to make things better. i think we are about done for the evening. i want to thank you, and thank park roads books in charlotte, north carolina and hard core publishing company, chris arena's film documentary on world peace and great achievements -- "world peace and other 4th-grade achievements," and my literary agent cynthia canal in new york for all making this possible. and all my teachers whose shoulders stand to be here tonight with you. thank you for coming. i really appreciate it. >> you are watching booktv, and nonfiction authors and books every weekend on c-span2. next, william perry pendley talks about ronald reagan's energy and environmental policies and discusses president reagan's efforts to balance environmental protection and economic growth. this hour-long event was hosted

by the heritage foundation in washington d.c.. >> join me in welcoming william perry pendley, author of "sagebrush rebel". [applause] >> when it came to energy, natural resources and the environment reagan knew exactly what he wanted to do. of course he had been governor of california and like the other ten western states california is a federal lands state. the government jones a third of the nation, most of that in the american west and california like colorado, half of it was owned by the federal government so ronald reagan as governor of california, not just when it was sovereign but also when it was a land owner in many cases of bad neighbor. so he had to have experience, he knew the agency, the park

service, the fish and wildlife service and the forest service and the department of agriculture and the bureau reclamation, he had experience with those agencies firsthand and he brought that knowledge with him in the years ahead. something phenomenal about reagan was he had a photographic memory and that is not just from bill clarke and george shultz, but the famous reagan biographer who points that out, one of the reasons why reagan once he had experience with an issue brought that experience with him into the future. the second thing that happened was after he left being governor made a decision that really was tremendously important and decided not to go into television. of course for years he had been in television but was offered the opportunity to appear on a weekly broadcast against some

liberal talking about some topic for other and said i am afraid the public will get tired of me on television and never get tired of me on radio so he embarked on these weekly radio addresses, hundreds of thousands that he gave over the years, took a brief break when he ran for president first in 1976 and resumed those radio broadcasts as he continued on until he decided to run for president successfully in 1980. in those addresses he covered the issues he felt were important to the american people, issues of foreign affairs, energy, the environment. interestingly enough reagan believed all those issues were wrapped up together. our problems were tied up with economic problems, energy problems and he saw the solutions to those problems in the federal lands the federal government don't. most of the land the federal government jones as i say is in the west stands in an area of

the country that is geologically unique and provides tremendous opportunity for the development of hydrocarbons, leila and gas and strategic and critical minerals so reagan knew that that was a great opportunity. in addition the federal government owns all the acreage on the continental shelf outside state waters, a billion acres of land and reagan knew there was great opportunity to solve our energy problems. reagan did not believe the government when it came to the government's review of our energy future. of famous radio address he went by the years, the decades to what the government predicted would be our energy future and approve government was wrong decade after decade, the federal government got it wrong with regard to our energy future. check out a couple books if you haven't read them, in his own hand and reagan's have to victory, marty anderson put together those wonderful reagan's speeches and any written in his own hand. in my book i set out an

incredible laundry list of issues he covered and he writes not only in the style of the rights like a man who spent a long time that the department of the interior or the department of agriculture. i don't mean down in some agency but a high policy level. he staked out those issues clearly on where he wanted to go and what he felt the future should be and as president he implemented those policies. he knew what he wanted to do and move forward with doing that and he continued to monitor what was going on. he followed closely what was going on. two of his radio address as he continued the radio address tradition and every president since then has followed with that tradition i don't think as successfully as ronald reagan did. he continued to do them and many of them he wrote himself. two key addresses i featuring my

book, one in june of 1983, one in october of 1983, he wrote out by himself. one i have a copy of, in his own hand. the other we don't have the record, handwritten copy but i do have a copy where the tight -- the typist put in the quarter heart are wrote. by his own hand he followed these issues, covered these issues and also made sure his policies would be implemented by picking three secretaries of the interior in which he had great confidence. jim watch out of wyoming, he met him, concluded this was the man who was true to his word was going to follow through on what he said and what president reagan wanted to do, bill clark, judge clark called by one of his biographers reagan's top hand, he was the goal to prison for ronald reagan, people say judge

clark was closer to ronald reagan than anyone but nancy reagan and went back to california, don o'dell, a successful secretary at the department of the education, maybe we ought to make attorney-general. instead he made him secretary of the interior and picked these 3 men to do the work he wanted to have done that he had envisioned back when he was governor, that he continued to talk about when he was a radio address speaker and writer and he continues to back each and every one of them. one of the things that has been fascinating, i had hoped the book like this had been written in the 80s or 90s but not until 2000 we saw something that helped us understand what reagan's philosophy was and how we went about these things and how truly believed in his issues and to his diary came out in

