look at the mayo clinic, there's no prevention for asthma. and there's no correlation of asthma and air. asthma has been increasing, even though through the clean air act we have been good stewards in decreasing and decreasing ozone and all the emissions, but asthma continues to rise, and no one knows why, but there's this big, false projection that it's global warming causing asthma. we don't know what is causing asthma. in most the people who have it get out of it by the time they are adults because there lungs and their bodies are strong enough to fight it off. but i'm getting sick, very sick of people saying asthma and dirty air or global warming. it's a myth. >> thank you. my time has expired. >> thank you, senator markey. >> thank you very much.

dr. rice, you're here from harvard medical school. people are getting sick, are they not? and they're not getting sick the way harry alford is getting sick. they're really getting sick aren't they? and so maybe you could bring to us a little bit of your information about the increased hospitalizations, the respiratory-related diseases all of the things that are implicated in having this additional pollution in our atmosphere. can you talk a little bit about how it is inpacts, especially children in our country. >> thank you. this is certainly an area where i feel that i have a lot to add to the discussion, because i'm a lung doctor. i take care of patients with lung disease, and i also study air pollution. that when i'm not taking care of patients. and in addition to my personal observations as a doctor, when i see patients come see me more often because the pollen levels are worse or the ozone levels can get high in boston on very hot days. we also have the observations of the physicians of the american thoracic society.

the survey i mentioned. and the doctors completing the survey, the vast majority of them commented that they personally observed that their patients' lung function is worse, their symptoms are worse during high-pollution days. >> there are real implications for the 12 million americans who already have respiratory illnesses, huh? >> certainly, and we can look back at the incredible success story of the clean air act. the reductions in air pollution as a result of the clear air act have been astounding, and we've really come a long way, and when we look back, researchers look back at the health benefits of the clean air act, they've been astounding, not just for respiratory illness asthma symptom control but also mortality and heart disease.

>> and you mentioned your own son earlier in your testimony, who has a respiratory illness, huh? so what could, just additional pollution that we send up there, uncontrolled mean, long-term for him and for those others of millions of victims across the country? >> so there's a variety of sources of air pollution. and one of them is the power points, power plants through the burning of greenhouse gases. there's also traffic and other things. so the reality is that if we do not do anything about greenhouse gas emissions, the epa report looked at just that piece of the pie and found that ozone levels will increase, predict that we actually have increases in ozone, whereas ozone levels have declined and we've experienced health benefits as a result of

those gains. >> thank you for putting that out there, so there's real sickness, not metaphor cal sickness that is occurring because of global warming. and you're here representing new york but you're representing one of the regional greenhouse gas initiative states, all of new england, those six states, new york, maryland and delaware. nine states, they band together and over the last several years, massachusetts has seen a 40% reduction in the green house gases we're sending up, while we're seeing a 20% growth in our economy. can you talk a little bit about that virtuous cycle that seems to elude the observation of those who are critical of the ability to increase the health of individuals and the economy simultaneously? >> yes, senator, thank you. as i said in my testimony, the

reggi experience has been an extraordinarily successful one. we had an independent study done by the analysis group that quantified the benefits over a three-year period from 2009 to 2011. $1.3 billion in reductions in bills over the region. $1.6 billion in extra or incremental economic activity. it's been an extraordinarily positive experience all the while, as you said, the region has experienced economic growth. we've reduced bills. we've reduced bills for low and moderate-income families especially in the beauty of the approach is that -- >> say that again? you've reduced the electricity bills for low and moderate-income people? >> yes, the cumulative benefit to just new york low and

moderate income bill payers has been $60 million to date. through the first quarter of this year. and those, those are going to keep those benefittings will continue on into the future because new york has specified in two of its programs income eligible patients, excuse me patients, income eligible ratepayers. the beauty of the program is that states have the ability to target the revenue from the sale of those allowances to a variety of programs. so industrial customers can benefit. low and moderate-income rate payers can benefit. businesses, your average homeowners. so it has been a tremendous success story. >> and it is my understanding that under the proposed rule making that for example new jersey and pennsylvania could

join our regional greenhouse gas initiative. and already plug into an existing system that is working, that is lowering costs for low and moderate income, lowering the amount of greenhouse gases while seeing tremendous growth in our gdp. so i think there's a reason to be very optimistic about our ability, listening to the pope's admonitions to us that we should be the global leader on this and we can use market forces to accomplish the goal while still enjoying tremendous economic growth and taking care of the poor and the moderate income people in our country. >> i agree with you entirely senator, i think there's places around the country that could benefit from that model. it may not be identical to the model but certainly states cooperating makes great sense, because the efficiencies of dealing with multiple states and energy systems that cross state

boundaries is obviously of great advantage to the rege states. >> i am afraid that too many people are pessimistic in general. they're not optimistic of our ability ago americans to be the global leaders, to use new technologies to protect young people and the economy at the same time and they harbor a great doubt about our country's ability to do that. but i thank the two of you for your testimony, because you point out the problems and the solutions and you have devolved on it in a way that should give people some hope. >> i think that concludes our hearing. i want to thank the witnesses for bringing forth some very great information and facts and lots for us to think about. and appreciate all of you all taking time today to be with us. and i want to thank my ranking member, and with that, we'll conclude the hearing, thank you.

>> oklahoma senator james and half talks about epa regulation -- senator james and half talks about epa regulation. >> like many of us, first families take vacation time and like presidents and first ladies, a good read can be the effort companion for your summer journeys. what better book than one that appears inside the personal lives of every first lady in american history.

inspiring stories of fascinating women who survived the scrutiny of the white house. a great summertime read. available from public affairs as a hardcover or e-book, through your favorite bookstore or online bookseller. >> on tuesday, oklahoma senator james and haughey was keynote speaker at the heritage foundation. he opposes the clean power plan and talked about that and climate change which he says is a hoax. he is followed by a panel of climate change opponents who debate the benefits of the epa clean power plan. >> i want to thank all of you for coming and all of the people who are watching online and will beat watching on c-span.

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

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

here. so anyway i just wanted to share with you, yeah, that's right, she was there when i was in the house, and that was 20 years ago, and she -- she was there, yeah. she wasn't married at that time so it was molly inhofe. go back and look it up. cute little girl. yeah. was molly inhofe. go back and look it up. cute little girl. yeah. anyway, let me i was talking to the heartland institute and jim dement was there and said come tell us the same thing. can you leave if you want to. myron and i were fighting this battle back before it was popular, and i always remember the time that we went to that first -- you all are aware of these annual meetings that the u.n. has where they bring everybody in paper and everything, and the condition is they have to say they want to do

something about global warming. and you remember the one in italy, milan milan, italy where they had the wanted posters up with my picture on it. and we went where they were making those things and i asked what they were going to do with the leftovers, i brought them back and used them for fundraisers. it worked out real well. we've been involved in this thing for a long time. now this is what i want everyone to have, because i put this together for people like you. so when you go and you get in these discussions with people, you've got documentation conservatives have to be documented, i think you know that. so that is the reason for that. now confession's good for the soul. let me just mention this. back when i was first in the senate and when at that time everyone was talking about global warming and the world's coming to an end, so i assumed it must be true, until we found out that the cost of the thing. now that was actually m.i.t. and

the charles rivers associates and all of them. the range is still between between $2 billion and $3 billion a year. and i started paying attention and said make sure the science is right. that's when we found out it wasn't. one speech on the senate floor and all of a sudden the real scientists started coming out of the wood work and would come in and tell the truth about some of them had been on the ipcc and had been kicked off because they didn't buy their thing. so, so anyway, that, that was a, and i want to mention what's going on today, because senator whitehouse has now given his 100th floor speech, and if you listen to them they're all exactly the same. and i happen to like that guy. i don't blame him for being the direct beneficiary of all this money that's tom steyer money

