>> "washington journal" continues. host: we are joined this morning by congressman john curtis, republican of utah. you are the chair of the conservative climate caucus. what is that?

guest: we worked hard on that name. we are conservatives, but willing to talk about the climate. not only willing, we want to be talking about the climate. we are proposing ideas that do not require people to leave their conservative values at the door. i think it is important to realize, there are so many things we can be doing for this earth that are in line with conservative consoles. we want to be talking about them. host: what are they? guest: let's talk about the abundance of energy in the united states, how much cleaner it is then in other places of the world. for instance, u.s. natural gas is 40% cleaner than natural gas. we could dramatically reduce worldwide greenhouse gas emissions by replacing russian natural gas with u.s. natural gas. colburn in china with u.s. natural gas, fueled the u.s. economy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. just one example.

host: are you saying, more drilling, more fracking? guest: i want to be careful. what we are saying is, look. right now, based on resources, innovation, demand, fossil fuels are a important part of world energy needs. if the world is going to consume fossil fuels, which they are, why not produce some in the united states where we do it cleaner, safer, better than anywhere else in the world? why are we shutting down u.s. production and encouraging production in venezuela, in a ran, in saudi arabia when we do it better and cleaner? i think that is something that conservatives want to discuss, we are with you. let's reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but do not rule out u.s. also fuels as a tool to reduce read house gas emissions. host: are you and your group for

alternative energy resources? guest: absolutely. one of the things that is sobering to consider is, there are 800 million people in the world today with no energy source. they are burning wood, producing mass amounts of carbon. how do we fulfill these needs? we need renewables, we need fossil fuels, we need nuclear. nuclear is an important part of this that we are not talking about enough. all of these things, we need to be talking about how to use them in a way that does reduce greenhouse gas emissions. i think we can do that, i think we can reduce dramatically greenhouse gas emissions. and, meet our energy meads -- needs, as well. host: we ask our viewers if they supported or opposed yesterday what president biden proposed yesterday. he wants to broaden the low

income housing home energy assistance program and expand offshore energy projects in the gulf of mexico, and the mid atlantic florida coast with wind turbines here do you support that? guest: wind turbines are a great source. i would encourage those. i am concerned with robbing the fema funds to do this. this is a problem with executive orders and congress not acting. what happens when those fema funds are needed for wildfires in the west, which we surely will have as we go through the next few months? i would rather that the president stepped back and take a more holistic look at this picture, work with republicans on this like, how do we reduce greenhouse gas emissions? much of what i've seen the president who has been more

symbolic, more feel-good than actually reducing emissions. i will give you an example, closing keystone xl increases greenhouse gas emissions because we are still consuming the same amount of petroleum. we are bringing it in by trucks now, instead of pipeline. it was -- it felt good to close it, it felt symbolic, but it did not reduce rain gas -- greenhouse gas emissions. a couple of weeks ago, the new hummer uses more greenhouse gas emissions than a shelby -- chevy malibu. we are giving a federal tax credit to buy a hummer, putting up charging stations for that hummer, and it is going to produce more greenhouse gas emissions than a fuel consuming chevy malibu. host: the president closing keystone, the company had decided not to build that last leg of keystone before the president announced that. guest: so, why did he close it?

why did he feel to make this big need to go and close it? host: politics, perhaps. the house launched a new climate and energy strategy, more meat on the bones will be announced in the coming months. this is from the washington post , it would streamline permitting process for large infrastructure projects, increased ms to fossil fuel production and boost exports of the u.s. liquefied natural gas, endorse expanding hydroelectricity, blocks president from borrowing fossil fuel and mining on federal land without congressional approval. can you talk more about this? guest: there is a lot there, let me start with permitting. i've got an opportunity to talk with secretary home twice, we have talked about permitting reform. there seems to be broad, bipartisan consensus there seems to be problems. it does not seem to matter if

you want to promote a solar farm, a wind farm. we have problems with permitting. this is a low hanging fruit that should be bipartisan on permitting. i think that is a important part of the strategy that we have talked about. we touched on u.s. fossil fuels and why those should be used to lower greenhouse gas emissions. this is really important for republicans. you have done a tremendous job in the past to lend people we do not like, when comes to climate, this is important. we have ideas of our own, we are going to tell you what they are and come out with an aggressive agenda to tell the world that we do care about what is happening with the planet. we have good ideas, ourselves. host: i want to invite our viewers to join in on the conversation. give your comments about climate change. democrats can call in at (202) 748-8000.

