got to regain that, what we had with the voice of europe and the freedom of america. we don't do that very well. how do we educate the american people and the free world as we know it? let's look at younger people. they're learning differently. they learn by different means. we've got to have an education program second to none. it's not just the old-fashioned idea of giving a lecture at a university and that kind of thing. it's got to be a broad-based effort that attacks the problem. we have to be very clear on how we define certain things. i think radical jihadists is the right approach there. not just jihad in total, because of what it means. as you all know the koran has been interpreted and reinterpreted several times and there are many similarities in all the great religions so we don't want to make any more

enemies than what we already have, and we want to bring many of them over to our side. so we have to be careful, i think, how we approach that. and you all know this better than i do but i think we need to learn more about other countries and other peoples and other cultures. my favorite example of that, i was privileged to be a joint chief of staff. and every year admiral lyons and the rest of us would order us to go down and steam around haiti. and every year we would go down and steam around circles in haiti and every year some phi beta kappa on the joint chiefs of staff would announce we're going to drop leaflets and every year i would remind them, it's a great idea, but they can't read. and then we used speakers and spoke creole. we don't know what we're talking about here in a lot of areas. we're not the most brilliant people in the world.

if i want to thank the panel. i think you're on the right track. somehow you failed to mention how we're going to -- how we're going to take advantage of the world's greatest media. i'll put it that way. they're a big part of this. somehow they've got to get on board. they got to quit making heroes out of these people who are doing terrorist tactics. the war is not against terrorism. that's been made clear by this panel. but how do we teach the american people that the war is not against terrorism. it has been around for a long, long time. it's in the koran, it's in the cora and it's in the bible. it is going to be there. that's not the issue. but anyway, thanks for bringing this to our attention. >> general, i can't thank you enough for both being here and attesting to the importance of this and for hoping -- i hope that you will help us bring it to the attention of a great many other people. in closing, let me just say my own personal view of this is

that radical jihad is confusing. it is a pretty radical program for sure, but jihad is jihad as you heard others talk about here. and we have to prevent it from being waged against us. we encourage everyone to go to secure freedom.org. the website of the center for security policy. you can download right now for free 94 pages of our secure freedom strategy. it is meant to be a contribution to a debate that we believe is long overdue and hopefully we'll start getting serious now about what has to be done to secure freedom. with that i would like to close by acting on tommy waller's suggestion and asking each of you to join us, if you would in the pledge of the allegiance.

i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america. and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> thank you very much for being here. god bless you all. [ chatter and laughter ] on the next washington journal, a discussion about the obama administration's call for more authority over international trade agreements. with linda dempsey at the national association of manufacturers and robert scott of the economic policy institute. and then rob morrison on heroin use in the united states. and a look at the well-being of young adults today, compared to

the 1980s. you can join the conversation with your phone calls and your comments on facebook and twitter. washington journal, live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. this sunday on q & a, dr. francis jensen on the recent discoveries about the teenage brain. >> they don't have their frontal lobes to actual reason, the cause and effect of consequences of actions are not very clear to them because their frontal lobes are not at the ready. they're not readily accessible. they have frontal lobes but the connections can't be made as quickly for split-second decision-making. and don't forget the level of hormones are changing in the bodies of young men and women and the brain hasn't seen this yet in life until you hit teenage years. so the brain is trying to learn

how to respond to these new hormones that are rolling around and actually locking on to receptors and synapses of different types. so it's trial and error. i think that this contributes to this very roller coaster kind of experience that we watch as parents. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span's q & a. >> next congressman jeff dunkon of south carolina discusses his proposal to energy exploration and production. he spoke at the conservative policy summit earlier this month. this is 45 minutes. everyone want to grab their seats? we'll begin our next session. we are excited today to have congressman jeff duncan to talk

to us about the broader effect of energy across country. i know senator dement is particularly excited to have the south carolinian on sage and he'll be in here momentarily, towards the end of our discussion. i think you all know that jeff duncan has been a consistent conservative voice since coming to washington in 2010 and that really important year of 2010, that class was really huge because it was a tea party surge, sent here to washington to reform washington. and we'll hear later this afternoon from six members of the class of 2014, which i think has a lot of similarities to your class of 2010. we'll talk about some of the lessons they may have learned from this last election. but since coming here in 2010, he's led on many of the tough policy fights conservatives have been pushing. he's consistently at the top of the heritage action scorecard. he's latched onto the energy

issue now and has put together what we think is one of the best, most comprehensive energy reform bills in the expand act. when we talk about opportunity for all and favoritism to none, we need to understand that in the energy field, reform doesn't mean picking winners and losers based on the size of an organization's lobbying budget. at the end of the day, the market reform is whether or not it performs an even playing field, removes tax subsidies, but breaking down owners' regulations, by opening up exploration across the country and by streamlining licensing processes. jeff duncan's bill does all of this and more and we're excited to have him here. join me in welcoming him to the podium. [applause] >> well, thank you, and thanks for having me today. i literally just got off an airplane and ran through the terminal to get in the car to come here, but it's always great to be among fellow conservatives