and all that bass heecause he wasn't even up for reelection at that time. there was a reason for that speech, april 18, 2012 because that was right after tom styer made his announcement that he was going to put $100 million into campaigns in the 2014 campaign cycle. well he did that. and of course at that time it the reason, i think, that he got involved is, we're winning this thing. i mean i'll show you in a minute the documentation for that. but nonetheless anyway it's all about money. and you might remember when the cover of the national review where al gore's there with all of his -- he was speculated by the "new york times" as being the first environmental billionaire. and i think probably he was. but anyway one of the things that this gore effect was kind of funny, because every time he tried to have something something would happen. there was his global warming

cruise across the northwest passage to talk about global warming, but the passage was frozen. in february of '07 he was at a house hearing on warming that was canceled after the snowstorm when he was there. pelosi in 2009 was snowed out of her global warming rally. so these things have actually happened. and i think that even though the activists and other climate change entrepreneurs like styer committed the money, they didn't do well in the last election. now what is new about this is just three weeks ago a new tom steyer arrived his name is james faison. he said i'm a republican. i can start working on the republicans. you work on the democrats i'll work on the republicans. so he put up $175 million of his own money -- you may not have been aware of that. i guess you were. but that was when you add it

together for the next that's a quarter of a billion dollars that's going to go into campaigns. so anyway that's we have found out that he has a lot of interests in solar energy that -- now the next one, i like this one. can you see that? that was really neat. that was really snowy. and so one of the pages went out and made a snowball, the history of the united states senate that someone has thrown a snowball at the presizing officer. i had a kid in there who was a page from oklahoma. i said throw it low. it was beautiful. i enjoyed it. no one else did. but anyway, the reason i bring that up is because on this hand out, when you are challenged, and i went back and i looked out the things that they were saying, 15 years ago, the arguments that they were using they're still using today. and these arguments, you pick out any of them that you want here, and you need to have this with you because there are four

things on here that will give you the wisdom and the documentation for the things that you say, for example number four here is the polar bears are disappearing. well, the fact is that there is a problem with the polar bear right now. it's called overpopulation. the '50s, there were between 5,000 and 10,000 polar bear. today there are between 15000 and 25,000. so anyway i won't go over all of these but carry this with you, and when you hear someone on the senate floor, you'll recognize, right from this sheet, what their arguments are going to be. if you forgive me for that. you have too go back also and look at the history of this thing, because it was way back in 1997 that we did the

hague-perd rule. if you come back to rio de janeiro, talking about gore now. and you have a treaty that's hard on our economy and it's not going to force the rest of the countries to do what we have to do then we're not going to ratify it. it passed 95-0. then along came john mccain. we had the mccain-lieberman bill in 2002. he had this, it was a cap and trade bill, and that's where we used the $300 billion to $400 billion. and myron, you remember that very well. and then we beat, we won that one. and then the same thing in 2005. now it's interesting. we won those elections. among those races. but no one would join me down on the floor. it was lonely down there at that time. and so since that time, we've had a lot of veterans in the house get involved. we had markey and waxman and all of that. so and right now i belong to the

most exclusive club in washington it's called united states senators who are not running for president. the, with the exception of lindsey graham they're all on our side on this issue. now this whole thing should have been over in with climate gate, and i'm going to go back and refresh your memory on that. these parties that they have, the u.n. puts up, are every december, and the one that was in copenhagen, obama went over, nancy pelosi john kerry, barbara boxer, and hillary clinton, all five of them went over to tell the 192 countries that we're going to pass legislation that was cap and trade legislation. then i went over as one-man truth squad, and it was really fun. i remember talking in wiric's place. i went over there and said

you've heard about all these people. i'm going to tell you guys, it's not going to happen. they all lied to you. and of course it didn't happen. but all 191 other countries had one thing in mind, in common. they all hated me. but nonetheless. here's the interesting thing. right before leaving you remember lisa jackson. lisa jackson was the first appointment of an epa director by this president. and i, i really, i was the only republican who liked her. and it's because she couldn't tell a lie. you don't fit in this administration unless you can lie. so i asked her the question right before i went over to copenhagen. now this is live on tv. i said now i have a feeling that once i leave town you're going to come up with an endangerment finding to allow you to do with regulations what you can't do you don't have the votes to get done less latively, and so she kind of smiled so i knew it was true. and i said when you do you're

having to have to use some kind of science behind it, what are you going to use? >> ipcc. >> well, trahat's the united nations. now it was a matter of hours after that that climate-gate came out. i have the handout and the quotes that were made, like, on the u.k. telegraph said the worst scientific scandal of our generation, and it goes on and on. but this is a good thing to carry with you. that should have killed it right there, and we have the quotes from michael mann and others who were trying to rig this thing. and so that should have that should have actually ended it at that point. but anyway, the lisa jackson has always been, that's why she's fired. but she's, i remember one time i asked her the question, i said now, you know whether you do it through legislation or

regulation, if you do this, and you do a cap and trade, is that going to have the effect of reducing co2 emissions worldwide? and she said no it wouldn't do that. and the reason is this isn't where the problem is. the problem's china. you've got to do it in india, in mexico. and if you don't do that, you could have the reverse effect. if you chase away our manufacturing base here where do they go? they go to places like china and like india. it could have the effect of increasing and not decreasing it. that wasn't a popular response to the administration. but climate-gate should have ended right there at that time. so then along came gina mccarthy. she was a little bit more compatible with the administration. and if you if you look at the clean power plan and i know you're going to be talking about that in a minute. the clean power plan is actually worse than legislation, because legislation affects the emissions of individuals or

companies that emit it 12,000 tons of co2. and if you do it by regulation that would be under the clean air act would be 250 thousand tons. so it 250 tons so it would be more expensive than the 300 or 400. to give you an idea we now have 32 states opposing the power plant. we have 15 that have sued the epa, and we're one of them, my state of oklahoma. and we formed the intent to say no and not do it. so we're really coming out ahead on this thing in terms of public perception. and if you look also you see now that it's something that has happened only recently. even the "new york times" came out and took a shot at them saying they are using the epa illegally in their talking about

the cap and trade and the water plan, you know that's another big one, too. that's not what the discussion is today but the water of the united states, you might remember, they were trying to put that thing together to have, to take the word navigable out. i agree that states should have all the jurisdiction over water in the united states. but i agree also the federal government, if it's navigable should be involved in it. so they had the navigable element in there. and they tried to do it legislatively. and you might remember that senator feingold in wisconsin and congressman overstar from minnesota were the house and the senate sponsors of that. not only did we beat the legislation, but we beat both of them in the next election. so we have the public on our side. and now we have the newspapers and others coming out. and the crisis came when they finally, in addition to climate-gate, if you look at this chart here it's kind of

neat. the red line is what they were guessing all of their models were predicting that this is what was going to happen with the temperatures and then of course it didn't happen. so that was another little crisis that they even the intergovernmental panel on climate change admitted that a 2013 report that almost all historic simulations do not reproduce the observed recent warming. that is their fancy way of saying it's not warming. so we have now gone through 15 years where this didn't happen. now i remember early on it's kind of fascinating. i don't know why i'm the only one who talks about this, but it is fascinating that if you go back to 1895 that was the first time they ever used another ice age, they used that term. and for about, and this goes in 30-year cycles. that lasted till 2018.