republicans can call in at (202) 748-8001. independents at (202) 748-8002. you mentioned republicans being at -- there is something out there, there is climate change and i want to share this axios piece. digging into a pew research poll that found the younger generation of republicans saying, not enough is being done on this topic. host: i represent the youngest -- guest: i represent the youngest district in the country. they want something done. for some, this is a single issue. i believe we will lose young republicans if we do not get a grip on the way we talk about this issue. unfortunately, i think it is fair to say republicans have been branded as not caring about the environment. i do not think it is true, but i think the branding has been allowed to happen.

part of the reason i am speaking out that we formed the caucus is to show our young republicans to show the world that we do care, and we have important ideas. i think sometimes we get wrapped around the axle on this whole question about climate change, and sometimes i like to say, can we simplify this? less pollution is better than more pollution. can we all agree to that? do not have anybody in utah that does not agree to that. sometimes like -- sometimes, i think those are the important questions. do we want to leave the earth better than we found it? yes, i found we can engage any conservative on that level and have a thoughtful discussion on how to do it. host: in florida, doug is a democrat. you have questions for the congressman. go ahead. caller: yes, sir. i wanted to ask two questions. one, why didn't you say because

joe biden closed the pipeline that is going to do the carbon and all of this, one. i watched all of the hearings, we are not getting a drop of that oil because we do not even have the capacity to refine it. why is it the dang republican saying that is a lie? have a good day. guest: [laughter] i know you said two questions, i only heard one. when the keystone pipeline was shut down and for whatever reason was not completed, we did not change demand. we are still using the same amount of petroleum that was going to come through that keystone pipeline. it is either being trucked in rather than being brought in via pipeline, that was the first pipeline in the world to be designed on 100% clean energy moving petroleum into the united states.

we were increasing greenhouse asked emissions because we were using the same amount of oil. it is less clean for venezuela, iran, russia. that is why it increases greenhouse gas emissions, to close that down. host: this is from politifact about the president being accused of shutting down or canceling the permit. he says the keystone pipeline was never built, the biden canceling of it did not make the u.s. relying on it, which was claimed by mike pence. the company decided not to build that last leg of it. david in swedesboro, georgia. caller: good morning, greta and john. john, first, i need to knock out a few things. the xl pipeline was a pipe made in china, i mean india.

the oil out of canada would be produced for china. i want everybody to know that, because our facilities in texas are not set up for the crude instead of the heaviness coming from anywhere else. the point i want to get at john, because you are on this energy committee, is the natural gas flares. when you look at the weather m an, you will see a hot streak through the middle of the country. that is where all of these natural gas flares are burning 24 hours a day. i have been there, john. i drove a truck. i have seen these monsters. they are in hundred foot tall, you cannot it within 100 eight of them without getting cooked paired phase -- cooked. this policy says, i need to turn on my heat in the middle of the house and sit here with it 100

degrees outside. we have got heaters burning from the gulf of mexico to the arctic circle. host: let's take the point. guest: thanks, david. i think what is is you are referring to is flooring, i think the industry agrees we want to eliminate flooring. it relates to the product we can sell and earning it. to capture methane or natural gas that is caring, they pulled -- they put it in a bipartisan area to figure out how to stop that flaring. when i find is, most of our large corporations have the resources to capture that, turn it into an energy source. some of the smaller players do not, that is some of the discussions i'm having with my colleagues. how do we deal with this in a way that does not put those small players out of business, but capture that so they are not flaring? host: santa rosa, california.

bob, republican. welcome. caller: hi. i am confused about these things going on. i do not believe in the extremism that is going on, they are using the weather. like in california, they are saying the whole place is burning up. in santa rosa, california, i have been complaining in 1959 about the weather. my grandfather told me, do not worry. by 1964, you were going to have a fire. by 1970, it is going to be hot. it sure was, it goes on every 50 years here. it is part of the cycle, there is no -- they kill people in this town by not telling them, they allowed them to build houses. we went up and talked to the people who wanted us to come in and haul stuff away because they wanted to get these new houses