and i think about energy, i think about opportunity and the gop party. really they need to reinvent itself or rename itself, i think the grand opportunity party. special when it comes to energy and i'm here today to discuss why i'm so optimistic for energy and opportunity in this country. bear with me for just a second. like i said, i literally just got off an airplane. it takes a minute to get the thought processes going. but while i'm doing that, i wanted to share a couple articles that were on market watch this morning, one of which was oil above $100, never again, said today. the second article, and you can read at your leisure. "$2 trillion in investments." two insightful articles that are

timed with this. energy is really a new frontier, and it's something that we need to focus more on. if you think about where we are as a global economy with regard to energy, we're really seeing levels of energy prices that no one anticipated would ever happen again. below $100 a barrel or below 50 a barrel. gas prices in south carolina, $1.65 a gallon, $1.80 a gallon. diesel fuel, $3.20 a gallon. i wish it would come down a little less for diesel fuel. but what does that mean? what does that mean as we focus on the things i've been talking about really for four years and that's expanded energy here in this country. what can we do to unleash and unbridle this spirit when it oo -- to unleash that spirit

when it comes to energy? when you think about energy, it really touches on every state, every congressional district and every american. i mentioned a second ago the price of a gallon of gasoline now. i said in november i was speaking to a group in south carolina. i said that for every 50 cent reduction in the price of a gallon of gasoline means about a $10 savings for moms and dads per 20-gallon fill-up. we're well below a 50 cent reduction now. we're well below a dollar, so that's a $20 savings, and some are realizing $26 savings per fill-up. think about how that translates for moms and dads in this country. how many times do you fill up in a week? two, three, four times? $100 a week savings for moms and dads? that's real money to be spent in the economy. that's real money to be spent in entertaining, that's real money that could be spent purchasing the goods and services the economy has, or money to be put in the bank to replenish a lot

of the lost savings after 2008. when i think about the fact energy touches every congressional district, every state and every american, i think about the uranium that's mined in wyoming being used in a nuclear power plant in oconi county, south carolina. or i think about the electricity that that power plant provides to, say, a michelin tire company in anderson, south carolina that produces these mega large construction tires that go on the big dump trucks that are being used in the oil sands of canada. it touches everybody. a thriving energy sector means more money for businesses and individuals to spend and we talk about a trickle down. when you think about energy, and you think about energy jobs, i talk about jobs, energy and the founding fathers and that's an acronym. that spells jeff, and i really like that acronym. jobs, energy and founding fathers.

what a -- what i mean by that, jobs. you look at louisiana, texas, oklahoma, look at the states that are producing energy and have those energy jobs, they have very, very low unemployment. the article i talked about talked about finder's fees in north dakota for people who are doing menial jobs at burger king or mcdonald's or whatnot. i think about the energy jobs, and i ask you to think about this with me. the original thought when you think about energy production, the original thought that you have, the picture that comes to mind is that guy in the hard hat with the oil uniform. he's out on the drilling derrick and whether it's in the ocean or whether it's on shore, and he's in the uniform and he's turning the big chain that's helping turn the drill on the derrick as they drill for that. those are the jobs you're thinking about. but when we talk about energy jobs, it's much more than that, and those are good-paying long-term jobs. those guys go out to the rigs

for 10, 12 days at a time, come back. the jobs i'm really talking about is everything that supports that. because those guys have to get carried out there to the drilling platforms. they have to take food and drilling mud and diesel fuel to the drilling platforms. that means supply vessels and supply vessel work. everything that they take out there, the drilling mud has to be mined somewhere. the casing, the pipes and everything that makes the drilling platform work has to be carried out there. and all the widgets, all the components that have to be manufactured to make it all work out there, they're manufactured on shore. and the people that are manufacturing and pipefitting and welding, occasionally they'll drop a pipe on an auto body, and that auto body has to go down to the mechanic and have that body fixed or they may blow an engine and have it serviced. the guys doing the hvac work are -- or work on the food service equipment, the living quarters and heating and air on those

rigs as well. those people are on shore. and guess what? they're going to the local restaurants and they're tipping the waitresses. they're joining the united way, they're sponsoring ball teams. they're going to church and they're tithing. the first domino is really to allow more energy production in this country whether it's oil and gas or whether it's expanded nuclear power. you're putting americans to work. those are the jobs i'm talking about, and those are good jobs. and i'll be honest with you, my state of south carolina would love to see some of those jobs happen if we open the outer continental shelf off the coast of carolina, unlocking it for energy production. we'll get into that in just a second, but those are the jobs. and if you fly down to louisiana and you fly to lafayette and you drive down highway 90, or i think it's 181 that parallels 90 and you go from lafayette

and thibodeau and go on down to the port, see the port activity. but on your way you're going to be on a four-lane road. you'll see business after business after business supporting some facet in the oil and gas business. that's why they have low unemployment. i want to see that in south carolina, i want to see that across this country as we expand energy production in this nation. how do we do that? well, we open up the outer continental shelf area and that's one thing the expand act does. it opens up more of the ocs. if you think about it, george bush actually opened up almost all of those currently under a moratorium and president obama reinstated that. so now drilling activity that you have offshore in america is off the coast of alaska and it's in generally the western gulf of mexico. you see very little other drilling activity happening on the ocs. you've got some old wells off the coast of california. california is blessed with energy resources as well.