yeah, 19 -- from 1895 to 1918. and then in 1918 all of a sudden it started getting warm, and that's when they started using the global warming. now that continued until 1945. in 1945, it started getting cooler again and that lasted 30 years. here's interesting thing about that. 1945 is the date of the largest surge of co2 emissions in the history of america. it was right after world war ii. and that precipitated not a warming period but a cold period. so this has been you know god's still up there. we still have these, and it one of the things, they call this the hiatus now. the hiatus is not getting warmer it's leveled off. so we're going into another cycle. and it's another indicator that i use. anytime there is a cause like this a liberal cause in that

they are not getting the attention of the public what do they do? they result in insults and demands. and i have all of these down in the handout that you have so you can have access to. one of the john kennedy juniors i guess said called me a prostitute. robert kennedy said this is treason, we ought to start treating them as tray tors. and the eco magazine called for nuremberg style trials for me. this always comes out. you get the insults. and, because they know that they don't have truth on their side. so the other thing that is on here that you would be you'll be wanting to use is the fact, i've repeated several times that, you know, they're trying to resurrect this issue. they're res rektsing it because people are now nobler. i remember when the gallup polls

had global warms as the number one or number two greatest concern. this one that you have here has it very last. number 15 out of 15. so they've gone from number one to number 15. and they also say even among the environmental problems this gallup pole just last march it's dead last in, it's right behind the tropical rainforest. so we're actually, you know winning in that respect. and i might mention also, you know, the, you talk about being the university down there where molly was. george mason did a thing too. they interviewed all of the tv meteorologists. and they came to the conclusion and they've prichbtsed this out that 63% think that if global warming is real, it's not man made. that's 63% of the guys that are out there. so that is the recent thing

that's happened. so, what's the motive? that's my u.n. thing. if you read my book, the last chapter is the longest chapter and that goes back and gives you -- in fact i had a young man in my office, because he was enjoying this so much, knew the research of the united nations and it goes back and actually talks to the 1970s on how they're trying to figure out a way. we have a group of senators. every time the united nations does something that's not in the best interest of us in the united states, we'll send a letter and all sign it and saying we're going to reduce our contribution to the united nations. they hate that. they don't want to be accountable. so how do they become accountable? they develop their own source of funding. so that's what this is all about. and they started and you have the motives of this thing. i think are pretty obvious. the first motive is stop the accountability to the united states. that's obvious.

the second one and i have these quotes also in the paper that i hope you'll be carrying with you. if you look at jocksha rock. kyoto represents the first component of all governments. and then you have the eu minister from margo wal strom. she said kyoto is about the economy, about leveling the playing field for big business worldwide. so the last thing, the third thing would be power. and i think richard lins et has always been my favorite one to quote. he talked about it's bad enough to lie but to do it for your own financial benefit is worse. but the one i enjoy, he said controlling carbon is a bureaucrat's dream. if you control carbon, you control life.

and that's what this is all about. now obviously, this is not very popular to talk about when you're in the senate, but you know i've been doing it now for 15 years and nothing's happened so far except the public has caught on. so good things are happening. and you wanted to share that with you and give you some of these quotes that you can have to show very clearly all that's happening right now. it's, we're still winning at this thing. and the cost of the thing is i notice you had -- i didn't know it until i walked in about a half hour ago that you had down there the social costs. and you'll have to explain that to them because they still hadn't figured that out. >> they're working on it. >> they can't refute the fact that the cost is between $300 billion and $400 billion a year. it would be for cap and trade. now what i do in oklahoma just because i take these positions

and i want to make sure people back there understand that it may not be popular, but it is when you explain it. i always take every time i hear a big figure. i take the number of families in my state of oklahoma who file a federal tax return and i do the math. the a money that it would cost them would be about $3,000 a year for a family. but, again even if you believe that stuff this doesn't solve the problem. and i'm going to tell you right now, the people in oklahoma, they understand that. but i do believe that that is the thing that people that other side doesn't want to talk about is the cost. and that's how they invented social cost. if i had time i would stay and hear you explain the social cost, because none of my staff has been able to do that to me. [ laughter ] all right, with that, that's time i had reserved here. but i'll be glad -- [ applause ] there are two minutes left in my

segment, so i will be glad to answer questions. >> please give your name and your association and wait for the microphone because it is on tv and so on. any questions? okay. mark? >> hi, senator, i'm mark wittenton. used to work on the senate staff on this issue. my question is are you going to update your book? >> you know, i thought about that. and the only update would be what's happened since that time. and i think that people know that. but i really have, i've given a lot of thought to that, and in fact, the little girl that was teaching with you down at james madison university molly, she wrote one of the chapters. remember the igloo? the igloo. that was my daughter molly and her family of six who built an igloo because they were snowed in. all airlines were down. it was a real igloo.

it would sleep four people. and so she was declared by msnbc to be the worst family in america. so molly, so molly did a chapter of how great her family is that they're all achievers and all that. anyway. questions? all right. get your panel together, and then we'll talk about -- [ applause ] >> i remember going down and seeing molly. and she's a beautiful little girl. she was very small. and i walked in and i -- there she was at this huge auditorium. i could barely see her down there. >> i'm sure i've met her. >> i bet you have. >> all right. thank you very much. well, while the panel comes up, i'll just give a little introduction as to what the social cost of carbon is and i think building on what the senator said if you look at,

kevin and marlow. and i think pat will tell us exactly how much moderation of warming we're likely to get from any of these policies or even much more extreme policies. and that's a pretty depressing number if you're trying to push climate policy to say that it really has so little impact. and instead, they've come up with a substitute because, as you say, 500-some degree by 2050 that's not enough to motivate people into an end of the world mentality. so they have something called the social cost of carbon purports to give a number that is equal to the damage done to the economy by a ton of co2 emitted in any particular year aggregating all the damage from that year until the year 2300, which is a long way away in any event. so what i will do is give the

introduction of the panelists all at once and then i will have them come and speak so we won't have a break in between. and then we'll do questions at the end. the first speaker is patrick j. michaels, the director for the study of science at the kato institute. he was program chair for the committee on applied climatology. he was a research pros fesser of environmental sciences at the university of virginia for 30 years. he has written and been published in major scientific journals, including climate research, climate change, geophysical letters. he's written or edited six books. i'm sure he'd like you to buy multiple copies of all of them. they're well written insightful

insightful. he holds a ph.d. in climatology in the university of wisconsin at modadison. >> our second speaker did his undergraduate work at the university of california berkley, and his major there was applied mathematics with a specialty in mathematical cityicing. he also holds two masters degree from the university of maryland one in business and management and the other in mathematical statistics. he followed that up and finished his phd there a year ago with majors in statistical computing. so he's not just some egghead he's our egghead! no, so he does science. he does business, and he has

math with a focus on policy, which is not that common and we feel lucky to have him here. batting cleanup is marlow lewis. marlow lewis jr. his father was the producer and creator of the ed sullivan show and in any event that's not marlow that's his father. but he's also a bluegrass musician. he's at the competitive enterprise institute. he's been published in the washington times tech central station, the national review and interpretation of journal of political philosophy. prior to joining cei he was at the region foundation in los angeles, joining the 106 congress he served in the reform

sub committee on natural resources and regulatory affairs. he also served in other places on the hill, in the state department as a teenager i think, in the reagan administration. he holds a ph.d. in government from harvard university and a b.a. from clairemont mckenna. we thank all of the speakers and have them all come up starting with pat. [ applause ] >> good afternoon. it's an honor to be here. it's an honor to talk about climate change because i like talking about insanity. and i want to give you an example that is in this morning's paper. our epa issued a report yesterday in preparation for the paris meeting of course that says that we're all going to die unless we agree to limit our emissions to values that we

can't limit them at paris. and the spin-off story was that global warming will increase severe weather in the united states, that means tornados, floods hurricanes, et cetera severe thunderstorms. but i have a question for you. in what state in this country has the largest exodus of individuals in the united states? california. by far. by far. california's economy has got some problems, some of which probably have to do with their greenhouse gas rules. and what state has the largest inflow of people? texas. that's right. so, california. the severe weather in california, there is none. if you want to talk about the drought in california that is manmade by the people, the effects of it are manmade by the people in sacramento. the california water system can hold five years worth of water.

