are trying to do with this movement is insure that process does not remain a vacuum and you can open it up and change it throughout. >> i want to take a second and underscore with the last two speakers said. i'm 70, so i forgot her exact words -- i will paraphrase it and it will he has eloquent. the activities of the self -- of the people self organizing is transformative in and of itself. we can go to sleep after that, but it might wake us up. >> i think i want to move on to the next speaker. i'm going to run this discussion until 4:30. the folks at the microphone are the speakers and we are the speakers and we're going to close off after you.

>> i'm up here from kentucky. i want to say i caution alienating the tea party or republican party because as a republican, i'm just as disenfranchised as you all living in a county where only democrats run. and they are decided within the primary and i don't have a voice either. don't alienate people -- it's no one else's fault except for the american people. we are the ones who got us into the situation in the first place. and i had a question about proposition 14. i did some research on it. wasn't it one of the most expensive primaries in recent years? are you planning on putting any kind of methods in place to stop it from being whoever buys the

most media when? that's what we've got right now and even though california -- it's not going to work the same in every state. each state has a different culture and nautical culture. what's the next step to ensure that people are being heard and not just -- 75% of us are low information voters and are going to click the button for the thing that hurt the most. are you planning on making the next step? >> i think it is a good question. when they report on california's new partisan system not increasing voter turnout they fail to report everywhere else in the country, it has dropped off and in california, it has stuck a little more. when they talk about money, they don't talk about competitive elections -- you have to spend

more money because there are more voters at play. the one thing i find fascinating about california passed primary -- we have the largest lack caucus in the history of california because three black people got elected who did not have the democratic party endorsement. guess who had to educate us -- the democratic party and the media feeding talking points to the democratic party. >> arizona doesn't have an open primary and we have the single largest collection in terms of spending last year as well. why? dark money rules. the dark money rules have changed and we are going to try some initiatives in arizona to curb it at the supreme court left that one pretty clear. you will see a lot more money being spent. the question you ought to ask is would you rather a lot of money

be able to influence the system through a partisan primary system where they can have a much greater influence of moving your candidates toward an extreme or one where every voter get to vote in every election? i feel much safer with the latter. >> one last point on voting and money in politics -- it has been used in a dozen cities -- minneapolis, oakland, several other cities. one consistent threat is candidates who are spending the most were mayor are losing. they are running the more traditional campaigns and the scrap your candidate who -- the scrappy candidate does more of a grassroots campaign. earning the second of her choices, which you really need to win in a competitive race, you don't win with a 30 second tv ad.

you are my first choice but you listened or there's something about you -- so there's no magic answer to money in politics, but there are ways to reduce its impact. [applause] >> i'm from brooklyn, new york, and i have two quick questions. as we move forward with alice initiatives and legislative initiatives, i'm wondering if there is a possibility of combining top two, instant runoff and representation. the other question i have is senator chuck schumer of new york has come out in favor of open primaries of some sort. >> earlier i mentioned the need to simplify.

we should have other systems -- the lawsuit where we have oral argument on tuesday -- we had a great amicus reef explaining different systems. we need a discussion about the electoral process itself and go into that discussion knowing none of us have the right solution. >> the louisiana system, which is where everyone goes for the ranked choice ballot -- if it was multi seat, for the legislature, you would have more than one person winning. if you are electing people to the state legislature, you might have three.

everyone would vote a ranked choice ballot. that's a statutory change. >> on the question about the schumer campaign yes, senator schumer wrote an editorial published in the new york times during the summer which came out very vocally and strongly in support of top to open primaries and then he never said another word. [laughter] our new york operation decided let's remind him this is the position he took. there has in a campaign that has been run in new york over the last several months were thousands and thousands of new yorkers are signing on to a letter to senator schumer, calling on him not only to lead the effort to bring top to open primaries to new york but to have the democratic party make the decision to open its

presidential primaries in new york to all independent voters something senator schumer is actually in a position to do because the party could do that without having to go through the legislature. how many signatures? over 7000 signatures will stop people can sign at the open primaries table. there has been a series of meetings with the congressional delegation of new york. we continue to push that issue from the bottom up. >> the committee for a unified independent party -- are we trying to define the future of the independent movement?

i would like an opinion from everybody -- are we to think of it as defining a party that will have policy and platform? or might we retain that freethinking spirit and stay as heterogeneous, loosely affiliated movements, so the question would be where do you all see the future of the independent movement as far as infrastructure. i feel like independent candidates are going to be the key for any policy change we're going to have. >> i'm speaking just for myself not the movement.

i think becoming a party is the single worst thing we could possibly do. [applause] i don't want any organization controlling my way of thinking. nor do i want the other candidate to be controlled by it. i want the voter to have a right to listen to me and the 20 other people that might run beside me and make a decision as to who they would like to have. i would like all the voters to be involved in that process. i think there are things the independent movement can do. clearly, he can be helpful in changing the architecture so more people can participate. i think having more independent candidates is a good thing. my guess is early on, they may not win but they can change the debate. someone mentioned teddy roosevelt. he lost the election but clearly

change the outcome, much like rush limbaugh did when he ran bill clinton. he made bill clinton talk about the fiscal issues. having an independent candidate talking about the importance of allowing all people to have the right to vote, may be is the catalyst that begins to move the change forward. helping independent candidates think that's a good idea. endorsing independent candidates -- that is terrible. we are trying to get more people a choice and that is what we should be doing as an organization. [applause] >> one minor correction -- it was ross perot. [laughter] i think that we need to have a

flowering of association. this is a room of people that feels connected, or seem to be a lot of connection as independents. it is not like no one wants to be connected. it is ok to be connected to people. i think that to be rigidly boxed in, democrat/republican that is it, that is not it. but if we can have a balance that allows association to be shown, to connections to be shown, that you can call it a party, but it is not rigid in their mighty in new one and a couple years -- that brings people in and makes people feel connected. i think there is a whole conversation to be had about how that can be put into our politics. watching states that i have talked to -- it starts, and you have a certain number of characters where it says you can say what you are connected. you can say your association.

people are very creative about that. whatever they feel connected to. if we move that direction and allow more choices on the ballot, where we have a right to choice system to accommodate that choice, i think we have a politics that brings more people in. >> go ahead. >> the committee for a unified independent party, which was the founding name of our organization, was created in 1984 in the context of the creation of the national reform party, which grew off the perot run. the reform party came together basically as a left-center-right coalition of independence who were working to form an national party to leverage against the standard behavior of political parties. we had beautiful, experimental

period from 1995-1999, into during that time, we brought americans together from across the political spectrum and looked to bring other independent parties into a relationship with us, to build a broad, unified, independent party. one of the things that happened after about five years of existence was that the major parties came in in different ways. essentially wrecked to the reform party. one of the things we learned from that experience is that literally the form of organization that is a party gravitates in a particular direction that ends up deflating and depressing the very cause that brings people into independent politics in the first place. i am extremely sympathetic to paul's decision.

after 2000, we made a shift away from party building to organizing independent voters into associations that could leverage political power, that could engage with the political establishment, including political parties, but without turning ourselves into a political party, because we found that culturally and politically eight us to vulnerable to do that. we are creating new forms of expressing political power in this movement. i think there is a unity between form and substance. that is what we are searching for. that is why we have been cautious -- we don't want to create anything that is premature or pre-decided or prepackaged, because this is a movement with a new vision in new ideals and it has to have forms that can express it. [applause] >> i went echo -- i would echo.

i think you can start with parties because i think the whole idea is opening the process. in order to change the process you have to be able to bring people into the process, and i think that is the voting cache. i think it opens the process so that people who feel like they can't participate can participate, and as paul said, once you get one person taking one step and collectively taking that step, than the structures that will support that will begin to naturally develop. >> thank you for your question. yes? >> hi, i am a community college student, and a student of dr. rafael mendez. [applause] i question is -- where does development fit in in your reform? without development, we do not have a democracy.

if we do not fit development into democracy, we cannot change the law. without changing the law, we cannot change the culture we live in. >> i think that something freddie said earlier speaks directly to that, that no reform leads to a hands-free democracy. that goes with the development issue. in my mind development is the key issue. part of political reform is can you get the party's grip off the process for a moment, for a second? can you create some space for development? that is not a guarantee. there are lots of departments for development. -- lots of environments for development.

