winds go from west to east when our fires are burning out in oregon and california and washington state, the rest of the nation is experiencing those, those impacts it's also an impact on a rural economy. because when we lose both to fire and tobeetles. and i understand that's not your expertise. i'm over my time, so thank you very much for your feedback. >> thank you. i'd like to turn it over to our chairman of our full committee, chairman inhofe. >> thank you, madam chairman. i remember in this room when we had the first appointed director of the epa, lisa jackson, was in the room, and i remember it was right, i tell you when it was. it's when my friend senator markly, it was right before during the hearing or the c.o.p.

thing in copenhagen. and i asked her the question at that time, i said, you know, if we if we were to pass the legislation that has been proposed here, let's keep in mind it started way back in 1997 when they said we passed a thing, the bird-hagel rule by 95-0 that if you come back from rio de janeiro or one of these places with a treaty that either hurts our economy or does not require the same thing from china and other countries as it does here, then we will not ratify it. and consequently, they never ratified it. and clinton never put it forward for ratification. now what she was saying at that time, i asked her the question. i asked her if we to pass either by regulation or legislation these reductions, isn't this

going to, is this going to have the, the effect of lowering co 2 emissions worldwide, her answer was no. because it only affects here in the u.s. but that's not where the problem is. it's in china, india, mexico and other places wouldn't you say that it would actually have the effect of increasing co2 worldwide emissions if we were to you knowunilaterally reduce our emissions, where are they going to go? they're going to go where they have the least restrictions. am i missing something there? >> no you are not missing anything. as a matter of fact, under the i testified before the house energy and power sub committee, and one of the key points i made is if we want to be serious about reducing global greenhouse

gas emissions the single most important thing we need to do is increase the manufacturing of products in the united states versus china, for example. >> exactly. >> we manufacture goods on average that has over less than well turn it round the other way. when china produces goods they emit 300% more co2 than we do here. so if energy cost goes up here then it's going to result in more imports of these energy-intensive products. and as a reminder 70% of our imports is from one country -- china. >> good to see you again. i had not seen what you, and i asked her to give me the printed copy of your study that you did key findings it's just fascinating. i've never seen, it concentrates on the regressive nature of this type of legislation or rules. is that, is that -- >> that's absolutely correct

sir. >> i hadn't seen it done before where it's specific like this. so this is something that we wiuel use. was this done for you by an outside group? >> roger dr. roger bessdeck whom we have been using oh we do about a study every two to three years with that group and they're very very on the money. >> thank you. appreciate that. mr. trishcoe, i think you made a vague reference to a study of decisions of middle to low income people. so i ask for a written copy. could you elaborate a little on that? i don't think you had a chance to do that in your opening statement? >> yes chair inhofe. this study that i attached to the statement is one in a long-running series if you will going back really to the time of the kyoto protocol. we wanted to know what american families spent on energy,

defined as residential utilities and gasoline. and i've been updating that study more or less on an annual basis ever since. and what we found is that as a general matter the percentage of after-tax income that american households spend on energy has more than doubled over the course of the last 10 to 15 years. now you mentioned the regress ive'veve asperkts. the study i've attached today let's look in particular at the percentage of after-tax income for energy that is spent by households with gross incomes of $30,000 or less. that's about 30% of our population. those households are spending 23% of their after-tax income on energy. >> their expendable income.

>> 23% of their after-tax income goes to residential utilities and gasoline. now that compares with an average 7% for households earning more than $50,000 a year. so it's three times greater for the low-income katzcategory of $30,000 or less. it's three times greater for those households than those households making $50,000 or more a year. >> that's almost exactly what you're saying, mr. alford, that it is regressive in that respect. >> yes, it is. and they brought up asthma. you know, and if you, if you look at the mayo clinic there's no prevention for asthma. and there's no correlation of asthma and air. asthma has been increasing, even though through the clean air act we have been good stewards in

decreasing and decreasing ozone and all the emissions, but asthma continues to rise and no one knows why, but there's this big, false projection that it's global warming causing asthma. we don't know what's causing asthma. and most of the people who have it get out of it by the time they're adults, because their lungs and their bodies are strong enough to fight it off. but i'm getting sick very sick of people saying asthma and dirty air or global warming. it's a myth. >> thank you. my time has expired. >> thank you, senator markey. >> thank you very much. dr. rice you're here from harvard medical school. people are getting sick, are they not? and they're not getting sick the way harry alford is getting sick. they're really getting sick, aren't they? and so maybe you could bring to us a little bit of your

information about the increased hospitalizations, the respiratory-related diseases, all of the things that are implicated in having this additional pollution in our atmosphere. can you talk a little bit about how it is inpacts especially children in our country. >> thank you. this is certainly an area where i feel that i have a lot to add to the discussion because i'm a lung doctor. i take care of patients with lung disease, and i also study air pollution. that when i'm not taking care of patients. and in addition to my personal observations as a doctor when i see patients come see me more often because the pollen levels are worse or the ozone levels can get high in boston on very hot days. we also have the observations of the physicians of the american thoracic society. the survey i mentioned. and the doctors completing the

survey, the vast majority of them commented that they personally observed that their patients' lung function is worse, their symptoms are worse during high-pollution days. >> there are real implications for the 12 million americans who already have respiratory illnesses, huh? >> certainly, and we can look back at the incredible success story of the clean air act. the reductions in air pollution as a result of the clear air act have been astounding, and we've really come a long way, and when we look back researchers look back at the health benefits of the clean air act they've been astounding not just for respiratory illness asthma symptom control but also mortality and heart disease. >> onmentioned your own son earlier in your testimony, who has a respiratory illness, huh? so what could, just additional pollution that we send up there, uncontrolled mean, long-term for him and for those others of

millions of victims across the country? >> so there's a variety of sources of air pollution. and one of them is the power points, power plants through the burning of greenhouse gases. there's also traffic and other things. so the reality is that if we do not do anything about greenhouse gas emissions the epa report looked at just that piece of the pie and found that ozone levels will increase predict that we actually have increases in ozone, whereas ozone levels have declined and we've experienced health benefits as a result of those gains. >> thank you for putting that out there so there's real sickness, not metaphor cal sickness that is occurring because of global warming. and you're here representing new

york but you're representing one of the regional greenhouse gas initiative states, all of new england, those six states, new york, maryland and delaware. nine states they band together and over the last several years, massachusetts has seen a 40% reduction in the green house gases we're sending up while we're seeing a 20% growth in our economy. can you talk a little bit about that virtuous cycle that seems to elude the observation of those who are critical of the ability to increase the health of individuals and the economy simultaneously? >> yes senator, thank you. as i said in my testimony, the experience has been an extraordinarily successful one. we had an independent study done by the analysis group that quantified the benefits over a three-year period from 2009 to

2011. $1.3 billion in reductions in bills over the region. $1.6 billion in extra or incremental economic activity. it's been an extraordinarily positive experience all the while, as you said the region has experienced economic growth. we've reduced bills. we've reduced bills for low and moderate-income families especially in the beauty of the approach is that -- >> say that again? you've reduced the electricity bills for low and moderate-income people? >> yes, the cumulative benefit to just new york low and moderate income bill payers has been $60 million to date. through the first quarter of this year. and those, those are going to keep those benefittings will continue on into the future because new york has specified

in two of its programs income eligible patients excuse me patients income eligible ratepayers. the beauty of the program is that states have the ability to target the revenue from the sale of those allowances to a variety of programs. so industrial customers can benefit. low and moderate-income rate payers can benefit. businesses, your average homeowners. so it has been a tremendous success story. >> and it is my understanding that under the proposed rule making that for example new jersey and pennsylvania could join our regional greenhouse gas initiative. and already plug into an existing system that is working that is lowering costs for low and moderate income lowering the amount of greenhouse gases while seeing tremendous growth in our gdp. so i think there's a reason to be very optimistic about our ability, listening to the pope's

admonitions to us that we should be the global leader on this, and we can use market forces to accomplish the goal while still enjoying tremendous economic growth and taking care of the poor and the moderate income people in our country. >> i agree with you entirely, senator, i think there's places around the country that could benefit from that model. it may not be identical to the model but certainly states cooperating makes great sense, because the efficiencies of dealing with multiple states and energy systems that cross state boundaries is obviously of great advantage to the rege states. >> i am afraid that too many people are pessimistic in general. they're not optimistic of our ability ago americans to be the global leaders, to use new technologies to protect young people and the economy at the same time and they harbor a great doubt about our country's ability to do that. but i thank the two of you for

your testimony, because you point out the problems and the solutions and you have devolved on it in a way that should give people some hope. >> i think that concludes our hearing. i want to thank the witnesses for bringing forth some very great information and facts and lots for us to think about. and appreciate all of you all taking time today to be with us. and i want to thank my ranking member, and with that we'll conclude the hearing, thank you.

