proud to be members of the democratic party. let the tea party measure their success by how many times they can shut down our government. we measure success in and let them speak but the fact yesterday before we speak with a better tomorrow. [applause] make no mistake about it. the american dream is what makes america exceptional. fear and anger and never build a great nation. our country is built by the compassionate choices that we make together. to live life gathered -- by our better angels. we love our country. we love what our country is, and what our country can become. so take right. take pride.

[applause] take pride in your work as a democrat. take pride in what you believe and the next time somebody asks you after an election who you voted for, don't be shy. tell them. i mean it. if a child asks you who you voted for, i want you to tell that child, i voted for you. when you see someone sweating through another long shift and ask you the voted for, i want you to tell them, i voted for you. when you see someone with health insurance now for their family who did not have it before, and they ask you who you voted for i want you to tell them, i voted for you. and when you see someone who wants nothing more than to have their family treated with dignity and respect under the law, i want you to tell them, i voted for you. and when you see someone who hungers for opportunity and a

good job, i want you to tell them, i voted for you. we are democrats for good reason. because ours is the party of opportunity. our is the party of optimism. ours is the party of the people, ours is the party of the american dream. [applause] and together we will make that dream through again. [applause] thank you,, scott county. [applause] thanks a lot, it was fun. thank you. that was fun. nice people. thank you. thank you guys. >> outlets reporting that texas senator ted cruz will announce tomorrow that he is running for

president. he will be the first high-profile candidate to timely -- formally launch a white house data, although several gop contenders are expected to announce in the coming weeks. he will speak at liberty university in lynchburg, virginia. white house national economic council director jeffrey sachs and senior counsel brian dietz spoke on a range of issues. they discussed the president economic agenda and the remainder of the term. david cook is the moderator. it is about one hour.

jeff: thank you -- david: thank you for coming i am david cook from the monitor. our guests are jeffrey sachs from the white house and brian deese, a senior adviser at the white house. he worked for david bradley at the advisory board comprehend the advisory board where mr. sites ultimately meant both organization. he has taken on a series of challenging government roles. two toys as acting director of omb, and to fix healthcare.gov. brian graduated from middlebury college and yellow. stl law school.

he worked on both the obama campaign and obama biden transition team. at the age of 31 his first assignment after joining white house staff was to help restructure general motors. he went on to service deputy director of the national economic council. so much for biography now we are on the record here. please note life blocking or tweeting. -- live blogging or tweeting. there is no embargo when the session ends. to have you resist selfie urge we will e-mail several pictures of the session to all the reporters here as soon as the breakfast and. if you abide to ask questions, do the traditional thing and send me a nonthreatening signal and i will happily call on you. we start by asking our guests -- offering our guests the opportunity to make opening

comments. thank you for doing this. the floor is yours. brian: thank you very much. i will be very brief. i just wanted to give you all a little bit of a sense of how we are. thinking about a state of affairs from where we find ourselves today, as we think about our position economically we are in the moment where we are seeing durable momentum in the economic recovery. one of our key questions is how can we as administration and in the executive branch be maximally effective as it -- at encouraging economic growth. that is the core three behind the idea of middle-class

economics. since the election, the president has had a pretty explicit strategy around how to achieve that broad objectives. it has consisted of trying to stay on office, trying to push where he can, to move the agenda through executive action. you have seen nine faces like climate change immigration, the cuba announcement, and also in places like making mortgages more affordable. taking on conflict of interest that play in retirement accounts to try to help typical americans save more money for retirement. you will keep seeing the president in that posture going forward. the other component of this strategy is to lay out a broad

expensive and ambitious vision of what middle-class economic means. and how we as a country should move in that direction. that it was the animating principle the time -- behind the state of the union. speaking with concrete actions and also aspirational visions about where we need to take the country. the result of these two components of our strategy is what you have seen over the past 10 weeks during this beginning this introductory. of -- period, is you have seen the president driving agenda, driving debate and congress principally in a position where they are responding. something the president is doing. we are looking for opportunities where we can work with congress to move the agenda. one of the things the president is going to do is be very clear about what his vision is and where his priorities are.

