctor is -- relatives. and so he opens the door and i'm like what is that? then he hands me -- miguel opens up another drawer and hands me a jelly jar full of spongy material. that is the reign of charles guiteau the second man ever to

assassinate a president. any man who will give you brain invite into your party. he's awesome. and then his assistant opens up another drawer and takes out a leather kind of like a swatch of leather. when you buy yourself a day give you a little swatch so you can see look other of whether you want and i see the writing and i say what is the writing on this? she says to me all company that is a tattoo. it's not just leather but it's someone's skin. anyone who gives you a rain and skin invite them to your party. to explain this museum it's the national museum of -- and what they have their it used to be and army research facility in what they used to do is if you were shot in the civil war and you died in you got shot in the arm and he died there this off your arm and send it to the research place and they would say figure out why he died. did you die because of being

that severed? they kept selling off body parts and sending them to this museum. eventually science moves forward and they realize the germ theory develops. the reason you are dying is because it's an infection and blood poisoning and that is why you are dying and when they figure that out there now realize, we are going to turn this research facility into museum. he said to me that the smithsonian has dorothy's ruby red slippers. we have all the body parts. that's a party. what happened was when lincoln would shot and they did the autopsy and took his brain out the bullet was still in his reign and that is how they found it. they have all these -- when the assassins were killed people love these in odd and creepy ways. they used to cut the lining of the coffins and their hair in their clothing anything they could to own a piece of this disaster and that is what this medium is. when i was there at the henson

as he hands me this piece of skin and i see a quarter of the skin with a red diamond. we all see playing cards all the time and we have seen them our whole lives. this is how my brain works. every detail when abraham lincoln was shot almost everyone is cataloged. they can tell you what john wilkes-booth had in his pocket and what was inside of his wallet and they can tell you the horse he rode off on in the name of the horse and the color of the hajj -- course. the 40 shot abraham lincoln went to this bar and ordered a drink and they will tell you what kind of drink you order. the only detail that is not known has to do with how john wilkes-booth got past the white house valet. john wilkes-booth walked into the theater and runs into the white house valet and at that moment here it is the moment in

history. all this guy has to do is stop john wilkes-booth and all in all of history changes and at that moment rather than stopping him john wilkes-booth hands this valet a card and to this day the only detail that is not known about the lincoln assassination is what is on this mysterious card. some people say it's a calling card and some people say it's a business card. i remember actually business cards back then used to be playing cards. playing cards used to be black on one side. the university of pennsylvania could use it to get into your class a playing card that was blank on one side. so my brain goes like this. you have a playing card that i can link to john wilkes-booth and now a playing card that i could potential a link to the second assassin and the skin may have been hits or not it now i have a thread and i can leave the thread and now have applauded this is where the fiction takes over. we'll see those symbols, hearts

and diamonds and clubs in but they are symbols that may mean something. it's like a dollar bill. you look like a dollar bill and it has a pyramid with an eyeball on top. it's simple and they put it there for a reason. it does mean something. and it's the same with playing cards and if you want to know what hearts and diamonds and clubs and stand for you will see one theory in the "the fifth assassin" and that is where the book begins with a serial killer. a serial killer re-creating the murders and instead of being lone wolves they are working together over the course of this century but the same secret policy. so the book against. for me personally i become obsessed with this. i am like "the herold" and maude of this crisis and by the way that did not work in virginia.

only l.a. gets that joke. you can't make jokes about in virginia. if you make a chanukah joke it dies right there. and i have been crazy obsessed with this. what you see in michigan when he talks of of of the secret service and you asked them about people who tried to kill the president there's almost nothing that the assassins have in common. they are every age-old and young rich and poor and everything in between. there is no rhyme or reason to it but if you look at those that were successful you see the overlap and it's a smaller group and you see the pattern. interestingly all for assassins who successfully kill the president were meticulously -- none of them do drugs they barely changed and they are barely known as troublemakers. what is also interesting to me is they are all for men with a cause and a couple of years ago the government brought a bunch of futurists and they wanted to