and so there should not be a problem there, except they chose to make it a problem. texas has the highest frequency of tornados in the country severe thunderstorms. it's hotter than hell. this is houston on a you know good day. extreme cold. blue northers go down the panhandle. the sky turns bright blue and the temperature plummets. hurricanes. can anybody say the galveston hurricane? killed 7,000 people in 1900. largest single weather related disaster in the history of the united states. and floods. tropical storm claudette which occurred about when i was starting at university of virginia i believe holds the 24-hour rainfall record for the united states at alvin texas. so people choose to go from an environment where there is no severe weather to one where severe weather is a daily occurrence. and yet the epa says that this

is going to cause all these problems. well, it's very clear that people adapt to their environment. as long as they have enough money to do so. with that diatribe how do i push this thing, forward here? okay. interagency working groups determination of social cost of carbon. is it scientifically justified? that's kind of an easy one to answer. let's talk about global warming for just a second. you know, you're taught in school here in the mid-atlantic it's not the heat, it's the humidity. well i'd like to rhine that with what you should be thinking about global warming. it's not the heat, it's the sensitivity. sensitivity is defined, one definition, as the amount of warming that you get for an arbitrary doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere after all is said and done. if the sensitivity is low, we have a non-issue. if the sensitivity is high, or the probability that the sensitivity is high is not negligible, then people will invoke the precautionary

principle and legislate to their heart's content. let me tell you about the intergovernmental working group, the group that put together the social cost of carbon. this man here is mr. garbachov, in case you can't tell. he is fond of saying, "that's old thinking." what the interagency working group did, does, is literally old thinking. this is their old thinking. this is a plot of the frequencied probability of x amount of warming from about eight authors from the early part of the 21st century. the early years of the 21st century. and the black line at the top of the horizontal lines is the frequency distribution used by the intergovernmental interagency working group for the social cost of carbon. and the point of this is on the right, what you see are fat

tails. and so that's why people invoke the precautionary principle on this issue etc. >> do you have a pointer? >> i wish i did. no. you want me here because you're recording, right? yes? >> whatever you want. >> there should be a pointer on that. well, i'm wasting the few minutes allocated to me. this here is the fat tail here. and this is the probability distribution for warming used by the interagency working group. in my upcoming book global lukewarming, one of the chapters is people fear their fat tails. now, we have already seen this. the problem is we have a busted forecast. you cannot look at this graphic, which is the red line or the five-running means for lower temperature for the 10 2 models.

the u.n. has 108 models but six of them don't give a lower tropo tropospheric model. the two simulations, the two summaries of the satellite data, lower tropospheric data. the other dots are the lower atmospheric temperature as measured by weather balloons, which are calibrated instruments that go up twice a day. there are four summaries of these. you cannot look at this picture and not realize that a tragedy is occurring. by my profession's inability to say the three most important words in life, which is not i love you. it's "we were wrong." i was wrong.

and this is not just going to take down climate science. this illustration is going to take down people's faith in science. the longer we wait, the worse it's going to be. now, here's the satellite record. senator inhofe i realize you're not here but it's not 15 years. this is the new summary of the satellite record from the university of alabama on july 1st, that would be six days from today. we will begin our -- i'm looking at the camera -- 22nd year without a significant warming trend. that's correct. and the other data there it is, remote sensing systems, begins its period without warming in november of 1994. the records are very very similar now.

22 years without it. so, here are the recent estimates of sensitivity beginning, first papers on this, with one exception, which i will note in a minute. started to come out in 2011. and you can see these are the 95% confidence limits for sensitivity given in 2014. the top arrow is what's used by the interagency working group. you can see why i said it's old thinking. and by the way there was one paper published in 2002 that showed the same thing. but in the words of andrew revkin in an article about a year and a half ago, he said it was an article on climate sensitivity and it said scientists are reluctant to admit that the sensitivity may have been overestimated because a paper was published ten years

ago by a scientist normally associated with libertarian think tanks. you've made it in this world when you have no name. anyway -- and i don't want to talk about the implications of that. here is -- from nick lewis very recently using the latest estimates of sulfate cooling. that's the knob on the computer model that allows you to make it simulate the past wonderfully, if you don't know what the sulfate load was which we didn't until this paper came out by stevens in 2015. and this is the probability distribution for the sensitivity after doubling of carbon dioxide. take a look. there are four different calculations that are made and we fall somewhere around 1.2 degrees celsius. the environmental protection agency uses three degrees celsius as a matter of routine.

then there's also a matter the amount it should warm by the time the carbon dioxide doubles in the atmosphere. effectively doubles. should probably be somewhere around 2065. and that is this one here. this is the total warming caused by greenhouse gases plus everything else. around 2065. so make closer to 1 degree sells yuls. let's say we've had .7 of a degree celsius.celsius. let's say we've had .7 of a degree celsius. let's say half of that was due to human activity just for the heck of it. you're going to get .6 of a degree over the next five decades. that's nothing compared to what has been forecast. the divergent -- the disparity between the orange line in the killer slide and the loweller tropospheric temperatures as measured by satellites and

weather balloons will grow and grow and grow and grow until this profession that i am not happily a member of says we were wrong. now, this was presented over to the american geophysical union in december and it's a little complicated. i'm going to stand over there and ruin the video presentation. solid bottom lines are the average of all 107 of the united nations computer models. the average warming trend predicted for the last ten years, the last 11 years, last 12 years the last 62 years. beginning in 1951.

the 95 and 97.5 confidence limits around the mean value predicted by the 107 models. and seen as the model output is pretty normally distributed, you can apply standard statistics to it. the colored dots are the observed temperature changes. for the last ten years, for the last 11 years. on up to the last 62 years. where the colored dots are green, the predicted changes fall within the 95% confidence level made of the model distribution of warming. where the dots turn yellow, about 37 years ago they fall out of the 95% confidence limit, and where the dots turn red, they fall out of the 97.5% confidence limit. if this were normal science

this lot of the model versus observed lower tropospheric temperature would provoke those three words, and those three words are, we were wrong. but we calculate the climate sensitivity based upon old thinking. and now, evan is going to tell us how bad that part is. [ applause ] okay so, thank you, pat. thank you for being here. i'm the senior statistician research partner here at heritage. i'm going to talk about the social cost of carbon which is the primary justification for this type of policy.

so, the first important questions to ask. firstly, how does the government estimate the social cost of carbon, and secondly is it even a reliable tool for energy policymaking? and here's a picture of a roulette wheel and i'd like you guys to keep it in mind as the talk goes on. so the social cost of carbon. firstly, what is it? it is defined by the epa as the economic damages per metric ton of carbon dioxide emissions. so the general question is how do we estimate this sec, and the general question is what is the long-term economic impact of carbon dioxide emissions across a particular time horizon? and there are three primary statistical models used by the interagency working group to answer this question. namely the dice model, the fun model, and the page model. and these models are estimated by what we call monte carlo simulation. where various aspects of these models are random and they are therefore repeatedly estimated,

and as a result various distributional properties of the social cost of carbon are generated. so the thing is as with any statistical model, these models are grounded by assumptions namely a discount rate, a time horizon, and the specification of what we call and pat alluded to this earlier an equilibrium climate sensitivity distribution and i'm going to get to that in a bit. so at heritage david and i ran two of these three models and we rigorously examined these assumptions. firstly, a discount rate. so we talked about summing damages. the thing is not all damages are created equal. in particular, some people prefer benefits sooner rather than later and costs later rather than sooner, so it's necessary to quantify this inequality. the epa used discount rates to do so and they used 2.5%, 3%, and 5% discount rates to do so. despite the fact that the office of management and budget suggested that a 7% discount

rate be used. in our research we address this question by rerunning these models using the 7% discount rate as recommended by the onb. secondly, there's the assumption of added time horizon. projected economic damages are summed as i was alluding to earlier, in estimating the social cost of carbon. but the question is for how long. now, how far into the future can we see? so here's a picture of john adams. has anyone seen the hbo miniseries or read the book? so long ago, john adams predicted that america would one day become the greatest empire in the world. and he was right. but despite that fact he and our other founding fathers would have almost surely had no idea what the american economy would have looked like today. similarly, we have no idea what the american economy will look like 300 years from now. yet these models precisely try to make projections that far

into the future. at heritage, we made the less unrealistic assumption of trying to project say 150 years into the future. and we reestimated the models accordingly. now, lastly, these models make the specification of -- and pat alluded to this earlier -- an equilibrium climate sensitivity distribution. now, global warming alarmists will consistently tell you oh the science is settled on global warming. but the thing is if it's science, then how can it be settled? new studies consistently come to light, replacing existing studies. the concept of equilibrium climate sensitivity

you will notice it compared to drastically lower probabilities under the more up to date distribution specified by alexander otto and his colleagues as well as lewis. under the lewis distribution, that probability is slightly under one in a thousand. you'll and you'll notice this for the other temperatures as well. it's not just true for the probability of the temperature exceeding 3.5 degrees celsius.