it is a question if the republican leadership can actually effectively govern and and -- effectively move to places where they are working with democrats to get things done, pragmatically speaking. that is where we find ourselves in the current moment. let me turn it over to jeff and then we will take your questions. jeff: the president said in the state of the union, 2014 was a milestone year for the economy and we are off to a good start in 2015. last months job numbers were almost 300,000 new jobs. importantly that is 12 straight , months of more than 200,000 jobs. that is the first time that has happened in almost 40 years. if you step back and look at the position in the global economy.

it is quite strong. we continue to be the world leader in innovation with our research universities, large percent of the world pageants come out of the u.s.. -- pageants come out of the u.s.. our workforce is the most productive in the world. a decade ago when he have talked about vulnerability in terms of our competitive position in energy, and that is a new source of commemorative advantage as it accrues big benefit. there is certainly much more work to be done, consistent with middle-class economic. a big focus on wages, this is a several decades old problem of stagnant wages. you will continue to see executive actions like the conflict of interest role that brian talked about. the president announced a tech higher initiative. we have 5 million job openings

in the u.s. right now, 500,000 of those are tech jobs. they are important for innovation and they very well so we are working with private sector companies and mayors to take advantage of trading models like coding camps that can get people in jobs and 10 or 12 weeks instead of years. we will take advantage of coding but -- camps that can help people get jobs in the coming years. we will continue to execute on executive actions and do new executive actions. likely across the next couple of months there will be an update of the overtime rule which has not been updated in quite some time. right now workers have to earn less than $23,000 to qualify for automatic overtime. that is obviously too low in this economy. there will be an update of that. the legislative front we will look at the intersection of

middle-class economics and where we can get things done in bipartisan ways. the president is very committed to trade, trade agreements that are good for american workers. on business tax reform i believe there is a growing consensus that business tax reform is needed and that some of the revenue from business tax reform should be used to fund infrastructure. we have a significant deficit in infrastructure and this combination of reforming business tax code and funding infrastructure is a train that has growing bipartisan interest and we want to capitalize on that if at all possible. the economy is solid, we have a strong global position. at the same time, there is more work to be done on executive actions and working together in

a bipartisan way with congress. host: let me ask you about the biggest economic challenge you see the country facing. fed chairman janet yellen said that economic growth had "moderated somewhat," and the strong dollar was hurting export and keeping inflation too low. so of the things that keep you up at night, what is the main one? jeff: i think that making sure that we are doing all we can on the middle-class wage front is most important. as i said that is a decades-old problem and there are several levers we should pull. infrastructure is not only good for middle-class jobs, but it is good for longer-term competitiveness.

we have seen positive effort with states increasing minimum wage, with 17 states moving forward. we should do that across the board and congress should back a minimum wage. we should continue to, as i talked about earlier, invest in job training methods and programs that work, and actually have well-paying jobs on the other end of the program. we are reforming federal programs and at the same time working with the private sector in partnership with local employers and local businesses and community colleges to ensure we are taking advantage of new training methods and filling well-paying jobs on the other end. so we need to continue to address wages and make sure we have good middle-class opportunities. host: last thing for me. in your opening remarks, you talked about that president

staying on offense and we will see more of that posture. we had fracking movements coming out today. other than that, what is left in terms of executive actions on the climate? is there more coming? brian: if you look at the end on the -- agenda around greenhouse emissions, this is a place where we have a very aggressive agenda. most of the actions that we are pushing forward are actions that we can move forward on through the executive space. so the short answer to your question is yes. yesterday we announced a goal in -- and the president signed an executive order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the federal government by 70% and there are a whole host of actions associated with that.

we are releasing updated standards for fracking on federal lands. but if you look forward, core to the agenda is the clean power plan, which will be focused on reducing carbon pollution from the power sector. that has been proposed and then we will implement that. we have an opportunity in the international space to leverage what we are doing domestically into a viable global agreement. then beyond that, if you look at in the area of methane or energy efficiency, we have a lot more to do to tighten down on energy waste and pollution but also provide long-term incentives to encourage investment in that space. host: will you be doing that by burning the constitution? as your friend said? >> this is an agenda that lands

within a well-established legal price -- precepts. not only of the clean air act but other environmental laws. if you look at the clean power plan which is what you are obliquely referencing, this is a rule that at its core is based on providing flexibility to states. the structure of the law, the clean air act and the structure of the rule, is about setting targets and giving states broad flexibility to achieve that. what you have seen outside of washington is broad interest in red states and blue states around how to be pragmatic about creating plans that will work for those states. that is our focus, will remain our focus going forward. host: ron by the power outlet.