figure out the biggest threat that was going to happen in the biggest threat to america. to america. it used to be russia or the bomb or another country or china. the greatest threat to american security will simply be an individual or a small group who is determined to die for their cause. you don't have to evoke 9/11 to see what the damage will be or if you look at assassins they could be divided into categories. hunters and howlers. howlers make a lot of noise and they call it on threats and they intend to kill us but the good news is they rarely take action. the hunters are different. hunters clock, plan and execute but here's what fascinating. hunters have almost no interest in howling and howlers have almost no interest in hunting and if you look at the for assassins all four of them are hunters. that means the secret service who i have so much respect for further training facility in maryland it means the person they are looking for is the

person who they will never see coming. that is a scary thought. along with assassins the funniest part of it is the guy who took me into this museum the guy who has all the body parts he was in the front row so he is there and i'm like here's the guy. he gave me the brain and gave me all the stuff. i bring them up and introduce them and have everyone claps than i give him a big hug. he whispers in my ear as i'm hugging him, i don't like hugging very much. that is the most awesome reaction. i want the guy who spends his day with body parts to hate hugging. he should have an eye hate hugging shirt. so i love the fact that he is there and we get to do that with him. the other thing that i became assessed with is the presidents. the fun part of the research for me as a couple of years ago i got a letter from now former president clinton and i'm going

to send him one of the books and then i got one of the craziest best fan letters i have forgotten my whole life. it came from former president george h.w. bush. he read one of my novels the billionaires and asked if i would sign a copy for him. you are a leader of the free world, you will get a free book. whatever you want you have rented. you are the president. terry nice. i spent time with the bushes there and barbara and george are the sweetest and nicest people. they spent the first half hour of iowa's with them it was president bush trying to commence my wife that he invented the -- that is quality material. that's a good joke. he did not invent the phrase you are the man. he might have but the nice part was as i was researching this book i got to ask president bush questions about the white house and his time there and listen i write fiction.

i can write anything i want but we all know that there are only a few people on this planet who know what it's like to live in the white house and know that someone is out there trying to kill you and that's pretty amazing. i got to say to him were you scared at that moment? he was like not confused by the question but it was an odd question he had never heard of before. that is not the right word and i said were you scared when this happened and when this happened? we had a lot of -- the white house is always tense but scared? it wasn't in the vocabulary. as i thought about it made perfect sense to me because it's like that guy who is a construction worker and works on the top of a skyscraper on the edge of a knife being. for that person to be that high up all day long the fear of heights disappears. also u.s. presidents have things in common and when you're

surrounded by the secret service every day eventually that has to disappear that fear that you and i would feel eventually becomes part of the job and that's a good thing. for obama or bush or for anyone after that's a good thing. that fear does disappear and i'm not sure i would do much better but you see the president is both based on my interactions with bush and what i saw there and how he reacted to that so when you see the president reacting is obviously much better to me informed. we all know there is nothing better than a -- about a president. when you can fill it with those real details fiction has its best when it has one foot in reality and in terms of the place we got to explore here i finally got to decamp david. i don't even know what camp david was. the camp david accords we have all heard of it that what is this place? what is this place that they go

and do there? i found that camp david has security that is better than the white house. what is going on there that they have better security than the white house? they have marines and secret service, doubletime. it's amazing. when you look at it here's the great thing for them. it's really their second home. it's a getaway place and what's interesting is they can go skeet shooting and they can play golf and bowling go swimming but here's the best part. no press allowed. when one of the secret guys -- secret service guys told me when clinton first took office i set i have had allergies. that day his allergies were magically cured and i do blame him. have a place we can get away and be by yourself but one of the best things we have found as there is a hidden tunnel that runs below camp david. we change the security protocol in there but you will see where

the time of starts and what is underground and you will see where it comes out. when you read that chapter you will see where the secret tunnel comes out and i both the way it does that. with that said what i want to do is take questions and i think it's far more interesting take take your questions. you can ask about decoded or ask about novels and you can ask about -- i write fiction and i can make up an answer. c-span is here by the way so they want to make sure if you have any questions please use the microphone for the audience at home. there is one question up here. >> hi mr. meltzer. i'm a big decoder man. >> i am a bigger decoder fan than you. do you know what i call it the? brad meltzer decoder. i said to my wife what are we