so i think we ought to open up more the outer continental shell. we ought to do that first by allowing more seismic activity in the south atlantic so we can see what recoverable resources might be out there. it's been about 30 or 35 years since we did any seismic in the atlantic ocean to see whether there were any recoverable resources there. so we're looking at 30, 35-year-old seismic graphs that were shot with 30-year-old technology. let's get in the 21st century. let's think about 3-d or 4-d seismic technology. they can not only look down to earth, but they can take that seismic and spin it around and look for where there might be recoverable resources, eliminate a lot of steps of exploration and go into more energy production. we need to allow that 21st century technology to happen off the coast of south carolina, off the coast of north carolina, off the coast of virginia, off the

coast of georgia, states that want to see that activity currently happen. if you think about, really, the environmentalists' pushback on seismic work, you're hurting the marine mammal. we can't think of any incident in the world where a marine mammal was killed by seismic work. i asked the secretary of the interior in front of the committee to give me those examples, as we were talking about seismic work in an environmental impact study. give me an example, because we're doing seismic work in the atlantic, but it's up in nova scotia. it's in canadian waters. those are the same waters that transit the waters off my state and nova scotia, and they can't point to that. but we've allowed mitigation efforts to happen and said, listen, if there's any mammals in the area, we're going to not allow seismic work. okay, that makes sense. but if you think about the seismic that's going on up the coast of africa, brazil and the

mediterranean, off the coast of indonesia, off the coast of canada and nova scotia, you see all the seismic work. same dynamics there, they don't have the mitigation efforts that we're required to have in this country. so what i talked about earlier, the price of a barrel of oil is now below $50. i talked to a former buddy of mine, mike landry in louisiana. help me understand the dynamics that might be at play now, if we're looking at $50 a barrel or less. what does that mean to the gulf states? what does that mean to the oil and gas producers in the gulf of mexico? there has to be a break even point where you sell a barrel of oil, recover your expenses and make a profit. if you drop below that for a period of time, it's not going to be profitable. what does that mean? he said, duncan, he said, one factor that's never talked about in the price of a barrel of oil is the regulatory costs. it costs more to produce a barrel of oil in this country than it does almost anywhere

else in the world because of the regulatory environment we have to operate in. so we really need to address, and the expand act does some of that, address some of the regulatory environments the businesses operate in in doing oil and gas production. it also addresses to the regulatory environment that nuclear power plants operate under. not the ones currently operating, but going forward, how do we build a nuclear power plant in this country? see, in my state, we have one of the few nuclear power permits, a new power plant being constructed in jenkinsville, south carolina. there's only two that have been permitted. there's only one i know of, in augusta, georgia, and the other one is right across a county line from my district. and it took decades to get that permitted. it shouldn't cost tens of billions of dollars of investment and compliance with a regulatory environment to build a nuclear power plant.

if you think about nuclear power, and i'll touch base on this in a minute and we'll move on, but nuclear power. we ought to look on the motularization and miniaturization of nuclear power. if you think about nuclear power, at any given time we've got about a hundred small nuclear power plants floating around the seas of the world in the united states navy. not a single mishap that i'm aware of. and i bet they didn't have to go through all the regulations that the jenkinsville plant had to go through. we ought to be able to come up with one, two, three proven designs for a nuclear power plant and replicate that. nuclear power is clean, there is no carbon emissions other than the backup generators and maybe the cars pulling into the parking lot. we're proud to have a nuclear power plant in my district. i think that is one thing we need to look at as well, and that definitely ties in well with what we talked about on the regulatory environment. americans are in need of an all of the above energy approach.

and when you think about all the above, you think about wind, solar, hydrogen, you think about all those groovy technologies i really like. i like the look of a wind mill. i think it's neat that you can harness the wind -- some say it's free. well, it's not free because there's a significant investment in the wind turbines and the location and the transmission lines and everything that goes about there. it's not free, it does take an investment. i like that technology. but it's intermittent. the wind doesn't blow all the time. the sun doesn't shine all the time. i like the solar technology as well. to harness energy from the sun is really, i think, proven -- groovy technology as well. it still requires transmission lines. it still requires placement areas. it still requires, hey, if you look at a map of the western united states where a lot of those sunny days are, a lot of the open spaces are, who owns it? it's owned by the federal government. so if we want to expand the