wednesday morning on c-span 3, the director of the office of personnel management and the opm inspector general testify about the recent data breach that compromised personal information of over 4 million federal workers. live coverage of the house oversight and government reform committee begins at 10:00 eastern. >> i'm not one of those who believes in the psychiatric examination of people, you know. i believe that most of these people, the psycho historians should be on their couch themselves rather than the psycho analyzed people they've never met. on the other hand, when i meet people, i don't judge them in terms of whether they have a firm handshake or whether they have eye contact, but what i try to do when i meet people is to listen to what they say. you don't learn anything when you are talking. you learn a great deal when

they're talking. >> one of the many tragedies of richard nixon although he was self-conscious he was not very self-aware. there are endless ironies. he did have a psychologist. he didn't want nixon to know he was analyzing him. but he went to him because he had psychosomatic illnesses. his head hurt and neck hurt and i couldn't sleep. and the doctor gave him mild therapy. even though he went to one he hated psychiatrists and was afraid in a way of looking at himself in a realistic way. one of the reasons he used to say i don't carry grudges. hello? richard nixon was one of the great grudge carriers of all time. he could be very unself-reflective. and this hurt him, because his lashing out at enemies of course is what destroyed him. >> author of being nixon talks

about the victories and defeats and inner turmoil of richard nixon, sunday night at 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span's q&a. before today's senate environment sub committee hearing on power plant emissions the chair of the whole committee, james inhofe talked about the epa's clean plan to the american heritage society. he calls it a hoax. this is an hour and is15 minutes. [ applause ] >> i want to thank all of you for coming, and i want to thank all of the people who are watching online and who will be watching on c-span. i'm very happy today to have our lead-off speaker, senator james inhofe. many of you know him and some of what i tell you here will be

stuff you already know. but for those who don't senator inhofe is an army veteran and is currently the chairman of the u.s. senate environment and public works committee and a senior member of the u.s. senate armed services committee. he's an avid pilot with over 11,000 hours of flight hours. senator inhofe became the only member of congress to fly an airplane around the world when he repeated wally post's legendary trip around world. he tells me when people ask him how old he is, he says he's old enough to fly a plane upside down. and when he can't do that anymore then he'll think about how old he is to be in the senate. but we're glad he's there and hope he stays a long time. at events and editorializing he was ranked number one saying he is an unabashed conservative and noted that he's unafraid to speak his mind. those of us who have been

following him will second that. we're glad that he's unafraid to speak his mind. in 2013, the national journal magazine ranked him among the top five most conservative members of the senate. he has been married to his wife kay for 55 years. they have 20 kids and grandkids. so don't tell him he doesn't care about the future. so please welcome senator inhofe to the podium. [ applause ] >> you guys, i have i have a little voice problem today and i have about a five-minute voice but i have a full 30 minutes here. so anyway i just wanted to share with you, yeah that's right, she was there when i was in the house, and that was 20 years

ago, and she -- she was there, yeah. she wasn't married at that time, so it was molly inhofe. go back and look it up. cute little girl. yeah. anyway, let me i was talking to the heartland institute and jim dement was there and said come tell us the same thing. can you leave if you want to. myron and i were fighting this battle back before it was popular, and i always remember the time that we went to that first -- you all are aware of these annual meetings that the u.n. has where they bring everybody in paper and everything, and the condition is they have to say they want to do something about global warming. and you remember the one in italy, milan milan, italy where they had the wanted posters up with my picture on it. and we went where they were making those things and i asked

what they were going to do with the leftovers, i brought them back and used them for fundraisers. it worked out real well. we've been involved in this thing for a long time. now this is what i want everyone to have, because i put this together for people like you. so when you go and you get in these discussions with people, you've got documentation conservatives have to be documented, i think you know that. so that is the reason for that. now confession's good for the soul. let me just mention this. back when i was first in the senate and when at that time everyone was talking about global warming and the world's coming to an end, so i assumed it must be true, until we found out that the cost of the thing. now that was actually m.i.t. and the charles rivers associates and all of them. the range is still between between $2 billion and $3 billion a year. and i started paying attention and said make sure the science

is right. that's when we found out it wasn't. one speech on the senate floor and all of a sudden the real scientists started coming out of the wood work and would come in and tell the truth about some of them had been on the ipcc and had been kicked off because they didn't buy their thing. so, so anyway, that, that was a, and i want to mention what's going on today, because senator whitehouse has now given his 100th floor speech, and if you listen to them they're all exactly the same. and i happen to like that guy. i don't blame him for being the direct beneficiary of all this money that's tom steyer money and all that bass heecause he wasn't even up for reelection at that time. there was a reason for that speech, april 18, 2012 because that was right after tom styer made his announcement that he was going to put $100 million into campaigns in the 2014

campaign cycle. well he did that. and of course at that time it the reason, i think, that he got involved is, we're winning this thing. i mean i'll show you in a minute the documentation for that. but nonetheless anyway it's all about money. and you might remember when the cover of the national review where al gore's there with all of his -- he was speculated by the "new york times" as being the first environmental billionaire. and i think probably he was. but anyway one of the things that this gore effect was kind of funny, because every time he tried to have something something would happen. there was his global warming cruise across the northwest passage to talk about global warming, but the passage was frozen. in february of '07 he was at a house hearing on warming that was canceled after the snowstorm when he was there. pelosi in 2009 was snowed out of

her global warming rally. so these things have actually happened. and i think that even though the activists and other climate change entrepreneurs like styer committed the money, they didn't do well in the last election. now what is new about this is just three weeks ago a new tom steyer arrived his name is james faison. he said i'm a republican. i can start working on the republicans. you work on the democrats i'll work on the republicans. so he put up $175 million of his own money -- you may not have been aware of that. i guess you were. but that was when you add it together for the next that's a quarter of a billion dollars that's going to go into campaigns. so anyway that's we have found out that he has a lot of interests in solar energy that -- now the next one, i like this one. can you see that? that was really neat.

that was really snowy. and so one of the pages went out and made a snowball, the history of the united states senate that someone has thrown a snowball at the presizing officer. i had a kid in there who was a page from oklahoma. i said throw it low. it was beautiful. i enjoyed it. no one else did. but anyway, the reason i bring that up is because on this hand out, when you are challenged, and i went back and i looked out the things that they were saying, 15 years ago, the arguments that they were using they're still using today. and these arguments, you pick out any of them that you want here, and you need to have this with you because there are four things on here that will give you the wisdom and the documentation for the things that you say, for example number four here is the polar bears are disappearing. well, the fact is that there is a problem with the polar bear right now. it's called overpopulation.

the '50s, there were between 5,000 and 10,000 polar bear. today there are between 15000 and 25,000. so anyway i won't go over all of these but carry this with you, and when you hear someone on the senate floor, you'll recognize, right from this sheet, what their arguments are going to be. if you forgive me for that. you have too go back also and look at the history of this thing, because it was way back in 1997 that we did the hague-perd rule. if you come back to rio de janeiro, talking about gore now. and you have a treaty that's hard on our economy and it's not going to force the rest of the countries to do what we have to do then we're not going to ratify it. it passed 95-0.

then along came john mccain. we had the mccain-lieberman bill in 2002. he had this, it was a cap and trade bill, and that's where we used the $300 billion to $400 billion. and myron, you remember that very well. and then we beat, we won that one. and then the same thing in 2005. now it's interesting. we won those elections. among those races. but no one would join me down on the floor. it was lonely down there at that time. and so since that time, we've had a lot of veterans in the house get involved. we had markey and waxman and all of that. so and right now i belong to the most exclusive club in washington it's called united states senators who are not running for president. the, with the exception of lindsey graham they're all on our side on this issue.

now this whole thing should have been over in with climate gate, and i'm going to go back and refresh your memory on that. these parties that they have, the u.n. puts up, are every december, and the one that was in copenhagen, obama went over, nancy pelosi john kerry, barbara boxer, and hillary clinton, all five of them went over to tell the 192 countries that we're going to pass legislation that was cap and trade legislation. then i went over as one-man truth squad, and it was really fun. i remember talking in wiric's place. i went over there and said you've heard about all these people. i'm going to tell you guys, it's not going to happen. they all lied to you. and of course it didn't happen. but all 191 other countries had one thing in mind, in common. they all hated me. but nonetheless.