once you enact top two, that is when the challenge starts. not before. when the system is close down, the opportunities for development are nil. to open it up, and that is when we have to get to work and create the new conversations. i think it is a very crucial question. >> thank you. [applause] >> hi, i am rebecca feldman from new jersey. i want to thank you for doing this, for inviting me. i have learned so much today and i am so inspired and i have a practical question. i think political reform is popular with the american people. do have shown that with the surveys you have done. but to connect with people when they are listening, when they are going to the polls, for the 30 some odd states that do have the power of initiative and referendum, better to pursue it in a presidential year? an off year?

do he know yet what that pinpoint is -- is it about turnout and getting the right audience? can you tell us something about timing? >> i think the landscape might be different, at first, we should all thank rebecca -- [applause] obviously it plays a huge role as it relates to -- we file in the primary, which is counterintuitive and against the advice of a clinical consultant. -- a political consultant. i don't think we would have passed it. but consultants were saying this is a partisan primary. independent voters don't turn out. but we had done the polling to

know that, with a lower turnout, all we had to do was communicate with a lesser number of nonaffiliated voters and we could do it while the party was sleeping. institutional money wasn't going to come around until the general election. we said keep it on the ballot. we drove a campaign to voters that the parties don't talk to because it doesn't matter to them. the increased voter turnout by 450,000 that election, which was enough to margin a victory. [applause] >> it has been very state-by-state. we and arizona cap put hours on the primary election day. what we do know is that in all -- in off election years, the year when we elect our governor, turnout drops by 20%-20 5%. what we know is that it is disproportionately young people, independence, and minorities.

we can statistically show that. those are also groups we tend to do better worth in an open primary. but i don't know what exists in arizona for every state. i really do think that what chad provided and what his dad provided in california was the ability to be strategic, to look at it, to think about it, and to try to figure out a campaign strategy that would get them to a win number. at the end of the day, all that matters -- what do you win and what do you lose? at least the people we care about that are affected by these policies -- if we lose, we have done nothing. we may be moved the ball a little. but you have to think about whether you are ranked voting or talk to, whether you are on a. primary or general election. what are you going to do to lose it? it will be enough to create the change that we want.

>> i would only add one thing to those very good remarks, which is that study your yes vote and factor that in, because it may be different in different places. take some time to build support for it, like rushing can be seductive but it is usually dangerous. >> thank you all. >> yes? >> my name is katie byrne and i am a freshman at the university of north carolina-greensboro. in relation to progressive panic and the independent party being reestablishing humanity within a very politicized right specifically with the clear and trans community, i would wonder how that is going to happen without a specific set of partisan things in regards to -- you can think of the lela alcorn act being put into place, but

only after she killed herself. how is this going to help me as a queer person? how many more queer people have to die before real change is going to happen? the democratic party is failing queer people beyond the very agreeable point of gay marriage. we are very much left out of a lot of political movement. >> i might just get a comment from arizona's standpoint. in arizona, one session ago, we had a bill that got out of our legislature that said you couldn't do anything to stop businesses from being able to discriminate against someone for being gay. i can just about promise you that it would have lost in front of the voters, it would not have been successful.

why the disconnect? because the majority of the legislature is elected by 4% of the people. they are captive to them -- they can't speak to the general electorate because they can't get reelected if they do. then when you combine that with the caucus, where they become afraid, the moderate republicans become afraid of the more conservative ones, it becomes very harsh on minority groups. my answer is that the idea you have is good. they are things that are important. the things that will motivate the public, like the martin luther king movement when it reached a broader audience. we are at the most risk dealing in an isolated room with a group of people who quite candidly don't put your interest as a priority. >> i would add one thing to that, which is that i think

bringing the american people together around democracy and around taking control of our political process and asserting ownership of our government, our country, our political culture the way we wanted to organize ourselves as a society, means that we can't break out of a certain kind of atomization, or identity-based politics, where every group is looking at a situation based simply on an identity that they have been given. it allows people to come together and learn from each other. my issue with respect to the questions that you are raising is that i want all of america to understand by virtue of knowing and being close to and working alongside with. i want all of america to

understand that the queer community is dealing with. right now we have the political situation that doesn't allow that to happen. unless there is a tragedy where headlines are made, that is the only time we can break through. we can't allow that to happen. we have to have a political system and a political process that allows people to be who they are and work together to make a better america for everyone. to me, one of the things that is most exciting -- and i have been a political activist since i was three -- [laughter] -- is that we can do that, now we can break out of issue orientation, identity politics and say, hey, we are going to come together as a country, we are going to come together as a people, we are going to make sure that justice is done for everyone, that everyone has the right to live the way they want to live, that everyone is

protected to live the kind of life that they want to live, and we are going to build this country in such a way so that everyone can fulfill their individual and creative potential. that is what this movement is about. [applause] that is why i think that is why i think the democracy issue is your issue, i really do. >> there are two more speakers who came to the podium, even though i was planning to close it -- i've going to let you speak but you will have literally 30 seconds. >> i love the discussion we are having, particularly given the folks who were appear. it is a little heavy on the kind of electoral, tactical discussion -- should we do talk to or this or that. i would love if the panel could speak a little bit to how you understand the necessity of

building a movement for independent political reform particularly in light of the title -- how we make a popular. i have been doing this a long time, we were involved in the first campaign in 2004. it was a very wonky discussion and we got our asses kicked. only through a lot of trial and error and hard work did it actually happen, and once we passed it, only 25% of independents knew they could participate. our group went out and ordinary citizens that with all the registrars in order to change the way voter education materials worked. i would love it if you could speak a little bit to how you understand building a movement to make these tactics basically worthwhile. >> i might just give a quick comment.

the nice thing about building this movement is that the other side is doing a lot to help us. [laughter] almost daily. they do things inside their parties that are disenfranchising voters and pushing them to the outside. they are making them give up on the system and that is the danger. our danger is that the public tends to be giving up. they are starting to believe that maybe we can't make this thing better. we have to give them hope. what we have to do is make them believe, to believe that we can make things better. that is why i'm here and that is why most people in the room are here. [applause] >> this is not a direct answer but one of the things that keeps going around in my head and in my life is that one of the lessons of being active and

building together is that you don't need permission to do something. people can just do something and then you can see what happens and then you can do something else. this program is a wonderful is a wonderful example. after a police murder in new york, they came about and said "what is something we can do that is really different?" that is not simply protesting. if we can teach americans that they can do something new together, i think that goes a long way. [applause] >> let me take this opportunity right now to say that i think, what i was saying earlier, that i really see this issue as a social justice issue, that we

have a system that excludes people from meaningfully participating in an election where they can make their own choice. i say if there is not going to be any justice, there can be no peace. [cheering and applause] >> two thumbnails -- we have seen voting pass, in a lot of them it was a very small number of people that said let's do this. they found resonance and were able to do it. sarasota, florida -- it's three people who pushed it. they got on the ballot and 78% of the vote. there are different places. there is one state -- sarasota -- minnesota is an independent group that works at

minneapolis-st. paul. but they also created an organizational the ground, as they did it, and kept it. to have to defend your system, make it work, support candidates. not directly support them, but help them understand the system. that kind of movement building is harder, but it is sustainable in a way that it is likely to expand in that state. this is winnable stuff. i think you have to be smart but if you pick it a relatively small number of people can be the catalyst. but to really sustain this and turn it into something lasting that will be bigger, and there are a lot of people who can help do that. [applause] >> my name is neil. i'm a lawyer in new york. i'm also a candidate for president of independence. i have been fighting the

democratic party and running fighting to get insurgent candidates on the ballot. it is very, very difficult because in some courts there is such corruption. for example, in quince county the lawyers you are fighting against -- judges are on the bench. i had the real unfortunate situation in federal court fighting to get a candidate on the ballot. mr. wells, who is now a councilman, finding out after the case that the judge had been appointed by the other side. now i have a case in the united states court of appeals to try to outlaw the new york state board of elections. the new york state board of elections is the most corrupt institution i've ever seen. you are only allowed to have board directors of the most prejudiced people -- you can only be on the board if you represent the republican or democratic party, and they

decide who was on the ballot and who is not on very technical cases. how could you have -- the biggest party group is independent, and they have no representation on the situation. it is a total violation of one man one vote. i say that i really applaud your movement and your efforts, but i do think that you can't get legislation passed unless you have candidates, unless you have a structure. your organization, this noble organization -- you don't have to be part of that structure. you made a decision, you have the experience. you can't argue with the experience. but there also is a need for independent party where a person can get legislation passed and hope to change the situation and that is what i am running on. i want to thank you for the opportunity -- one last comment. iran for mayor last year.