ron: some questions for you guys. there has been a lot of attention on capitol hill on net neutrality arguing that the white house interfered. can you comment, did you interfere with the fcc process? jeff: to be clear the fcc is an , independent agency. the president made his is known -- his views known through the appropriate channels including a video that was publicly released. again fcc independent and the , president's views known through legal channels. ron: over the course of the last year congress has 1600 pages of e-mails that point out a fact that you have met with the chairman repeatedly, some files from the beginning of november

in which the white house expressed concerns. he is saying that for months, you guys have pressured the fcc. jeff: the ex partake -- ex parte i was referring to legal channels for the president to express his views. in terms of meeting with wheeler, i do that periodically on a wide range of issues, net neutrality being one of them. ron: can you sketch out for us over the next several months you guys will be doing on tech and telecom? are there other sorts of executive actions we should expect? jeff: we will continue to implement initiatives like tech hire. we started off with 21 local partnerships with cities and rural areas with employers to fill the half-million open tech jobs and take advantage of the models. we will continue to execute

on existing executive actions like private partnerships and hiring, and rollout new executive actions and i will not get ahead of those. mike: on the trade agenda, you said that the president is very committed to the trade promotion authority. and you talked about that. can you give me some sense of specifically what the president is going to be doing and when he is going to be doing it and what portion of his time he is going to be spending on this when that comes up? what commitments have you made to do tangible things? how much of that is going to be making -- will he be touring around the country and making that the major focus of his

public remarks, or is this something he will leave to cabinet members and make the occasional remark in speeches focused on other things? is it more a washington focused versus public focused thing? and briefly, brian, you talked about there will be a lot to room for rules on energy efficiency and methane. can you give me a better sense of what that is? pipeline rules or more than that? david: -- jeff: as i said before, the president is committed to trade agreements, starting with the passage of tpa, that is his top legislative priority. you see that in the state of the union, a full throated argument in favor of trade agreements good for american workers.

he actually did a weekly address on trade agreements. he is spending time with members from the house and senate. it is also an all cabinet effort. secretary lou was in miami yesterday on trade. the cabinet is spending time in washington and out talking about the benefits of trade. most importantly are the frontlines of negotiations so this is a priority of the president's and therefore a priority of all of us who work for the president including his cabinet. there is an all out effort to make sure there is a full understanding of the benefits to the american worker of strong free-trade agreements.

-- fair trade agreements. brian: on your second question with respect to methane, we have announced a goal of reducing methane emissions by 40% to 45%. the way we will do that is still -- a combination of regulatory action and voluntary action. on the regulatory side this includes measures like the epa proposing rules for new sources on methane which is something that we anticipate will come forward here in the next several months. on the voluntary side, this includes work through for example the usda was working with the agricultural industry to get a voluntary agreement to reduce emissions from the sector. in the efficiency context, part of what the president did in the

climate action plan was set bold overall goals to reduce energy waste and increase energy efficiency. the department of energy has a cadence of rulemakings to increase standards in buildings, appliances, and otherwise. you can expect that cadence to continue over the next two years. this is a place we are looking to partner with the private sector because the truth is that by providing the right incentives this is a place where there is huge opportunity. i was with the president and a who's who of the fortune 100 yesterday when the white house made the announcement and you have everywhere from ge to hewlett-packard that only -- not only committing to work as contractors for the federal government but also setting their own greenhouse gas

reduction plans and a lot of that is driven on the fact that energy efficiency is low hanging fruit from eight corporate perspective. -- a corporate perspective. short payoffs, two or three or four year returns. this is a place where by being smart about how we partner we can leverage impact substantially. reporter: you talked about offense through executive actions. i was hoping you could give us some insight on how the executive actions come together. do you get the playbook on the offense? some of these like the greenhouse gas emissions are big picture executive orders, other things may be smaller bore regulations, grants, things from multiple agencies packaged together by the white house to give it more impact. in the fourth quarter of the clinton administration, there was project modesta.