built before the fires came. we went out there about a year and a half before these things before they could get them built, they got them build, and the fire burned them all out. it is natural, because the trees up here. these environmentalists came out here and stopped everybody from cleaning everything up. after the fire. host: bob, congressman. guest: i think you represent a wide swath of republicans and conservatives who are confused and turned off by the extremism. as part of the environment to movement, i think that is why we get this brand. as not caring. i think you would agree with me that, less pollution is better than more pollution. we want to cut emissions. by the way, we can do this and fuel the u.s. economy and have energy independence. what i would like to do is ask somebody like bob to join me in

this quest. let's lower emissions, but not kill the u.s. economy when we do it. let's not bring in the extremism. i think, bob, a lot of republicans would feel more comfortable with this conversation if they understood, this would be good for our economy. we could reduce emissions at the same time. host: melvin in fort lauderdale, florida. democratic caller. caller: thank you. i want to ask the representative one question and go from there. where would we be if reagan would have followed jimmy carter's lead with the solar panels and all of that, trying to build the problem back then? again, build --, when they tried to get the country prepared for solar panels and everything else to cut down on theirs. we are -- with respect to fracking, i am from ohio and

pennsylvania. we have more earthquakes coming up then people could explain, that is why they are all fracking in the same particular area. republicans have been against anything to deal with environment and the way to deal with anything other than using fossil fuels. that is why we are in the same situation we are in right now. thank you. guest: melvin, appreciate your frustrations. i might point out that there is a republican president who founded the epa, richard nixon. a lot of republicans are not happy with that decision. you go back historically, republicans have shown great care for the earth. at the same time, i acknowledge and agree that as things started to become extreme, republicans were turned off by this conversation. for instance, if the suggestion is, we should power the world with solar panels, republicans are going to push back on that and say it is not feasible.

we talked earlier on the show, about 800 million people without power. we simply cannot build solar panels to get ourselves out of this. we need to develop new technologies, how to do fossil fuels with carbon c3 equation to get to net zero. i believe we can do that. host: what about coding livestock and cattle, methane gas emissions? this is from the guardian. meet accounts for nearly 60% of greenhouse gases from food production, this is according to a study. product of meat worldwide, according to a major study. another headline shows cows are the new coal, proposing mcdonald's, costco, walgreens track air emissions from food production of meat. guest: i would say this is an example of one of the areas that turns off republicans in this conversation.

the stigma of having a thoughtful conversation -- discussion of how do we support our community? how do we engage them in solving the problem, we tend to attack them. i represent coal country, i have a country called carbon county. i have seen firsthand the dehumanization of coal and the people who have mind that for decades, versus their health and safety so we can flip the switch and be warm and cool. this conversation, i feel the same way about our farmers and ag community. they feel fillon eyes -- villainized and attacked. if we would approach them, we could figure out ways to reduce. livestock is one thing, but the plans they plant, to see -- farmers may be our secret sauce in this. i would advocate we work with them, be careful not to demonize

the very people that can solve this for us. host: robin alabama, democratic caller. caller: no, i am an independent color. host: sorry about that, go ahead. caller: the first thing we need to do is read the constitution. nowhere in the constitution doesn't say that the president makes laws, congress makes the laws. that is way -- the way the constitution is written. the presidents executive orders, which have been increasing with every president in both parties for quite some time, are just plain unconstitutional. the other thing is, we have the cleanest energy in the world. our fossil fuels burn cleaner, they are produced cleaner and, yet, the president wants to shut down drilling on federal land while encouraging saudi arabia,

iran, russia, other nations are our enemies, to birders fuels much dirtier -- to produce fuels much dirtier that create greenhouse gases and shut off our supply anytime they want to. which is a national security problem. what we need to do is drill more, drill safely as we have been doing, and become energy independent again like we were under president trump. we do not need to be dependent on iran, iraq, saudi arabia, venezuela, which is a pure dictatorship. host: the congressman is shaking his head, yes. guest: i would love you to be my spokesman. i do not know your age, but i grew up in the 1970's and 1980's. i remember what it was like for a foreign nation to hold us

hostage. we made a decision back in the 1970's that we would be energy independent. we were not going to be dependent on another power for energy, we seem to have forgotten that in today's world. i wholeheartedly agree with you, energy independence matters. to your point, we do not have to give up reducing emissions in order to have energy independence, because we cannot produce it cleaner in the united states. host: independent, kenny. caller: yep. like i say, a lot of solving stuff is sitting in our padding office. that is the people that came up with stuff, the energy companies bought and buried. if we looked at that, that would beat the executive order. find the stuff out. would be all right then. take care. guest: i am with you and the previous caller on executive