2004. it is fascinating to me when i read his diaries to see how closely he was following these issues. the second general area is environmental extremism, the book's title is "sagebrush rebel: reagan's battle with environmental extremists and why it matters today". the term environmental extremist is reagan's own. this is what he referred to, at one time he called the modern day lines which i thought was pretty cool. reagan said in a radio address and went on to explain what that was for those of his audience who might not know. environment extremists lied about reagan and continue to lie about reagan in three important respects. first of all they lied about reagan when they said we did not oppose him initially. the great myth that environmentalists like to talk about today and they talk about shortly after he left office was we didn't want to dislike him at

first. we were trying to make up our minds, did know how to come down and then he started did those crazy things and we had to come out against him. environmental group took a position against ronald reagan very early and stuck with it. publicly what was known to the public generally at the time was in september of 1980, 21 environmental groups representing millions of members of environmental organizations went to the carter white house endorsed president carter for reelection and stepped out on the white house lawn and excoriating ronald reagan. they didn't just endorse carter, they attacked reagan and the attack was relentless. what is more interesting to me was even a i year earlier, something the press did not notice that the new york times said about the white house appearance in october of 1980, this is a remarkable change because for the first time in

history environmental groups have taken a side in the presidential election, the first time and it was -- set the stage for environmental groups have done ever since. there today in my view an arm of the democratic party, it is not about the environment, it is about politics. even a year earlier environmental groups traveled to denver, colorado to take on what they saw as a real threat to them which was the sagebrush rebellion. when i was writing this book by googleed sagebrush rebellion, and there wasn't much out there. i was very surprised so let me bring you up to date. the war in the west, some scholars say it really started with the passage of the federal land policy management act in 1976 when norway in which we use federal land across the west, the u.s. forest service across

the west changed dramatically. we were no longer going to sell the land but keep it and preserve it forever. that had an impact. it really didn't have an impact. what had an impact was when jimmy carter came into office, all of a sudden they decided to implement policies that were seen as a war on the west, an attack on oil and gas, mining, ranching, forestry, the use of water, state sovereignty, you name it. it wasn't a partisan issue at all because democratic governors like babbitt of arizona, masterson of utah, lamm of colorado, lamb wrote a book called the pain-free west and if you read it today and i recommended as an interesting historical piece he praises people like jim watt and ronald reagan, he sounds like me when

you read my books war on the west and warriors for the west. my home state of wyoming, opposed to what cecil andrus and jim carter were doing so there arose the sagebrush rebellion. reagan identified as the sagebrush rebels. in 1980 when he was in washington getting ready for the transition after his election he sent a telegram to salt lake city to a group of sagebrush rebels who were gathering they're saying i am a sagebrush rebels and i hope to have a peaceful solution to the sagebrush rebellion. in addition, reagan's best friend in the senate was a sagebrush rebels and had led the charge on doing legislation, drafting in, introducing legislation to address sagebrush rebellion issues. environmental groups in september of 1979 went to denver to say how do we deal with this?

moreover throughout the campaign, throughout the campaign reagan did what he had done as governor of california, what he did during his radio address he continued to do with his campaign, to speak out on energy and environmental issues, how we had to develop our resources, we had to work our way out of this problem we are facing for the needs of the american people and if we ever have any hope of dealing with our foreign problems, carter on the other hand said as president obama says is a we can't grow our way out of this. jimmy carter said in the 1980s by 1990 we will have run out of natural gas. ronald reagan didn't think that was right at all and made it clear during his campaign. when environmentalists say we had no idea what ronald reagan stood for, what he believed or wanted to do or moreover we

didn't oppose him at the time, we only oppose him beginning in 1981, a total fiction. they opposed him in '79 and in 1980 and in 1981 before he was sworn in and continued to attack him. the second why environmentalists tell about ronald reagan and the administration is that ronald reagan may have had a successful administrative presidency, change the budget, change personnel, issued new regulations but it was only an administrative presidency. had an unsuccessful legislative presidency because he was in conflict with the broad bipartisan consensus regarding environmental issues. i am quoting largely because they speak frequently of the environmental consensus on environmental issues. sure enough there had been an environmental juggernaut in the 60s sense of thes if you look at the legislation, set it forth in my book that was passed during

those years. .. >> and be it ever affects private property, why, we'll just buy that property and use it for species habitat. well, that was then, and this is today. i want to tell you something i found really interesting a couple of days ago, there was a story out of california about how the condors, which the reagan administration recovered, by the way, the condors swept