here's the interesting thing. right before leaving you remember lisa jackson. lisa jackson was the first appointment of an epa director by this president. and i, i really, i was the only republican who liked her. and it's because she couldn't tell a lie. you don't fit in this administration unless you can lie. so i asked her the question right before i went over to copenhagen. now this is live on tv. i said now i have a feeling that once i leave town you're going to come up with an endangerment finding to allow you to do with regulations what you can't do you don't have the votes to get done less latively, and so she kind of smiled so i knew it was true. and i said when you do you're having to have to use some kind of science behind it, what are you going to use? >> ipcc. >> well, trahat's the united

nations. now it was a matter of hours after that that climate-gate came out. i have the handout and the quotes that were made, like, on the u.k. telegraph said the worst scientific scandal of our generation, and it goes on and on. but this is a good thing to carry with you. that should have killed it right there, and we have the quotes from michael mann and others who were trying to rig this thing. and so that should have that should have actually ended it at that point. but anyway, the lisa jackson has always been, that's why she's fired. but she's, i remember one time i asked her the question, i said now, you know whether you do it through legislation or regulation, if you do this, and you do a cap and trade, is that going to have the effect of reducing co2 emissions worldwide? and she said no it wouldn't do that. and the reason is this isn't where the problem is. the problem's china. you've got to do it in india, in

mexico. and if you don't do that, you could have the reverse effect. if you chase away our manufacturing base here where do they go? they go to places like china and like india. it could have the effect of increasing and not decreasing it. that wasn't a popular response to the administration. but climate-gate should have ended right there at that time. so then along came gina mccarthy. she was a little bit more compatible with the administration. and if you if you look at the clean power plan and i know you're going to be talking about that in a minute. the clean power plan is actually worse than legislation, because legislation affects the emissions of individuals or companies that emit it 12,000 tons of co2. and if you do it by regulation that would be under the clean air act would be 250 thousand

tons. so it 250 tons so it would be more expensive than the 300 or 400. to give you an idea we now have 32 states opposing the power plant. we have 15 that have sued the epa, and we're one of them, my state of oklahoma. and we formed the intent to say no and not do it. so we're really coming out ahead on this thing in terms of public perception. and if you look also you see now that it's something that has happened only recently. even the "new york times" came out and took a shot at them saying they are using the epa illegally in their talking about the cap and trade and the water plan, you know that's another big one, too. that's not what the discussion is today but the water of the united states, you might remember, they were trying to put that thing together to have, to take the word navigable out.

i agree that states should have all the jurisdiction over water in the united states. but i agree also the federal government, if it's navigable should be involved in it. so they had the navigable element in there. and they tried to do it legislatively. and you might remember that senator feingold in wisconsin and congressman overstar from minnesota were the house and the senate sponsors of that. not only did we beat the legislation, but we beat both of them in the next election. so we have the public on our side. and now we have the newspapers and others coming out. and the crisis came when they finally, in addition to climate-gate, if you look at this chart here it's kind of neat. the red line is what they were guessing all of their models were predicting that this is what was going to happen with the temperatures and then of course it didn't happen. so that was another little

crisis that they even the intergovernmental panel on climate change admitted that a 2013 report that almost all historic simulations do not reproduce the observed recent warming. that is their fancy way of saying it's not warming. so we have now gone through 15 years where this didn't happen. now i remember early on it's kind of fascinating. i don't know why i'm the only one who talks about this, but it is fascinating that if you go back to 1895 that was the first time they ever used another ice age, they used that term. and for about, and this goes in 30-year cycles. that lasted till 2018. yeah, 19 -- from 1895 to 1918. and then in 1918 all of a sudden it started getting warm, and that's when they started using the global warming.

now that continued until 1945. in 1945, it started getting cooler again and that lasted 30 years. here's interesting thing about that. 1945 is the date of the largest surge of co2 emissions in the history of america. it was right after world war ii. and that precipitated not a warming period but a cold period. so this has been you know god's still up there. we still have these, and it one of the things, they call this the hiatus now. the hiatus is not getting warmer it's leveled off. so we're going into another cycle. and it's another indicator that i use. anytime there is a cause like this a liberal cause in that they are not getting the attention of the public what do they do? they result in insults and demands. and i have all of these down in the handout that you have so you can have access to.

one of the john kennedy juniors i guess said called me a prostitute. robert kennedy said this is treason, we ought to start treating them as tray tors. and the eco magazine called for nuremberg style trials for me. this always comes out. you get the insults. and, because they know that they don't have truth on their side. so the other thing that is on here that you would be you'll be wanting to use is the fact, i've repeated several times that, you know, they're trying to resurrect this issue. they're res rektsing it because people are now nobler. i remember when the gallup polls had global warms as the number one or number two greatest concern. this one that you have here has it very last. number 15 out of 15. so they've gone from number one

to number 15. and they also say even among the environmental problems this gallup pole just last march it's dead last in, it's right behind the tropical rainforest. so we're actually, you know winning in that respect. and i might mention also, you know, the, you talk about being the university down there where molly was. george mason did a thing too. they interviewed all of the tv meteorologists. and they came to the conclusion and they've prichbtsed this out that 63% think that if global warming is real, it's not man made. that's 63% of the guys that are out there. so that is the recent thing that's happened. so, what's the motive? that's my u.n. thing. if you read my book, the last chapter is the longest chapter and that goes back and gives you -- in fact i had a young man in my office, because he was enjoying this so much, knew the

research of the united nations and it goes back and actually talks to the 1970s on how they're trying to figure out a way. we have a group of senators. every time the united nations does something that's not in the best interest of us in the united states, we'll send a letter and all sign it and saying we're going to reduce our contribution to the united nations. they hate that. they don't want to be accountable. so how do they become accountable? they develop their own source of funding. so that's what this is all about. and they started and you have the motives of this thing. i think are pretty obvious. the first motive is stop the accountability to the united states. that's obvious. the second one and i have these quotes also in the paper that i hope you'll be carrying with you. if you look at jocksha rock.

kyoto represents the first component of all governments. and then you have the eu minister from margo wal strom. she said kyoto is about the economy, about leveling the playing field for big business worldwide. so the last thing, the third thing would be power. and i think richard lins et has always been my favorite one to quote. he talked about it's bad enough to lie but to do it for your own financial benefit is worse. but the one i enjoy, he said controlling carbon is a bureaucrat's dream. if you control carbon, you control life. and that's what this is all about. now obviously, this is not very popular to talk about when you're in the senate, but you know i've been doing it now for 15 years and nothing's happened so far except the public has

caught on. so good things are happening. and you wanted to share that with you and give you some of these quotes that you can have to show very clearly all that's happening right now. it's, we're still winning at this thing. and the cost of the thing is i notice you had -- i didn't know it until i walked in about a half hour ago that you had down there the social costs. and you'll have to explain that to them because they still hadn't figured that out. >> they're working on it. >> they can't refute the fact that the cost is between $300 billion and $400 billion a year. it would be for cap and trade. now what i do in oklahoma just because i take these positions and i want to make sure people back there understand that it may not be popular, but it is when you explain it. i always take every time i hear a big figure. i take the number of families in my state of oklahoma who file a federal tax return and i do the math. the a money that it would cost

them would be about $3,000 a year for a family. but, again even if you believe that stuff this doesn't solve the problem. and i'm going to tell you right now, the people in oklahoma, they understand that. but i do believe that that is the thing that people that other side doesn't want to talk about is the cost. and that's how they invented social cost. if i had time i would stay and hear you explain the social cost, because none of my staff has been able to do that to me. [ laughter ] all right, with that, that's time i had reserved here. but i'll be glad -- [ applause ] there are two minutes left in my segment, so i will be glad to answer questions. >> please give your name and your association and wait for the microphone because it is on tv and so on. any questions? okay. mark?

>> hi, senator, i'm mark wittenton. used to work on the senate staff on this issue. my question is are you going to update your book? >> you know, i thought about that. and the only update would be what's happened since that time. and i think that people know that. but i really have, i've given a lot of thought to that, and in fact, the little girl that was teaching with you down at james madison university molly, she wrote one of the chapters. remember the igloo? the igloo. that was my daughter molly and her family of six who built an igloo because they were snowed in. all airlines were down. it was a real igloo. it would sleep four people. and so she was declared by msnbc to be the worst family in america. so molly, so molly did a chapter of how great her family is that they're all achievers and all that.

anyway. questions? all right. get your panel together, and then we'll talk about -- [ applause ] >> i remember going down and seeing molly. and she's a beautiful little girl. she was very small. and i walked in and i -- there she was at this huge auditorium. i could barely see her down there. >> i'm sure i've met her. >> i bet you have. >> all right. thank you very much. well, while the panel comes up, i'll just give a little introduction as to what the social cost of carbon is and i think building on what the senator said if you look at, kevin and marlow. and i think pat will tell us exactly how much moderation of warming we're likely to get from any of these policies or even much more extreme policies.

and that's a pretty depressing number if you're trying to push climate policy to say that it really has so little impact. and instead, they've come up with a substitute because, as you say, 500-some degree by 2050 that's not enough to motivate people into an end of the world mentality. so they have something called the social cost of carbon purports to give a number that is equal to the damage done to the economy by a ton of co2 emitted in any particular year aggregating all the damage from that year until the year 2300, which is a long way away in any event. so what i will do is give the introduction of the panelists all at once and then i will have them come and speak so we won't have a break in between. and then we'll do questions at the end. the first speaker is patrick j. michaels, the director for the study of science at the kato

institute. he was program chair for the committee on applied climatology. he was a research pros fesser of environmental sciences at the university of virginia for 30 years. he has written and been published in major scientific journals, including climate research, climate change, geophysical letters. he's written or edited six books. i'm sure he'd like you to buy multiple copies of all of them. they're well written insightful insightful. he holds a ph.d. in climatology in the university of wisconsin at modadison.