orders. this is a bad trend that we are in. i will give a shout out to you as innovation, i agree. there are so many innovations we have, and yet 50 years from now when we look back and say, how we get out of here? i think we will see innovation we did not even anticipate as part of the solution. host: california, ron, a republican. you were talking to -- you are talking to congressman john curtis. caller: greta, you are looking wonderful today. especially today. congressman curtis, i have got to tell you something. one is a canard we have got to get over with, that is the keystone and the dakota pipelines. canada is still sending us that drudge oil to galveston, it is still down there. it is coming on trucks, trains,

the same thing. the pipeline has no impact virtually on that issue. the other thing is, what about clean refineries? where are they listed? when these guys turn down a refinery and shut it down, how come we are not following up and sing, when are we going to create clean refineries? no one mentions that. if he could answer those two questions, that would be helpful. thank you, greta. guest: greta looks so good, i have got nothing. host: [laughter] guest: appreciate your call. i think we beat this keystone to death, it is what it is. it is unfortunate that it has taken off a life and has become symbolic on both sides of all that is good and all that is bad. i think if i understand your question correctly on refineries, i would point out again that we do it better,

cleaner, with more regulations in the united states than anywhere in the world. we ought to be thinking about how we can boost that, because it can reduce worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. host: cisco in bethlehem, pennsylvania. democratic caller, good morning. caller: i will make my question as brief as possible. i want to recognize the political division in the country. i have listened to many caller's that have called insofar, questioning climate change. i would like your opinion on the ipc climate support, and how it is used by the united states military to deal with the budget , specifically over the last year or so, even during the trump administration with reinforcements, the bunker filter systems, the base relocations, and the housing has

been starting to move by the military. i know that before we begin any conversation on change, we have to have a true -- of people to indicate climate is a serious issue. host: we will have the congressman respond to you. guest: i would love to point out this caucus we just talked about briefly this morning made up of republicans to talk about climate is the second-largest caucus in washington, d.c. that would surprise most people that the second largest caucus in washington, d.c. is republicans talking about climate. host: they are republicans that do not deny it? guest: the first 10 of the caucuses are that there is climate change and -- republicans are on a continuum of exactly where they are at on this. we agree that this pollution is better than more pollution.

less emissions is better than more emissions and we have a responsibility to leave this earth better than we found it. i think we get off track on this climate debate when we demand a litmus test, how much is the climate changing, that tends to start the division. that is how the division starts. i would advocate that we back off that. the litmus test should be, do we want to leave the earth better than we found it? we got to bring republicans and democrats together to talk about this. nothing happens in washington if it is not bipartisan. every once in a while, when it does through reconciliation, it is just one party. it is forever fought by the other party. we have got to come together on this. part of the way we do this is changing the way we talk about this that does not turn people off on either side. like so many issues in washington, sometimes the extremes, both right and left,

dominate this when there is hundreds of good legislators ready to talk about practical solutions on a bipartisan basis. host: did you recount the democrats? guest: absolutely. sometimes, it is hard to talk about. when i talk about extremism's, sometimes people think i am lumping in everybody on the left. no, i am talking about the extremism to take your head off to fix her headache. not the people who want to come together, put their ideas on the table and debate them. that is what we are supposed to do in washington, and let the best ideas prevail. the republicans have not been at the climate table to debate that, the one sided solutions never work very well. i think bottom line for your caller's today, that republicans want to see at this climate table. we think we have good ideas, almost everybody says we are going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, we do

not know how to do it. i think republicans do not know how to do it. i want us to engage in that conversation and with our good friends on the left. host: where is there one place where there could be middle ground? guest: nuclear, renewables. i could give you a long list. there is more that we agree on then we disagree on. host: nuclear, we could agree on. guest: we all need storage for renewables, that is a bipartisan issue. new technology, fusion, hydrogen. there are a lot of bipartisan issues, we just need to focus on those and spend less time in the things that separate us. host: congressman john curtis, republican of utah. he is a member of the energy and commerce committee, and the chair of this conservative climate caucus. you can fin

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