so let's take a step back and think about what this tells us. essentially this tells us that the iwg's assumptions vastly overstated the probabilities of extreme global warming in their computations of the social cost of carbon. so now what happens if we tweak these assumptions? what if we tweak the discount rate, the time horizon or the ecs distribution? let's take a look at what happens and i'd like to think my intern kirby lawrence for putting these together. we can see the s.e.c. estimated a variety of discount rates and, ecs distributions. if we increase the discount rate under both the dyson fund models we see drastically lower estimates, from going as high as $56 or so under the dice model to as low as around $4 or $5. and even potentially going negative in the fund model. and we'll get to that in a

second. under the more up-to-date distributions, the s.e.c. estimates are also dramatically lower. for example, even if you stick to the low 2.5 discount rate that the iwg actually used the s.e.c. drops by over $20. again, this shouldn't surprise you because the distribution used by the iwg vastly overstated the probability of extreme global warming compared to the more recent ecs distributions. now, you notice some negativity in these slides, particularly under 7% and even under some of the other distributions. s.e.c. estimates, excuse me, under the fund model. let's take a step back and think about that. do these models necessarily suggest that global warming is a good thing or a bad thing? that is, do they always suggest that there are economic damages associated with carbon dioxide emissions? well, this is an interesting aspect of the modelling, and with the fun model, the answer

is no and it actually allows for a negative social cost of carbon, and in our research at heritage, what we did was we actually computed the probability of a negative social cost of carbon. and you notice in some cases, especially under higher discount rates, it's drinkically high icallydrastically high estimates, even under their outrated row baker distribution. the probabilities are well over 60% for, say, 2020. so what if we actually wanted to take these models seriously. supposing they have legitimacy which they don't. if you do take these seriously and institute the proposed regulations, we found using the heritage energy model, our clone of the system used by the eia that by 2030 you'd have an average of short fall over 300,000 less jobs, a peak employment of over a million jobs and over 500,000 lost manufacturing jobs.

so, the bottom line is the models can't be trusted. you saw earlier that the results of the s.e.c. were literally all across the map. and if you do trust them and implement the associated regulations that the administration is suggesting, the results would literally be an economic disaster. so let's just think about this. is there any reason to believe these models? they're extremely sensitive to the slightest tweaks. with the results literally scattered across the map going from positive to negative, with in some cases high probabilities of negative social cost of carbon. it's very difficult to take them seriously. the damage functions are arbitrary. so going back to our picture of the roulette wheel essentially taking the social cost of carbon seriously for environmental rule making is tantamount to going to vegas, spinning the roulette wheel, and using that as an estimate of the s.e.c. so who here wants to spin the roulette wheel on the social cost of carbon?

thank you. happy to take questions at the end. [ applause ] >> thank you, david and the heritage foundation. it's really such a pleasure to be on a panel with all three of you and my mentors on this subject. what i'll try to do is maybe elaborate a few points that they couldn't get to because of the short time span we have here. and i see that that screen is too tiny for me to see. so i'm going to grab my printout of this. this first slide here. first, the one called overview.

this is basically how i see the big picture of this whole discussion of the social cost of carbon. i'll try to illustrate some of these points without duplicating too much of what has come before. one big point i want to get across is the social cost of carbon is an unknown quantity and i would even contend an unknowable quantity because it's not discernible in the data of the real world. it's not discernible in meteorological data nor in economic data. so where does it come from? it comes from computer models which combine a speculative climatology with a speculative economics. and by fiddling with the inputs of these models, which as we've heard include discount rates, climate sensitivity assumptions but also beyond that how global warming rates would affect weather patterns and how weather patterns would affect climate sensitive areas of the economy

like agriculture and forestry and then in turn how that would affect employment and consumption and human health. so it is a multi-layered set of assumptions in which the uncertainties then propagate through each layer. and so this means that the social cost of carbon analysts can get just about any result they desire by fiddling with the knobs, by tweaking the inputs. well, what is it that they desire? they desire to get the biggest possible social cost of carbon number that they can, and why is that? well, because the bigger the social cost of carbon, the easier it is to justify more costly anti-carbon regulations. could be carbon taxes, cap and trade, soviet style production quota for renewable energy. the bigger the social cost of carbon, the more plausible it

seems that all of that is good for us. and in fact, one of the things that they're really trying to do here -- and this is why i call the social cost of carbon computer aided sofistry. this is hyped up with a computer. it's to sell us on the proposition that fossil fuels are actually unaffordable no matter how cheap, and renewables are a bargain at any price. that's what they're really after. and that's why they can claim that all of these policies they're proposing will only make us better off, that all the wealth that we think is real, which we can trace to the fossil energy technologies that actually power our civilization are illusory. because we're not seeing the hidden costs, which are revealed by this social cost of carbon analysis.

now, another big point that i want to make is that even if the social cost of carbon were an exact science even if they got the science and economics exactly right, which they can't, because this is all based on these highly speculative assumptions and arbitrary inputs like how high you set the discount rate, even if they got it exactly right it would still be biased, it would still be one-sided, it would still be a partisan agenda masquerading as science. why is that? because it is never combined with a rigorous assessment of the social benefits of carbon energy and consequently never combined with an assessment of the social costs of carbon mitigation. and one point that i will try to get to by the end is that the social costs of carbon mitigation vastly outweigh the alleged social costs of carbon. now, let me get to the first

point, and i'm not going to go through all 50 of my slides. don't worry, david. i just wanted to be loaded for bare because i didn't know how i would be able to fit into these wonderful presentations from my mentors here so i decided to be like a boy scout and have as many arrows in my quiver as i could. but the first point that i made was that the social cost of carbon is an unknown quantity. and this is just one example of dozens that i've got in my slide show, which i guess will be posted by heritage and so you can all look at all of them. but here we see the frequency of land falling hurricanes in the united states since 1900. there is either no trend in that data, or it's slightly declining. this comes from roger pilky jr. same thing with the power or strength of u.s. hurricanes, land falling hurricanes since 1900 as measured by the power dissipation index. no trend or slight downward

trend. now, you might think well but hurricane-related losses, economic damages are increasing. yes. but that's because there is more stuff and more people in harm's way. when you normalize the lost data, that's a technical term that means you adjust it for changes in population, wealth, and the consumer price index, then once again you see no trends. so i defy any of these social cost of carbon modelers to find the greenhouse fingerprint, the actual social cost of carbon in this very important data. the same thing is true worldwide. this is from a study by winkle edall in 2012. no trend in the strength and frequency of land falling hurricanes globally since 1950 or 1970 depending on how far back the data set goes in which hurricane basin. no trend in accumulated cyclone energy globally since the 1970s.

