she has proven that time and time again in the course of her career and particularly over the course of the last few years. she really is like another great american, her mother, ann mine s, was a friend of and i just wish she was here to see this election because she would have donald trump tweeting double time. . for the first time a woman will be presidential nominee for president of the united states. and yesterday i had the great honor of being endorsed by president obama and vice president biden. [cheers and applause] secretary clinton: and by enator elizabeth warren.

so it's been a big week, and there's nowhere i'd rather end it than right here with the lanned parenthood action fund. i'm grateful for the entire planned parenthood family. you made this campaign your own , whether you knocked on doors in iowa or rallied in california, this victory belongs to all of you. and it belongs to the 1,000 young activists who came together in pittsburgh last month to get organized. cheers and applause] secretary clinton: it belongs to the staff, the donors and to the providers, providers like dr. dermish in texas who called out donald trump when he said women should be punished for having abortions and the open

letter she wrote defending her patients' rights to make their own health care decisions should be required reading for every politician in america. and i am deeply conscious of the reality that this victory belongs to generations of brave women and men who fought for the radical idea that women should determine our own lives and futures, and it belongs to the women and men who continue to fight for that idea today even in the face of threats and violence. when a man who never should have had a gun killed three people at planned parenthood in colorado springs, leaders in this room voted unanimously to keep health centers across

america open the next day and the c.e.o. -- [applause] secretary clinton: the c.e.o. of planned parenthood rocky mountains made a promise to patients in colorado and beyond when she said, our doors and our hearts stay open. that is really what planned parenthood is all about. so today i want to start by saying something you don't hear often enough. thank you. cheers and applause] secretary clinton: thank you. thank you for being there for women no matter their race, sexual orientation or immigration status. hank you for being their for

natrasha mcqueen in brooklyn who said planned parenthood caught her breast cancer when she was just 33 years old and saved her life. thank you for being there for college students getting s.t.d. testing, the young people who have the tough questions that they're afraid to ask their parents, the sexual assault survivors who turn to planned parenthood for compassionate care, the transgendered teens who come for an appointment and find the first place where they can truly be themselves. thank you for being there for your communities, whether that means taking on hostile politicians in louisiana or handing out clean drinking water in flint, michigan. cheers and applause] secretary clinton: and thank you for being there for every woman in every state who has to

miss work, drive hundreds of miles sometimes, endure cruel medically unnecessary waiting periods, walk past angry protesters to exercise her constitutional right to safe and legal abortion. cheers and applause] secretary clinton: i've been proud to stand with planned parenthood for a long time, and as president i will always have your back. cheers and applause] secretary clinton: because i know that for a century planned parenthood has worked to make sure that women, men, young eople who count on you can

lead their best lives healthy, safe and free to follow their dreams. just think when planned parenthood was founded, women couldn't vote or serve on juries in most states. it was illegal even to provide information about birth control , let alone prescribe it. but people marched and organized. they protested unjust laws and in some cases even went to prison, and slowly but surely america changed for the better. years ago this week, thanks to a planned parenthood mployee namedess tell -- named estelle grizwald -- [cheers and applause] secretary clinton: the supreme

court legalized birth control for married couples across america. [laughter] secretary clinton: when i used teach law and i would point to this case, a look of total bewillederment would come across my students' faces, and not long after that, roe v. wade guaranteed the right to safe, legal abortion so young women were no longer dying in emergency rooms and back alies from botched abortions and this is a fact that is not often heard but i hope you will repeat it. america's maternal mortality rate dropped dramatically and it turns out being able to plan their families not only saved women's lives, it also transformed them because it meant that women were able to

get education, build careers, enter new fields and rise as far as their talent and hard work would take them. all the opportunities that followed when women are able to stay healthy and choose whether and when to become mothers. cheers and applause] secretary clinton: and you know so well, today the percentage of women who finish college is six times what it was before birth control was legal. women represent half of all college graduates in america and nearly half our labor force and our whole economy then is better off. the movement of women into the work force, a paid work force over the past 40 years was $3.5 ible for more than

trillion in growth in our economy. [applause] secretary clinton: and here's another fact that doesn't get enough attention. unintended pregnancy, teen pregnancy and abortion rates are at all-time record lows. cheers and applause] secretary clinton: that reality and studies confirm what planned parenthood knew all along -- accurate sex education and effective, affordable contraception work. and you know -- [applause] secretary clinton: it wasn't so long ago that republicans and democrats actually stood ogether on these issues. back in the 1990's when i helped create the national