-- one last comment. i ran for mayor and here im, the reverend who wrote two books. i am a former assistant da and a public school teacher and got excluded in the debate. how can you have such terrible corruption in the system and allow it to go on? thank you very much. [applause] >> my name is kevin johnson. i decided i was independent in 1992. a lot of the things ross perot were saying so many people didn't. [laughter] a large -- if we can organize a big margin and a whole lot of people taking advantage of the warm weather, at least 100,000 that will get it out. the other thing is -- how many people are familiar with the coast-to-coast am radio show? i'm a fan of that show. that is a good one for us to go

on because you can lay it all out on the line. jesse vinturella has been on there. that has 10 million loyal listeners that are all smart people. they talk about a lot of behind-the-scenes things like this. it is a perfect show. can we help jackie get on the coast-to-coast a.m.? maybe we can work on that. [applause] >> all right. let's get our panelists another round of applause. [cheering and applause] thank you so much. i'm going to close us out now. thank you so much for being here and for participating in these conversations. i think some of what we have pursued and opened up and talked about today are really some of the most important discussions

that are going on in the country today. we want to continue them outside the theater. i will come out there and i want to say hello to everyone. let's keep the conversation going, keep our movement building, keep your leadership going and growing. thank you so very much for being here tonight. [applause] >> congresswoman lois capps announced she will not seek reelection next year. the california democrat has been in congress since 1998 when she won a special election to replace her husband. he died of a heart attack in 1997, less than a year after he was first elected to the seat. lois capps announced her retirement in a youtube video. congresswoman: when my husband

was elected in 1986, he was guided by the above thomas jefferson. to restore the bond of trust between the people and their government. in his short time in office, walter did just that. after his death, i ran to continue that goal. and to bring my own experiences in health care and public schools. i'm proud of the work we have done together on the central coast to improve education, to expand health care, to support businesses and veterans. to protect the environment and agriculture. i've been so humbled and honored that you would trust me to be our representative to congress. but now i believe it is time for me to return home. back to the community and family that i love so much. so i am announcing that this

114th congress will be my last. at the completion of this term i will retire. it has been a hard decision to make i have loved this job. i love sitting along side such remarkable staff, outstanding community members, and wonderful colleagues in public service. but life moves on. in the meantime, i am very much looking forward to our final 22 months together in public office. there is a lot of work to do. i promise you that i will serve with as much energy and enthusiasm and passion on my last day in office as i had on my first. i'm so thankful to you for the opportunity i have had to represent you in congress. i will forever be grateful that you have allowed me to be your voice in our nation, and here on

our central coast in california. thank you from the bottom of my heart. >> as congresswoman cap repairs to retire, arizona democrat ruben gallego is serving his first term. he recently sat down with c-span2 discuss life as a freshman member. >> congressman, seventh congressional district of arizona, a couple months as a freshman representative. what is it like? >> it is fascinating. every day brings a new challenge. every day i get to do something very interesting, and every day i miss home. but i am glad i am here -- i feel like i am doing good work. i hope to be here for a long time. >> how did somebody born in chicago and up in arizona? >> i followed a woman out there who was not my wife.

-- who is now my wife. what happened was i was in new mexico with my wife, working in the 2004 election. while there, i got activated and sent to iraq. when i returned, my wife have established yourself in arizona with a good job in-house. -- and a house. i had just left the military. leaving the marines, once you are done, you are done so i didn't have a job, and arizona was a good option. >> let's take a step back. your family is originally from mexico and central america. >> and columbia. >> came to the u.s. when? >> my mom came to the 1970's. >> why chicago? >> chicago was a good place for immigrants at that point. a lot of industrial, good paying jobs, cheap housing. that was a good draw. people forget, chicago is the second and third largest latino

populations. >> raised by a single mom -- when did your dad leave? >> around 11. >> any memories? >> many, and that is what made it more painful. i really looked up to him. he was a construction worker. i worked on the farm and looked up to him as a father figure. because he was my father figure. but when everything went south it went bad. i don't think he reacted well to it and it caused a lot of problems. his company shut down. that is why it hurts so much to see someone i looked up to abandon us. and abandon who i thought he was. >> can i ask you what happened? >> a lot of things happened, but essentially he had a construction company that was employing a lot of people. he didn't get paid by the right contractors and he also didn't

pay his taxes and everything fell apart, and he started selling drugs. for somebody who i thought was a good moral compass ended up not being that. >> how did your mom keep everything together? >> i couldn't tell you. to this day. she has done an amazing job. there were some tough times -- i remember some hard times and she is an amazing woman. today is her birthday. i won't say how old she is. she will get mad. >> if you could talk to your dad, what would you tell him? >> nothing. i have moved on. i had to become a father figure for my sister. at a very young age. i have closed that chapter in my life and i am here to move on and be a good husband and maybe a good father.

>> you went on to harvard -- how did that come about? it is not a cheap school. >> i realized, once things have settled down, we were pretty poor. in order for me to go to college, i was going to have to get scholarships. i realized that i had to make sure i had the best grades possible score the best on my , tests. by freshman year of high school, i committed myself that i was going to apply to harvard. not necessarily that i would make it, but if i got myself ready for that, no matter where i went, i would get a scholarship. i started taking exams in my freshman year, started reading as much as i could. i applied to harvard -- i did a lot of research about how i could prepare myself to make myself qualified. i ended up doing very well on my tests. passed a lot of ap exams.

i applied and got in. they gave me nearly a full ride and i got into a lot of the schools for the same thing. my goal was accomplished, to get there and not be a burden on the family. >> during the process, what advice did your mom give you? >> the advice my mom gave me was more emotional support than anything else. my mother is a hard-working person, but she had not applied to college out of high school. or she did, but it was community college. it was very difficult for her to understand the paperwork. now she gets it. but i was the first one. but she really supported me and gave me a lot of emotional support. also just making me stay focused. while i am working and studying, she made me realize that there is also the important focus, family making sure i had still had time for my sisters and

realizing that is what is important. >> you are in high school, you get the letter accepted a harvard, what was your reaction? >> i was really shocked. i was working that day, at a hot dog stand. i knew what time the mail came and my boss let me go. he actually came to my swearing-in. he let me go home to look at the mail. i went and i saw the letter, the big packet, which is a good sign. i called my mom and she was still at work. she started crying. i told my sisters and then went back to work. my boss was very proud of me. i went back to work. [laughter] flipping those burgers was one

more step on the path. >> how did your mom support you? over the years while growing up? you said she had many jobs. >> no, she was a secretary for most of her life, a legal secretary. she supported the emotionally, but she worked some very hard jobs. legal secretary and administered -- administrative secretary. those were great experiences for me, going to work with her and seeing professional people walking around, wearing suits. for me it was a good example because growing up, the idea of work was about whether -- you can accomplish some kind of goal. everyone in my family was some kind of, but are -- carpenter. and for some reason i thought it was i was supposed to do. it is honorable work and it pays well but i didn't know that

there were these other options and being exposed to other professionals was important. my mom really taught me about the dignity of work. we didn't make much, but she did teach me that we should be proud that we are working. honest jobs. she brought home enough pay, we were never wanting for food. our clothing wasn't fancy but we always left the house looking like a million bucks. even though the clothing was not a million bucks. what mattered was how we carried ourselves, not how much we had in the bank account. >> the remember the name of the hot dog stand? absolutely -- >> absolutely, cc. -- sees the-- susie's. 95th street, still there. >> when did that teach you about