>> our second speaker did his undergraduate work at the university of california berkley, and his major there was applied mathematics with a specialty in mathematical cityicing. he also holds two masters degree from the university of maryland one in business and management and the other in mathematical statistics. he followed that up and finished his phd there a year ago with majors in statistical computing. so he's not just some egghead he's our egghead! no, so he does science. he does business, and he has math with a focus on policy, which is not that common and we feel lucky to have him here. batting cleanup is marlow lewis.

marlow lewis jr. his father was the producer and creator of the ed sullivan show and in any event that's not marlow that's his father. but he's also a bluegrass musician. he's at the competitive enterprise institute. he's been published in the washington times tech central station, the national review and interpretation of journal of political philosophy. prior to joining cei he was at the region foundation in los angeles, joining the 106 congress he served in the reform sub committee on natural resources and regulatory affairs. he also served in other places on the hill, in the state department as a teenager i think, in the reagan administration. he holds a ph.d. in government

from harvard university and a b.a. from clairemont mckenna. we thank all of the speakers and have them all come up starting with pat. [ applause ] >> good afternoon. it's an honor to be here. it's an honor to talk about climate change because i like talking about insanity. and i want to give you an example that is in this morning's paper. our epa issued a report yesterday in preparation for the paris meeting of course that says that we're all going to die unless we agree to limit our emissions to values that we can't limit them at paris. and the spin-off story was that global warming will increase severe weather in the united states, that means tornados, floods hurricanes, et cetera severe thunderstorms.

but i have a question for you. in what state in this country has the largest exodus of individuals in the united states? california. by far. by far. california's economy has got some problems, some of which probably have to do with their greenhouse gas rules. and what state has the largest inflow of people? texas. that's right. so, california. the severe weather in california, there is none. if you want to talk about the drought in california that is manmade by the people, the effects of it are manmade by the people in sacramento. the california water system can hold five years worth of water. and so there should not be a problem there, except they chose to make it a problem. texas has the highest frequency of tornados in the country severe thunderstorms. it's hotter than hell. this is houston on a you know

good day. extreme cold. blue northers go down the panhandle. the sky turns bright blue and the temperature plummets. hurricanes. can anybody say the galveston hurricane? killed 7,000 people in 1900. largest single weather related disaster in the history of the united states. and floods. tropical storm claudette which occurred about when i was starting at university of virginia i believe holds the 24-hour rainfall record for the united states at alvin texas. so people choose to go from an environment where there is no severe weather to one where severe weather is a daily occurrence. and yet the epa says that this is going to cause all these problems. well, it's very clear that people adapt to their environment. as long as they have enough money to do so. with that diatribe how do i push this thing, forward here? okay. interagency working groups

determination of social cost of carbon. is it scientifically justified? that's kind of an easy one to answer. let's talk about global warming for just a second. you know, you're taught in school here in the mid-atlantic it's not the heat, it's the humidity. well i'd like to rhine that with what you should be thinking about global warming. it's not the heat, it's the sensitivity. sensitivity is defined, one definition, as the amount of warming that you get for an arbitrary doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere after all is said and done. if the sensitivity is low, we have a non-issue. if the sensitivity is high, or the probability that the sensitivity is high is not negligible, then people will invoke the precautionary principle and legislate to their heart's content. let me tell you about the intergovernmental working group, the group that put together the social cost of carbon. this man here is mr. garbachov, in case you can't tell. he is fond of saying, "that's

old thinking." what the interagency working group did, does, is literally old thinking. this is their old thinking. this is a plot of the frequencied probability of x amount of warming from about eight authors from the early part of the 21st century. the early years of the 21st century. and the black line at the top of the horizontal lines is the frequency distribution used by the intergovernmental interagency working group for the social cost of carbon. and the point of this is on the right, what you see are fat tails. and so that's why people invoke the precautionary principle on this issue etc. >> do you have a pointer? >> i wish i did. no. you want me here because you're

recording, right? yes? >> whatever you want. >> there should be a pointer on that. well, i'm wasting the few minutes allocated to me. this here is the fat tail here. and this is the probability distribution for warming used by the interagency working group. in my upcoming book global lukewarming, one of the chapters is people fear their fat tails. now, we have already seen this. the problem is we have a busted forecast. you cannot look at this graphic, which is the red line or the five-running means for lower temperature for the 10 2 models. the u.n. has 108 models but six of them don't give a lower tropo

tropospheric model. the two simulations, the two summaries of the satellite data, lower tropospheric data. the other dots are the lower atmospheric temperature as measured by weather balloons, which are calibrated instruments that go up twice a day. there are four summaries of these. you cannot look at this picture and not realize that a tragedy is occurring. by my profession's inability to say the three most important words in life, which is not i love you. it's "we were wrong." i was wrong. and this is not just going to take down climate science. this illustration is going to take down people's faith in science. the longer we wait, the worse it's going to be. now, here's the satellite

record. senator inhofe i realize you're not here but it's not 15 years. this is the new summary of the satellite record from the university of alabama on july 1st, that would be six days from today. we will begin our -- i'm looking at the camera -- 22nd year without a significant warming trend. that's correct. and the other data there it is, remote sensing systems, begins its period without warming in november of 1994. the records are very very similar now. 22 years without it. so, here are the recent estimates of sensitivity beginning, first papers on this, with one exception, which i will note in a minute. started to come out in 2011. and you can see these are the

95% confidence limits for sensitivity given in 2014. the top arrow is what's used by the interagency working group. you can see why i said it's old thinking. and by the way there was one paper published in 2002 that showed the same thing. but in the words of andrew revkin in an article about a year and a half ago, he said it was an article on climate sensitivity and it said scientists are reluctant to admit that the sensitivity may have been overestimated because a paper was published ten years ago by a scientist normally associated with libertarian think tanks. you've made it in this world when you have no name. anyway -- and i don't want to talk about the implications of

that. here is -- from nick lewis very recently using the latest estimates of sulfate cooling. that's the knob on the computer model that allows you to make it simulate the past wonderfully, if you don't know what the sulfate load was which we didn't until this paper came out by stevens in 2015. and this is the probability distribution for the sensitivity after doubling of carbon dioxide. take a look. there are four different calculations that are made and we fall somewhere around 1.2 degrees celsius. the environmental protection agency uses three degrees celsius as a matter of routine. then there's also a matter the amount it should warm by the time the carbon dioxide doubles in the atmosphere. effectively doubles. should probably be somewhere around 2065. and that is this one here.

this is the total warming caused by greenhouse gases plus everything else. around 2065. so make closer to 1 degree sells yuls. let's say we've had .7 of a degree celsius.celsius. let's say we've had .7 of a degree celsius. let's say half of that was due to human activity just for the heck of it. you're going to get .6 of a degree over the next five decades. that's nothing compared to what has been forecast. the divergent -- the disparity between the orange line in the killer slide and the loweller tropospheric temperatures as measured by satellites and weather balloons will grow and grow and grow and grow until this profession that i am not happily a member of says we were wrong. now, this was presented over to the american geophysical union

in december and it's a little complicated. i'm going to stand over there and ruin the video presentation. solid bottom lines are the average of all 107 of the united nations computer models. the average warming trend predicted for the last ten years, the last 11 years, last 12 years the last 62 years. beginning in 1951. the 95 and 97.5 confidence limits around the mean value predicted by the 107 models.