going into the agencies, getting stuff from the agencies, what do we do -- is there a project dese, or project zients? how are you coming up with these executive actions? brian: there is a project zients, but i told you about it, i would have to kill you all. so it is a good question. and part of this comes from leadership and direction from the top, and part of the tone of that the president set. many of you have heard this directly from him, but coming off the election and over the last couple of months was, you know, we are in the fourth quarter. a lot of games get decided in the fourth quarter. that has always resonated with me as a patriots fan. we need to be creative and stay at the effort to look for every reasonable and creative way to leverage the assets that we have to help make progress on these broad middle-class economic

themes. so in practice the way that gets manifested is you have the white house policy council, one of which jeff leads, and the domestic policy council. it is a collaborative effort working with agencies trying to identify are there places where we have not thought as creatively as we could. some of that is on rulemaking. and the regulatory space. but some of it is on partnership, finding new ways to partnership. the word bully pulpit is often thrown around, but this is also us being -- thinking very concretely and being hardheaded on how to use of platforms that the president and also the first lady have to drive progress. also this is a wide-ranging effort, and one that frankly the energy and enthusiasm around it is largely coming from the president himself.

jeff: let me add a little to that. i agree with everything brian said. there is a clear message from the president to his whole team and his cabinet. in the fourth quarter, get as much done as we can. getting stuff done falls into two broad categories when it comes to executive action. one is what we have already announced and executing against those initiatives. on monday and tuesday, we are holding sweat usa over at the national harbor. the president will be addressing a crowd of about 2500 including over 1200 overseas investors. this is about having companies pick the u.s. for their investments. this effort started several years ago at commerce, and has now grown to the scale and has real results in facilitating investments in the u.s.

so constant execution against executive actions that have already been announced is as important, if not more important, as new executive action. so we will continue to roll out new executive action, but the president is holding us to account on strong execution of executive actions that have been announced over the past several years. kevin: [indiscernible] a couple of questions for each of you. fast-moving questions. for jeff, the labor department overtime standard. there has been some grumbling that the number you are looking at is not as big a number as the labor advocates would like. let's talk about what you are weighing against. i know you don't want to get out -- ahead of it, but talk about what the trade-off you're

looking at. i will save the tougher one for how it is winning -- on energy, a lot of attention on this export portion. do you think exports will create shortages? or do you think oil exports are needed? jeff: given that it is set at $23,000, there is an opportunity to make a significant change.

it will help many workers to earn what they deserve. i want to make sure workers are earning what they deserve. at the same time, we continue to have a competitive economy. the rules are so outdated. >> reflecting on the american auto industry, it is striking to me where industry is today given where we were in the winter and spring of 2009 even the optimists at that time were not projecting either the pace

at which job growth would return to the domestic auto industry or the pace at which the overall industry would recover. the second thing that people were not projecting, which probably goes to the competitive question you raised, is that in the last couple of years, we've seen something striking which is that the detroit three have actually gained market share. against their foreign competitors in the united states. so, the up swing is not simply that we're back selling, you know, a little north of 16 million cars a year, when we bottomed out at just over nine million. it's also that these companies are finding ways to actually out-compete and take market share from their foreign competitors, which was something that was absolutely not conventional wisdom or prevailing wisdom and instead was a sort of slow march of losing market share for the american companies.

i think the question going forward about how to keep the united states a competitive location for domestic manufacturing investment is broader than the auto industry alone. and it's an issue that we spend a lot of time on. we are seeing trends both in health care and energy and otherwise that have really helped change the game in terms of the competitive posture for manufacturing domestically. i think that there's more that we can do. jeff mentioned select u.s.a. on monday. it's an incredible event and initiative where we are bringing foreign investment to choose the united states. there's also more that we can do, and usgr has been aggressive in enforcing trade agreements, which is an issue that's important in the auto space. i think that continued vigilance on the enforcement side is important as well.

just very briefly on the energy side, we have not changed the longstanding policy with respect to crude oil exports. the changes we've seen in the industry over the past several years, increase in production, changes within the industry itself, raise a number of questions about where the industry is overall. and we are looking at that and monitoring the industry constantly. but we don't have a change of policy with respect to that. and don't have anything else on that. jeff: to add a little data to the position we have in the global economy, due to these strategic innovations we have. productivity in our work force and now energy. we're the number one place to invest, when you poll global c.e.o.'s. and more than half of c.e.o.'s of manufacturing companies are