into a california town and wreaked havoc on the town tearing shingles off the roof and biting through air-condition wires and doing their thing to the great distress of homeowners, and it reminded me of a famous line of ronald reagan when he wrote about the loss of species over time. he said do we really want these flying lizards to come back and land on our lawn in. -- lawn? [laughter] i think he saw that coming. so there was a tremendous amount of buyer's remorse especially in the west x they said, my goodness, is that what these environmental standards mean? essentially, the workshop e give eleven of measure twice, cut once. it was to require that we study a project carefully before we move forward with a major federal action that will significantly affect quality of the human environment, but it didn't mean study it forever, and that's what out means today. after nepa was passed, we have

not, we have not built be an oil refinery in this cup, we did not improve the levees in new orleans before katrina hit, and today in the american west where we have terrible forest fires, i guarantee you that not one of those burned areas will be harvested before the timber is allowed to rot on the stump because of nepa. well, reagan saw all that. and when he came in, he was presented two transition reports. one was presented by nixon-ford environmental types x they said to the president in their document, well, just tinker around the edges with some of these environmental regulations, don't make big changes. and reagan quickly threw it over the side. only three copies of it were ever made, and instead president reagan clung to a document created in this building, the mandate for leadership done by the heritage foundation in 1980,

chapter by chapter about what a conservative administration ought to do, and there was an interior chapter. i confess that i played a small role in writing that document. but that's what reagan wanted to do. yeah, that's what i want to do. and not only did he like it after reading it cover to cover, but he said to mr. meese, have a copy put in front of every cabinet officer, and then he told the cabinet read your chapter and then implement it. and so over at interior we did. so, yes, yes, we had a successful administrative presidency. legal psychologicals -- not legal scholars, but scholars say that reagan probably had the most successful administrative presidency in history, even more

successful than fdr simply because of a laser-like focus on the issues and a commitment to getting it done. reagan said, now, every once in a while you've got to grab the bureaucracy by the neck and say stop doing what you're doing. and he did, and we did. but that's not the end of it. president reagan, of course, as you all know had a very successful economic agenda. he got tax cuts passed, he got a lot of economic legislation passed with the help of a bunch of yellow dog democrats who joined with him, for example, my good friend congressman jim san tinny of nevada who saw the light and stopped being a democrat. [laughter] but there was other legislative successes that president reagan had in the area of energy, natural resources and the environment. for example, reform the reclamation act of 1902. broad, bipartisan consensus about what needed to be done

with regard to the reclamation act and got it done. there was fraud, graft and corruption in the manner in which -- and incompetence, frankly -- in the manner in which royalties were collected on federal lands across the west. a commission was appointed, id made recommendations, and secretary watt moved quickly to congress and said let's implement these, let's get this adopted, and that was quickly enacted in the federal law, and president reagan signed it with a lovely signing address. in addition, in 1986 notwithstanding the fact that we knew back in the the administration of jimmy carter under cecil andrews there were problems in the way oil and gas leases were issued, problems were not solved, but the reagan administration worked closely through jim watt and bill clark and don hodell, worked with the congress to ultimately have the federal oil and gas mineral leasing act amendments of 1986 passed into law. there's numerous others, they're

all in my book that i set forth saying, hey, the president had a number of legislative victories. for example, with regard to the protecting the coastal zone, the coastal area, keeping that area from being developed, providing funding through tax relief with regard to the reclamation of old historic structures and also, of course, a great boon to indian country, the indian gaming law changed. there were some defeats, admittedly. but it wasn't because reagan was out of step with whatever environmental consensus there was in congress. it was because congress was schizophrenic. it was simply schizophrenic on these issues. some members of congress thought we ought to have all wilderness all the time and never explore for oil and gas. some members thought, well, we ought to be drilling for oil and gas even in the wilderness, searching for strategic critical

minerals in the wilderness and, in fact, if we ever discover some mineral so key to our survival that's in a wilderness, well, we ought to stop making it a wilderness and get that out of the ground. that was the schizophrenic menialty of congress, and i think -- mentality of congress, and i think president reagan had great success notwithstanding that division. the third area environmentalists lie about is reagan's legacy. now, it's no surprise to any of us that they won't like what he did with regard to oil and gas leasing on federal lands, or they won't like what he did on the outer continental shelf or that he issued coal leases or that he wanted to search for strategic and critical minerals. but they ought to like what he did on wilderness. president reagan signed 39 wilderness bills. he created more wilderness land in the lower 48 than any in

history. before him or since him. he brought more land into be the federal estate as national parks than any president in history. he poured more money into wildlife refuges and national parks than any president in history. the president, through his secretaries, put a billion dollars in his first term in national parks to bring them up to code because tragically, over the decades what the national park service had done was acquired land, brought it out of private hands, brought it into federal ownership but not taken care of the land. it was badly, badly out of code and not safe for its visitors. president reagan was the one who called for cleaning up chesapeake bay. and i had, had to laugh last weekend, i was in south carolina with my marine son, and we were celebrating the fourth of july