availability of land for solar and wind, we need to open up more of that federal land for that type of production as well. see, when we talk about opening up federal land for energy production, the first thing a lot of folks think about is you want to put oil and gas derricks out there, you want to start oil and gas production. yeah, i do, but i also want to open that land for solar and wind as well, and it also requires opening that federal land for transmission lines, open up that land for roads and bridges and the cell towers, and a lot of other things that are necessary in order to make those technologies work as well. and so part of the expand act would open up that federal land to more energy development. and there's a sidebar that we never talk about and the expand act doesn't at this point, but we ought to talk about mining. mining for uranium but mining for the rare earths and make it work. without those rare earth minerals, a lot of this technology doesn't work, either. we're relying on china for a lot of the rare earths right now. if you have a cell phone in your pocket, i'm sure there are a lot

of rare earths in that as well. we ought to talk more about rare earth minerals and the fact that that federal land i'm talking about, holds a lot of rare earths, but they're currently off the table. one country going around the world gobbling up the mineral rights from rare earths is china. we need to be cognizant of that. let's talk about the expand act a little bit. it's truly all the above energy approach. open up that federal land for oil and gas and wind and solar production we talked about earlier. it opens up more of the gulf of mexico. right now most of the gulf of mexico is the western gulf of mexico. central and western gulf. none of the eastern gulf is open. there is some environmentally sensitive areas. we're not talking about those areas. we can exclude some of the environmentally sensitive areas. there are some areas out there where the united states navy, and i would assume the air force, do some carrier landings, and they're very sensitive from a national security standpoint. those are flight lines, those are areas that they practice.

those can be off limits as well. but why shut down the whole eastern gulf of mexico for those very reasons? and just as another sidebar, i was thinking about on the plane as i came here is what the president did with cuba recently. regardless of how you feel about opening up and normalizing relations with cuba, the thought occurred to me if we do open up and normalize relations with cuba is that going to open up more access to cuban waters for american energy producers? right now they're open to china ocean producers, which probably aren't doing it with regulations we're required to follow. that would drive the cost of a barrel of oil up for american producers that i talked about earlier. but if that does open up, more of those cuban waters, what does that say to the whole eastern gulf of mexico closure that we talked about just a second ago? so you can't have that without having a conversation about the eastern gom as well.

that shell in deep water i'm pleased to be part of implementing one thing i think the obama administration got right. you don't hear that come out of a conservative's mouth very often. the one thing the obama administration got right was a transboundary carbon agreement signed a a summit in mexico by hillary clinton. it's a mouthful, i realize that. it opened up a million and a half acres in the gulf of mexico. if you can think about a boundary between the united states and mexico you think about that border in texas and new mexico. think about a maritime border or a maritime boundary. that border extending out into the gulf of mexico where we have territorial waters on the mexican side and territorial waters on the u.s. side. well under that maritime boundary are recoverable resources. and for a long time that million and a half acres in that what they call the western gap part of the gulf of mexico was off

limits. nobody was producing. mexico wasn't producing, u.s. wasn't producing. so they signed this transboundary hydro carbon agreement said we're going to allow that area to be produced. we're going to allow those shared resources to be produced we're going to share resources, technology, some of the regulations. well, once they signed that agreement, we asked ken salazar the secretary of the interior at the time how about sending us the implementing language so we could implement that agreement. we'd like to open up a million and a half acres of deep water in the western gulf to energy production because we believe there's recoverable resources there that could go into that national security energy mix on american energy independence. he wouldn't send us the implementing language. after about a year of that doc hastings and i and a number of others on the committee working to get that i decided to write it myself. i wrote the implementing language. we pass it through the house, bipartisan. it wasn't unanimous but it was bipartisan. went to the senate, couldn't get anybody to deal with it over there. so we're able to get it in the omnibus last year. last december, and guess what? that opened up a million and a half acres in the western gulf,

and they have a lease set up in august or september on some of that. so we're going to start developing that. what can happen there if we can do it in the western gulf why can't we do it off the coast of south carolina? that was 5600 feet of water or deeper. off the coast of my state, we're talking about 100 or 120 feet deep. 70 miles out. shallow water. shallow water in the field of energy exploration. versus ultradeep in the western gap. so think about that people say we don't want to have another deep water horizon and another energy issue off the coast of south carolina, nor do i. nobody's advocating for reckless drilling. in fact i think we're safer today than we ever have been with regard to energy drilling and production. but if you think about it, you can't compare apples and apples. off the coast of louisiana, and out in the gulf of mexico, where horizon was, 5600 feet deep, off the coast of south carolina 120 feet deep. 5600 deep you got to get a robot down there to try to cap a gusher with the guys on the

surface with a playstation controller looking at a tv screen trying to operate that. off the south of carolina god forbid if anything happened somebody jumps in the water with a diving suit on takes the wrenches and blow torch and all the tools they need and take care of it right then. that's the kind of thinking we need to have. i'll just finish talking about expand real quick. i'm passionate about energy. i can talk about energy all day in a lot of different realms. the expand act is something we're going to reintroduce this year. it schedules leasing for the ocs allows the seismic work. it allows a 37.5% revenue sharing to come back to the states that are new areas. 37.5%. my state would love to have 37.5% of oil produced or revenues produced off our coast. because guess what my general assembly can direct that to the roads and bridges and infrastructure needs that we have in south carolina. now there's a different mix of energy revenue sharing in this country. wyoming got a billion dollars in revenue sharing. louisiana, texas, mississippi, alabama and florida each split