looking to bring facilities or locate facilities here in the u.s. so that's part of why you have such strong interests in select u.s.a. next week. questioner: could you talk a little bit about the fiscal issues? it was clear this week from congress is that there are deep divisions in the republican party and there's a lot of chafing beneath the budget control act caps on the defensive side but also on the domestic side. when people talk about a ryan-murray type deal, there's no patty murray, anymore. it's the white house. the white house is the democratic side. what are you doing to try to drive the republicans to the table before there's a crisis at the end of the year? and what are the prospects of some kind of settlement that would get the president his higher caps and satisfy the republicans on their deficit reduction? brian: there still is a patty

murray. she's still a force to be reckoned with. i think overall on the fiscal side, and then to the specifics of the, you know, of the discretionary issues that you're raising, our hope, as we were moving into this budget season was that the changes that we've seen in the economy and in our fiscal position would actually help move us beyond the fiscal -- the old fiscal debates of the last several years. part of what we were trying to do in our budget was acknowledge that our fiscal situation and our economic situation have changed in important ways. both in the near term, in terms of the rapid fiscal

consolidation and deficit reduction we've seen, but also in the medium term, largely around the reduction in the rate of growth of health care costs continuing to step down, baseline estimates of deficits in the future. that's not to say that long-term fiscal challenges have been solved. but we are in a different position. unfortunately what we saw with the respect budget, we were hope -- republican budget, what we saw was largely the same approach, prioritizing deficit reduction over shared growth starting principally with tax cuts aimed at wealthier americans and then forcing very deep cuts in order to pay for those and hit the fiscal objectives. one of the things that's interesting in that context is this debate that's occurred around discretionary levels in particular. i think that the thing that we can do to most helpfully encourage the kind of deal that would be good for the economy

and good for our national security is be very clear, both about where the president stands, and about how you could get from here to there. and so one of the reasons why, if you go back and look when the president announced his budget he was very clear when he went out and he said two things. he said, i will not accept a budget that locks in sequester going forward. and i will not accept breaking the linkage that was enshrined in the bipartisan murray-ryan agreement between our national security and our economic security. he laid that as predicate and then put forward a budget that shows very concretely both how you could raise those caps and how you could pay for them. quite explicitly. it's all in there. we do not ascribe to the grassley theory that the right way to do budgets is to have a -- i think that's the thing we can do to be most constructive. as you say, the republicans have a choice. we have done this now several

times. they know where this play ends. and there is bipartisan support for coming together, recognizing that we can absolutely afford to invest in our economic security, invest in our national security, pay for it over the long-term, and we would be better off both economically and politically if we could get an agreement on that sooner rather than engage in a whole bunch of brinksmanship where we know where that ends up. so i think what we can do is be clear, be specific. and have the president drawing those lines, not as a way of fomenting partisanship but as a way of trying to clearly indicate a path that, just to be clear, there are lots of republicans who support that path, just as there are lots of democrats. jeff: if you look back across the last year or so, where we've

had strong growth, it's been helped by the absence of brinksmanship, self-inflicted wounds, fiscal drama. in fact, if you plot consumer confidence or business confidence, the dips have generally been around things like government shutdown, so we hope, for the sake of the economy and the american businesses and american workers, that congress has learned that lesson. and that under no situation do we head toward another self-inflicted wound on the economy. questioner: who do you think are negotiating partners are and are you reaching out already to them? brian: i think that republicans introduced their budget this week. the committee process yesterday, they're going to go through next week. and we have to see how that all

plays itself out. there is still an open question, as you said, this debate within the republican party about whether they are actually going to fund defense at levels that are uniform military service would be devastating to our national security priorities. and so i think we need to see how that plays out over the course of the next week. we are and have been, over the course of the last several weeks, engaged with members of congress, republicans and democrats, largely in that context around our budget and our budget proposal. but part of that was associated with what i was talking about before, which is wanting to make sure that people fully understand the approach that we're taking, and how we think we could find areas of compromise. questioner: i have a two-part question. [inaudible] -- s.g.r. agreement that the house leaders are about to release.