and, of course, the fourth of july the statue of liberty reopens for the first time since hurricane sandy hit, but it was ronald reagan who restored the statue of liberty and ellis island in time for the centennial celebration back in 1986. he put together an unprecedented public-private partnership headed by lee iacocca that raised $300 million of private funds, it eventually raised $600 million in private funds to restore the statue of liberty. and yet environmentalists to this day, to this day complain about reagan and how bad he was on environmental issues and, frankly, folks, it's a lie. well, let's talk about the reagan legacy, let's talk about what it means today because that's the other part of my book. what i meant with marji ross about a year ago last april, april of 2012, marji, as you know, is the president of

regnery, and i've been fortunate to parish -- to publish a couple of books with regnery, and i said, well, i want to talk about what reagan did on environmental natural resources and energy issues, and i want to talk about why it's important today. and she was all for that, especially the part about today. so here it is today. president reagan recognized that we have tremendous resources in this country. we certainly are a blessed country. given the natural resources that we have. beautiful, spacious skies and all that great stuff. and we also have remarkable natural resources as we discovered over the past self-years. several years. president reagan understood oil and gas issues. he recognized three unique truths about oil and gas. number one, oil and gas industry is not a monopoly. number two, the independent oil

and gas operators that make the major discoveries. and number three, we're going to find new energy resources by unconventional technologies. sound familiar? well, of course, reagan would not have been surprised by what's going on today with regard to hydraulic fracturing. would not have surprised him in the least. of course, this has been going on for 60 years, we've only been hearing about it, essentially, for 60 minutes because now it's an environmental crisis or something. but it's a remarkable change, and it all started as i set forth in chapter one of my book on oil and gas, it all started out west of casper, wyoming, a little town called pinedale if if -- in an area a guy out of casper, wyoming, who could afford the cheap natural gas leases that were being sold discovered what's called jonah field, perhaps the biggest natural gas discovery in the

history of the united states. and he did it using hydraulic fracturing. and the success that we had there on federal lands then spread across the country. the barnett field, the haines field, the marsellus. you know one thing about this, that's all private and state lands. none of it's on federal land. and that's the great tragedy. this stuff was originally discovered on federal lands, and you would have thought, great, we'll do more of that on federal lands. in fact, we've done less. and the obama administration right now is on the verge of issuing regulations that will cost us billions of dollars to comply with unnecessary regulations when it comes to high hydraulic fracturing. now, you say who's regulated high drug ill -- hydraulic fracturing? state governments. and they've done a darn good job. they're all pleased with the way

they do it. they don't need the department of interior to tell them how to do it. and that was a remarkable success story. you've heard also, you've heard also the bakken field in north dakota, that's oil. the texas field, that also is oil. but you take, you take those two fields, the bakken and the texas field, and by the way the texas field has gone from five years ago it was at 500 barrels a day, it is now up to 5,000 barrels a day. and can you take the north dakota field and the texas field, you add them together, and you add a billion, and that's less than the monterey santos field in california near bakersfield. now, that is central land. some of that is federal land, and right now that's under moratorium because of the lawsuit brought by environmental groups. so you can see the kind of future we have in the post-reagan era. a couple of years ago a guy named harold hamm, almost

singularly responsible for the success in north dakota who heads up an outfit called continental resources, had an audience with the president of the united states. and he knew that his time would be limited, and he said i wanted to make it count. so he said i wanted to tell the president that the remarkable success of the oil patch over the recent years and the incredible transformation technologically in the oil patch, and so that's what harold hamm told obama. and the president president bush brushed him aside, he said, well, secretary chu tells me that in the next five years we'll have a battery that we'll put in all the cars, and we won't need your oil and gas anymore. and hamm emerged from the meeting and said this to the wall street journal: if you really believe that nonsense, why would you do away with the economic miracle, the energy miracle that is the oil and gas industry today? good question.

president reagan did something very unique with regard to the outer continental shelf. when you look at my book and you see the chart in there where i compare the amount of lands made available under president reagan, the amount of lands now available under president obama and more importantly when you look at the chart that shows the number of acreage that were released by, released for acreage or he'sed for sale under president carter with the amount of acreage offered up by president reagan, it'll blow your mind. we did something very unique. here was the approach. and one of reagan's philosophies, one of his core principles on government resources was we will not act as a monopolist. we will not drive the price up. because the price is passed on to you, the consumer, the american people. and so philosophy in the past had been we've got 40,000 acres

in the western gulf of mexico. 40,000 acres that are available for oil and gas leasing. and then the department would go to the industry and say where do you want to drill. and the industry, well, we would like this track here, okay? who wants that track? three or four -- good. we'll lease that. this track here? okay, how many want that? three or four, okay, four or five? good, good, good competition. how many want this track over here in one company. oh, we're not going to lease that. why won't you lease that? because only one company wants it. it won't drive up the bonus bid like we want. and that's what they did. a handful of tracks were leased and some discoveries were made. it was in the hands of bureaucrats who had no experience, no expertise and no skin in the game. and we changed all that. president reagan's philosophy was 40,000 acres, 40 million acres available for leasing. environmentalists had a conniption fit.