$500 million. $100 million each. wyoming got a billion. louisiana got $100 million. we may want to look at that. that south carolina and other states going forward say we're going to try to get the best deal we can and right now we're talking about $37.5%. so leasing in exploration, in alaska. because we've got anwar and the national petroleum reserve up there, areas that are proven to have resources that we should look at. we should have a leasing program up there off the coast of alaska and just going through the bill here it breaks down right of ways, and it breaks down access on federal land that we talked about earlier. it does prohibit the designation of new wilderness areas that may have resources. the destination of wilderness areas. -- the designation of wilderness areas. this is a guy who enjoys the wilderness numerous times in montana and still do. and so i appreciate the wilderness areas. but if we got some energy issues

there, maybe we take a very comprehensive look at those areas before we just designate them wilderness review areas. a lot of things here regarding epa and the ability to stop energy production with filing lawsuits, and rollback of energy regulations that we talked about earlier. and i keep pointing to the thing that jeff landry told me, the cost of a barrel of oil in the united states costs more to produce than anywhere else because of the regulations. we really ought to take a look at the regulatory environment. it touches on keystone pipeline and assuming the president doesn't overright it, or maybe keystone will happen, i'll pull that out. it won't be necessary anymore. i talked about reopening yucca mountain. yucca mountain. something that we've invested and continue to invest money in. because they're still collecting money out of the south carolina they're still collecting money out of their utility bill every week. or every month.

reopen yucca mountain. we had a long conversation about yucca mountain and i'd be glad to at any time. but it's -- keeps the endangered species act from being able to hamper oil and gas production in this country and other energy resources. it rolls back some of the energy subsidies and things like we saw with solyndra and disincentivizes those things that the administration has been able to use. and then the last thing that i'll talk about is the whole climate change. it doesn't allow the climate change aspects of low carbon emissions to stop what is proven, and that's oil and gas production in this country, and utilization of proven resources that aren't in a metal. -- that aren't intermittent. i talk about wind and solar being intermittent. what did i mean about that? sun doesn't shine all the way -- all the time and the wind doesn't blow. so until we come up with the ability to store that energy that's harvest through wind and

solar it makes it a very volatile energy source. see in order to be able to store enough usable energy to run a manufacturing plant from wind and solar you have to have humongous batteries. we've got to focus on i think the r&d side on how to miniaturize and expand the capacity of a smaller battery system for wind and solar in order to make it viable. you think about a tesla it can only go so far because of a battery. one of the things elon musk, one of the issues he has is battery capacity. it's a light weight vehicle. it's battery powered. you only have so many batteries in there. if you have too many batteries it would be too heavy, still wouldn't be able to travel as far. so there's a balance there. so look into that, as well. look into the battery capacity, and look into wind and solar when we think about energy, and using those technologies, as well. so i'd be glad to try to answer any questions. i don't know how i am doing on time. gone a little over. [ applause ] >> thank you, congressman. that was great.

now i'd like to invite nick lloris up. nick is our herbert and joyce morgan fellow at the institute for economic freedom and opportunity here at heritage. and myron ebell is the director for the center for energy and environment at cei, competitive enterprise institute. thanks, gentlemen for joining us for our panel. before we open it up for questions, couple minutes remarks from both of you. and then we'll ask the audience for questions. thank you. >> sure. i'll start off and then turn it over to myron. congressman thanks for those remarks and thank you all for being here today. when i was in north dakota i saw what the congressman was talking about, and i ate at this little restaurant that was basically a trailer park and it was a mom and daughter who moved from california to williston, north dakota, to start this restaurant chain because they couldn't do so in california and i never thought that i would actually meet someone who voluntarily left california to come live in north dakota. but, that's what this economic opportunity has provided.

the congressman, you did a great job focusing on the opportunities that the energy sector has provided us in this oil, shale and gas revolution has provided us over the past few years so i'm going to take a few minutes to talk about the other part of what heritage action has done in this favoritism to none. because we've seen over the past few years what works and what doesn't in the energy policy. and when markets are free and ótke of one good over another, you're faced with higher costs.

you're faced with a worse standard of living, with wasted taxpayer dollars and less choice. and i think what probably most perverse that i don't think conservatives do a good job of talking about enough is that even though these policies, these subsidies, mandates, things like that, are intended to promote specific energy technologies, may be well intentioned, they actually do more harm to the long-term progress than actually help it. and it's the dependence on government that perpetuates stagnation rather than competition. and to give you an example before i turn it over to myron let me read you a quote from "the new york times." it reads, matthew wald writes, a new generation of windmills that don quixote could never tilt at is ready to take its place as an economical and important source of the nation's energy. because of striking improvements in technology, the commercial use of these windmills, or wind turbines as the builders call them, has shown that in addition to being pollution free they can