you see profound interdecadal variability. you see no trend going back to 1960. if you look at something like floods which was mentioned earlier before in the united states no trends since 1950. that's a u.s. geological survey study. the palmer drought severity index for the united states going back to 1895. you don't see an increase in drought in the united states overall. what you see, rather, is a slight increase in wetness, and thank you, pat, for that wonderful slide. many of these slides i've taken -- this is what the ipcc latest report said about droughts and floods globally. basically, since the mid 20th century, which is about as far back as global data goes on droughts and floods, there is no

confidence in any kind of trend. so once again you cannot find the social cost of carbon or evidence of a social cost of carbon in economic data or meteorological data. what we do find is that just since 1982, there's been an 11% increase in green foliage in arid areas in all continents of the world. that looks like a social benefit of carbon dioxide to me. here's a study that brother pat over here was instrumental in producing. and it just shows that decade by decade in the united states as urban air temperatures have gotten hotter, heat related mortality has gone down. where's the social cost of carbon there? this is another set that pat has put together. but here's i think one of the really important slides here which is historically the most lethal form of extreme weather was drought, because it limits

access to food and water. and in the 1920s, 472,000 people, that's an estimate died from drought conditions, okay? and since then, what has happened? well, about 90% of all the industrial carbon dioxide emissions ever released into the air since the dawn of the industrial revolution occurred, and we have maybe .8 c of warming since that time. and, you know, fossil fuel consumption went through the roof globally. and we had a 99.98% decrease in deaths related to drought. even though you had about a tripling of the global population. if you're looking at death rates, it's a 99.99% decrease. find the social cost of carbon in that. that's really essential.

we're talking about life and death here on a very large scale. and you can find the same thing with extreme weather generally. you can look at malaria. malaria has been -- yes, there's a relationship between malaria and warm weather. you know, you give mosquitos more months of hot weather and you'll get more mosquitos. but wealth and technology has trumped climate here dramatically. this little graph here shows the difference between 2007 and 1900, and the latest report by the world health organization on malaria shows a dramatic decline in malaria incidents and deaths in africa, just since the year 2000, even though there was a 43% increase in the population in africa living in those historic malaria transmissions areas. so someone please find the social cost of carbon there. you can also see that just shows that all these major food crops since 1960 the yields have

increased by a minimum of 100%, in some cases it's way more. so we're not seeing global warming taking a huge toll on global food production. quite the contrary. there we go. this is from a study done by our friend craig idzo who calculated the co2 fertilization effect just since 1961 has added about $3.2 trillion to global agriculture. that's a huge increase in making food more affordable in food security. so this is a carbon benefit. and he projects based on this largely experimental data that it will see another $9.6 trillion in in additional agricultural output between now and 2050 thanks to the carbon dioxide fertilization effect. and so then, if you look at the

bigger picture, the biggest picture of all, which is civilization, you know, since the year 1, you will see an amazing hockey stick here. you'll see carbon dioxide concentration zooming up at the end. you'll also see per capita income zooming up and population zooming up. i know that some people are, you know -- some people of the greener persuasion have a problem with population. but to me, it just means sheer abundance of human life and it is obviously an indicator of health. i mean, you wouldn't have billions more people if people were getting sicker and dying. and also, per capita income zooming up. so i just want to mention -- well, i guess i went through this already. there's a whole train of assumptions that they play with in order to get these -- i'm out? pretty close to out. okay. well, let me just jump to the

very end. anyway, as i said, you folks can read the rest of the story online if you're interested. if i have tweaked your interest at all. i mentioned that they overlook entirely the social and economic benefits of carbon energy and hence the costs of carbon mitigation, the social costs. and this set of slides just shows that even without the whole suite of climate policies that they would like to ram down the collective throat of the american economy, the energy costs have been rising over the last 20 years. and especially for people in lower income brackets that is to say as a portion of their income. and you could see also in the second graph that low income households that have to cope with higher energy costs actually have to make real

sacrifices in terms of medical care, you know, paying the rent, food. so these costs are not just hypothetical. and i'll end with this. this is the grand program of the obama administration, the whole green movement, the whole u.n. bureaucratic complex. this is the climate tree that's being negotiated. and the goal of this thing is to reduce global co2 emissions. 60% below 2010 levels by 2050. this is a wonderful little slide put together by our friend steve uley at the chamber of commerce. he shows this requires about a 75% reduction in global emissions from the baseline in 2050. and he asks the simple question well, who is going to make those cuts and how much? so here's how the simple arithmetic breaks down. if the industrialized countries,

which is us magically go cold turkey and reduce our emissions to zero by 2050, the developing countries still have to cut their co2 emissions 35% in order to meet this u.n. target. now, am i saying 35% below their baseline in 2050? no, 35% below their current emissions. and we're talking about a part of the world whereabout 1.2 billion people have no access to electricity whatsoever. another 2.3 billion or so have only unreliable access to electricity. not enough to make their countries an attractive place to invest money so it is a huge hindrance, one of the major obstacles to their growth. now, let's get back to this. what if more realistically or less unrealistically we can only cut our emissions 80% by 2050? well then those very poor developing countries that lack modern commercial energy, 87% of

which comes from fossil sources, they have to cut their emissions from today's levels pretty much in half. and so that is a humanitarian disaster in the making. there is a huge social and economic cost in such a disaster. and that is the kind of trajectory that they are trying to justify based on this pseudo science of social cost of carbon estimation. thank you. we'll take some time for questions, whether we have it or not, we're taking it. and we have the microphones, because this is being taped by c-span, and of course, for the heritage online archives. so physical you have a question, raise your hand, wait for the microphone, say who you are. and if you have an affiliation with an organization, say that. down here, do we have a microphone on this side? thank you.

>> am i on? >> yes. >> hi my question is for kevin. my name is sophie miller. i really appreciated your sensitivity analysis. i thought that was really interesting. this is a two-part question. one, i'm curious if you're estimates were more sensitive to discount rate or more sensitive to ecs. and two, i'm curious if you can tell me a little bit about why you chose onb 7% because if memory serves, in circular four, i think that was intended for public investments like infrastructure. and i know that just because onb says use a number it doesn't mean it's the right one, but i'm wondering if you can walk me through why you wanted to test that number specifically. >> okay. so the first part of your question was comparing ecs distributions to the discount rates. i think actually, if you look at our paper we handed it out outside. we actually computed percentage differences. i think we saw a greater sensitivity to the use of the

ecs distributions actually. so your second question, why did we decide to use a 7% discount rate. if you read carefully it suggests that for this type of analysis, the 7% discount rate is appropriate. and we just wanted to do this primarily just to test the sensitivity to these assumptions. as you saw these results are literally scattered all across the map. >> i'll just jump in. the circular says 3 and 7, and in some extreme cases you can use something outside that. but under no circumstances do they say you shouldn't use seven. >> let me quote from it, if i could. i have it right here. "a real discount rate of 7% should be used as a base case for regulatory analysis." words have meaning. >> kevin, i guess and/or pat --

>> he happens to be randy randall. >> yes. do you know why the fun model by richard toll gives us negative cost benefits, any reason at all? what if the damage function gives you the result? >> thank you for the question randy. i suggest toward the end of my talk, the damage functions themselves are a determined priority by the researcher. the fun model allows for negativity because there's certain potential benefits of co2 emissions such as fertilization, for example. it's just the way it's structured. i think any of these models can be tweaked to allow for negativity in terms of the damage function. >> may i follow up with that? the fun model is the only model of the three that has a co2 fertilization benefit. and the co2 fertilization benefit is so well established in empirical science that the other two models should be rejected out of hand as

inherently biassed. i mean they do not pass muster under the data quality act. i will say this about the fund model. one reason why the social carbon estimate jumped 60% in only four years, why climate change somehow got 60% worse even though the global warming plateau lasted for another four years and the divergence increased by that much more the reason is that the fun model was updated in such a way that the same climate sensitivity generated a more rapid warming, and so they said that meant that the higher temperatures and the associated damages are reached earlier and are therefore discounted less, so the fun model, even though it's better than the others somehow contributed to that increase in the social cost of carbon between 2010 and 2013, and that explanation seems to me just

preposterous because what we've seen over the last 18 and a half years, or as pat was saying, 22 years, is quite the reverse of an acceleration. there's no evidence that global warming is accelerating, and yet that assumption comes out of the fun model into the interagency working group's calculation. go figure. >> time for another one? thank you for sticking with us for the extra 15 minutes. thank you very much. applause to our panelists. [ applause ]

thursday, biographies and memoirs and friday, books on science and technology. watch our special runtime edition on monday and a tune in for the latest on nonfiction books. television fort serious readers. >> at a hearing tuesday senators criticized the national highway traffic administration and takata manufacturing concerning defective airbags.