having for dinner tonight because yesterday we had brad meltzer chicken and not everybody can have brad meltzer pasta. it's been my favorite episode had to do with the -- and i was wondering what your thoughts were as time passed and where you think it might fly? >> the questions about the spear of destiny and we did an episode about decoded that was based on a sphere that pierced his side when he was on the crucifix and when he was being crucified and it may be part of the story -- make the main part of the story is these leaders throughout history have this fear and they use it to gain power and napoleon and all these other people wanted it. the best part of the story in the end is that -- i don't think for one second that it gives you magic powers but if you tell me adolf hitler wants his thing i've want to know what's so important about this thing.

we had on that episode some theories on where it was and we had a man who came on the show who contacted me. the reason we did that episode is because he contacted me eight years ago about a paper with the show and told me i have a story you need to hear about this fear of death. he worked for a powerful person and basically his boss supposedly have stolen this fear of death. it's supposedly in a museum in europe and the museum supposedly is a big one and the real one is like his boss. again in terms of where it is some people say it's in a submarine that sunk. some people say it was donated to a european museum. the vatican said they have it below -- not buried below the vatican and the vatican will tell you they have it. what is amazing is so many people put so much into their particular sphere. as for where i think it is

obviously the vatican says they have it and my guys who came to us that he knows where it is. one thing we left out of the show as he told us where he kept it and we couldn't verify that part. we verified all the parts of the story but that was the one part we couldn't and i would would os who love to do that part. we don't want to be reckless and say that we know where it is must we can prove where it is. i am at the little disappointed that no one brought me the spear of destiny. of course if i knew where it was was -- i would be using this fear of death for my own evil power. i don't know where it is. the vatican insists that theirs is the one and like i said a lot of people say it's in the submarine that has been sunk, to the german submarine that sunk a long time ago. other questions?

this is usually a hard crowd. >> thanks for being here. where do we stand with the new season and can you tieser talk about any mysteries you would like to go for the show? >> the question is do we get season three are not? only in l.a. do they want to know if you got picked up. in virginia they don't care. they don't even know what it is. season three we don't know and we just finished the two-hour special on the end of the world. the best part of that is where the two-hour special on the end of the world in december that the world is going to end and i scheduled my new novel in january. that is marketing genius like they are. i know how this one ends. my favorite part of the episode that we did is we have this guy, a sweetheart of a guy who builds a bunker in wisconsin and takes us to his underground bunker so when the apocalypse hits he survives.

he says here's all my food in my generator and hears everything that will keep me alive and check it out y'all a 42-inch flat-screen. he is so psyched about his 42-inch flat-screen. we are all dead and burning in flames and he says don't worry i have the 42-inch flat-screen. costco had a deal and we are set so he is like i have a lot of dvds too. i'm glad you have everything covered that we are all dying. it does beg the question about decoded and i will tell you this for sure one of the next projects you will see is a decoded book. we will do the top 10 conspiracies and you will see is count them down. i really love what we are doing with this. the book after that will be for those who read collections of heroes throughout history that i did for my daughter and stories like the wright brothers and

every time the wright brothers would fly the airplane they would bring extra materials for multiple crashes. they would crash and rebuilding crash and rebuild. i love that story and i want my sons to hear that story and i want my daughter to hear that story. if you dream big and you work hard and you have stubborn as you can do anything in this world. now we are going going to do an ulster new version of these heroes and so amelia earhart, i'm amelia earhart and i am abraham lincoln and a line of children's books for kids three to seven years old and those are the next children's books out in the sql to "the fifth assassin." my next comic project i'm going to tell you all about it. it is the tiny titans version, a cartoon comic look for little kids and my daughter in the back of every comic that they print artwork -- artwork and my