now compete with fossil fuels in the cost of producing electricity. now that reads kind of like a quote that maybe was tossed around during the wind production tax credit debate you know over the past few months. matthew wald wrote that in september of 1992. almost 23 years later, the arguments are basically the same. they're just give us a few more years, just give us a few more dollars, and we'll make it on our own. and when that extension runs out it's the same thing, asking for another year, asking for a few more billion dollars. when you have a large part of your production cost paid for by the taxpayer that's what you're going to get. your incentive structure changes pretty dramatically. you're focused more on securing that next handout rather than truly innovating and lowering costs to compete in the marketplace with conventional sources of energy or whatever the technology may be. so that's why we're not just focusing on opportunity for all, because we've seen what

opportunity provides us. but we're really focusing on favoritism to none because it protects the taxpayer. it provides opportunity for these technologies that may be emerging and lets them stand up and compete on their own two feet, or die a painful death but at least it's dead through their own private investment, not through the taxpayers. i'll turn it over to myron. >> thank you, nick. i want to thank tim chapman and nick lloris and heritage action for america for inviting me to participate in this. i think it's very valuable to give so many of our solid conservative members of congress a forum to talk about policy. and representative duncan is a very conservative member. he's very solid. and as someone from the rural west, the federal land state area, i always get kind of worried when someone gets on the natural resources committee, a conservative who isn't from the west. because he doesn't always get all these issues.

but he gets them. he's a great member of the natural resources committee. we have a competitive advantage in this country. we have huge amounts of energy. coal, oil, natural gas. we have over 200 years of coal. we now have over 100 years of natural gas. and nobody really knows how much oil we have, because, as congressman duncan said, our offshore areas have not been explored. there is a prohibition on exploring the offshore areas that are not open to oil and gas production. so we're the only country in the world that doesn't know what its oil resources are. now the fracking revolution, the shale oil and gas revolution is due, not to government, but to the market. and that's our other big advantage. we have a very innovative, competitive market. and that is what has created that revolution. our competitive disadvantage is the regulatory state. and all of these special

interest handouts. favoritism towards some. we have in this country huge problems in getting anything permitted. that's why one of the big, important things in this bill is what representative duncan has done to streamline permitting. and the most important is, he turns over oil and gas leasing on federal land to the states. now, it used to be that you could go out, if you were trying -- if you had a blm lease, an oil lease, you could go to the blm office and get a permit in a day to drill a well. on your lease. now it takes months. or years. that's why oil and gas production on federal land and offshore is going downhill. whereas on private land, and state land, it's going up, up, up. so i would say that's a very important part of this bill, and you know, we need to figure out how to maximize our competitive advantage here, which is we have

the world's greatest energy resources. and minimize our competitive disadvantage, which is we have the most oppressive land use and natural resource regulations in the world. a big project in canada, under the environmental assessment act, the harper government changed the law, the average was five years to get it permitted. the law has changed. they have to get it done now within three years. a big natural resource project in this country takes 10 to 20 years, if it ever gets done at all because the environmentalists have figured out that you can kill a project by delaying it to death. and that's what president obama is trying to do with the keystone pipeline. thank you. >> thank you. >> all right. let's open it up to questions from the audience. right down here. yes, sir. >> my name is james reed, george washington university. in the last six months we've seen oil drop from $100 a barrel down to $46. and i've read the market watch

articles saying it's a falling knife where it can go below 40, 30, i even read an article saying it could go to $14 a barrel. and my question is about given the opportunity to drill some of the shale companies might not drill because the unprofitability of that so my question is, what can congress do, what can policy experts do to incentivize these companies to drill in this climate of low oil prices? >> the question is with the plunging price of oil per barrel. does that disincentivize people to drill when it comes to shale? and if so, can we -- what are the things that we should be doing? should we be concerned about that? >> i'm not sure what the price point is for break-even for drilling in the bakken. i do know one thing congress can do is try to lessen the regulation and the regulatory environment to make it easier.

as i talked about earlier the price of a barrel of oil is higher, cost production of a price of a barrel of oil in this country is higher than anywhere else. that's one thing we can do. if you think about the bakken, you where this activity is happening is on state and private land. really the federal government -- -- federal government hasn't been involved. and that really is attributable to past presidents who basically said we're not going to regulate state and private land and that enabled it. and so, i want to see more of that. maybe less of the federal government's involvement as a whole will help the folks be incentivized. when federal government gets involved in something the price usually goes up. >> i would just add that it's important to get the policy right now. and even if that doesn't incentivize necessarily more drilling at this point when that price point gets to a point where they can act on new fields, offshore or onshore it's important to open up those areas now so when the price rises,

when the new equilibrium comes they'll be able to act on those new plays. different areas of the region have different cost measures because of the geologic makeup and it costs more to frac in one area of the country than it does others. lowering the regulatory cost is certainly an important part of that aspect. but that's why i think we really just need to focus on opening these areas, and letting the market determine when the businesses make these investments and make these decisions, so when they can and when they want to we aren't in a place to be able to do it because of the laws. >> a year ago people said oil would never get below $100 a barrel. now we've got people saying it will never get to $100 a barrel. who knows. i think what nick has said is absolutely right and what representative duncan said about getting down the regulatory costs. i would just point out one example. in 1995 when the republicans took over congress, they sent legislation to open the coastal plain of the arctic national wildlife refuge to oral