customer service and do you apply it today? >> a lot of what i was doing was in the back. i was flipping the burgers and making the hot dogs. what it did teach me was because of the interactions you have every day -- people were coming in from all walks of life. a lot of them are having bad days, coming from work are going to work. what it taught me is that i needed to treat everyone the same, even if you are being mean, even if you didn't have a great day, i am going to treat you professionally, make you the best hotdog or sandwich or hamburger. a lot of the other jobs have always taught me -- if you treat people professionally, you will be treated the same. even if you are not, you are still better off being professional. >> power the burgers at what was -- how were the burgers and what was the most popular item? >> the hot dogs were more popular than the burgers. the hot dogs were chicago style. and our area, a lot of people

like peppers on those hotdogs. most people -- it was pretty good. >> you are at harvard, and then you withdraw to join the marine corps -- why? >> i wasn't getting along well at harvard. it wasn't harvard's fault -- the culture was very drastically different from where i came from. it is a very rich school. some great students there, and they got along well, but i had a very tough adjustment. a lot of things i look back on i think i had always imagined myself going to harvard, because i felt it was what i was supposed to do. in reality, i had always wanted to join the marine corps. in the back of my mind, i was going to join the marine corps first and then go to college. i got to this track, and it was taking me somewhere, putting me off my goal of joining the marines.

i found myself being unhappy. i wasn't getting good grades and so i went off and joined the marines reserves. you do your training and boot camp and then you return to school. that is what i did. never regretted it since. >> once a marine, always a marine. what do you remember about your time in the military? >> just the friends i made, the friends i lost. i got to serve with some of the -- sorry. i served with some great men. i don't think i would be surrounded by people -- that great again. >> what did they teach you? >> they taught me about humility. my friends taught me about being there for each other. the marines taught me about

discipline. but that was the marine corps. the marines i served with taught me about what it truly means to care about another human being you are not related to. what you are willing to do to keep them alive. >> let me follow up if i could. it wasn't without loss or sacrifice. can you explain? about the losses you witnessed? and the sacrifices. >> i lost my best friend, and i lost a lot of platoon members. in my company overall, we lost a lot of good men in combat. for reasons i think were incorrect. we didn't have the proper armor in our vehicles. i think we were also in an area that should have had more

manpower than what we had. but to this day, the fact that i lost such close friends still haunts me. >> as eu and others in congress debate military spending, how do you apply your experiences to the debate? >> i look at the budget or may -- from a perspective of the ground pounder and infantrymen. every operation, whether it ends or begins, is going to involve the infantry. when it comes to the budget, i always look at how it is going to affect infantryman. everything needs to be supportive of that. when it comes to what types of airplanes they should be buying, i'm going to look at what does the infantry guy need? at the end of the day, that is where most likely the ordinances will be dropped. it will be used.

lastly, i think, just bringing my perspective, it is also important to fill our commitments to military personnel that are retired and we are trying to change how we do our benefits, and i know for a fact that as a member, a veteran, there is nothing worse than to join the military where you are guaranteed certain things and then told that is not the case. and we have to change it because of budget priorities. so then how much can they get us into a war zone and how much will they spend on war, that has to happen when it comes to military benefits. what you promised somebody is what they should be getting, and they should be taking shortcuts. >> you are dealing with a lot of information and constituents -- how do you filter through all the data, the letters, the e-mails, the reports, the bills?

>> i don't really sleep much. just my nature. i like being motivated. i enjoy getting a lot of information. most of the time, when i need to go deeper, i will start asking questions. for me, i enjoy it. it is enjoyable to hear from my constituents. i like the challenge. even when some things get under the weeds, i like the challenge. a lot of it is more about the speed -- i love my staff, but sometimes they can keep up with me. i feel bad because they are human. i'm human too, but i just do it. i don't really think about it because for me it is part of the job and it is enjoyable.

>> is this job what you expected so far? >> to some degree, yes. coming from an arizona legislature, you understand what it means to be a minority. but there are other aspects of it that i have enjoyed. right now, we are working on the peace process to be helpful to the u.s. government. that has been a good opportunity for us to get involved. being the first colombian electives congress. -- colombian american elected to congress. the armed services committee has been very helpful, listening in and trying to figure out what to do with the aumf. getting to the weeds on that has been enjoyable but very difficult. just being involved in all the other small projects -- it is a lot of fun. even while we had a very obstructionist congress led by the republicans, we have found ourselves to do different ways. to be productive for the district. >> how did you meet your wife?

>> she got me at the date auction. >> you have to explain. [laughter] >> she was walking back from some late-night class, and she saw her girlfriend on the street walking to some event. they hadn't seen each other in forever so her friend invited her to come to this event and it was a date auction done by sororities and fraternities at harvard to benefit the 9/11 fund. this was right after september 11. i happened to be auctioned off at night. coincidentally, this woman was a mutual friend of ours that we -- but we had never met. i started getting auctioned off, and her good friend and my good friend -- she urged her to bet on me. it was going well and i wondered who this beautiful woman was.

that was bidding on me. i got up a little more by other friends to make sure i wasn't embarrassed. as the bidding was going up she stopped bidding and a friend was about to win me, and i asked the auctioneer to ask kate one more time. i wanted to see who this lovely woman was. and he did. kate said she had run out of money. that's why she stopped bidding. i said if she did for me one more time i will pay half. she agreed. that is how we met. and we ended up going out on our first date a week later. ever since it has been pretty good. >> how much did they raise? on your bed -- bid? >> $44, the second-most for that day. >> was your mom here when you took the oath of office? >> absolutely. >> what was that like for her?

>> i think for her it was a great feeling. there is no need to -- i don't think there is anything else we can do to reiterate how great she has done. her proudest moment was seeing all four of her kids graduate from college. that is very hard to do nowadays. the fact that she did it, she did it being by herself, really shows her strength and what a great mother she is. but obviously, these things make her happy because she knows i am fulfilling -- i have another sister who was in medical school. i'm sure that will trump this. as soon as one of my sisters becomes a doctor she will be the favorite. i think my mom was very proud, mostly for me. i think she knows she did a great job. >> when you took the oath of

office, what was going through your mind? >> i had three members from my platoon hold the bible. what was going through my mind was that i am here and it is my charge to do my best for my country and for my district. i was thinking about the weight, that pressure, that i needed to fulfill what people wanted me to do, to come here and be a strong advocate for everyday people for veterans, and not shy away. >> how do you know if you have achieved that? what is your benchmark? >> how many facebook posts i get. just kidding. for me it is -- if i feel that i have put it all on the table that i have pushed where i can push, and even if i fail, i know

that i did my best -- that is an internal gut check i have all the time. that is the way i do it. sometimes it is just looking at the mirror and saying, did i do what other people would be proud of? it i have to answer yes or no to that, and hopefully i can answer honestly. >> you said being a husband and a son, and a father someday? >> hopefully, yes. not yet. >> what would you tell your kids about your career so far? >> i would tell them i was blessed to be born in this country. it has given me this opportunity. but opportunity will give you 50% of the way and you have to go the other 50%. just because i made it doesn't mean i can forget what got me

here, the people that got me here, the people who did not make it, and how i can be of service to them, to their families. i think especially, someone like me, in the military, i especially oh it -- owe it to a lot of our veterans to stay here and do my job and help them and their families. >> thank you very much for your time. >> thank you so much. >> c-span's congressional freshmen profiles continue tonight with texas congressman will hurt. he is the first black republicans represent in texas since reconstruction. >> i was 22-year-old grade i was driving my toyota for running -- four runner. i stopped at a gas station, put the tv on, and the uss cole had

blown up. i remember thinking, i wonder if i will ever know anything that is going on there. after we go to our initial orientation, i was the desk officer for yemen. i was back at headquarters in langley. i'm supporting the men and women in our station, in the caa headquarters in yemen. i was my first job. one of the biggest challenges while i was there was fighting the bureaucracy. when i was in afghanistan i managed undercover operations. i felt like there were rules and regulations that we were having to use to do our job that were preventing us from protecting ourselves and doing the job we were trained to do. fighting the bureaucracy back at langley was an incredible

challenge. in the end, we won. i had experience and background and enough support to get that done. it was a great experience. because that is what i'm doing here. most of my responsibility as a representative from this area is to fight the bureaucracy for those folks in need the bureaucracy fought. that simple. >> you can see our interview tonight on c-span at 9:00 eastern. >> this sunday on q and a senior editor for the weekly standard, andrew ferguson on his writing career, gop candidates for 2016, and what voters are looking for. >> they want somebody who looks like he's stood up for them. i'm amazed to the degree to which primary voters on both sides are motivated by resentment.