kennedy testified before the committee. in may takata expanded its recall. it could eject too forcefully spring metal fragments inside the vehicle. this is 2.5 hours. >> good morning and welcome everyone. we have called this hearing for a somber reason. some defective airbags are hurting rather than helping people.

we haven't figured out exactly why many to figure out how to prevent them from happening in the future. this is a critical time in vehicle safety. cars are saved or than they ever have been. robust initiatives have reduced the number of deaths on the road, a still tragically more than 30,000 people die every year due to motor vehicle accidents. it is so alarming that tens of millions of cars have defective airbags. witnesses will be asking for recall efforts on to connie airbag inflator's -- takata airbag inflator's. the last recall cites the complexity of different deflectors, the age of vehicles affected have made remedying this problem difficult. these challenges to not excuse

the responsibility of suppliers, manufacturers and the national highway traffic safety administration from assuring that vehicles are safe. the first priority should be to recall them as possible. takata and alternative suppliers have ramped up inflation. to contact affected vehicles. nevertheless questions exist about whether the current replacements are truly safe. takata is phasing out certain pieces and is trying to figure out the cause or causes of defects. these alarming recalls under star the importance -- underscore the importance of accurate information and nhtsa

recall website is important. the large number of recalls involved has resulted in delays for consumer notice and the number of time a vehicle has been recalled may further reflects consumers. i look forward to hearing more about the report. the audit identifies many instances in which the agency repeatedly dropped the ball. weaknesses in their ability to provide necessary training and supervision call into question whether the agency can effectively identify and investigate. these findings are disconcerting given the scale and complexity of the takata defects.

i am pleased to know that the administrator has concurred with all of the inspector general's recommendations. there have been far too many troubling recalls. that is why i've worked with senator nelson to plant -- pass the whistleblower act. despite a long vacancy, they have also been looking for ways to improve. there have been assessments and a plan for a path forward but now is the time for accountability. the agency suppliers must work together. this committee will continue to conduct recalls. i appreciate their continual

cooperation. some automakers are producing documents to the committee. it's also important for consumers to see if a vehicle is subject to this or any recall. they have a vehicle identification number look up online. if you determine it is subject to a recall please schedule of -- an appointment to get it fixed as soon as possible. now i am pleased to introduce administrator rose kind and the inspector general act to the committee and our witnesses for this our second full committee hearing. i want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today and we will start with this first panel. lee's proceed. i'm sorry, i apologize.

my mistake, and the senator from florida, our distinguished ranking member please make your opening statement. >> thank you. if i may, we have had an investigation done, the takata airbag crisis and how to fix our broken auto recall process, done by our minority committee staff if i may have that entered into the record. thank you for your cooperation on this and you will recall mr. chairman, last year, we actually started the hearings on these airbag defects. the news was not good. at that point, last november we had five deaths and dozens of injuries tied to the defective

takata airbags and we had testimony from an air force lieutenant. she suffered severe facial injuries and almost lost one of her eyes when her airbag exploded after a relatively minor accident in the florida panhandle near the air force base. since then, the recalls have ramped up appropriately, but unfortunately, the tragedies have continued. january of this year, and houston, a man killed by a takata airbag that exploded in his vehicle after a minor accident. then in april, then in april a

22-year-old in fayetteville louisiana, but as you can see look at this airbag -- do we have the pictures of the lady? that is the one from florida. hold that back, hold that one back. you can see, now, this is a normal airbag deployed. this is the front of what we are are -- would be facing the driver in the steering wheel. it deploys. if it deploys normally it is supposed to look look like that. ok? this is what happened in this case that i just referenced in

louisiana. that is blood but look at the tear in the airbag. you can see that it obviously has been punctured. and instead of it being like that, the shrapnel in the inflater, which is this device which is in the steering wheel underneath the steering wheel and this explodes sending hot gas out and inflating the airbag. when it is defective, it explodes with such force that it actually breaks open the metal and the metal goes out and then

of course instead of the airbag saving lives, it is killing people. let me show you. that is a piece of metal that actually came out on this lady and this lady is in miami last july. look how big that is. now, that hit her and thank goodness it hit her there in a relatively superficial wound that is a permanent scar. what if had hit her there?

or what if it had hit her there? that is the piece that hit her. this is deadly serious business. just last friday, we learned of the eighth death. southern california, conclusively tied to a defective takata airbag. some of these victims family's got recall notices after their loved ones were killed. and in addition to the eight deaths this committee has learned of allegations of well over 100 serious injuries. i got into this thing because there was a woman killed in

orlando. this is a year ago. that is how i got into this. when the police got to the car they thought it was a homicide. they not somebody had slashed her throat. and only afterwards did they find out that in fact this is what it was. and then i got into it because of a firefighter that lives in the orlando area won't be a firefighter again because he lost his eye now. and so, i could go on and on about these incidents just in florida alone but the bottom

line is we need to get these cars fixed and we have been talking about this since last year. dr. rosekind has been a breath of fresh air and you have taken numerous actions to speed up the takata recall process, but nhtsa still faces deep challenges. for one thing, as no doubt you will point out, it is underfunded. it lacks the necessary funding to make sure that automakers and the sticks as well as the carrot carrots it lacks to get the automakers to be forth coming about the recalls. we are not just picking on takata. look how many deaths occurred from the gm defective steering ignition switches? gm hid a defect for over a decade.

and at least 114 people died. this is awful. for that, nhtsa could only find gm a measlely $35,000 and that is less than gm makes in a quarter -- $35 million -- the chal challenged were detailed in the inspector general report released yesterday revealing problems in nhtsa's office of investigation especially related to the handling of the gm crisis last year. i can tell you this senator is going to fight for additional

funding for nhtsa. there has to be accountability as well. and the ig report found severe deficiencies in nhtsa's ability to effectively collect and analyze safety data as well as conduct investigations. the agency lacks proper protocols and procedures and staff apparently are inadequately trained to do their job. we need accountability. i look forward, doctor, to hearing you you intend to respond to this report that has been put in the record now and how you continue to modernize the agency. and finally, i look forward to hearing from the representatives takata. yesterday the staff issued a report detailing their initial findings in a month's long investigation of takata. and for years, it is obvious takata did not put safety first.