daughter drew a picture wonder girl one of the characters in the book and she said dad do you think we can get this in the comic? i was like wow, i don't know. i call pc comics and they said the fixes on. they put it in and i was so happy. by the way people think their kids are the best artists. my kids can draw like nobody's business and i love that she'd drew this amazing 7-year-old version of wonder girl. you can pick this character that we are going to do and make it in three pages. i can do it if i can do it with my 4-year-old. he picked a polar bear who writes a unicycle and i don't understand it either, just go with it and i said tell me what the polar bears going to say and i will ride around you. so i said what is a polar bear

going to say? we are going to fight with light sabers and my character says they think we are going to have some issues here. he says we are going to fight them with light sabers. i don't think you understand what they are and basically i said come because i want to get the motivation from a 4-year-old, why are we fighting? because we are evil. are you always evil? are you evil on your birthday? yes. are you yvonne groundhog day? are you evil on hanukkah and christmas? yes. no. at the end is him yelling over and over and then chewbacca comes in and yoda comes in and that's a trademark issue and that's basically the entire story so you will see that coming. i love the fact do we did this. i saw hand appeared.

>> hello. hi. it sounds like you are really busy. >> is this a day? >> i was just wondering, how do you find time for everything? is a hopeful writer myself how do you find the time for your family and your luck and everything? >> i appreciate that question and it's actually very important question. time management is actually -- you can spend your entire life doing your work and spend your entire life doing your work. this is the first novel that i wrote since my parents passed away and if i learned anything, it's funny when you write a novel you have all the plans and you know the ending and you know those things and then there are the things that you don't plan on that are going in there. one of the things that went in here as i finish the first draft i look to the book and i was like what is this book about?

i knew they were the themes that i put in there and purpose and as i finish the first draft i looked down and i was like oh got it. the main characters growing up. of course he is. my parents are both gone. that is all i'm doing right now. if i learned anything from what my parents gave me was the value of that time with your family. family. i may do all these different projects but i do try never to work on the weekends. obviously if i have a speech but if i have to. do i always exceed? note that those over the priorities lie and it's why don't write a book a year. if i wanted to write a book a year i've would not see my kids as much and i wouldn't see my wife as much as i like them in the hope they like me. the reason why i'm going to be on the red eye right after levy or after doing a five day tour because tomorrow's baseball practice and i plan to be there for it. i will sleep on the plane tonight.

for sure that's the most important part of it for me and i absolutely learned that from my own parents. my parents were insane. my mother -- my mom uses it the dinner table i was on my own arm off for you. mom, we are eating dinner. what are you talking about? that love is everything i am. her love for me is my strength in my foundation and that is where it comes from so that is the one lesson i have. sorry i can produce more product. you have to spend time with your family. i appreciated. thank you. anymore questions? you have to use the mic. this is oprah style. speier dropped a hint about the sql two "the fifth assassin." you want to talk about that? >> i reveal the ending in the sql. i can't but to talk about it i always knew that this was not

going to be one buck long. that was always the goal without question and over and over here is the problem and i used to think if you did a sequel you are selling out and it was some awful thing. and what i realized is sometimes sequels are awful. you run out of ideas and it's awful but the best ones in the best longform stories are the ones that tell the longer tail and it takes a more complex problem to make it we fear multiple books. i was in creating a hartnett problem for my characters in terms of growth that would need more than one book and the problem was simply the problem in front of them and they quote unquote bad guy. the hardest battle you will ever you'll ever fight is against yourself always. what you see in each of these books is a battle fighting within itself.

that will always be the hardest battle we'll fight but also the most important battle we will fight. it's her life's journey and to be able to figure out and stop making the same mistake. >> he i just wanted to say that i really enjoyed your youtube video on how to write your own obituary. and also i wanted to comment on the proposed new decoded season. i was hoping that you could possibly touched on stuff like like -- >> two points. one about a youtube video we put up. but writing your own obituary. this couple of years ago i -- were superman was created and when a reporter from "the wall street journal" heard about it he said brad that's going to be your obituary. i said thank you for for so clearly contemplating my death. it struck me what is going to be