and the sense of being put upon. those people really don't understand us. here's a guy who does understand us, and he will stick it to them. that happens on both sides. hillary clinton did her own version of that. i don't think that was actually true 30 years ago. resentment has always been part of politics, obviously. but the degree to which it almost exclusively the motivating factor in truly committed republicans and democrats. >> sunday night at eight eastern and pacific on spans q&a. -- 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span's q and a. >> host: we are back. our conversation for the next 45 minutes is energy regulation. the cost and benefits of them. joining us from charlottesville, virginia, michael livermore and associate professor at the university of virginia law school in studio i have ross eisenberg, vice president of energy and resource policy at the national association of

manufacturers. ave ross eisenberg, vice president of energy and resource policy at the national association of manufacturers. ross eisenberg, let me begin with you. let's talk about how benefits are waiting against the cost of regulations. how is that calculation made and what is the calculation? guest: it is a legal requirement. executive orders from this president and the two presidents before him and then before that, they require that costs be weighed with benefits. when any agency puts out a regulation, the benefits have to outweigh the costs. that is the rule of law. agencies epa, will routinely wait the cost versus benefits and they will make a determination either the benefits outweigh the costs or upside down or whatnot. frequently, this is the driving force for a lot of the controversy as to whether or not the regulation is worth doing or not worth doing. and a lot of the more recent regulations for the costs are

getting extravagant in the billions and billions of dollars, we are now having a pretty robust debate over how the cost analysis is done. on our site for manufacturers how the costs are measured because we are seeing times when the costs are not being done terribly well. as manufacturers, what we want for competitive purposes irritability, certain the -- certainty in the regulatory process, can -- protect the environment and make sure they do the roles right and get the right and best information and doing these inks properly to know much about cost and what the rules are going forward. when they don't, we have a real problem. particularly when we talk about trains of dollars and millions of jobs. host: give us an example. guest: the supreme court case we had a couple weeks ago is exhibit a in this analysis. the court is appropriately weighing whether epa should have done a better job of this. regardless of how they came out it is pretty clear they could

have done a more thorough job on a cost and benefit side. you have a regulation designed to limit arcuri emissions from power plants. what epa basically did was measure -- they put a regulation that were 98% of the benefits are coming from the reduction of rings other than mercury. at the same time, they drastically underestimated the cost. we see the amount of power plants that are on the block for closure are tenfold underestimated by epa. you're seeing 10 times the amount of power plants that are not going to close and they did not measure the energy impact or the environmental impact. they did not do a thorough job. it would have been nice to have that back then and certainly now as the things started out tens and billions of dollars of cost annually. host: michael livermore, i'm sure you want to weigh in on what ross eisenberg just said. but first, can you talk about how federal energy regulation in general are benefit. give us an example. guest: sure.

as ross said, there have been requirements in place under executive orders for decades now. agencies weigh cost against benefit. there are a variety of benefits associated with regulations in general. energy regulations, we are really talking about air quality regulation. that is the biggest piece of the debate that we are focusing on. the largest benefit associated with improving air quality is saving lives. there are friday of things associated with traditional forms of electricity generation, in particular, coal, power plants, of rad of pollutants -- a variety of pollutants, pollution associated with coal fire energy production. it is associated with premature mortality and a robust literature on that relationship in the public health research

community to establishing that link. the biggest category of benefits associated with these roles is the life-saving benefits of improving air quality. that is in the role that we are just talking about right now. that is the largest category of benefits. host: michael livermore talk about from your perspective about the supreme court case. what do you think is at the heart of this, what do you think happened? guest: the court has really taken up the question of when the agency should consider cost benefits. one regulating under this specific statutory provision. that is the subject of the case. one of the things that is interesting and complicated about the clean air act, there are a variety of different programs that the epa administers to improve the air. some of them can't consider cost and the supreme court has held that the statute requires the

agency only to focus on public health and not to consider cost when setting the standards. that is not this program that the agency is administrating for the mercury role. the mercury rolled deals with hazardous air pollutants. the question is whether the agency considered costs at the right moment. we know that the agency considered costs and did a full cost-benefit analysis of the role and the benefits outweigh the cost, but the question is whether they should have considered costs in the earlier period of time during this rulemaking. my sense is that the court will come out and uphold that agency's rules. the reason it would have been impossible for the agency to actually consider cost at the point in the rulemaking process that is being proposed by the folks at challenging the role. the agency needed to make an initial decision about whether mercury was the kind of polluted that should be subject to regulation, and it made that

initial decision. they do, when you the regulation and designed the program, it conducted a cost-benefit analysis. with that threshold decision would be very difficult to consider the cost of making that threshold comes as -- decision because the regulation had not been designed it. there is a variety of different ways that the agency -- the told the agency has added disposable -- at its disposal to reduce costs, place cause on different actors in the regulated community, and unless the agency knows how it is going to do that, it can do a cost-benefit analysis. with agency did here was made the threshold decision and then it began to design the regulation and ultimately, in the course of designing the regulation once the decisions became more clear, it was able to do a cost-benefit analysis. host: let's take a step back for a second. ross eisenberg put together this

report looking at regulations. the total cost of federal regulations i type. you break it down. you look at environmental, you are talking about they hundred $30 billion. the total cost of regulation comes in at about $2 trillion. $330 billion though, what kind of regulations are we talking about? and why is this having -- how do you come to this number of $330 billion? guest: that is an excellent question. as michael said, the vast majority that make us up our air regulations. it is getting more expensive. the technologies are already in place. the technologies are just getting more expensive at two enduring the bang for the buck. we put out a report a few months ago saying the cost of regulation -- we actually use researchers the government had used and they had measured this using to researchers several years ago. at the time, the number was 1.5

7 trillion. we retained the same researchers and said, can you updated for 2014? they basically went through all the publicly available documents and the rules that have a score essentially, that actually the federal government did measure the cost and benefits of them. they came out and about $2 trillion. there is really no other way of putting it. environmental regulations tend to be the most extensive regulation that we are dealing with. it is also why we end up fighting about it because it is so expensive. at the end of the day -- a lot of it has to do it energy, environment and energy go hand-in-hand. when you could costs on feels, those pill costs get passed down to the product that my members manufacture into the things consumers use and pay for. we all bear brunt of the cost. host: manufactures a that cost and pass it on to the consumer. guest: at the end of the day everybody does. fuel providers go to many

factors, they have to internalize cost, our products can more expensive and consumers have to pay for it. we all pay across the board maybe not all the way direct through, but host: there is a real costs. host: we are talking about energy regulations. phone lines are on your screen. republicans, (202)-784-8001. democrats, (202)-784-8000. independence, (202)-748-8002. you can start dialing in now. first, i want to share with our viewers and have both of you respond. the headline in "the washington times," "president obama's new climate effort is stressing health and his staff is calling it agreement presents -- greenlight policy for this presidency. he was at howard university in talking about the new initiative he is putting forward. here's what he had said. the end of his remarks about regulations and the impact they have on our country.