campaign to prevent teen pregnancy i worked with republicans to get it done. now, things feel quite different now, don't they? instead of working to continue the progress we've made, republicans, led now by donald booing] [audience secretary clinton: are working to reverse it. when donald trump says, let's make america great again, that s code for, let's take america backward, back to a time -- [applause] secretary clinton: when opportunity and dignity were reserved for some, not all, back to the days when abortion was illegal, women had far fewer options and life for too many women and girls was limited. well, donald, those days are

over. cheers and applause] secretary clinton: we are not going -- we are not going to let donald trump or anyone else turn back the clock, and that means we've got to get to work because as you know better than anyone, right now across the country, rights that women should be able to take for granted are under attack. any day now the supreme court will rule on the texas law that imposes burdensome and medically unnecessary requirements on abortion providers. if these restrictions are allowed to stand, 5.4 million women of reproductive age will be left with about 10 health centers that provide abortion in a state the size of france. it is the biggest challenge to

roe v. wade in a generation. it's also yet another reminder of what's at stake on the supreme court. president obama has done his job and nominated merrick garland to be the ninth justice. it's time for the senate republicans to do their job. cheers and applause] secretary clinton: the senate should give judge garland the hearing he deserves. now, meanwhile, in just the first three months of 2016, states across the country introduced more than 400 restrictions on abortion. 11 states have defunded planned parenthood in the last year, cutting some women off from their only health care provider and, of course, on a national level, republicans in congress

have been willing to shut down the entire federal government over planned parenthood funding. have you ever noticed that the same politicians who are against sex education, birth control and safe and legal abortion are also against policies that would make it easier to raise a child, like paid family leave? cheers and applause] they are for limited government everywhere except when it comes to interfering with women's choices and rights. [cheers and applause] secretary clinton: well, i'm here today to tell you we need to be just as determined as they are. we need to defend planned

parenthood against partisan attacks. if right-wing politicians actually cared as much about protecting women's health as they say they do, they'd join me in calling for more federal funding for planned parenthood. cheers and applause] secretary clinton: we also need to fight back against the erosion of reproductive rights at the federal, state and local levels, ensure that patients and staff can safely walk into health centers without harassment or violence. we need to -- [applause] secretary clinton: we need to stand up for access to affordable contraception without interference from politicians or employers. [applause]

secretary clinton: and let's invest in long acting reversible contraceptive so every woman can choose the method that is best for her. [cheers and applause] secretary clinton: let's strengthen and improve the affordable care act which covers 20 millions americans and helps through no co-pay preventive care. [applause] secretary clinton: and let's take action to stop the spread of the zika virus which threatens the health of children and pregnant women. [applause] secretary clinton: let's repeal laws like the hyde amendment at make it nearly impossible -- [cheers and applause] secretary clinton: make it nearly impossible for

low-income women, disproportionately women of color to exercise their full reproductive right. and it is worth saying, again, defending women's health means defending access to abortion, not just in theory but in reality. cheers and applause] we know -- we know that restricting access doesn't make women less likely to end a pregnancy. it just makes abortion less safe, and that then threatens women's lives. for too long issues like these have been dismissed by many as women's issues, as though that somehow makes them less worthy, secondary. well, yes, these are women's issues. they're also family issues. they're economic i shallous.

there are justice issues. they are fundamental to our country and our future. [cheers and applause] -- they're economic issues. they're justice issues. they are fundamental to our country and our future. and beyond these specific issues we need to get incomes rising, including the minimum wage, which disproportionately affects women. we need to finally guarantee equal pay for women's work. [applause] secretary clinton: we need to pass comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship that keeps families together. chers cheers secretary clinton: and we need to break down all the barriers of discrimination and sustainic racism that hold too many americans back. cheers and applause] secretary clinton: and we need

to come together to stop the epidemic of gun violence that is stalking our country. no parent should live in fear that their child will be hurt or killed by gun violence. 33,000 americans are killed every year. i've met so many mothers on this campaign who have lost their own children. we owe it to them to protect our kids no matter what zip code they live in, and that is going to require -- [applause] secretary clinton: standing up to the gun lobby and making this a voting issue. you know, all the issues that we're talking about today are connected. they intersect and that's why i'm grateful to the reproductive justice leaders in this room and across america. cheers and applause] secretary clinton: because you

know, you know that all these issues go straight to that fundamental question, whether we believe whether women of all races, backgrounds and income levels deserve an equal shot in life. now, that's what i bheeb and you won't be surprised -- believe and you won't be surprised to hear donald trump believes something very different. he actually thinks guaranteeing paid family leave would leave america less competitive. he says if women want equal pay we should just -- and this is a ote -- do as good a job as men, as if we weren't already. he wants to appoint justices who would overturn roe v. wade. he, of course, wants to defund planned parenthood. and he wants to go after so ny of the fundamental rights we have, including safe and legal abortion. and he actually said women