and seen as the model output is pretty normally distributed, you can apply standard statistics to it. the colored dots are the observed temperature changes. for the last ten years, for the last 11 years. on up to the last 62 years. where the colored dots are green, the predicted changes fall within the 95% confidence level made of the model distribution of warming. where the dots turn yellow, about 37 years ago they fall out of the 95% confidence limit, and where the dots turn red, they fall out of the 97.5% confidence limit. if this were normal science this along with the plot of the model versus observed lower tropospheric temperature would provoke those three words, and those three words are, we were wrong. but we calculate the climate sensitivity based upon old

thinking. and now, evan is going to tell us how bad that part is. [ applause ] okay so, thank you, pat. thank you for being here. i'm the senior statistician research partner here at heritage. i'm going to talk about the social cost of carbon which is the primary justification for this type of policy. so, the first important questions to ask. firstly, how does the government estimate the social cost of carbon, and secondly is it even a reliable tool for energy policymaking? and here's a picture of a roulette wheel and i'd like you

guys to keep it in mind as the talk goes on. so the social cost of carbon. firstly, what is it? it is defined by the epa as the economic damages per metric ton of carbon dioxide emissions. so the general question is how do we estimate this sec, and the general question is what is the long-term economic impact of carbon dioxide emissions across a particular time horizon? and there are three primary statistical models used by the interagency working group to answer this question. namely the dice model, the fun model, and the page model. and these models are estimated by what we call monte carlo simulation. where various aspects of these models are random and they are therefore repeatedly estimated, and as a result various distributional properties of the social cost of carbon are generated. so the thing is as with any statistical model, these models are grounded by assumptions namely a discount rate, a time

horizon, and the specification of what we call and pat alluded to this earlier an equilibrium climate sensitivity distribution and i'm going to get to that in a bit. so at heritage david and i ran two of these three models and we rigorously examined these assumptions. firstly, a discount rate. so we talked about summing damages. the thing is not all damages are created equal. in particular, some people prefer benefits sooner rather than later and costs later rather than sooner, so it's necessary to quantify this inequality. the epa used discount rates to do so and they used 2.5%, 3%, and 5% discount rates to do so. despite the fact that the office of management and budget suggested that a 7% discount rate be used. in our research we address this question by rerunning these models using the 7% discount rate as recommended by the onb. secondly, there's the assumption of added time horizon.

projected economic damages are summed as i was alluding to earlier, in estimating the social cost of carbon. but the question is for how long. now, how far into the future can we see? so here's a picture of john adams. has anyone seen the hbo miniseries or read the book? so long ago, john adams predicted that america would one day become the greatest empire in the world. and he was right. but despite that fact he and our other founding fathers would have almost surely had no idea what the american economy would have looked like today. similarly, we have no idea what the american economy will look like 300 years from now. yet these models precisely try to make projections that far into the future. at heritage, we made the less unrealistic assumption of trying to project say 150 years into the future. and we reestimated the models accordingly. now, lastly, these models make the specification of -- and pat

alluded to this earlier -- an equilibrium climate sensitivity distribution. now, global warming alarmists will consistently tell you oh the science is settled on global warming. but the thing is if it's science, then how can it be settled? new studies consistently come to light, replacing existing studies. the concept of equilibrium climate sensitivity

you will notice it compared to drastically lower probabilities under the more up to date distribution specified by alexander otto and his colleagues as well as lewis. under the lewis distribution, that probability is slightly under one in a thousand. you'll and you'll notice this for the other temperatures as well. it's not just true for the probability of the temperature exceeding 3.5 degrees celsius. so let's take a step back and think about what this tells us. essentially this tells us that the iwg's assumptions vastly overstated the probabilities of extreme global warming in their computations of the social cost

of carbon. so now what happens if we tweak these assumptions? what if we tweak the discount rate, the time horizon or the ecs distribution? let's take a look at what happens and i'd like to think my intern kirby lawrence for putting these together. we can see the s.e.c. estimated a variety of discount rates and, ecs distributions. if we increase the discount rate under both the dyson fund models we see drastically lower estimates, from going as high as $56 or so under the dice model to as low as around $4 or $5. and even potentially going negative in the fund model. and we'll get to that in a second. under the more up-to-date distributions, the s.e.c. estimates are also dramatically lower. for example, even if you stick to the low 2.5 discount rate that the iwg actually used the s.e.c. drops by over $20.

again, this shouldn't surprise you because the distribution used by the iwg vastly overstated the probability of extreme global warming compared to the more recent ecs distributions. now, you notice some negativity in these slides, particularly under 7% and even under some of the other distributions. s.e.c. estimates, excuse me, under the fund model. let's take a step back and think about that. do these models necessarily suggest that global warming is a good thing or a bad thing? that is, do they always suggest that there are economic damages associated with carbon dioxide emissions? well, this is an interesting aspect of the modelling, and with the fun model, the answer is no and it actually allows for a negative social cost of carbon, and in our research at heritage, what we did was we actually computed the probability of a negative social cost of carbon. and you notice in some cases, especially under higher discount rates, it's drinkically high icallydrastically

high estimates, even under their outrated row baker distribution. the probabilities are well over 60% for, say, 2020. so what if we actually wanted to take these models seriously. supposing they have legitimacy which they don't. if you do take these seriously and institute the proposed regulations, we found using the heritage energy model, our clone of the system used by the eia that by 2030 you'd have an average of short fall over 300,000 less jobs, a peak employment of over a million jobs and over 500,000 lost manufacturing jobs. so, the bottom line is the models can't be trusted. you saw earlier that the results of the s.e.c. were literally all across the map. and if you do trust them and implement the associated regulations that the administration is suggesting, the results would literally be an economic disaster.

so let's just think about this. is there any reason to believe these models? they're extremely sensitive to the slightest tweaks. with the results literally scattered across the map going from positive to negative, with in some cases high probabilities of negative social cost of carbon. it's very difficult to take them seriously. the damage functions are arbitrary. so going back to our picture of the roulette wheel essentially taking the social cost of carbon seriously for environmental rule making is tantamount to going to vegas, spinning the roulette wheel, and using that as an estimate of the s.e.c. so who here wants to spin the roulette wheel on the social cost of carbon? thank you. happy to take questions at the end. [ applause ]

>> thank you, david and the heritage foundation. it's really such a pleasure to be on a panel with all three of you and my mentors on this subject. what i'll try to do is maybe elaborate a few points that they couldn't get to because of the short time span we have here. and i see that that screen is too tiny for me to see. so i'm going to grab my printout of this. this first slide here. first, the one called overview. this is basically how i see the big picture of this whole discussion of the social cost of carbon. i'll try to illustrate some of these points without duplicating too much of what has come before.

one big point i want to get across is the social cost of carbon is an unknown quantity and i would even contend an unknowable quantity because it's not discernible in the data of the real world. it's not discernible in meteorological data nor in economic data. so where does it come from? it comes from computer models which combine a speculative climatology with a speculative economics. and by fiddling with the inputs of these models, which as we've heard include discount rates, climate sensitivity assumptions but also beyond that how global warming rates would affect weather patterns and how weather patterns would affect climate sensitive areas of the economy like agriculture and forestry and then in turn how that would affect employment and consumption and human health. so it is a multi-layered set of assumptions in which the uncertainties then propagate

through each layer. and so this means that the social cost of carbon analysts can get just about any result they desire by fiddling with the knobs, by tweaking the inputs. well, what is it that they desire? they desire to get the biggest possible social cost of carbon number that they can, and why is that? well, because the bigger the social cost of carbon, the easier it is to justify more costly anti-carbon regulations. could be carbon taxes, cap and trade, soviet style production quota for renewable energy. the bigger the social cost of carbon, the more plausible it seems that all of that is good for us. and in fact, one of the things that they're really trying to do here -- and this is why i call the social cost of carbon

computer aided sofistry. this is hyped up with a computer. it's to sell us on the proposition that fossil fuels are actually unaffordable no matter how cheap, and renewables are a bargain at any price. that's what they're really after. and that's why they can claim that all of these policies they're proposing will only make us better off, that all the wealth that we think is real, which we can trace to the fossil energy technologies that actually power our civilization are illusory. because we're not seeing the hidden costs, which are revealed by this social cost of carbon analysis. now, another big point that i want to make is that even if the social cost of carbon were an exact science even if they got the science and economics exactly right, which they can't, because this is all based on

these highly speculative assumptions and arbitrary inputs like how high you set the discount rate, even if they got it exactly right it would still be biased, it would still be one-sided, it would still be a partisan agenda masquerading as science. why is that? because it is never combined with a rigorous assessment of the social benefits of carbon energy and consequently never combined with an assessment of the social costs of carbon mitigation. and one point that i will try to get to by the end is that the social costs of carbon mitigation vastly outweigh the alleged social costs of carbon. now, let me get to the first point, and i'm not going to go through all 50 of my slides. don't worry, david. i just wanted to be loaded for bare because i didn't know how i would be able to fit into these wonderful presentations from my mentors here so i decided to be like a boy scout and have as

many arrows in my quiver as i could. but the first point that i made was that the social cost of carbon is an unknown quantity. and this is just one example of dozens that i've got in my slide show, which i guess will be posted by heritage and so you can all look at all of them. but here we see the frequency of land falling hurricanes in the united states since 1900. there is either no trend in that data, or it's slightly declining. this comes from roger pilky jr. same thing with the power or strength of u.s. hurricanes, land falling hurricanes since 1900 as measured by the power dissipation index. no trend or slight downward trend. now, you might think well but hurricane-related losses, economic damages are increasing. yes. but that's because there is more stuff and more people in harm's way. when you normalize the lost data, that's a technical term that means you adjust it for