oh, my gosh. the entire outer continental shelf available for oil and gas leasing. well, yeah, available. but what at the end of the day will be leased? that remains to be seen. what the industry wants to do. and that event, as i lay out in my book, drove the industry into the deep waters. part of it was a price issue over gas, part of it was what happened, the collapse of our hopes in alaska, but that technological event of saying it's all available wherever you think there's a potential for you to develop numbering and minerals, go out -- energy and minerals, go out and get it. and that's what they did, and we had huge successes, remarkable successes. and even a post-bp blowout success that has been, that i lay out in my book where they, we continue to drill in the deep water and remarkable, remarkable successes. where are we today? well, as i show by chart in my book, reagan had the entire

outer continental shelf available, obama has almost the entire outer continental hell. and we are even in the gulf where we can drill under moratorium despite the rulings of federal judges. regarding coal, president jimmy carter -- you may remember -- said i want to, i want to develop a billion tons of coal. and then he sat about to making that impossible. he developed, basically, a comsar system for leasing coal in the american west, and he imposed regulations on states that made it impossible for states to regulate the reclamation of their coal. i know i'm going a little inside baseball on you here, but there was a law called the service mining control reclamation act passed by congress to say we want to make sure that when coal is mined in america, the land is fully restored. and what the states were promised, the members of congress, the senators were

promised when that legislation was going through the congress was states will run their own programs. now, for those of you who know the clean water act, the clean air act, this is not like that. those acts allow for dual control, federal and state. but the service mining control and reclamation act either the state runs it or the feds run it, and if if the feds are running it, the states are out of it. and president carter adopted 500 pages of regulation that made it impossible for states to run their own programs. 500 page of regulations and they said we can't do it, we're not going to do it. and we came in, the reagan administration came in and and said we're going to do what congress told us to do. we're going to turn these programs over to the state, and we did. and we're going to do what the american people need, we're going to lease coal, and we caught hell for it. but we leased coal. and when you look today and you see the results of that coal leasing program, you'll see that wyoming is today the top coal

producer in the country, and it's ahead of the next six. if you add the next six together, wyoming produces more coal than all of them combined. and what is happening on state and local government? well, the state governments are running their own programs, especially here in the east. developing, controlling their own reclamation programs. and that's led to great production. unfortunately, we have had a war on coal since president obama was inaugurated. president obama told a group of people in san francisco, the same folks he told them about what we cling to if pennsylvania, guns and god, but he told them, you know, you can build a coal-fired power plant if you want after i'm president, but it'll bankrupt you. and his agencies, the epa which is out of control today, is moving forward with that. and then just a few days ago they really announced their war on coal, and they were quite clear about it. yes, indeed, it is a war on

coal. it is a war on coal. strategic and critical minerals, you rarely hear about this topic, but it was a hot topic for president reagan. president reagan talked about it. nixon and ford didn't want to talk about it. carter, yeah, he wanted to talk a little bit about it, but he didn't want to do anything about it, and president reagan was the first president to announce a national minerals policy. and the national mineral policies said i understand there are minerals out there we've got to have. cobalt at the time was a hugely important one, most of our minerals came from foreign countries. we have a wealth of those minerals in this country, and we need to develop it. and be it was president reagan, he vetoed two wilderness bills, only two, and one he vetoed simply because be it had too much mineral landlocked up in it, and it would prevent development of strategic and critical minerals. in addition, because of his concern about minerals, president reagan rejected the law of the sea treaty because

there are great mineral resources in the outer continental shelf. i understand that president obama has a strategic and critical minerals task force in the white house. we'll see. we'll see what happens with that. our issue today is not so much cobalt, cobalt's still critically important for a lot of issues including green technology with regard to automobiles, but the issue today is with regard to the rare earth, the rare earth elements. and tear all in china along -- they're all in china along with our debt, our $16 trillion debt. that's where our debt is, and that's where the rare earths are. we have rare earth elements in california, a great deposit there, a great deposit in my home state of wyoming. who knows if we'll be able to develop that. and finally, i want to mention the president did issue the exclusive economic zone proclamation. president reagan was great with regard to his belief in the need for us to protect our, protect