should be punished for having abortions. now, once he said that, there was an outcry, as there should have been, and he tried to walk back his comments. he's doing that a lot lately. [laughter] secretary clinton: but anyone who would so casually agree to the idea of punishing women like it was nothing to him, the most obvious thing in the world, that's someone who doesn't hold women in high regard. because if he did, he would trust women to make the right decision for ourselves. cheers and applause] secretary clinton: but don't worry. donald assures us that as president he will be, and i quote again, the best for women. [laughter] secretary clinton: and he wants

to defund planned parenthood and wipe out safe, legal abortion has nothing idea what's best for women and this is someone that's called women pigs, dogs and disgusting animals. kind of hard to imagine counting on him to respect our fundamental rights when he says pregnant women are an inconvenience to their employer. what does that say about how he values women, our work, our contributions? we're in the middle of a concerted, persistent assault on women's health across our country. and we have to ask ourselves and you have to ask everyone you come in contact with, do we want to put our health, our lives, our futures in donald trump's hands? now, these questions are not hypothetical. every woman and everyone who cares about women will answer them when they vote in

november. now, when i talk like this, donald trump likes to say i'm playing the woman card, and i like to say, if fighting for equal pay, planned parenthood and the ability to make our own health decisions is playing the woman card then deal me in. cheers and applause] secretary clinton: now, my friends, i come to this issue, of course, as a woman, a mother and a grandmother now, but i also come to it as a former first lady, senator and secretary of state. and in those roles -- [cheers and applause] secretary clinton: in those roles, i traveled to parts of

the world where girls are married off as soon as they are old enough to bear children, places where the denial of family planning consigns women to lives of hardship. i visited countries where governments have strictly regulated women's reproduction either forcing women to have abortions or forcing women to get pregnant and give birth. everything i have seen has convinced me that life is iscal year -- freer, fairer, safer and far more humane when women are empowered to make their own reproductive health decisions. cheers and applause] secretary clinton: and everything i've heard from donald trump often seems to

echo other leaders who have a very different view of women. the late great maya angelou said, when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. [cheers and applause] secretary clinton: donald trump has shown us who he is and we sure should believe him. and it's not just on reproductive rights. donald trump would take us in the wrong direction on so many issues we care about -- economic justice, workers' rights, civil rights, human rights, the environment, all of that is on the line in this election. when donald trump says a distinguished judge born in indiana can't do his job because of his mexican heritage or mocks a reporter with disabilities or denigrates muslims and immigrants, it goes against everything we stand

for. he does not see all americans as americans. so this election isn't about the same old fights between democrats and republicans. they'll be there. don't worry. [laughter] secretary clinton: but this election is profoundly different. it is about who we are as a nation. it's about millions of americans coming together to say, we are better than this. so here's my promise to you today. i will be your partner in this election and over the long haul . together we're taking on the attacks and together we will come out stronger, just like planned parenthood has time and again. [cheers and applause] secretary clinton: and together we're going to unify our country, stop donald trump and fight for an america where we lift each other up instead of

tearing each other down. we are not going to just break that highest and hardest glass ceiling. we're going to break down all the barriers that hold women and families back because you know we do believe we're stronger when every family in every community knows they're not on their own. we are stronger together, and we're going to make history together in november. thank you all so much! [cheers and applause] [crowd chanting "hillary"]

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> the likely republican presidential nominee, donald trump, spoke today at a gathering of evangelical christians and talked about his commitment to conservative causes. he also spoke about presumptive democratic nominee hillary clinton's policies on domestic and foreign issues. mr. trump spoke to the faith and freedom coalition's ready to majority conference in washington.

donald trump: thank you. wow. thank you, everybody. wow, what a group. so many. thank you, everybody. what an honor. we're going to have a big, big victory in november. you're going to be happy. believe me. thank you. this is my third time, and i think the first time it was only ok. the second time i was great. and this time we have to top it, ok. thank you all for being here. before we begin, really, i want to thank ralph reed. he's been an amazing guy and amazing support. terrific man, and it's a great honor to be invited and invited back so many times and i'll be here as often as i can, believe me, because i'm with you 100%. i also want to thank so many -- i've had so much support. as you know, we've done very well with the evangelicals and with religion, generally speaking.