changes in population, wealth, and the consumer price index, then once again you see no trends. so i defy any of these social cost of carbon modelers to find the greenhouse fingerprint, the actual social cost of carbon in this very important data. the same thing is true worldwide. this is from a study by winkle edall in 2012. no trend in the strength and frequency of land falling hurricanes globally since 1950 or 1970 depending on how far back the data set goes in which hurricane basin. no trend in accumulated cyclone energy globally since the 1970s. you see profound interdecadal variability. you see no trend going back to 1960. if you look at something like

floods which was mentioned earlier before in the united states no trends since 1950. that's a u.s. geological survey study. the palmer drought severity index for the united states going back to 1895. you don't see an increase in drought in the united states overall. what you see, rather, is a slight increase in wetness, and thank you, pat, for that wonderful slide. many of these slides i've taken -- this is what the ipcc latest report said about droughts and floods globally. basically, since the mid 20th century, which is about as far back as global data goes on droughts and floods, there is no confidence in any kind of trend. so once again you cannot find the social cost of carbon or evidence of a social cost of carbon in economic data or meteorological data. what we do find is that just

since 1982, there's been an 11% increase in green foliage in arid areas in all continents of the world. that looks like a social benefit of carbon dioxide to me. here's a study that brother pat over here was instrumental in producing. and it just shows that decade by decade in the united states as urban air temperatures have gotten hotter, heat related mortality has gone down. where's the social cost of carbon there? this is another set that pat has put together. but here's i think one of the really important slides here which is historically the most lethal form of extreme weather was drought, because it limits access to food and water. and in the 1920s, 472,000 people, that's an estimate died from drought conditions, okay?

and since then, what has happened? well, about 90% of all the industrial carbon dioxide emissions ever released into the air since the dawn of the industrial revolution occurred, and we have maybe .8 c of warming since that time. and, you know, fossil fuel consumption went through the roof globally. and we had a 99.98% decrease in deaths related to drought. even though you had about a tripling of the global population. if you're looking at death rates, it's a 99.99% decrease. find the social cost of carbon in that. that's really essential. we're talking about life and death here on a very large scale. and you can find the same thing with extreme weather generally. you can look at malaria. malaria has been -- yes, there's a relationship between malaria

and warm weather. you know, you give mosquitos more months of hot weather and you'll get more mosquitos. but wealth and technology has trumped climate here dramatically. this little graph here shows the difference between 2007 and 1900, and the latest report by the world health organization on malaria shows a dramatic decline in malaria incidents and deaths in africa, just since the year 2000, even though there was a 43% increase in the population in africa living in those historic malaria transmissions areas. so someone please find the social cost of carbon there. you can also see that just shows that all these major food crops since 1960 the yields have increased by a minimum of 100%, in some cases it's way more. so we're not seeing global warming taking a huge toll on global food production. quite the contrary. there we go.

this is from a study done by our friend craig idzo who calculated the co2 fertilization effect just since 1961 has added about $3.2 trillion to global agriculture. that's a huge increase in making food more affordable in food security. so this is a carbon benefit. and he projects based on this largely experimental data that it will see another $9.6 trillion in in additional agricultural output between now and 2050 thanks to the carbon dioxide fertilization effect. and so then, if you look at the bigger picture, the biggest picture of all, which is civilization, you know, since the year 1, you will see an amazing hockey stick here. you'll see carbon dioxide concentration zooming up at the end. you'll also see per capita

income zooming up and population zooming up. i know that some people are, you know -- some people of the greener persuasion have a problem with population. but to me, it just means sheer abundance of human life and it is obviously an indicator of health. i mean, you wouldn't have billions more people if people were getting sicker and dying. and also, per capita income zooming up. so i just want to mention -- well, i guess i went through this already. there's a whole train of assumptions that they play with in order to get these -- i'm out? pretty close to out. okay. well, let me just jump to the very end. anyway, as i said, you folks can read the rest of the story online if you're interested. if i have tweaked your interest

at all. i mentioned that they overlook entirely the social and economic benefits of carbon energy and hence the costs of carbon mitigation, the social costs. and this set of slides just shows that even without the whole suite of climate policies that they would like to ram down the collective throat of the american economy, the energy costs have been rising over the last 20 years. and especially for people in lower income brackets that is to say as a portion of their income. and you could see also in the second graph that low income households that have to cope with higher energy costs actually have to make real sacrifices in terms of medical care, you know, paying the rent, food. so these costs are not just hypothetical. and i'll end with this. this is the grand program of the obama administration, the whole

green movement, the whole u.n. bureaucratic complex. this is the climate tree that's being negotiated. and the goal of this thing is to reduce global co2 emissions. 60% below 2010 levels by 2050. this is a wonderful little slide put together by our friend steve uley at the chamber of commerce. he shows this requires about a 75% reduction in global emissions from the baseline in 2050. and he asks the simple question well, who is going to make those cuts and how much? so here's how the simple arithmetic breaks down. if the industrialized countries, which is us magically go cold turkey and reduce our emissions to zero by 2050, the developing countries still have to cut their co2 emissions 35% in order to meet this u.n. target. now, am i saying 35% below their

baseline in 2050? no, 35% below their current emissions. and we're talking about a part of the world whereabout 1.2 billion people have no access to electricity whatsoever. another 2.3 billion or so have only unreliable access to electricity. not enough to make their countries an attractive place to invest money so it is a huge hindrance, one of the major obstacles to their growth. now, let's get back to this. what if more realistically or less unrealistically we can only cut our emissions 80% by 2050? well then those very poor developing countries that lack modern commercial energy, 87% of which comes from fossil sources, they have to cut their emissions from today's levels pretty much in half. and so that is a humanitarian disaster in the making. there is a huge social and economic cost in such a

disaster. and that is the kind of trajectory that they are trying to justify based on this pseudo science of social cost of carbon estimation. thank you. we'll take some time for questions, whether we have it or not, we're taking it. and we have the microphones, because this is being taped by c-span, and of course, for the heritage online archives. so physical you have a question, raise your hand, wait for the microphone, say who you are. and if you have an affiliation with an organization, say that. down here, do we have a microphone on this side? thank you. >> am i on? >> yes. >> hi my question is for kevin. my name is sophie miller. i really appreciated your sensitivity analysis. i thought that was really interesting. this is a two-part question. one, i'm curious if you're

estimates were more sensitive to discount rate or more sensitive to ecs. and two, i'm curious if you can tell me a little bit about why you chose onb 7% because if memory serves, in circular four, i think that was intended for public investments like infrastructure. and i know that just because onb says use a number it doesn't mean it's the right one, but i'm wondering if you can walk me through why you wanted to test that number specifically. >> okay. so the first part of your question was comparing ecs distributions to the discount rates. i think actually, if you look at our paper we handed it out outside. we actually computed percentage differences. i think we saw a greater sensitivity to the use of the ecs distributions actually. so your second question, why did we decide to use a 7% discount rate. if you read carefully it suggests that for this type of analysis, the 7% discount rate is appropriate. and we just wanted to do this primarily just to test the

sensitivity to these assumptions. as you saw these results are literally scattered all across the map. >> i'll just jump in. the circular says 3 and 7, and in some extreme cases you can use something outside that. but under no circumstances do they say you shouldn't use seven. >> let me quote from it, if i could. i have it right here. "a real discount rate of 7% should be used as a base case for regulatory analysis." words have meaning. >> kevin, i guess and/or pat -- >> he happens to be randy randall. >> yes. do you know why the fun model by richard toll gives us negative cost benefits, any reason at

all? what if the damage function gives you the result? >> thank you for the question randy. i suggest toward the end of my talk, the damage functions themselves are a determined priority by the researcher. the fun model allows for negativity because there's certain potential benefits of co2 emissions such as fertilization, for example. it's just the way it's structured. i think any of these models can be tweaked to allow for negativity in terms of the damage function. >> may i follow up with that? the fun model is the only model of the three that has a co2 fertilization benefit. and the co2 fertilization benefit is so well established in empirical science that the other two models should be rejected out of hand as inherently biassed. i mean they do not pass muster under the data quality act. i will say this about the fund model. one reason why the social carbon estimate jumped 60% in only four years, why climate change