-- oil exploration. president clinton vetoed that legislation and the environmental defense, the environmental group defense of that was, well, it won't help with the currently high gasoline prices, because it will take ten years before that oil starts flowing from anwar. i believe we should have people in congress who think more than a couple months ahead. we need to think 10, 20 years ahead. and that's why this bill is an important bill. >> you know, i would just the last thing i'll say on this is that we've got to push back against these -- this desire to raise gasoline taxes right now. because oil prices are so low, they're not always going to be this low. and now is not a good time to raise taxes. moms and dads and businesses are just now starting to experience a little bit of economic incentive. i mean they're putting money in their pocket. it's cheaper to deliver the goods and services. it's cheaper to take the family out to eat. so why throw cold water on this economy? >> it compensates for the higher medical insurance costs. >> we have a question right here.

>> thank you. congressman, i noted with satisfaction in the background that was handed out this conference about the expand act that you are calling for the removal of special tax breaks for all energy sources. i wanted to -- i didn't see anything about the special limited liability considerations given to nuclear power. especially if you're going to be removing or easing the licensing and regulation requirements, if you don't at the same time remove those special liability limitations, aren't you inviting the same kind of problems that occurred with the bailout of the big banks, if there should be another three mile island and there would be a political reaction against this kind of legislation? >> can you repeat that -- >> let me just say this about nuclear power.

that they cannot depreciate and capitalize -- some of the capital expenses for nuclear power. and that is causing the cost of nuclear reactors to go up. talked about in this bill, it's more of a tax policy issue. but, if you look at the permitting, the billions of dollars of permitting costs for nuclear power and then you factor in the aspect that some of the capital expenditure can't be depreciated within that industry the way the other capital expenditures and investments can be, it's still a disincentive to make those investments. we're already talking about hundreds of billions of dollars anyway. yes, sir? >> does your expand act allow for exports over energy resources? like they get to do up there in norway and canada and saudi arabia? or is there a prohibition against exports still remain under expand? thank you.

>> you know, there's a lot of talk right now about exporting our own oil or actually allowing u.s. produced oil to be put out on the global market. and i don't have a firm opinion on that yet. the free marketeer in me says that if you increase supply to meet demand then price goes down. the problem -- and i talked with jeff landry about this a little bit this morning because he's one of my go-to guys, but the refineries in this country aren't set up to refine a lot of the oil, the type of oil that's produced in the bakken, it's more set up to produce -- or to refine sweet oil or sweet crude. so we import a lot of oil that goes to our refineries and produces all the products that a barrel of oil produces. and so, we also got to address the refineries in this country and whether to build new refineries allowing the

retooling of some refineries, the way i understand it, if we're ever going to allow theil oil to be exported. and these gentlemen may know a little bit more about it than i do. >> it's a good question because i do think that's going to be one of the hot spots next year. nick, maybe if you could talk a little bit -- we support lifting the ban on crude. and it is kind of a interesting issue even within the conservative movement because you have conservatives who come down on different sides of the aisle for different reasons. maybe if you could walk folks through why we're supportive of that. >> while he's doing that, i have a -- there was a vote that was cast last week you may have heard about it. i have some meetings with some of the leadership team this afternoon so i'm going to have to leave. and i do apologize for that. but that's what's come up. >> okay, tell them to be bold. >> okay. >> thank you to the congressman. [ applause ] go ahead, nick. >> at heritage we're a trade organization and energy is no exception.

we think that oil, crude oil, natural gas should be treated, you know, just like any other good or service that we trade regularly around the country. so we should lift the ban on crude oil exports. if there's been some concern among politicians that it's i would say one that shouldn't be a concern, but even so because of what the congressman said about matching up or finding capabilities you're actually creating a more efficient oil distribution chain by getting this light oil to where it can be refined more efficiently in european markets where we can take on the heavier crudes from places like canada and mexico. so it would actually lower gasoline prices in the intermediate run. same with natural gas. we're pro lng exports. we think the department of energy shouldn't be in the business of determining if natural gas exports should be in the public interest which they

have to do before we can export lng to non-free trade agreement countries. it's a nonsensical barrier right now, and yes, it's going to take a long time for the u.s. to build those lng export terminals and actually get the natural gas to places where the price is much higher than it is in the united states. but again it's about getting the policy right now. the private sector has the right incentive to act. >> well if i could add just one thing, i think we've had this long kind of level of concern about national energy security, going back to the arab oil embargo and the nixon price controls. and everybody has tried to work around the fact that we have all these energy resources that we're not using and that we're not producing and that we have to import more and more oil from the middle east and we don't like those people and it would be nicer not to buy oil from them. well, we're at a point now where