if you look what's happened with all of the races, whether it's in south carolina, went there and it was supposed to be very strong evangelical and i was not supposed to win and i won in a landslide and so many places where you had the evangelicals and the heavy christian groups and it was just -- it's been an amazing -- it's been an amazing journey. i think we won 37 different states. and the support that i've had from you folks has been incredible and i appreciate it very much. i happen to be -- go ahead. [applause] donald trump: i happen to be presbyterian and there's about three of you out there i think. but it's been really something and some of my friends that are in the room, i appreciate you being here. want to really think jerry fallwell jr. he's been such a tremendous supporter. liberty university, the job he's done is incredible. pastor paula white has been

right from the beginning. i've known her for so long and she's a tremendous person, tremendous woman. pastor mark burns, i don't know if you waved him on television. between him and pastor darrell scott these two guys are phenomenal. they have been so incredible. robert jeffries who we all know and love. he's been amazing. in the audience i think we have richard lee. we have jim garlow, and we have father frank pallone. someplace they're in the audience. i appreciate you. i appreciate you being here. and i have to say, though, the world is such a different place even from when i started. we started 12 months ago, and coming up i just see where in france they have a massive soccer tournament. something that's so important and so big and they're thinking about maybe postponing it or canceling it because of threats and all the problems going on with what's happening with terrorism. and it's a very, very sad thing and a very sad place. and who would have ever thought

our world would be in a position like this where that would happen. and you see event after event, radical islamic terrorism is just, you know, taking over and we can't let that happen. we cannot let that happen. [applause] donald trump: and if we're smart and if we're tough, we won't let it happen. just remember that. ok. it's an honor to speak here today and discuss our shared values. i'd like to thank all of the wonderful christian leaders and christian voters who have supported me. we've had tremendous support. here we are and here are the goals and i thought i'd put some of these together and i did it just the other night because of this meeting and i wanted it to come from me from my heart. we want to uphold the sanctity and dignity of life.

cheers and applause] donald trump: marriage and family as the building block of happiness and success. so important. [applause] donald trump: and by the way, i know many, many very successful people, the happiest people are great ple that have that religious feel and children. it's more important than the money, folks. i know plenty with lots of money and they're not happy people. religious freedom, the right of people of faith to freely practice their faith, so important. freedom of any kind means no one should be judged by their race or their color and the color of their skin should not be judged that way. and right now we have a very divided nation. we're going to bring our nation

together. if i win we're going to bring our nation together. [applause] donald trump: the importance of faith to united states society is really the people who go to church, who work and work in religious charities, so important, and share their values. these are the foundations of our society. we must continue to forge our partnership with israel and work to ensure israel's ecurity. [applause] donald trump: keeping people of faith safe from threats like radical islam, whether protecting them here or standing by israel, all of us need to confront together the threat of radical islam. we have to do it. [applause]

donald trump: now, hillary clinton, or as i call her, crooked hillary clinton -- [cheers and applause] donald trump: she's as crooked as they come. refuses to even say the words radical islam. refuses to say the words. this alone makes her unfit to be president. in fact -- [applause] donald trump: in fact, she wants a 500% increase in syrian refugees to come into our country. no god. no -- no good. no good. can't do it. we don't know where they come from, where they are. audience booing] audience chanting "trump"]

inaudible] chanting "refugees are welcome here"] donald trump: amazing what goes on. thank you. thank you. all right. audience booing]

"u.s.a.!" chanting ] donald trump: all right. thank you. all right. little freedom of speech. freedom of speech. thank you. very rude. what are you going to do? thank you. appreciate it. what happens in our country is so sad. we're so divided. it's such a shame. these are professional agitators, folks. they are sent here by the other party. believe me. so where we left off. 500% increase in syrian

refugees. without documentation we don't know where they come from, hillary will bring hundreds of thousands of refugees, many of whom have hostile beliefs about people of different faiths and values and some of whom absolutely and openly support terrorism in our country. we don't need that. we have enough problems. we have enough problems right now. [applause] donald trump: here is some of what we can accomplish together. appoint judges -- so important. so important. who will uphold our laws, protect our constitution and protect the rights of all americans. and -- [applause] donald trump: as you know, i put a list together of highly, highly respected judges and you

will see and i think you've seen it and i'm pretty sure you did but a lot of people have come together over that list. that's one of the most important reasons why we have to win the presidency. if we don't, it's going to be a whole different country. [applause] donald trump: and by the way, these judges are all pro-life. cheers and applause] donald trump: we will restore respect for people of faith who dutifully raise their children, follow our laws and rules and we have to really take care of -- we have to take care of our neighbors because right now our neighbors are not being taken care of. we have to restore the rule of law on our border, in our government, no matter where it is it has to be restored. [applause]