my obituary? what are they going to say to make? did i matter? was important? what did i do? did i make the world a better place? what is going to be in my obituary? taken by that i couldn't shake the question. i went back a year later to that reporter and i said to him i want to hire you for job. i want you to write my obituary and he wrote it and i won't tell you what is in it but if you put in brad meltzer obituary you will see the talk on youtube and really it's the same thing that you are asking yourself and what is going to be in your obituary? you think about who will remember you and when you look at the legacy we all leave it's an important question you should be asking yourselves. take time to look at that and in terms of fema camps that is one of the top suggestions and it's amazing to see what people suggest. jfk is always number one. they want to know all these

different things over and over and it's interesting when you do the show it's not just my ideas. it's a true collaboration we have great producers and i'm actually going to see them tonight. people from the history channel were amazing. we always try to get a good mix of thing so it's not just all things from wartime are all things from now but a real mix. that is one that does occur over and over and it's amazing. i saw one other hand and then i want to tell one story. one final story. a couple of months ago, two months months ago to be exact that at the uso tours and the uso brought me over to kuwait and to other undisclosed military locations. the first thing is when we first went you're going to entertain the troops in me with them and spend time with them and do book signings. i was so honored to be asked.

you can't tell anyone where you are going. you can't tell anyone and then they made t-shirts for the tour and on the t-shirts were all the locations where we were going. i was like this is security and charge of our life's? i can't tell you where i went unless i'm wearing that t-shirt. obviously honor to go over there. the best part of it is as we got there the week before our tour of authors the international thriller writers send five authors every year to go in to see the troops. we were the third group that got to go over and right before we got there the troops had seen the ultimate champion fighting guys with no shirts on. the dallas cowboy cheerleaders and then us. it was like the guys with all the muscles and the women wearing nothing and the authors here are -- were here to read to you. did you make the audible sigh

when they realized it would be you? the reason i got involved with the uso is because 10 years ago right after 9/11 a guy on a submarine wrote me an e-mail. he said to me, i'm on the subway and i can tell you where i am but on the submarine we don't have a big library and we have your book in first counsel. i just want to tell you it is really bringing me a lot of peace and i want to say thank you for that. that was one of the nicest e-mails i have ever gotten in my life. this guy takes the time to write me from a submarine in the middle of nowhere. 10 years ago i called my publisher and i said can i get 10,000 books donated to the uso? they were like yeah. i called another publisher and i said can i get 10,000 books donated? over and over we got 40,000 books donated to the uso. flash forward two months ago. 10 years later.

we were in kuwait and one of the members of the military says brad, i just want to thank you for all those books you'd donated all those years ago. almost nobody knows about that. he said when i was in iraq iraq and afghanistan we used to see stacks of your books. they said courtesy of uso so we know you had to have donated them. don't be thanking me. i'm here to thank you. i was so struck by that when i came home a month and a half ago i was like i have to track down that soldier, that sailor on the original summary that i have to find where he is. i went through the e-mail address and track him down and found a phone number and i called them up. i called them up and i said i don't know if you remember me. my name is brad meltzer in 10 years ago you wrote me an e-mail from a submarine and i want you to know what it started. we donated these books and here i am going back to uso. he listens to this holds dori

and there's this odd silence. you know something is wrong. something is going wrong here. i don't know what it is and i say to him are you okay? there was such an odd silence. he said to me not really. he said a couple of days ago my mother died from breast cancer. what he doesn't know is my mother had died from breast cancer. at that moment i stopped and i say to him, i think i'm here to deliver a message to you. he says what is the message? i said when my mom passed away everyone tried to get me by separate help but the most important thing anyone to sit to me. our mothers never leave us, ever. and he starts crying. because he is crying i'm all teared up and as i'm sitting there i'm thinking, i'm not one of these new age people that believes this is the magic woman

but sometimes in life we are so disconnected and sometimes -- and this was one of those moments. this guy had taken me like a boomerang and thrown me out to combat 10 years later. i was so struck by that and the reason i tell you the story is i want you to think about the power. this is all i ask of you. when we we are done talking an eyes on the books and it's all done i want you to think of the person who helped you in your life and who you you you owe thank you to. think of that teacher in high school or junior high or college or anywhere else. if that person gave you your first real job for -- but think of that person and thank them. i promise you you will not ever believe what will come from it. the main part of the story is one i told that story last week in washington d.c. as i got to this point where he said please thank the person you a hand went up in the front row. i said what you want to know? he said i have to thank you brad.