somehow got 60% worse even though the global warming plateau lasted for another four years and the divergence increased by that much more the reason is that the fun model was updated in such a way that the same climate sensitivity generated a more rapid warming, and so they said that meant that the higher temperatures and the associated damages are reached earlier and are therefore discounted less, so the fun model, even though it's better than the others somehow contributed to that increase in the social cost of carbon between 2010 and 2013, and that explanation seems to me just preposterous because what we've seen over the last 18 and a half years, or as pat was saying, 22 years, is quite the reverse of an acceleration. there's no evidence that global warming is accelerating, and yet

that assumption comes out of the fun model into the interagency working group's calculation. go figure. >> time for another one? thank you for sticking with us for the extra 15 minutes. thank you very much. applause to our panelists. [ applause ] on our next "washington journal," we get an update on the senate procedural vote that would give the president fast track authority for trade deals and the upcoming supreme court

on health care subsidies. our guest david hawkings of cq roll call. congressman glenn thompson and congresswoman lois frankel co-chair the congressional art competition. we talk to them before congress this week. later, as part of our spotlight on magazine series david graham of the atlantic discusses his article on the council of conservative citizens, which he describes as a white supremacist organization. washington journal, live each morning at 7:00 eastern on c-span, and you can join the conversation by phone, facebook and twitter. while congress is out for the july 4th holiday break, book tv takes over primetime on c-span 2 featuring a different subject each night. monday, the war on terror. tuesday, book publishing. wednesday, the digital age. thursday biographies and memoirs. and friday books on science and technology. watch our special primetime

edition of book tv starting monday, june 29th at 8:30 p.m. eastern, and tune in every weekend for the latest in non-fiction books. book tv, television for serious readers. like many of us, first families take vacation time. and like presidents and first ladies, a good read can be the perfect companion for your summer journeys. what better book than one that peers inside the personal life of every first lady in american history. "first ladies: presidential historians on the lives of 45 iconic american women inspiring stories of fascinating women who survived the scrutiny of the white house. a great summertime read. available from public affairs as a hard cover or an e book through your favorite bookstore or online book seller.-book, through your favorite bookstore or online book seller. the environmental protection agency requires a certain

percentage of fuel sold to be renewable, either corn-based ethanol or other biofuels. the epa has proposed increasing the renewable fuel requirement. the head of the epa's office of air and radiation testified about the proposal at a senate homeland security subcommittee hearing. this is just under two hours. good morning everyone. i want to welcome everyone to today's subcommittee hearing on the renewable fuel standard. i was privileged in the u.s. house to chair two prior hearings on this topic. i look forward to another important discussion regarding the renewable fuel standard and its management. to improve our nation's energy security and preserve the environment. since 2005 daily domestic oil production has nearly doubled. meanwhile, other government regulations such as fuel economy standards, combined with the economic recession has led to lower demand than anticipated. additional the increased use of natural gas and improved energy

efficiency have lowered our greenhouse gas emissions. for many years, the rfs has chased the annual mandates. the epa is required to release the mandated volumes by november 30th of the preceding year to allow those covered by the mandate to plan for the future. we're still waiting for the final version of the 2014 volumes. when the announcement was made in november last year that we would not see a final rule until the calendar year was over, the agency cited significant comment in controversy as the reason they could not finalize volumes. seemingly, in admission that this program is not workable in its current form and there's a tremendous amount of controversy around it, and there are a lot of opinions circling and a lot of emotions around this particular issue. in accordance with the court order on june 1st 2015 the proposed mandates for 2014 2015, and 2016 were all released together. although some might say better late than never we need to take

a serious look at whether these delays are unavoidable every year. the epa proposed 2014 2015, and 2016 requirements including levels of renewables and those quotas for the gasoline supply over the next year and a half. epa has widely chosen to work from the actual -- the epa has chosen to work from the actual used volumes for 2014 but the future mandates called for by the proposed rule represent an aspirational goal of breaching the blinn wall. the likelihood that the volumes -- advance fuel required on the ers will have to be reset by the epa starting next year. this authority will likely be triggered due the agency waiving significant percentages of the volume mandated by the law in face of production not being nearly as high as imagined by congress in 2007 when the rfs was last modified. let me reassert again. congress is the one who set the

rule in 2007 but the epa is the one who has to figure out how to manage this, since the production is not close to what was predicted in statute. after a decade, we must ask ourselves the rfs goals of yesterday are worth the increased cost to our food gas, and the environment. the price of livestock feed to the additional cost to restaurant owners, to the everyday americans who live with more expensive grocery bills, the program has had a negative impact in many areas. beyond real concerns over engine damage, there have been additional costs to motorists at the pump. on the environment friend, new studies are highlighting the program's negative impact on our land, water, and air, specifically ozone. today we have the opportunity to review the epa's management of the program and take stock of the current state of the rfs. i anticipate an insightful hearing and am pleased that our witness can join us. thank you for being here again. i look forward to re-examining these issues with my colleagues and our witnesses today. with that, i recognize the ranking member for opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to start by first saying

i wish we weren't having this hearing today. i wish there was no question over the management of the rfs. or the environmental protection agency's ability to implement the rfs as congress intended. unfortunately, we're at a place where epa has created i think in some ways unknowingly uncertainty to our biofuels producers. from corn ethanol to biodiesel to ethanol producers. and this uncertainty and lack of predictability is costing us investments. it's costing us environmentally and it's costing us jobs. i'm a strong supporter of all of the above energy policy security along with senator langford, my state is one of the leading producers although we're number two. i don't know where oklahoma is on that rank. number two in the production of oil, and we have a lot of associated gas. we have a lot of wind resource. and we certainly have a lot of bioresource. and so this is a huge issue to

my state. and i can tell you that i think all of the above -- the rfs is part of that all of the above policy. when we look at what rfs means to my state of north dakota alone, the industry represents $2.5 billion in annual economic output, almost 9,000 jobs. in oklahoma, the rfs helped create about 4,300 jobs. in wisconsin 4.2 million in economic output with over 19,000 jobs, and in iowa, obviously a major ethanol and biofuels producer. 19.3 billion with almost 74,000 jobs in the mix. so i think i could go on. i think these numbers are important to highlight because the rfs is critical to our economy, and that's why it's so important that it be administered correctly as congress intended. i'm glad the epa finally released the new proposed rules

for 2014. obviously late. i don't think anyone can say releasing those numbers in '15 were there isn't finality to the rule and won't be until the end of '15. '14 rules were not timely. i don't think there's any doubt about it. and that has created a great amount of disruption. but i do want to take -- and praise this important first step. and i want to thank ms. mccabe for her leadership in making that happen. unfortunately the proposal continues to ignore congressional content and reduces congressionally mandated blended volumes citing availability of distribution capacity. the statute only allows for an inadequate supply waiver for domestic biofuels supply and not a distribution capacity waiver. in fact, in 2005, the house included a waiver provision for distribution capacity, but the final bill passed by the house and senate did not. so i hope when the epa puts out its final rule this november they will toss out this flawed

and disallowed reasoning and return to the management of the program to the way congress actually intended. if they do that the program will work just fine as it did in the first years of the rfs. i think certainty needs to be our top concern when it comes to federal regulation legislation or anything else that we do here in washington. and certainly on this committee, we spend a lot of time talking about predictability and certainty as essential components to a proper business environment. providing that certainty for our producers and businesses is absolutely critical so that they can plan long-term and grow their business. and congress provided that certainty, i believe in 2005 and 2007 when it passed and amended the rfs by setting very clear volumes and guidance on when those volumes may be waived. the best way to get back on track i think is to follow these very clear congressional mandates. because this uncertainty has real consequences, i mentioned

earlier the contribution rfs has made to our states. when managed out of line with congressional intent, you can imagine there are negative consequence consequences. the advanced and cellulotic biofuel sectors have already lost 13.7 billion in advancements due to epa's delay. for biofuels plants in 34 states have closed or idled back of lack of certainty from epa. in 2014 nearly 80% of u.s. biofuel producers scaled back production and almost six in ten idled production altogether. i know this as a certainty because our diesel plant stalled production in biodiesel for the first part of 2015. however, i must emphasize again that this is not a problem with the rfs. but rather a problem with the administration of the rfs. as one testimony for the record noted, epa's failure to issue rfs rules in a timely manner that is consistent with the law should not be misconstrued as a

sign that the program is broken. up until 2013 the program worked as intended to spur innovation and growth in the advanced and cellulotic biofuel space. so i look forward to hearing from ms. mccabe about how they can get back to those past successes. and i would say i think -- i'm particularly interested in the process and how that process can be amended. this is not a hearing to talk about whether we should repeal or in any way adjust the rfs, but what we can do to make this program administered in a way that provides certainty, so thank you for showing up and thank you, mr. chairman, for the opportunity to offer a statement. >> at this time we'll proceed with testimony from our witness janet mccabe. she previously served in the office of air and radiation's principal deputy to the assistant administrator. it's good to be able to see you

again. we swear in all witnesses that appear before us. if you don't mind, i'd like to ask you to stand, raise your right hand. do you swear the testimony that you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you god? >> i do. >> thank you. let the record reflect the witness answered in the affirmative. we will be using a timing system today, but you are the only witness in our conversation. we would like you to stay as close as you can to the five-minute time period. we've received your excellent statement for the record early on. you're welcome to build on that or be able to reinforce that or to be able to talk about a totally different thing if you'd like to as well and then we'll have some question time as we have done in the past. the first round will be set questions at five minutes each. after that, it will be open dialogue, where we'll have both interchange on the diaz as with you and a more open conversation. so will be glad to receive your testimony now.