donald trump: and by the way, we have to pay great respect to our police and law enforcement in this country, believe me. they're not being treated roperly. so all of this includes tough new ethics rules to restore dignity to the office of the ecretary of state. which hasn't happened in a while, folks. among being the worst dealmakers if you've ever seen. if you look at the iran deal, truly the worst i've seen negotiated. we will protect the right of churches to speak their minds political matters free from intimidation. cheers and applause] donald trump: new immigration controls to keep us safe from

radical islamic terrorism. [applause] donald trump: here is what hillary clinton would do to our country. she'll appoint radical judges who will legislate from the bench, overriding congress and will -- i'll tell you, the will of the people will mean nothing. nothing. her judges will abolish the second amendment and destroy the rule of law. she wants to abolish the second amendment, and i will tell you the national rifle association, the n.r.a., two weeks ago endorsed donald trump. so i think they're happy. [applause] donald trump: and i think it's the earliest endorsement they've ever given to a presidential candidate so i was very honored. they're great people. great people. she will keep obamacare in place which puts medical

decisions in the hands of government. not good. obamacare, we will repeal and replace. [applause] donald trump: she'll restrict religious freedom with government mandates. she'll push for federal funding of abortion on demand up until the moment of birth, which is where she is, as you know. she will undermine the wages of working people with uncontrolled immigration, creating poverty and income insecurity. hillary clinton's wall street agenda will crush working families. she'll put bureaucrats, not parents, in charge of our lives and our children's education. can't happen. she'll be trapping kids in failing schools. she'll plunge our inner cities into even deeper poverty, if that's possible. hillary's agenda of taxation --

and she wants to raise your taxes big league, folks. big league. get used to it. hear it. she wants to raise your taxes tremendously. regulation, bureaucracy, government control and open borders have economically destroyed our inner cities. her policies will be a crushing blow to all poor people in this country. her education policies, her economic policies, her immigration policies and her trade policies will plunge our poor african-american, hispanic communities into turmoil and even worse despair. believe me. you look at what's going on. [applause] donald trump: the democrat party has run the school boards and the police departments and the city councils and the mayors' offices in most of our inner cities, almost all of our inner cities.

they've run congressional offices. they've horribly failed in almost every single community. in fact, you could actually say in every community. i'm going to turn things around. cheers and applause] donald trump: hillary clinton has jeopardized, totally jeopardized national security by putting her emails on a private server all to hide her corrupt dealings. this is the reason she did it, folks. it's to hide her corrupt dealings. she's now under criminal investigation. that was announced yesterday by the white house. i mean, it's criminal investigation. [applause] donald trump: first time ever, by the way, a president of the united states endorsed somebody under criminal investigation. interesting.

she even appointed to the national security board someone with no national security experience. instead, he was a donor, a recent donor to hillary clinton's campaign and also gave as much as $250,000 to his foundation. they all looked. they said, where did this guy come from? he made a contribution of $250,000, all of a sudden he's on this vital and important board. this dealt with tactical nuclear weapons and had top-secret clearance and he knew nothing about it. ll and hillary made $153 million giving speeches to special interest groups since 2001. that's a lot of money. that's a lot of money. [laughter] donald trump: these donors own hillary clinton. they own her. and bernie sanders was right about that. i have to tell you.

f you work -- it's true. and the bottom line is i will be working for you. i just spent $55 million running -- my money. it's not easy. i just spent $55 million running in the primaries. other people spent many times that amount and didn't do so well. i'm working for you. i'm doing this because i want to give back. i want to give back to our country. [applause] secretary clinton: together, friends, we will chart a new optimistic course for america. we will put america first -- donald trump: together, friends, we will chart a new optimistic course for america. we will put america first. [applause] donald trump: when you look at our deals, our military trades, we don't put america first.