our outer continental shelf. president truman issued an ocs proclamation in 1952, and president reagan went even further with his exclusive economic zone proclamation in 1983. i have a copy in my book. first, i don't think it's been seen, it's been out of the vault since i asked for it and had a copy made to put in my book. and i know congressman issa is proposing legislation to name it after president reagan. i want to take a few minutes to read a part of my book to you, if i could. there's a lot i'd love to read to you. i'd love to read the part where reagan used, i think for for the first time ever, his famous phrase if not us, who, if not now, when? i think the first time he ever said it was when he told jim watt to move forward with oil and gas leasing and said simply

to him if not us, who, if not now, when? there's a section in here where i show, i think incredibly, how the mainstream media is willing to lie and distort the truth in order to achieve an objective and how they lied about the reagan team and the reagan record. i think i categorically make the case, and i'd love to read that to you. i'd love to read as a former marine, as the father of a marine i'd love to read the part how the reagan administration made sure there was an american flag, a heroic statue and an inspiring inscription at the vietnam memorial. but instead i'm going to read you a part that comes from something that shows the kind of man that reagan truly was. what he believed and the way he treated people. and the tremendous gulf that separated him from the other side.

environmental extremists, as president reagan termed them, were relentless in their attacks, but one man carried the attacks to an obsessive degree. the legendary photographer, ansel adams, began writing a letter a day to newspapers and congressmen decrying president reagan's disastrous environmental policies and his interior secretary, james g. watt. he warned of a catastrophe, a tragedy, and the pearl harbor of our american earth. then in may of 1983, adams declared proudly, i hate reagan. that got the president's attention. he told a top aide, i want to talk to this man, adams, to find out why he dislikes me so much. meanwhile, reagan decided it was time to clear the air and straighten out the record on where my administration stands on environmental and natural resource management issues which was how he began his weekly radio address in june of 1983,

an address that he personally researched and wrote out by hand. after some opening remarks on the new leadership of the environmental protection agency, president reagan transitioned: but that's about -- that's enough about me. and then continued the typical reagan address over a period of several minutes when he talked about the shape the parks were in, the issue of wilderness lands and wilderness designation, how those lands were designated and about the great record of his administration. he closed this way: thanks to these efforts, our country remains america the beautiful. indeed, it's growing more healthy and more beautiful each year. i hope this helps set the record straight, because it's one we can all be proud of. til next week, thanks for listening and god mess you. god bless you. it was classic ronald reagan, putting a set of complex issues in simple, straightforward

language. of course, reagan had facility with the subject matter, he'd been involved with these issues since he was governor of california, and he'd researched, written and spoke about them for years. now after delivering that address he was ready to meet with adams, which he did a couple of weeks later in early july in beverly hills. reagan called adams the great nature photographer, and he wrote about the meeting in the his diary. he's expressed hatred for me because of my supposed stand on the environment. i asked for the meeting, i gave him chapter and verse about where i really stand on the environment and what our record is. all in all, the meeting seemed pleasant enough, and i thought maybe i'd taken some of the acid out of his ink. then i read the story of the meeting as he'd given it to the press. i'm afraid i was talking to ears that refuse to hear. sure enough, adams emerged from the meeting unassuaged. he assailed reagan personally, faulting his intelligence,

imagination and aura and attacked his policies and the people appointed to implement them. at the end of its story about the incident, however, "the washington post" reported that, quote: for all his intense anger at reagan and what, adams seems hard pressed to document widespread environmental damage from their policies. why was that? why was there such a gulf between the two? from the beginning the conservation movement held human beings at its center. whether the issue was the need for humans to sustain themselves by wise use, conservation of nature's bounty or the need to set aside permanently an unchanged preservation, a portion of god's great creation for their emotional, spiritual and physical restoration, the focus was always on human beings. that focus changed to reagan's great dismay during his lifetime. people were no longer at the center, people were just part of

the bioda, no greater and often worse than any other living thing. not only was mankind on a par with the flora and the fauna, it was the enemy of creation. all the terrible things that had happened, were happening and might happen could be laid add the feet of homo sapiens. human beings had drained the world of its resources. unless they adapted to lives of scarcity and sacrifice, only pain and privation lay ahead. even then, they thought, it would be too late for human beings were not only at war with their own planet, their faith in human ingenuity and their belief in technology were infantile. their hope for a bright future was futile. ronald reagan would have none of the gloom and doom. in his 1980 presidential campaign, he depicted the stark contrast between his vision of the future and that of president carter. president reagan adhered to what one social scientist called the