president obama i want everybody to start recognizing the costs of inaction and recognizing the cost of inaction are even higher than the cost of action. the same way that there are costs associated with severe drought or significant wildfires or the kinds of storm surges that we saw in hurricane sandy. we are ultimately going to be better off being proactive then out in front of this thing as opposed to reactive or where we pay a whole lot more in pain and suffering as well as in terms of trying to deal with the backend of the problem. host: president obama yesterday at howard university. michael, let me go to and have you respond to what he said. also, his staff at the white house made he will have a legacy as a green president. guest: ok, so just on the first

point, that is absolutely correct in the climate change context and the public health context that there are costs associated with inaction. for example, if we don't move forward with the mercury role and is the supreme court were to strike a directory role down, we are talking about -- the mercury role down, we're talking about thousands of lives from dirty air. it is important to note that there are costs associated with action. there is no question about that. it takes money to put in technologies and improve air quality. the question i think many people would agree is that due benefits exceed the cost? and that is what epa fines with respect to the rule. time and change is the same, we can pay now to reduce commissions or pay later in the form of effects and climate change. that is the basic question. what that means is that we should take steps now that are

cost-effective that make economic sense given our reality of that exposure. that is the basic question that epa tries to answer through these roles. host: now -- guest: sorry, i was going to the present. he has supported a number of important environmental initiatives. one of the things on both sides of the auto -- on both sides of the aisle, they render extreme the differences between parties. go back to the mercury rule, the original provision was signed into law by a republican president. the regulation was moved forward by the clinton administration bush junior administration took a crack at the mercury rule, but he recognized the importance of controlling mercury and now that obama is frustration. there has been a decade-long effort of both political parties to address the problem, so it is

important to recognize that there is continuity as well. host: i also want to let viewers know we have a line set aside for business owners. we would like to hear from you about energy regulations and how they impact you. 202-748-8003. let's hear from brian in massachusetts, independent collar. caller: hi, how are you doing? i can remember back in the 1970's and 1980's, there was so much pollution and it was unbelievable. please let me say something about the last subject you are on. in massachusetts, 85 percent of people are illegals -- host: i'm not going to let you do that because we need to stick to the topic. we have to guests here to talk about energy regulation. ross eisenberg, why didn't you take his first point about the need to protect the environment.

guest: i think that is a good jumping off point. that is where i was going to come in before the call. in the 1980's there were pollution problems, back in the 1960's, there were pollution problems. at the end of the day, there is a policy that these problems have gotten worse. they have gotten substantially better because of things that manufactures and everybody else is doing in terms of the climate context. the united states has committed more greenhouse gases than any other nation on earth. in terms of ozone, we have reduced ozone levels 25% since 1990. we will reduce them another 25% over the next three to five years. we are doing very good things. the air is getting cleaner. i've go for runs every morning and the air is getting better. there are -- there is more work to be done. these things get expensive and we have to knowledge we are making progress and we need to slow down and do things with

more common sense. host: would you agree that we have made progress and we can take our foot off the gas? guest: well, i certainly agree on the point that we have made important progress on environmental -- certain environmental quality issues. it is important to recognize that we have had incredible economic growth. when you look over the period of several decades and at the same time, we have had substantial environmental improvement. that is a real testament to the american economy and to smart government intervention and a testament to the business community and their response. that having been said, there are certain categories of environmental risk that we are not doing a good job. climate is exhibit a. the global community of which the united states is obviously a major leader, has dropped the ball. we need to become more aggressive on climate. we are not doing enough, purely looking from an economic

perspective, we are not doing enough investing to avoid costs in the future. the reality is that other pollutants, including air quality pollutants, there are still a lot of very smart and economically justified regulations and reductions that we can get going forward. we are not there yet, although we have made progress. host: kevin, democrat collar. go ahead, kevin. caller: the power plant in my area, they went from coal and natural gas. the electric bill has not gone up. you go down to the power plant and where the coal pile was, they planted nice, green grass and if you go over to the power plant and there is no black smoke. yet, i feel bad about the quality, but we -- but can we get for that coal?

my electric bill has not gone up because of it. we are also talking about the cost of electric bills going up for regulations, but wouldn't natural gas burned better? like i said, it doesn't cost any more. my local power plant switched to it and they've got two or three more in natural gas sick -- so couldn't they go to more natural gas and wouldn't that the cleaner alternative and burn better cleaner and what it cost any more? host: all right, kevin. ross eisenberg. guest: that is a question. at the end of the day, if we have access to everything utilities and the consumer can make the decision based on economics, based on everything

in one big calculation. they figured out a way to mix of the rates were kept at a stable rate, that is a wonderful thing. there are tremendous benefits to using natural gas. at the end of the day, we are at it -- in a situation where the price of gas is still low. that being said, there are other states where that is not happening. so when you start closing doors and picking winners and losers in terms of energy, there are consequences to it. i am very happy to hear that it worked out well and i will. it is working out well in other states, but not so well and others. all we are asking is that these costs be measured properly. host: we will go to robert rochester, new york. caller: yeah, just a few points here. i do want to blame's of fuel -- blame fossil fuels for the global warming we have until we

address the chemical trails of morning blocking out the blue sky. until we figure out what the project in alaska is doing blasting the iron sphere. and not only that, why can't we as a country, with an energy-based economy, why can't we figure out commercial hemp? you can't tell me texas tech, m.i.t. can't figure out how to burn commercial hemp. every broken downtown in america can go and have a basis of economy on renewable energy. host: michael livermore, let's take this idea of renewable technology. guest: absolutely. so you might ask the question, why haven't we developed cleaner energy technologies? or why are we dissatisfied with the correct mix of technologies we have available? a major part of that region is that cost, the true costs

associated with energies including coal, are not reflected -- the companies do not bear those costs. the full costs, the full public health costs associated with pollution -- if it was, if we had appropriate prices that reflect a those costs, there would be an incentive to develop exactly the can of technologies that you are describing. but as long as the playing field is not level and there is an implicit subsidy for fuel, then there is going to be less development, left -- of those technologies. the best way for to get those kind of technologies is to make sure that the price is played -- is paid by polluters. host: james in chattanooga, tennessee. a democrat. caller: hi. i would just like to know from

this fellow, ross, if he understands, you know, the cost to human lives when things go wrong like in massachusetts when they polluted the water and there was a huge lawsuit out there. and several of these companies slipped out of the lawsuit with minimal damage. does he understand when people get leukemia and things like that? because people dump stuff in a bad way? i am not saying i am an angel. i have had stuff all of the back of my truck and things like that, but i just want to know from ross if he is, you know, if he has learned anything from these lawsuit in massachusetts? caller: -- guest: thanks for the question. that is question. i am a father. i have two little kids. i care about their health and their future generations. at the end of the day, we are stewards of the environment. we do it because it is the right

thing to do and come at the end of the day, it is a good business. a lot of the things we have seen over the years are not happening anymore. yes, there will be act events -- be accidents. all we really want -- we absolutely believe there should be environmental regulation. we absolutely believe this should be laws affecting citizens, protecting our children and our grandchildren. but at the end of the day, we want to make sure that costs and -- our balance. host: what is the cost? how do you balance it? guest: it is probably somewhere michael and i agree, we should be evaluating the full scope. is the line drawn at although it out to 2300, which i have done on greenhouse gases and some of the cost and benefits they are looking at a crew hundreds of years in the future? are you advertising technologies

well after their useful life? are you looking at full macro economic impacts? so, you know, wherever you draw that line, make sure it is apples to apples. host: so, michael livermore, i want to to respond to that. guest: in general, that is right. we want to weigh costs against benefits. the mercury rule has $90 billion of benefits and it costs around $10 billion a year. it is a huge that benefit. really, the question -- the point of disagreement -- look almost every person would agree that $90 billion payoff in a $10 billion investment is a great payoff. the question is whether the national association of manufacturers might have a disagreement about how those

numbers are cut delighted. -- are calculated. the methodology is grounded in the p or d of literature, public health literature, so these are solid methodologies. that doesn't mean that they can't be improved. of course, the agency should always be checked to improve their methods. but, you know, we need to go forward with this the most sound methodologies we have available right now. and those show substantial net benefits of moving forward with these rules. guest: can i respond? i completely agree -- and that is our issue, the methodology. and that is a perfect example of where there is not an apples to apples comparison. you have the benefits calculation, which they estimate as high as 90, including indirect benefits other than the pollutants they are trying to

control. on the cost side, we don't have the indirect costs. if you make it apples to apples you may have a different picture. at the end of the day, if you just want to control mercury, i have manufacturers controlling it relatively cheaply. but when you bring this other stuff in, it it becomes a completely different situation. all we want is that this is done thoroughly and properly. to their credit, the epa is working with us, listening to us. but at the end of the day, it is a process. host: robin in richardson texas. a democrat caller. caller: i just wanted to mention -- i am retired now, but for the last 20 years, i worked at a large multinational corporation. and spent a lot of times overseas, particularly in china. and, you know, spent a lot of time wearing my mask just to be able to navigate through the cities and coming back and, you