i don't think anybody negotiating these deals even knows anything about what they're doing and will put america first. i care and you care and that's the way the going to be. [applause] donald trump: and that's a big, big part of why i'm challenging hillary clinton today to replace her support for increased refugee admissions. we have to do it. for a new jobs program for our inner cities. we have to take care of the people that are here. cheers and applause] donald trump: we have to temporarily stop this whole thing with what's going on with refugees where we don't know where they come from but we have to take a rest, we have to take a time-out. we have to use the money to take care of our poorest americans and work with them so they can come out of this

horrible situation that they're in. [applause] donald trump: we will restore faith to its proper mantle in our society. that's what we have to do, and we have to do that soon. [applause] donald trump: we will respect and defend christian americans. christian americans. [applause] donald trump: we will give parents control over their schools. [applause] donald trump: so important. we'll uphold the values our founders gave us, which we're not doing now. [applause] donald trump: we will work together to rebuild and restore and lift up everyone, not a certain group, everyone, the whole country we're going to lift up. [applause] donald trump: we will make

america great again for all americans, and we'll do it together. i want to thank you. this has been a great honor. amazing friendships i have in this room. thank you all very much. appreciate it. thank you. thank you very much. thank you. thank you. thank you, everybody. thank you very much. [cheers and applause] >> madam secretary, we proudly give 72 of our delegate votes to the next president of the

united states. >> at the same event where donald trump spoke today, a republican senator told the audience they should pray for president obama, using a biblical passage that says in part, quote, let his days be few." david perdue said it. a spokesperson for democratic leader harry reid said senator perdue's comments, quote, left the impression that he was

praying for the death of president obama, end quote. here's senator perdue's entire 10-minute speech from today's event. [applause] senator perdue: good morning. i think we have a few georgia folks out here, don't we? all right. i am so honored to be here. you know, we do have a serious moment in our history, as you heard from the prior speaker, and i just hate having to follow these preachers. they have all the antidotes and jody is a great guy, another georgia boy. thank you for being here. i think we're called to pray. i think we're called to pray for our country, for our leaders and, yes, even our president. in his role as president, i think we should pray for base realignment and closure. i think we need to be very -- pray for bracc obama. i think we need to pray and says, let his days be few and let another have his office. in all seriousness, i believe

that america is at a moment of crisis. i see three dimensions in that crisis. first, we have a constitutional crisis. not my words. the words of jonathan turley, a constitutional law professor at george washington university right here in town. this president has figured out how to run the country without congress through executive orders and regulatory mandate. he's actually created the fourth arm of government, the regulators, and those regulators just in the last seven years have created 20,000, over 20,000 new regulations, and it's sucking the very life out of our free enterprise system. the second dimension of our crisis, i believe, is the global security crisis. i believe the world is more dangerous right now than any point in my lifetime. i'm a member of the foreign relations committee. i travel a good bit as part of that responsibility, and i can tell you, when you meet with

these leaders around the world, you can see the fear in their eyes because we are not leading any longer and they're worried about their freedom and their future. the world is very dangerous. we see it on many levels. first, the rise of russia and china and their ever-growing aggressiveness. we see the expansion of isis around the world now. we see the nuclear proliferation danger among rogue nations like north korea and iran, and, yes, we see hybrid warfare being perpetrated today, including cyberwarfare and other means. the last thing what nobody's talking about we right now have an arms race in space. ladies and gentlemen, the world is a very dangerous place, and yet at this point in history this president has disinvested in our military to the point where we're spending about 3% of our g.d.p. on our military. that's the lowest point since world war ii. it's $200 billion less than our

30-year average. we have this legacy of this president will be that he's leaving us in the weakest position militarily at the very point we're facing more threats around the world than we ever have. we have today the smallest army since world war ii. the smallest navy since world war i. the oldest and smallest air force ever. i've been around the world visiting these men and women. i can tell you the best and i mean the very best of america is in uniform fighting for you and me and defending our nation right now. [applause] senator perdue: the third dimension of this crisis is interlocked with the global security crisis because our debt crisis is preventing us from recapitalizing our military to be sure we can defend our country. we all know the headlines. $19 trillion of debt, but it against worse. the congressional budget office says if we don't do something

in the next 30 years, that debt goes to $30 trillion. ladies and gentlemen, today if interest rates were just at their 30-year average of 5%, how many of you remember double digit inflation? you and i don't want to go back there. we would be paying $1 trillion of interest today. that's not possible. and what's worse of that. future unfunded liabilities are estimated to be over $100 trillion. folks, that's $1 million for every family in america. this is intransigence on a major scale. both parties are guilty, by the way. we have to do something about it, but, you know, whenever america has been at a moment of crisis we worked and worked and with god's direction we have found a moment of opportunity and that's what we have today. i think the moment of opportunity is greater than the moment of crisis. we have the opportunity to change the direction of our country and set up the next 50

years or 100 years for our children and our children's children that would make the last 70 years of economic boom, which is the greatest in the history of mankind, pale in comparison, but we have to get serious about doing some things. first, when my wife and i decided to run, i never did anything in politics. my mom and dad are school teachers. she thinks i lost my mind when we decided to run for senate. it got bad halfway through the race. the democrats were piling on us. i was a nominee. my mother was very involved. she called me out about six weeks. she said, david, i love you like a son. i said, mom, i am your son. she said, yeah, if these democrats keep up i might not vote for you. so this is all new to me. but my wife and i decided then that we had to do something to try in some small way to change the direction of the country. and we saw then there were three things that had to happen, in our opinion. one, to change the direction of the country we had to win the