human exceptionalism paradigm according to which human technology and ingenuity can continue infinitely to improve the human situation. carter, the earth day organizationers and the environmental groups embraced an ecological paradigm which posits environmental limits to economic growth. it was much more, however. it was additionally a battle between two competing systems of government, between big and powerful new deal-style government run by progressives and technocrats like carter himself and a limited government envisioned by president reagan that emphasized individual and economic freedom. little wonder environmental extremists hated reagan, lied about him then and lie about his record today. but ronald reagan was right. perhaps the day will come when the american people will transcend environmental groups as we get about preserving freedom, building prosperity and

protecting our environment in its truly special places. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, perry, for an excellent summary, if you will, of the book which i'm sure many of the people here will be interested in the reading. we have just a few minutes for questions, and we'll take them now. start right over here. please wait for the microphone. there you go. identify yourself and then ask the question. >> [inaudible] the obama comment about the replacement battery, how close do you believe that to be reality, the five-year time period? >> well, i'm no expert, but i don't believe it at all. i don't think we're anywhere close to that. i think you just look at the marketplace and what's happened

with regard to all these green industries. i just read another story this morning about one more green industry in idaho after expenditure of millions of dollars collapsing, taking bankruptcy. i just don't think that these predictions are at all accurate. and the great greening that has taken place, the great technological advances that have taken place is not with regard to green energy, but it's taken place in the oil patch. so i don't think they're anywhere close to that. >> yes, sir. go ahead. >> sorry. >> pete granger with api. perry, good to see you. you opened your talk, and you were talking about the transformation of the -- [inaudible] taking people out of the equation and how president reagan opposed that. how have we restored it? i've never met an environmentalist who didn't love

to europe, and the irony is that human beings have been a part of and have cultivated europe for millennia, and it seems ironic that as much as they love europe, they all seem to want to take man, human beings out of the equation in the u.s. >> yeah. i thought it was very interesting that the secretary of state was on his yacht. he with husband multitude of multimillion car homes was on his yacht at the time of president obama's speech with regard to dealing with less. and i -- [laughter] i think it's a great tragedy when you look at one of the things that we export that is very unfortunate is environmental radicalism. one of the places environmentalists have been very successful in attacking hydraulic fracturing is in africa and if europe. much to their dismay and to their detriment. here we have one of the poorest countries in the world many south africa and people in terrible shape over there, and

we've spread to them this terrible idea that hydraulic fracturing is a bad thing, and they ought to prohibit it. i thought it was a terrible tragedy to have the president of the united states say to the african people that, my goodness gracious, every one of you folks had cars and air-conditioning and a lovely home like we did in the united states, why, the world would boil over. reagan never saw it that way. reagan always believed that it would be to the benefit of everybody and that we have reduced our carbon footprint here in the united states simply as a result of our natural gas development. i think a change took place in 2009 with regard to this issue. for 25 years the gallup poll has run a poll asking people what do you think is more important, the environment or the economy if -- the economy? and for those 25 years the economy was always below the environment.

and then in 2009 the lines crossed. it was the first time. gallup commented on it, and i think that's really a sign. i think the young people -- you look at the unemployment rate today among the young people, people of color, but all young people today are suffering on how they find jobs, and i think this this is -- they recognize. what was the biggest demographic in which president reagan did so well? it was among the young people because he laid out hope. and i just think it's a matter of education. i'm dismayed when i see some corporations try to go green when really it's a false narrative. we are green. and the great warren brooks who was an environmental writer, he had a famous phrase that rob gordon here at heritage likes to quote all the time where he said the learning curve is green, and what that means simply is technologically, by human technology and our creativity we find the green solution.

that's where we want to go. it's not goth mandates the -- government mandates the cause for recycling and substitution and, it's simply, hey, why throw that over the edge? maybe we could use that. thank you. any other questions? do i have time for one? >> over here. last question. >> hi, caleb orr, thank you for your remarks. much has been made of reagan's economic policy and how his legacy has affected conservativism even today with fiscal policy. why is it so important moving toward the future to quantify and magnify as you've done in your book about reagan's environmental and conservationist policy especially for conservativism moving in the futuresome. >> great. well, i think it's important because reagan -- i begin my book with this philosophy. we all know what reagan did on foreign affairs, and reagan shocked richard allen who was ultimately his foreign, foreign

affairs adviser. and when he met with him back in '79 -- in '77, i should say, and he said, you know, my philosophy in dealing with the soviet union, we win, they lose. and that was a shocker for allen. he'd never heard anybody say that before. it just -- whoa. he'd worked with nixon, he'd worked with all the big shots in foreign atears, nobody had -- affairs, nobody had ever said that. and reagan's not my was we will transcend the soviet union. and i think he believed we'll transcend environmentalists. and it didn't happen. why didn't it happen? this is a question i address in my book. and the reason was because of the reagan miracle with regard to the economy. all of a sudden all this long agenda from the radical environmental movements about, well, let's not buy here, let's not cut trees here, let's not dig for coal here, let's put this off limits, let's increase these regulations and these standards, oh, sure, we can do it, we can afford it.