know having to deal with multiple rounds of allergy medication to do with the results of the terrible pollution that they have over there. and also sitting in our meetings many times where discussions were had that we are to do this but there was legislation. i am not demonizing any large corporations. i think people want to do the best for our country, but i also want to make sure that people understand that large corporations are out to make a profit. and if you don't have good, strong legislation, that is what is -- what happens in terms of china and other places. thanks. host: michael livermore? guest: yes, i think that is such an important point. the way our economy works best is when we have the right rules in place that give companies the incentives to go out, and then the process of making money, in the process of turning a profit,

they generate huge benefits jobs, products that we all use and enjoy. they generate economic growth. but in the context of rules that created incentives without hurting people, without causing unnecessary pollution, without contributing to climate change which will cost us a lot down the road. if we get the right rules in place, then our dynamic, innovative economy will achieve omissions reduction and generate all these great benefits. at the same time, if we don't have those rules in place. if we don't ensure the right incentives to control pollution and get over what from these companies, then we are looking at a situation like china where they don't have appropriate controls and it is a disaster. host: we will hear from wayne in shreveport, louisiana. a republican. good morning. caller: hey there, greta. i haven't talked to you in a while. all this climate change you guys

are talking about is a big hoax. there is no climate change. and i -- are you there? host: yes, wayne, we are listening. we will take your point. there is no climate change. what do you say to those who say this is a hoax? guest: we are at a point now where the epa is actively regulating greenhouse gases. we are doing it. at the end of the day, as i said earlier, we produce more greenhouse gases than any other nation on earth over the past 10 years. manufactures, specifically are emitting less greenhouse gases. but the only sector in the american economy and waiting less today than we were in 1990, so that is a good thing. at the end of the day, the federal government is regulating and we are prepared to deal with those regulations. as michael said earlier, this is a global issue that requires a global approach. unilaterally as he can to sort

of funeral auto -- is a can -- is akin to unilateral surrender at this point. it is a cost here. that cost is going to be borne by our local -- global competitors. host: middleton, new jersey. a-day. the democratic caller. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: i am going to pick up on that woman's comment. if we had a democracy instead of a plutocracy here, if our agencies were financed and staffed, which they are not, maybe we could get a lot more done. but the fact of the matter is if we stop the subsidies that are going to these fossil fuel corporations, if we stop them from off shoring their profits and pay taxes, we could use that money for r&d.

and there are amazing things out there that we could be developing to take us off of fossil fuels that really should go by the way of what the point was, the way of the dinosaurs. we have less pollution. i would like you to come to the state of new jersey and show you a little fight that still has been cleaned up after 10 years. now, we have to do something because we are destroying this planet. these profits of these fossil fuel companies -- i mean, we just lost 20% of the glaciers in canada. what are we going to wait for? 50 years from now, the bottom -- half of -- won't be there. all of us talk about being pro-life. those pro-life people should be shouting loud and strong about what is going on in our -- the

only place we have to live on. host: i will let both of you respond. guest: yeah, i think that, you know, the last two callers demonstrate the incredible degree of polarization that we have, which is really unfortunate. the degree to which these issues have been polarized, to the point where even an agreement about basic science is hard to come by. now, how do we move forward? one is, if we can agree that we need to address these issues and we want to take an empirically grounded approach, that we want to rely on the scientific community, that we want to rely on, you know, the consensus of the scientists and economics community about how to approach these issues, we can make a huge amount of progress to address environmental issues while still maintaining a strong economy. the problem is now we are an

incredible situation of gridlock so that right now, the obama administration is proposing a rule that will generate $90 billion of benefits for $9 billion with of cost, and this is incredibly controversial. and folks are fighting it like crazy. when we have a situation like that, it is difficult to make progress on the big issues when we have this level of controversy. guest: the last caller did a very good job of explaining. there are a lot of priorities that the american people have here. certainly, the gallup poll that this show had a segment on a few weeks ago, every year they do a poll on par -- on voters priorities. at the end of the day, not only has environmental problems gone down for the american public they don't even make the list in the grand scheme of things. at the end of the day, americans prioritize jobs, terrorism, the

economy, things of that nature that are also priorities, but they place a greater weight on than the environment. and that is not to say that the environment should not be a part. it absolutely is. but in the grand scheme of things, you start to look at where the president is going and talking about legacy and things of that nature where he is really prioritizing an issue that is not a party for most of the american public, as some of these other things are. it is where it ranks in the grand scheme of things. there seems to be a disconnect here between what washington is doing and what the rest of the american public actually believes on these issues. host: sam and california host: san mateo -- san mateo, california. good morning. caller: good morning. i am 66 and i have been a tree hugger since the 1960's. but mr. livermore, the problem i have is with their math. it sounds a whole lot like every

family is going to get $2500 each from obamacare. the second point -- i live on the pacific coast. and we have done a lot of work to clean up the air here. and we have a tremendous amount of pollution blowing across the ocean. so i really have some objections to the taccone and kind of regulations that obama this time to put on our country when there is a huge amount of pollution coming from other countries. guest: well, yeah, certainly the international pollution is a problem. it is one that is very difficult to address. so, i think i would agree with you that to do what we can to reduce international pollution is a good thing. in terms of how we calculate the benefits, most of those benefits are in the form of life savings. so what we have is an estimate

of the value that people assign to reducing mortality risk. it is not that there's going to be a check that arrives in the mail. what happens is that you will experience lower risk of dying from air pollution over the course of your life. and the epa's methodology recognizes that value. guest: so the issue for international pollution is a really, really good issue to talk about on this. i am so glad you raised it. we are now in the middle of a regulatory process for a new ozone regulation. it comes down from the stratosphere, from the ozone layer, pollution comes from a lot of things. we are in a situation now where most of the ozone levels are exceeding the amounts limited by law on the west coast. they are actually coming long-range from china. at the same time, the

administration is exit putting in front of us unequivocally the most expensive regulation of all times. it would be $140 billion a year to meet the standards they are sending. second place is not even close in this ranking. we are dealing with the most expensive regulation of all time, and places like california may not ever be able to meet it because, at the end of the day, you have pollution coming in from places that aren't the united states. so, why are we moving the chains? those of the kind of arguments we are trying to have here in washington. he sort of see the priorities are out of touch. that regulation went into place five years ago. we are now at a situation where they are trying to move the chains without even implementing the ones that are in place now to a level that is easily unattainable for california for reasons that have nothing to do

with california. these are things we really need to fix in washington. it was a great point. host: ralph. murphy, not kill anna. in independent here at caller: an independent. caller: people don't take to the fact that you have skyscrapers all over the country, all over the world, that radiate heat like you can't imagine. if you put your hand on it, you concede the difference between that and putting your hand on green grass on the ground. i mean, there is a prime example of how we are getting a lot of this global warming between blacktop in concrete and so on. as far as energy, i don't know why we are not doing solar and wind energy more than anything. it may cost a little more, but in the end, it makes a whole lot cleaner environment.