republican majority in 2016 -- in 2014. we did with your help. then we said, well, we need to maintain that majority in 2016, and most importantly, to change the direction of the country, the way this country is being led right now, we had to put someone in the white house who was conservative and who understood that we need to change the direction of the country. those are the three things we had to do. today we have an opportunity. this is a presidential election year. we're down to two candidates. i'm telling you right now if you want to change the direction of the country, you don't want a third term of barack obama, you have to put aside our differences and put donald j. trump in our white house. [cheers and applause] senator perdue: with trump in the white house and the leadership around him, i believe we can finally bring term limits to the united states senate and the united states house of representatives. i believe we can actually -- [applause] senator perdue: i believe we can actually begin to correct the budget process that's been

broken for the last 42 years. it's only worked four times, folks. imagine that. that's the root of what this problem's all about. i believe we can eliminate redundant agencies. some $300 billion, $400 billion worth. and, yes, we can grow this economy. the irony of all these sweeping programs that the democrats have put on us -- and you think, well, how did we get here? the irony is they failed. we have add in the last 100 years three supermajorities. the first gave us the new deal. the second, great society. the third, obamacare and dodd-frank. now, i'm just a business guy but these three supermajorities, most responsibility of the financial catastrophe and the irony is those sweeping programs have failed the very people they claim to champion, the working middle class and the working poor. today we have the weakest economic recovery in the last 70 years under way. in the last seven years alone, we have not had one quarter of

3% deppped growth. -- g.d.p. growth. if you look at the work force we have right now, we have the smallest work force participation rate since jimmy carter was president and worst of all, folks, in the last seven years under this president we allowed four million women to fall into poverty. it's unconscionable. these programs have failed. we know that. the evidence is there. so now we have the opportunity. if we get serious and put our differences aside, we can create an environment where we can fix these things. save social security. we can absolutely arrest the rising nature of our health care cost and put this country on a direction for our children and grandchildren to where we won't have to look at them and apologize. you know, i believe that one of the most profound things we got to do is get back to our founding principles of our founding mothers and our founding fathers. economic opportunity, fiscal responsibility, limited

government, individual liberty. i think we're called to pray. chronicles says, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, i will hear them in heaven. forgive their since and heal them. ladies and gentlemen, we need that prayer today. we need to heal our land. we need to turn back and turn away from the direction we've been headed. that's why we have to change the direction of our country. i believe that john adams had it right. that once a constitutional government turns away from freedom, it can never be restored. liberty once lost is lost forever. i don't want to be a member of the first generation in american history that has to tell my children and my grandchildren that i'm leaving them a world worse off and less free than the one my parents left me. it doesn't have to be that way.

we have the opportunity today to change the direction of our country and thank you for being involved. if we put donald j. trump in our white house we can change the direction of our country because we cannot allow hillary rodham clinton one more night in our white house. thank you. god bless you. cheers and applause] >> you heard senator perdue recite part of a bible verse which reads, quote, let his days be few and let another have his office, end quote. the next lines say, let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow, end quote. megan whitmore a spokesman for the senator, said senator perdue, quote, in no way wishes harm to our president and everyone in the room understood that, end quote. at the white house, spokesman josh earnest said, quote, as senator perdue considers whether an apology is appropriate, there

are a variety of other striptures he might consult, end quote. >> this is amazing for the family story if you think about it. terribly cruelties are perpetrated, the empire is increased, there are great love affairs but it's also a family where fathers kill their sons, where wiveses have their husbands overthrown and murder, where sons co-lewd in the murder of their father. it's a family unlike any other. > sunday night on "q&a," simon montefiore talks about his book, "the romanovs." >> all the girls were wearing their own bizarre bulletproof vests. not bulletproof vest bus vests with the romanov styling. the design had been -- diamonds

had been sewn into their underwear so if they escaped. but when the bullets came, made ally, these -- these the execution much, much longer. the bullets bounced off diamonds, the hardest substance known to man, and they didn't die. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on q&a. leaders representing manufacturers and the department of energy were among witnesses testified today at a house energy and commerce subcommittee hearing. they answered questions on current and future energy consumption regulations for appliances. this is just over two hours. >> i'd like to call the hearing to order this morning, i want to thank our panel of witnesses for being with us, i'm going to