it appears that takata knew or should have known as early as 2011. that is 14 years ago. there were serious and safety quality lapses in the airbag production process and you would think they would have stepped up the safety efforts at the plans after discovering those issues. no, and by the way there are eight people dead. instead internal e-mails suggest they suspended global safety audits from '09-'11 for cost-cutting reasons and now the same company responsible for this disaster is the one making nearly all of the replacement

airbags for most of the recalled vehicles. that doesn't sit well with a lot of americans and i think takata has serious explaining to do. so for everyone involved, nhtsa, to automakers to the suppliers we need to improve as fast as possible. and we need to get the recall completed but also make sure the safety issues are spotted sooner so that dangerous vehicles are identified and fixed faster in order to do watt we are supposed to do; which is help keep consumers safe. if i found invested in this issue, mr. chairman, when i saw the pictures of the woman in orlando with her neck lacerateded, i am invested. when i talked to that firefighter with his little boy with him that will never be a

firefighter again because he doesn't have an eye, i am invested. so thank you for calling this hearing. >> thank you, senator nelson. now we will proceed to the panel starting with administrator rosekind. >> chairman thune, ranking member nelson, and members of the committee thank you for allow me to offer an update. the recall of defective takata airbags may represent the largest consumer safety recall in history and one of the most complicated. we are achieving one goal, the only acceptable goal, a safe airbag in every vehicle. on may 19th, secretary fox at nhtsa took a step toward this announcing takata filled four defect affects launching a recall of 38 million defective

airbag reflectors. 11 makers have made available individual identification numbers so vehicle owners can use the vin look up tool to determine if their vehicle is under recall. consumers should represent the dealer right away to replace the airbag. after reviewing the filings, our estimate is there are 34 million defective airbags in 32 million affected vehicles. a consent order has been issued giving nhtsa to insure the ad adequate of the remedy. late last week, nhtsa sent information request to all

affected automakers and other suppliers of replacement parts seeking information as part of the remedy program. we had discussions with the affected companies on a protective order allowing them to share private business information with nhtsa and others so private concerns don't interfere with the safety efforts. nhtsa is in the process of determining whether fiat and chrysler is part of the issue. nhtsa scheduled a july hearing to look at 22,000 recalls. we are doing everything to protect the public and one critical cool is self evaluation. at the urging of secretary fox and support of staff and leadership, and before i arrived, nhtsa was involved in tough self examining after one of the toughest years. on june 5th, nhtsa released two reports. the first report, nhtsa's path forward provides the result of a

year long due diligence review of the defect process finding weakness in processes for identifying and addressing the defects. we are addressing them underway and within existing resources. the second record is a workforce assessment detailing how the budget request specifically request the mission needs. in addition, the report examines the workforce of net given the 265 million vehicles we monitoring compared to other modes of transportation. it it provides one possible path for matching the request. the inspector general performed an audit of the investigation of the gm ignition switch defect and we thank inspector calvin scovel and their report is a helpful contribution and we conquered with all 17 recommendations from the report. to give you a sense of how nhtsa is identifying and addressing

the safety defects we have initiated 44 separate changes to improve our effectiveness including efforts to address 10-17 recommendations from the audit that were underway before the release of the audit. outside of the spoke, two things are essential to achieving this. the first is gm's concealment. we would question the information nhtsa gets from industry and question our own assumption assumptions. the second factor is available resources. the same 51 people managing the takata recall include eight that analyzed 80,000 consumer complaints and eight others received recall campaigns underway. the agency must accomplish this with a budget that when adjusted for inflation is 23% lower than ten years ago.

the president's budget request would provide the people and technology needed to keep americans safe. secretary fox has proposed the grow america act that provides stable increased funding and important safety authorities to help nhtsa. it is clear that gaps in available personal and authority represent known safety risks. the members of this committee can help nhtsa address the risk and keep the traveling public safe. thank you for the opportunity to testify and i look forward to your testimony. >> thank you, mr. rosekind. mr. calvin scovel. >> chairman thune, ranking member nelson, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to discuss nhtsa's vehicle oversight. strong oversight is critical for taking timely action against vehicle defects such as gm's faulty ignition switch. this defect has been linked to more than 110 fatalities and 210 injuries. airbag non-deployment cause us to look at certain gm vehicles

since as early as 2007 but an investigation was not warranted and we know the faulty ignition switch can disable to vehicle's power steering, brakes and airbags. today i will discuss the weaknesses we identified relating to the procedure for collecting and analyzing vehicle safety data and determining which issues warrant further investigation. i will also show how the weaknesses we identify affected the handling of the ignition switch devapidity -- defect. we identified three areas of weakness to identify safety vehicle concerns. first, odi lacks the procedures needed to collect complete and accurate vehicle safety data. the use of the early warning data is limited due to the

inconsistency of how they characterize the incidents. there are 24 categories for reporting defects related to an average of 15,000 vehicle components long beacheaving manufacturers to use broad data when reporting. similarly, they lack information to correctly identify the vehicle systems involved due in large part to the lack of guideianceguide guidance to consumers. they don't verify the data or enforce the compliance with reporting requirements. second, odi does not follow standard statistical practices in analyzing early warning reporting data. therefore it cannot identify significant trends or outliers that may indicate the safety

issue should be pursueded. in addition, despite the volume of complaints that averaged 334 are a day in 2015, odi relies on one screener in the first phase of the two-tiered screening process and this process leaves the office vulnerable to a single point of failure and runs the risk that complaints may not be selected for further review. in adequate training increases the risk. third, odi emphasizse the investigation. they are using screeners not trained to carry out these responsibilities.

stakeholders within odi haven't reached agreement on the amount and type needed to open investigation and odi doesn't document the justification for decisions not to investigate potential safety issues. this lack of transparency and accountability in odi's investigation decisions further undermines the effort to identify needed recalls and other corrective actions. these three proceedal weaknesses impeded odi's handling of the switch defect. from 2003-2013 gm submitted 15,000 non hp field reports and 2,000 death and injury reports on vehicles that would be subject to the ignition switch recall. however, inconsistently miscatagorized may have missed the trend. there was no component report to the death and injury report.

not airbags or electrical even though it was said ignition switches were involved in the possibility non-airbag deployment. 12 reports categorized under airbags and may have been relate today the ignition switch defects were not reviewed before the recall because nhtsa's tools couldn't read the report format by gm. a fact not noted until after the recall. odi staff also missed opportunities to connect the ignition switch to the abs. calls for investigations were similarly overlooked.

for example, in 2007, nhtsa's associated administrator said it looks like one we need to jump on and learn about. the defect assessment division chief didn't assign the responsibility after the screener left nhtsa in 2008. in 2010, odi screener suggested revisiting the 2007 investigation proposal because of new consumer complaints but the airbag investigator noted a downward rate and the screener decided that the issue didn't present enough safety trend to warrant proposing another investigation. according to odi staff. they had a flawed understanding of airbag technology.

they are taken aggressive action to strengthen the vehicle oversight. according to the administrator changes to the process have been implemented and more are underway. we plan to report our findings later this year and i would like to address those who have been injured and the family's of those who have been lost in crashes involving gm's defective switches.

i promised you my staff and i would work relentlessly to determine what nhtsa knew of the defect, what it knew, and what actions to took to address it. our auto report issued last week and my testimony today will fill that promise. i offer my deepest sympathy. this concludes my statement and i would be happy to answer any other statement you and others have. >> mr. rosekind, i know you took the realm of nhtsa last year and have been working to improve the handling of the vehicle defects and i would say you have your work cut out for you. the inspector general's report reaches serious conclusions regarding the ability to defect

vehicle defects highlighting things like failure to review information provided by consumer and industry, botched data analysis, inadequate training and supervision are major problems with the agencies. all of these have to concern you. we have to make sure automakers report safety violations, it doesn't help if nhtsa's staff is not reviewing the information or when they do they are not imploring standard procedures. these processes can't be solved by throwing additional resources at the problem. my question is how do you propose to address these issues? >> thank you for acknowledgeing the challenges exist. we conquered with 17 recommendations that validate and are consistent with the reports reports. i would like to provide the committee with 44 actions

underway that go to detailed action on each element from communication to case management to test to make sure everyone of those -- and i am highlighting we are doing 44. we will continue to look for every place possible to make changes. with that, i think we will look for internal changes we can but what is critical about the report also, both outside the report to talk about the resources, so many people heard me discuss 80,000 complaints. we are literally looking at an individual screener having to have five reports analyzed every hour. each report takes an hour. so when the ig report says it is inadequate i agree and we have to change those. >> you identified three general concerns in the audit with the office of defects and investigation.