you could force down just to create energy. i mean, we are smart enough to see you energy ways. as far as pollutants, we have more pollutants in this country -- i mean, you take a must any product that you find in your house, it says right on the can, this may be cancer-causing. but yet we let the country's creek -- let the country's -- coutnrie -- countries keep creating them. host: ok, ralph. let me have david join the conversation. go ahead, david. caller: there is a thing -- i like when people who tell me it is a crisis start acting like it is a crisis, then i will believe it is a crisis. and what i mean by that is there are a lot of chronic things

activists, who don't live the lives they want everybody else to live. if you go and google tom friedman's house, his guest house is bigger than most people's houses. we are not at the capital, who is everybody's favorite advocate, flies around in private jets. fly commercial if you really care about the environment. the other point is a lot of the folks that want the regulations that the gentleman from virginia want our people that are of means and can afford a 25% increase in the power bill. this will hit the people on the lower income scale, in the middle class. this will hit them a lot harder and basically will be a tax on them. if you put the question to the people and say, would you pay 25% more for electricity in order to protect the environment

tackle -- the environment? the answer is a whole lot different than saying, do you believe in protecting the environment? host: mr. eisenberg, we will start with you first. guest: that last point is absolutely a dynamite point. we have polled extensively on greenhouse gas regulations. at the end of the day, that is the right point which is, yes people are willing to do something about it. again, it shouldn't be a partisan issue, as michael said earlier. but how much do you want to pay for it? just tell us how much it is going to cost. one thing that drives us crazy in a manufacturing state's when we are not told the truth as to how much something is going to cost. and when the rules continually change on us every couple of years. those are the things that really

make it hard to manufacture and hard to make it profitable here in the united states. just tell us what it is going to cost. give us the real data. let us make a decision on our own that if it is going to hit the most susceptible parts of our population the hardest, at least tell us that. don't tell us it is going to be a postage stamp a day or a gallon of milk a month. tell us the truth and let us make the decision. host: michael livermore? guest: of course, the agency -- when it does its cost analysis, it uses solid methodologies and backwards looking analysis at cost predictions. it tends to show that the agency overestimates the cost. actually, the cost of complying with the rules that are adopted by epa are lower than their predictions. so the idea that epa is hiding the cost, pretending the cost is zero is just not the case.

the agency does a very thorough job of estimating regulatory costs. again, when you examine retrospectively how accurate those predictions are, they tend to be somewhat higher than the actual compliance. -- cost. and that is putting aside the industry predictions, which are much, much higher and therefore, much less accurate retrospectively. and this is an incredibly important issue. and it is one that really is not adequately addressed and we should be talking more about -- how to respond to the distribution of questions that are raised by regulation, and more generally about equality and other issues. but again, if were talking about a situation where there are huge benefits, billions of dollars of benefits at a fraction of the cost, there are ways to ensure that those costs fall in ways in

which to and not falling on the most vulnerable populations. folks are being adequately taking care of through the regulatory design so that it isn't the most fall. -- isn't the most vulnerable who are saying these effects. host: gary, a democratic caller. go ahead gary. caller: yes, first as a comment. businesses are not during the two cost of doing business, and that there's -- there is a lot of reasons for that, but mostly it is a lack of knowledge about stuff. but by passing off the hitting costs and so on, and finding those costs is difficult, but another aspect that on coal, we talk about merkley, but as a scientist, i know that there are radioactive elements -- uranium

it depends on the geology of the area where the call is coming from but very seldom is that talked about. that is scary, but it is as bad as mercury in some cases. that is another thing. but i do think with big data out rhythms now, gain theory, although i kind of stuff being applied -- all that kind of stuff being applied these kinds of things can think through a lot of these problems better than humans. and applying the stuff, i think we can really clean up our planet and do it in very efficient ways. and that is my comment. host: ok, gary. guest: we agree that a commitment to technology as an answer here. manufacturers innovate.

that is what we do. at the end of the day, that is going to solve all the challenges we have. and most of the issues we deal with here in washington. what is really important, the, again is that we make sure we are using a best tools and do the best six that we can possibly do -- and to the best things that we can possibly do so our government can make the best decision. i want to sort of mention the hitting costs that you mentioned. this is one where, on its face, the epa says, just like michael said on mercury, the benefits outweigh the cost. they said the benefits are anywhere from $60 billion to $80 billion, and the cost is on the bill of $15 billion to $20 billion. but 65% of the cost that would be needed to comply with this regulation -- quite frankly, we have been at this for a while --

65% of the cost would come from what epa calls unknown controls. and that means they have no idea. they are just expecting that we, the manufacturing sector, will come up with them. and we very well might. but when they assign a cost to that, they basically drop a flat line. that is why their numbers are low. if you fix that one piece of it, and there are many pieces of those our grandsons that need fixing -- of those out rhythms that need fixing, then the costs address the -- drastically outweigh the benefits. host: a couple more phone calls. caroline, alabama. caller: yeah. my concern is that if we keep taxing regulations for

manufacturing here in america we may force manufacturing to go overseas. and in the end, we may end up causing more pollution for the planet as a whole. host: michael livermore, take that. guest: yeah, it is a concern. it is especially a concern when you are looking at a global pollutant like greenhouse gases. it is extremely important that the u.s. take a leadership role every move forward with climate regulations here. but at the same time, pursue a global approach and get emissions reductions around the world because, you know, there is a risk that you described but even the larger risk is that countries will -- even countries like china, india, and other countries -- won't control their ambitions. and that alone is a huge problem. so the united states needs to pursue a leadership role, make

sure we are demonstrating our commitment to reducing emissions are at home, while at the same time pursuing a global agreement. i think there is widespread agreement that that has to be the way to deal with the problem. host: dan. littleton, colorado. a democrat. caller: in 2007, i believe al gore is contention that -- is evil. and that's what we're talking about this morning. but the problem is after anyone looks at the issue, it becomes clear that the real science is there is only .38 of one single molecule of carbon dioxide per thousand molecules of air we breathe. and that is only capable of absorbing a very tiny slice of only infrared radiation from our

son -- sun. the bottom-line is, there is no visit will science or elementary math that carbon dioxide can affect any global warming or cooling, or affect any weather pattern anywhere in the world. that is the truth. anything else is just speculation. and it is a lie. and it is the seats -- it is the seat aimed at shutting down -- deciet aimed at shutting down our fossil fuel industry. guest: this is an excellent jumping off point to the one regulation we haven't talked about today, which is also under consideration by the epa, which is regulation of greenhouse gases. and they are going after the existing power plant fleet could and this is one where the administrator of the epa says it

will cost about a gallon of elk per month. some of our analysis we have looked at replacing that at hundreds of billions of dollars total. $366 billion. almost every state in the union is going to see double-digit electricity rate increases. greenhouse gases are being regulated, that is the law we are compelled to deal with. but at the end of the day, they should be doing it in a proper way. and frankly, a legal way. it brings us all the way back to sort of the cost versus benefits wednesday, you know, we did some polling, it was on this greenhouse regulation. the american people to want to pay $266 billion to do with a regulation like this. they are willing to pay, but not quite that much. all be a looking for is some truth in regulation. we want to makes her we are dealing with regulations, like

ozone regulation. to the previous point, we are not being forced to internalize costs that are international competitors don't have heard we want the united states to be the best place for the world to manufacture. and we wanted to be the most environmentally safe place to manufacture. for everybody's environmental legacy. we need to do the obligatory process better than we are doing right now. host: michael livermore. guest: on the greenhouse gas regulation, again, if we look historically at firemen to progress in the united states, where we have predicted costs for different environmental regulations, which we have done dozens of times the historical pattern is that we have overestimated the cost to that we have actually achieved emission reductions at lower costs than the government

predicted. now they're saying that the costs will be multiple full higher than epa's estimations. that has never been the case. there has never been an instance like that in the past. in all my years of controlling emissions. unless there is something exceptional about this particular regulation, i think there is good reason believe that we will be able to achieve a cleaner environment, deal with climate change, and do it in a way that is economically viable. and doesn't impose substantial costs in excess of benefits. and that is the road we are on. we can of course do better, but the rules we are talking about again, the economic analysis that is done by the agency, grounded in sound methodology shows that the benefits far exceed the costs. host: gentlemen, we'll have to

leave it there for now. ross eisenberg, vice president of energy and resources policy at the national association of manufacturers. michael livermore, insti >> the next washington journal is live from the daily caller. we will talk about the changing media landscape. we will talk about the republican agenda in congress. washington journal is live tomorrow morning at 7:00 on c-span. the boston marathon bomber was found guilty today. he was self-radicalized and bent

on striking a blow against america. he faces a second phase of his trial. it begins next week in boston. he and his late brother planted bombs at the race. he was convicted of murdering an mit police officer. prosecutors said that he committed the crimes in a depraved manner and he deserves the death penalty. that is from the boston globe. the head of u.s. customs and border protection talks about counter-terrorism efforts. we have been bringing you conversations. tonight, you will hear from will hurd. later, programs for felons. now, remarks from gil.