today we can't afford it anymore. we're incredibly broke and getting broker with every day. and i think the solution is to go back to what reagan said, reagan did. and the trouble, the difficulty in the taking that path back to reagan is it's one erected by the environmental extremists who said, oh, no, he was terrible for the environment, he was awful for the environment. he couldn't have been better for the environment. he was excellent. and one of the philosophical points often made during the reagan administration was don't we want to develop things now in a thoughtful, prudent way as we move forward when we can develop resources rather than in crisis mode? you look at some of the crazy stuff that jimmy carter was proposing with regard to mx missiles, putting mx missiles, the energy mobilization board, the huge grab of power to do all this crazy stuff, the sin fuels none of which would have worked.

and reagan learned that lesson, taught us that lesson, and here we are with this crazy green energy policy that's just sucking the economy dry and getting us no energy, and we're seeing one company after another go bankrupt. so i think reagan showed us the way to a rich future. everybody cares about the environment, but they also care about their personal environment. reagan said people are part of the ecosystem too. and this balanced record that he presented, i say, provides great hope, great hope for the future, and that's why people need to learn the lesson. and i think the bottom line is if you liked reagan, you'll love "sagebrush rebel." >> ladies and gentlemen, please join me in thanking perry pend pendley. [applause] >> booktv is on facebook. like us to interact with booktv guests and viewers, watch videos and get up-to-date information on events. facebook.com/booktv.

>> the treatment of hunger strikers at guantanamo compromises the core ethical values of our medical profession. the ama has long endorsed the principle that every competent patient has the right to refuse medical intervention. the world medical association and the international red cross have determined that force feeding through the use of restraints is not only an ethical violation, but contravenes common article iii of the geneva conventions. my concern is that let's just set aside the numbers that you might or might not feel you can safely push out. there are a number, an unknown number, but the president has apparently said it's 46 that you can never try. do you honestly think that the people behind me and the people who are impelling this hearing

will stop cattling for the release of those prisoners just because tear now in the united states? >> to this soldier, the argument to keep guantanamo open is hard to understand. if brought to the u.s. for prosecution, incarceration or medical treatment, the detainees will pose no threat to our national security. the 86 men who have been cleared for transfer should be transferred. we must find lawful dispositions for all law-of-war detainees as we have done in every conflict. >> this weekend on c-span the senate judiciary subcommittee on human rights looks at the implications of closing the guantanamo bay prison. today at 10 a.m. eastern. also at 10 on c-span2's booktv, live coverage of the roosevelt reading festival from the fdr presidential library and museum if hyde park, new york -- in hyde park, new york. and live on c-span3's american history tv, president obama and

defense secretary chuck hagel commemorate the 60th anniversary of the korean war armistice. that's also this morning at 10. >> this summer booktv's been asking washingtonians, legislators and viewers what they're reading, and here's what some of you had to say. >> several panels discussed the themes of the book, and you can check that out on booktv.org.

>> c-span's covered several events in which edward snowden's come up, watch those by searching for edward snowden on c-span.org. >> a few years ago, booktv or covered an event to talk about the monuments men, and you can watch that online at booktv.org. what are you reading this summer? post on our facebook wall, tweet us or send us an e-mail to let us know what's on your reading list. visit all our social media sites to see what others are reading, and we might even share your posts here on booktv.

>> i think sort of interestingly that the korean war in a sense sort of helped the south korean, south koreans unify themselves in a way that was not there before. when the communists came down, they were brutal, right? and a lot of the south koreans turned against the communists in the north, and that sort of solidified, i think, their sort of sense of national cohesion and identity. but i think, you know, he sort of miscalculated because had he waited, it's very possible that the south probably would have -- it's possible that it would have disintegrated on its own. >> sixty years after north korean troops crossed the 38th pair rell, a look at a war that never really ended. sunday night at 9 on "after

words," this weekend on c-span2. >> host: stanley crouch, who was charlie parker? >> guest: well, he was what is called a genius or the word genius is used for the use he does for describing the person. that's just an advertising word now. but charlie parker was what the word genius means. but he, he not only was a remarkable technician of his instrument, but he embodied what the power of jazz really is, which is the ability to be able to play and to hear. and much of his early life was learning how to hear. so that he -- because he had, because a jazz musician actually has the hear the entire context