for what you did for me on that submarine 10 years ago. and it was him. the sailor from the simmering came to the signing. he comes running up and i hugged him and i will tell you he does not whisper in my ear, i don't like hugging very much. but i do encourage you and the reason i say that at the end and this is is most important thing i'll say to you is thank you. thank you for coming in tonight and for supporting me. leave a host of my first event in los angeles when we had nobody there. there were a couple of people and us and they took a chance on me from the start so i love you for that and thank you for doing that. no, thank you. i appreciate it. [applause] i have family and friends from all walks of life here from college and high school in other places and people that work on decoder here. i have all my agency or in my managers here from wnv and lou and david and anna and ari and

bill and josh and all these amazing people who let me do what i do and i never get to say publicly thank you for what you do. all the people who come here like you. there are people who come here every year including -- and without that first help all those years ago in the white house that would not be doing this. one less person i want to thank because i never think them publicly and i want to show you what it looks like. scott these come up here. he doesn't even know what i'm doing. when you do your book, one of the things you do now is an audio book in the first, did my audio book i listened to the tape and they hired some famous person will not be named. it sounded stilted and then the second book they heard a woman because it was a female character and i listened to it and certainly didn't sound like me. then i heard this voice.

>> i don't have anything to read i don't know what to say. >> and i was like that baritone? so this is actually the guy who does their audio book. he is my voice. [applause] i never ever get to thank him so thank you and i love you. just whisper in my ear i don't like hugging very much. it was so awesome but thank you for everyone he came here tonight and i really do appreciate it especially those who come back and support these books. and those of you who took a chance on the book. it i will be signing books. thank you very much. i appreciate it. [applause] >> lets start with the bureau of

labor statistics has five definitions of the the 3.1 million green jobs that are discounted, namely energy sources, energy efficiency, energy pollution reduction and removal natural resource conservation and environmental compliance, education and training and public awareness. when i was testifying on capitol hill before the house energy and commerce committee they had a -- in front of me. this time they had a glass of water and the paper cup said i connect with the capital on one side and power to save energy on the other side. since this kind of fits the definition of education, training and public awareness, the workers who made it had green jobs. if the cuppa joe said i connect

with the capital or if it had just been a plain white cup and the people who made it would not have had green jobs. and when i wrote this book, regulating the disaster about environmental issues while i was doing it i had a green job and perhaps i still do right now because i'm talking about it. but if i had been writing about social security and actually at the same time i was writing my book an illustrated guide to the economic progress of women in america if i had just been working on that i would not have had a green job. if they install low flow toilets they have green jobs. farmers. if they grow corn for ethanol they have the green job. if they grow corn for ethanol and corn for people to be, they have a green job. if they just grow corn for

people to be even though they are farmers, they don't have green jobs. the salvation army workers, if they recycle used clothing, then they have green jobs to match. well, there are 4665 people who produce renewable energy and utility companies according to the bureau of labor statistics. the latest reports which came out in april. they are clearly green but you have to ask, are they making energy more expensive or are they making it less expensive? well it's clear that they are making energy more expensive. the average levalized cost for for -- in 2017 according to the department of energy if they are fueled by natural gas this cost $66 per megawatt hour. for wins, $96 per megawatt hour. for solar power $153 per megawatt hour.

will five years ago and 2007 when the energy loan guarantee program was put in place in many of these subsidies for solar and wind, we didn't know that we were sitting on 200 years of inexpensive natural gas, so maybe it was logical for people than to think we need to be independent or as independent as we can be of the middle east. in fact the first president who coined the phrase energy independence was richard nixon, a republican. so maybe it was logical to think well if we make our own energy, then we will be more independent and self-sufficient. but this was before we found that we had all this inexpensive natural gas, around $2.75 per million btu. so now we are in the middle of the new american energy