>> thank you members of the subcommittee. good morning. i appreciate the opportunity to testify on the renewable fuel standard program and epa's recent volumes proposal. the clean air act requires epa to publish annual standards for four different categories of renewable fuels. total advanced, biomass based diesel and celulosic. on may 29th epa issued a proposal that would establish the standards that applied for years 2014 through 2016 and the volume of biomass based diesel for 2017. we will finalize these standards by november 30th at which point we will have returned to the statutory timeline for issuing the renewable fuel standards. epa recognized that the delay in issuing the standards for 2014 and 2015 has led to uncertainty in the marketplace. this proposal establishes a path for ambitious, responsible growth in biofuels and helps provide the certainty that the marketplace needs to allow these low carbon fuels to further

develop. congress set annual standards for biofuel use that increase every year. it also included in the law tools known as the waiver provisions for epa to use in the event that it determined the prescribed volumes could not be meet. we seek to ensure the growth continues, consistent with congressional intent. it uses our waiver authority in a judicious manner to establish ambitious but responsible and achievable standards. the proposal addresses three years worth of standards and would set the volume requirement for biomass based diesel for a fourth year. for 2014 we're proposing standards at levels that reflect the actual amount of biofuel used to domestically in 2014. for 2015, 2016 and 2017, the proposed standards would provide for steady increase over time. the proposed volumes reflect our consideration of two essential factors. first, that the market can respond to ambitious volume targets, and second that there

are limits today to the amount of volumes that can be supplied to consumers. the steadily increasing volumes that we have proposed mean that biofuels will remain an important part of the overall strategy to enhanced security and address climate change. we're optimistic about the future of biofuels and think our proposal will put us on a pathway for steady growth in the years to come as congress intended. many stake holders rightly want to know why the volume targets established in the statute cannot be reached. there are several reasons. slower than expected development of the cellulosic supply. a decline in gasoline consumption rather than the growth projected in 2007. and constraints in applying certain biofuels to consumers. our proposal includes a discussion of this last constraint known as the e10 blend wall. if gasoline demand continues on

average to trend downward or remain flat, increasing the amount of ethanol used will require greater significantly use of blends with higher ethanol content. epa has taken steps atmosphere higher ethanol brand including granting partial waivers and e-15 in light duty cars and trucks beginning with model year 2001. at the same time, epa recognizes that there are real limitations in the market to increase use of these fuels, including current near term limits on fueling infrastructure. our proposeal aim toes balance two dynamics congress's clear intent to increase renewable fuels over time to address climate change and increase energy security and real-world circumstances such as the e-10 blend wall that have slowed progress towards such goals. thus we are proposing standards that will still drive growth in renewable fuels at an ambitious but responsible rate. for 2016 we are proposing to set

total renew involve volumes at 9% higher and advance bio fuels at 10% higher and bio diesel standards in 2017 about 17% higher than the actually 2014 volumes. we believe that these proposed volumes are achieve knowledge and consistent with congress's clear intent to drive renewable fuel use up, even as we use the authorities that congress provided epa to manage the program responsibly. the epa has taken other steps to improve the administration of the prm. the we have improved the quality and transparency of the petition policy for new bio fuels pathways. it is important to remember the rfs program is only one part of the picture. there are other programs looking to support biofuels and biofuels' infrastructure and we work with them closely. we will have a public hearing on

june 25th in kansas city, kansas, and we look forward to hearing from all stakeholders during the public comment period which ends on july 27th. as i said we intend to finalize the rule by november 30 of this year. i thank you for the opportunity to serve as a witness at this hearing and look forward to your questions and discussion. >> thank you. the ranking member and i are going to defer our questions until the end of this round. we go to senator burns. >> thank you, chairman and thank you ms. mccabe for joining us today. i would like to start offer by saying thanks so much. we know you are working hard in this area, so i appreciate that. i appreciate your testimony. i believe this is not only an economic issue but a national security issue, as well. this committee does have a

history of working together across the aisle on security and good governance matters and i look forward to working with my colleagues on this important topic. clean and renewable energy is a topic that everyone in the united states can get behind. and over the years the rfs has proved successful at driving innovation and effective options for consumers at the pump. and as many of you may know, iowa leads the nation in biofuels creation producing 3.8 billion gallons of clean burning ethanol and 230 million gallons of biodiesel and that is from 2013 numbers. we are home to two state of the art celulophic facilities with another coming into production later this year. when passed by congress the

original intent of the rfs was to create consumer choice for clean fuel by spurring investment in research production and infrastructure. unfortunately, the epa is now using the lack of infrastructure as an excuse for setting biofuels levels lower than originally mandated. which flies in the fait face of the law. this issue is of critical importance to the state of iowa as well as the nation. ensuring our domestic energy security and promoting innovation in the next generation of biofuels is crucial as we move forward. as you may know, ms. mccabe, in february i invited epa administrator gina mccarthy to visit iowa and to see the impact of the delayed release of the rfs volumes. additionally, last week, the entire iowa delegation, republican, democrat, the entire

delegation, sent another letter to the administrator, urging her to hold a hearing on the rfs levels in our state. can we expect either of these to happen? >> thank you, senator. i cannot speak for the administrator's schedule but i can take back to her you raised this this morning and her office can respond. >> thank you. >> in terms of the hearing, as i mentioned, we had are holding a public hearing in kansas city, kansas. we have a regional office there. there is great interest in this herb across the country and always a challenge for to us choose the location of the limited number of hearings that we're able to have. in this case we felt having a hearing in kansas city was well located for many states interested in this issue and we have the support of our local office there. we have -- as of yesterday i

think we had about 250 people signed up, including a number of people from iowa. we look forward to good attendance there. >> thank you. and if you would please emphasize to her that that is an open invitation. we want to see the epa administrator in iowa to experience some of the difficulties we have had with the lack of action on part of the epa. if we can move on to infrastructure and congressional intent, in your testimony, you site lack of available refueling infrastructure as justification sfor not setting the rvos higher. when congress passed the rfs in 2005, only two types of waiver authorities were included and that was lack of supply and severe economic harm. that conference committee rejected available refueling infrastructure, which would have

limited consumer choice and the availability to get more of those bio fuels into the marketplace. despite the clear direction from congress, epa has now decided to use available refueling in infrastructure as a condition to wave the standard even though congress expressly rejected that when they set the law. can you explain why the epa is blatantly overlooking the law? >> sure. i would be happy to discuss this and this is an issue which there are many views and happy to explain ours. the language in the statute as you observe gives two reasons for epa to wave the standards and the one we are looking at is the one that says inadequate domestic supply. and i understand there is

activity in finalizing those words, but in fact, those words are very simple in the statute. and do not explicitly say exactly what that means. and as is often the case, it is epa's job to reasonably interpret the language in the implementation of the statute. we lay this out at some length in our proposal and be happy to share that with you if you haven't seen it. but the bottom line, senator, is that our interpretation of that term is that congress intended for these fuels not only to be produced, but to be used. that is where the value in greenhouse gas reduction and diverse energy supply and, as you say, consumer choice comes. when you have a situation where fuels cannot be delivered to consumers on the time frame set

out in the statute and congress provided this waiver authority we believe it is a reasonable interpretation for us to reduce the volumes to a level that still will comply with congress's intent to drive the fuels. this was a big thing that congress did in the rfs. it was calling for big and significant change. and the program stretches out over a number of years. in order to change a system in this dramatic a way, it is taking time. we believe that looking over the history of this program in the last few years and what we can project forward to set the standards at the statutory volumes would simply not be appropriate. there is too far a way to go. and so the waiver provision is there for epa to use in its

considered judgment to set ambitious but responsible levels. >> i that i think. i know my time has expired. i would argue that we are caught in a very vicious cycle with the producers not knowing what that volume will be. so we've actually delayed production and research and the furthering of those types of fuels. so without the standards being set, we don't know where to go. so i just continue to say we need reliable energy sources for all of our consumers and we would like them to make that choice but thank you very much, mr. chair. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for being here. i have a series of questions that will follow up on senator ernst's questions. what you hear about corn production values and from the department of agriculture are different. there is a lot of discussion in your quad republicanal review about