is this the framework you can live with or do you have any major concerns with? second question is, i'm curious what you make of the social security aspect in the house republican budget, it prohibits the reallocation of the disability fund to the retirement fund. is that something could you support on any level? if not, how do you believe this should be fixed, when it dips into the red next year? brian: on the first, as you say, it's about to be released and we haven't seen the details. so we're -- we'll be better positioned to make an assessment once we've had a chance to do that. i think that as some of you know, but in our budget we laid out a proposal for a permanent s.g.r. fix. and have a number of proposals

in that space in our budget. that's something that the president has been supportive of for several years. including doing it in a fiscally responsible way. but with respect to the details of this particular agreement, i think we really need to see what they are before we have a better sense of where we land. your second question, social security. so, the house provision was unconstructive and at odds with how this issue has been addressed time and time again in a bipartisan manner. and we continue to believe that the right way to address this issue is consistent with what we proposed. and that we have always said, as many of you around this table know and have been reporting on for years, we have always said that we're open to having a conversation about social

security reform more broadly. we have laid out a set of principles that would be important in the context of that conversation. but it is just not tenable to walk away from what has been a very clear, bipartisan approach to addressing the issue. so in terms of answering your question concretely, that's how we think this is going to need to get done. questioner: [inaudible] it's an internal debate among republicans. do you actually expect to play a role in the crafting of a republican budget? it seems at moment your fingerprints appear on it, it loses republican support. i'm curious whether the strategy

that you're employing in this aggressive way that the president is talking about the economy and you're talking about your side of the budget, is more designed to set the predicate for vetoes that will come if and when legislation that's crafted out of the republican budget comes your way. brian: i think we're going to need to let this process play out a bit to know exactly -- it's impossible to project forward on exactly how the mechanics will go. from our perspective, our goal is absolutely to get to an agreement that reflects the principles we've laid out. we've laid out a menu of policies that would enable you to get there. and there is bipartisan support to lift the defense caps, lift the nondefense caps and pay for

it over 10 years. that's a blueprint where there's bipartisan support. so our hope, and our objective is for congress to come together around an agreement of that basic form and put it in place before we have to get into a situation where we're into brinksmanship, as jeff noted. and again, hard for me to say exactly how that process might unfold, let's get through and see where the republican budget resolutions actually land. but i think that there's -- our posture is one of trying to encourage good faith conversations, good faith efforts to the there. and that's part of why we're trying to be clear, is to facilitate that sort of thing. the one thing that i would add is that the murray-ryan structure, this basic structure of lifting the caps on both sides, paying for it over a decade, is one that was both

good economically, took off the table, this constant set of brinksmanship, but was also -- worked politically. and there's a question out there that i think the republican leadership has to grapple with around do they look to find areas where there are areas of bipartisan agreement and move to those in the first instance rather than getting backed into them? and, you know, on the d.h.s. funding side, you saw the instance of them getting backed into an outcome where sort of knew where that story was also going to end. i think there's a question in the budget context of whether we can get to that outcome on the front end, which would be, i

think, better politically, but also most importantly it would be better economically. questioner: if the domestic caps are lifted, do you still have a problem with using -- kind of boosting the overseas contingencies operations funding to cover defense spending? brian: what i find interesting about the overseas contingency operation is that it's traditionally republicans who have had a problem with this and have, i think, rightly referred to the inappropriate use of it as a slush fund. i think that one of the things that's important to understand with respect to funding for defense, is that providing some certainty, forward certainty, is vital to them being able to prepare to execute missions. so part of why when you hear the chairman of the joint chiefs or

secretary of defense describe why it's not a viable solution is because it creates constant annual uncertainty around funding levels. so we don't think that that is an appropriate approach or that it solves the problem. and i frankly think that, as you've seen from the war, as lindsey graham called it between republicans, there is a lot of discomfort on the republican side around using it as a mechanism as well. questioner: you used the phrase cadence of rulemaking. i wanted to ask but that in regard to the overtime rules. it's been a year since the president called for those. every time i check with the labor department, they push off the target date.

some month into the future. why is it taking so long and in the fourth quarter do you need to pick up the cadence a little bit? jeff: we're a few months away from getting that out the door and that will leave plenty of time to fully implement the rule. questioner: why is it taking so long? jeff: you need the appropriate analysis to set the level and once the proposed rule is ready, it will be announced and that will be within the next few months. questioner: [inaudible] the rulemaking on existing coal fire plants. can you describe what the practical implications might be from the administration's vantage point to his efforts to enlist the help of governors to do that? to tie things up legally? and can you also describe your political analysis of it, is it smart politics for republicans to take a stand? brian: i think this is another