we can produce a lot more oil and gas and i think these national security arguments that there's some kind of band-aid fix for it rather than simply producing more energy those have disappeared. the rationale for the ethanol mandate, the cafe standards electric cars, all that rationale has gone. we have huge quantities of coal, oil, and natural gas, and there's no reason we can't benefit by using it and exporting it. i hope the export bans will be lifted, but the environmental groups are doing everything they can to stop the export of by blocking coal export ternlgsz. and unfortunately, they control the governorships of the three western states, which is a problem. pacific states. they're trying to block lng terminal permitting and they're trying to keep the ban on oil

exports. and i think this is a huge obstacle to our economic prosperity. and i wish these national energy security people would realize that the problem has been solved. the problem they identified back in the '70s is no more. time has passed them by. and it wasn't their policies that solved the problem. so they need to rethink it. and i hope they do. >> time for one more question. all right. i think -- yeah. actually, why don't we close up? because we've got a big one coming on. thank you to the panelists. and if folks will take another ten-minute break we'll have senator demint back on stage here in ten minutes. he'll be introducing senator cruz. and then just to give a plug for you for the remaining two panels. we're going to have six of the really conservative grade guys who were elected in 2014 here after that to talk about what

2014 meant, what they think the american people were saying to them in this election. please don't miss that. and jim jordan will wrap us up at the end talking about how conservatives can lead in this next congress. see you all in ten minutes. thanks. [ applause ] >> on the next "washington journal," a discussion about the obama administration's call for more authority over international trade agreements. with linda dempsey at the national association of manufacturers and robert scott of the economic policy institute. then rob morrison, executive director of the national association of state alcohol and drug abuse directors on heroin use in the united states. and a look at the well-being of young adults today compared to the 1980s with jonathan vespa of the u.s. census bure yeh and aaron khawrier of the pugh general trust.

and join the conversation with your phone calls and comments on facebook and twitter. washington journal live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. here are some of our featured programs for this weekend on the c-span networks. on c-span 2's book tv saturday night at 10:00, on "after words," white house correspondent for american urban radio april ryan on her more than 25 years in journalism and her coverage of three presidential administrations. and sunday at noon on "in depth" our three-hour conversation with walter isaacson whose biographies include ben franklin, albert einstein and the international best-seller on steve jobs. and on "american history tv" on c-span 3 saturday at 6:00 p.m. eastern on the civil war boston college history professor heather cox richardson on how the cowboy during reconstruction became symbolic of a newly unified america. and sunday evening at 6:00 on "american artifacts," we'll tour

the house that was the headquarters of the american red cross. and learn about the life of its founder, clara barton. find our complete television schedule at c-span.org and laet us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at 202-626-3400. e-mail us at comments@c-span.org. or send us a tweet@c-span #comments. join the c-span conversation. like us on facebook. follow us on twitter. >> the u.s. conference of mayors held its annual winter meeting this month in washington, d.c. next conference president mayor kevin johnson delivers the state of the city's address. it's an hour. it's an hour.

>> good afternoon. i'm hoping that you're enjoying your meal. i want to say how excited we are to be here today for our 83rd meeting for the u.s. conference of mayors. i'm kevin johnson mayor of sacramento and president of the fine organization. and it is so awesome that so many of you have flown from so many places to be here for our 83rd meeting. it's an honor to introduce the conference leadership at the dais. i will start on my left. which is on my right politically and otherwise. second vice president mick cornet. let's give mick a round of applause. from oklahoma city. our vice president stephanie rawlings blake will be joininging us a little later. she's atengd a swearing in. and i want to acknowledge all of our past presidents. mayor coutts, mayor nutter, mayor pasquale and mayor riley.

please give them all a round of applause. [ applause ] and tom cochran, i know he's out there handling business. we cannot thank tom for his leadership and the whole entire staff of the u.s. conference of mayors. let's give them a round of applause. [ applause ] as a reminder all the plenary sessions are live-streamed and available on demand at usmayors.org. for those of you on facebook twitter, or instagram use rour hashtag, uscmwinter15 when sharing about this particular conference. i also have two housekeeping items that are really important. the first one, while you know that the president will be visiting him on friday, we have the vice president who will be joining us tomorrow at 1:00.

so you have to make sure that you go through the security. so downstairs tomorrow early you go through security, and once you get on the second floor you'll be able to move around freely. and then secondly please take a look at your name badges. and tough a star and you're a mayor, if you have a star, you have the clearance that you need to get to the white house. if you do not have a star you need to see the u.s. conference of mayors staff today to make sure you are not left out of our white house visit. yes, you need a gold star to get in. let me thank the sponsors for this year's winter meeting. i'd like to thank -- let me get through all of our sponsors and then we'll give them all one round of applause at the end. i want to thank wells fargo, our 2015 winter meeting title sponsor, american beverage association, americans for the

arts engine research foundation google hdr jpmorganchase & company, lindbergher, blair and sampson llp, motorola solutions target corporations, uber technologies the walton family foundation. let's give all of our sponsors a round of applause. i'm also pleased that we have over 50 new mayors registered for this winter meeting. let's give our rookie mayors a round of applause. to help introduce and whm him to the organization we're going to show all of their names behind me. and and we've missed or left out a mayor i want to apologize in advance.