example of the president leading, the president setting clear objectives and pushing the policy agenda and republicans being in a responsive, defensive posture. the truth of this rule is that as i mentioned before, this rule is grounded in providing states flexibility to craft their own plans. and the environmental protection agency is working in a bipartisan, pragmatic way at the state level to help states understand the options and the opportunities. and this rule is not even a final rule. this rule is in the proposed stage. and they are working through

that process. and you're seeing, across the country, very constructive and pragmatic efforts in states across the country. in fact, just yesterday the national governors association announced a convening of their authority, a convening of their tools to try to work with states and do workshops to help states understand how they can work within this rule, how they can comply with this rule. if you look at the states that are leading that effort, again they are red states an blue states and part of this is because there is incredible economic opportunity that states understand in driving the clean energy economy in these states. i think that, you know, from -- you know, so what you have is you have a republican leader in mitch mcconnell who is going way outside the bounds of his -- the position that he was elected to. and i think that we all would be

better served if he and others spent less time trying to lecture states about what they should be doing, when they themselves are focused on looking at how they can operate in their own best interest and more time trying to actually get some constructive things done in congress. like, for example, we could confirm a highly qualified attorney general nominee who has been sitting out there for more than 130 days. we're going to keep working on this exactly as we have. and i think that that's going to be the path forward on this one. questioner: your assessment is for the republican party, it is smart politics or not? brian: i think that addressing climate change and putting the united states on the forefront

of a clean energy economy is good substance, first and foremost, because it's taking on one of the most important issues of our generation. and i think increasingly it is good politics as well. because, you know, states should be given the flexibility to decide how they want to craft plans to have cleaner air and cleaner water for their kids. and address the fact that, you know, that climate change affects how exposed kids are to asthma and has other important effects. i think as the president said last week, when he was doing an interview with vice, eventually the republican party is going to have to change their position on this issue because the public opinion is moving on it. the posture of climate denial is one that is increasingly not acceptable because it is so at odds with the science. i think that most importantly

this is a very important issue for our economy and for the health of our country and we're going to keep pushing forward because of that. >> we've got only about 2 1/2 minutes left. there are seven people waiting. not everyone's going to get a question because i want to keep my deal with jen and end on time. michael warren, last question. questioner: how do more restrictive rules on hydraulic fracturing help economic growth? brian: we believe that in order to have a durable industry in the future, you need to strike an appropriate balance between protecting public health and safety.

and allowing for responsible production. i think if you look at the rules that we will -- that the department of interior will put out later today, they appropriately strike that balance. and they are focused on pragmatic but very important steps like disclosing the fluids that are being used in the fracking process. that is a step that is very important for from a transparency perspective, from a public safety perspective, but it also is important in terms of having a template that this industry can work from, given the degree of public concern and localized concern about the potential health and safety impacts. the last thing i would say about this is that these are rules for fracking on public lands. about 11% of the fracking that goes on in this country happens on public lands.

this is the portion of this issue that we the federal government have an obligation to set rules of the road for. but ultimately this is an issue that is going to be decided in state capitols and localities, as well as with the industry. we feel comfortable that what we put out today reflects an approach to our obligation, to balance those issues. but one of the things we're going it see going forward is a conversation that will play out across the country about where to strike that balance. >> i want to thank both of you for doing. this i want to apologize to my colleagues for not getting everyone in. hope you come back. thanks for doing it. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015]

>> on the next washington journal a republican 2016 budget plan for the house and senate. an investigation into the obama administration's response to freedom of information act request. the government accountability office, the social security administration's so-called death master fund. as always, we will take your phone calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. live at 7:00 eastern on c-span. monday night on the communicators, we met up with tim moynahan at the consumer electronic show in las vegas.

tim: organic light emitting diode. it uses the backlight to color liquid crystal displays. this one is using the individual particles as a source of light. they can be turned off and turned on independently. with an led set, you will always take some kind of light switch. to my eyes, this is pretty amazing, right? this is the holy grail. >> monday night at 8:00. coming up next, "q&a" with

daniel bolger. and then david cameron takes questions from members of the house of commons. after that, the chinese premier holds a news conference. ♪ >> this week, our guest is retired army general daniel bolger, author of "why we lost -- a general's inside account of the iraq and afghanistan wars." he talks about his deployments to those to war zones. his thoughts on what went wrong and his ideas on how to move forward as conflict continues in the two countries. brian: general daniel bolger you opened your book with t