introduce you right before you give your opening statements, i'll just introduce you individually at that time. i'd like to recognize myself for five minutes for opening statement. mr. whitfield: today's hearing is entitled home appliance energy efficiency standards. nce 1987, we've had energy efficiency standards for certain appliances. came about because back in 1975, there was a federal energy policy act that established that format. the reagan administration was ued because it was not being implemented and as a result of that lawsuit, we have now found ourselves in about the fifth of sixth gyration of those energy efficiency standards which apply to almost anything that plugs into the wall in your home, whether it's an air conditioner,

refrigerator, furnace, oven, water heater, lighting, whatever it might be. and the argument was initially that you would save energy bills over time because of the efficiency, use less electricity and the small amount of additional cost, you'd end up saving money. some people today are questioning that because we're, as i said, we're about the fifth, sixth, or seventh round of these efficiency standards and some people say that you reach a point of diminishing returns. and some people say that the additional costs now -- additional cost now is at such a rate that you really don't have any savings over the long term because the energy efficiencies are simply not that great. other people say that's not the case. and of course adecisionally now, everybody is talking about global warming and so there's

additional emphasis being placed on this because of that. one of the problems we have is that in america we feel like we're doing more than any other country in the world on these types of issues. i was reading an article the other day that said there are three billion people in the world who use open flames to cook today. and in the developing world, by 2040, they expect that 65% of energy consumption will come from the developing world. we also hear a lot today about people being concerned about the cost of living. and we know that in california and new york, they're trying to raise the minimum wage and many people are urging that we raise the minimum wage. some people agree with that, some people don't. but it's interesting that those

strong advocates for raising the minimum wage, they don't want to consider the additional cost caused by regulations. and it's one thing to say, ok, we need to raise the minimum wage, but to low income and middle class families, if these appliances are going to cost additional money, what does that mean to their pocketbook? and then, we're even hearing now from some of the appliance makers that some of these new appliances really don't work as well as the old ones. and so it's a situation where i think no one really expected that the department of energy and this administration would be as aggressive as they have been. on so many different fronts. now the good news was that in 1975, when they were considering these efficiency standards, they were supposed to consider that

technology was really feasible and that there was economic justification for it. but today, that's beginning to be blurred and we know certainly at e.p.a. when they consider -- they certainly don't consider whether it's technologically feasible or economically justified. so if we want to have a more balanced approach, what we're trying to do is hear from people who are involved in this on a daily basis because the american public, when they go to an appliance store to buy an appliance and they don't understand all about the efficiency, they just know what the price is and then some people are telling them, you're going to save money even though it's a lot more because the electricity will go down, other people make the other argument. one of our objectives today is to try to get a better understanding of what is the reality of this? and that's why we're here. so i want to thank all of you for joining us.

at this time i'd like to introduce the distinguished gentleman from illinois, mr. rush, for his opening statement. mr. rush: thank you, mr. chairman, for holding today's hearing. on the home appliance energy efficiency standards. nder the department of energy. stake holders' perspectives. i want to welcome, mr. chairman, all of our witnesses before the subcommittee here today. mr. chairman, since there are -- we are investing, i've seen we would definitely benefit the members of the subcommittee to also hear from the agency directly. i hope that we can invite them to testify on this issue at a date in the near future. mr. chairman, historically,

energy efficiency has proven to e the low-hanging fruit that allow -- that has brought both parties together legislatively while also making our country safer, more secure, and more attentive to the impact of limate change. indeed, the story of energy efficiency, mr. chairman, is one that is filled with success stories that are really helpful -- helped propel our country forward by giving us more independence and more -- making us more independent and more secure while also reducing the cost of energy both in our pocketbooks and its impact to our environment. in fact, mr. chairman, by

d.o.e.'s own estimation, merican families save close to as a result of their energy bills going down of thes is the result of standards that we are considering just in the year 2015 alone. the agency also forecasts, mr. chairman, that standards issued ince 2009 would save the american consumer over $53 billion in utility costs and increase -- and decrease carbon missions by $2.3 -- by 2.3 billion metric tons by the year 2030.

mr. chairman, in addition to the huge energy savings and the nefit to the environment appliance and equipment standards also lead to additional investment in the work force and the ultimate creation of jobs. a 2011 report by the american council for energy efficiency -- ergy efficient economy entitled "energy efficiency standards: a moneymaker and job creator," end quote, found that efficiency standards led to net job creation in every single state. the study also found that by 020, appliance and equipment

tandards will contribute up to 387,000 annual jobs to the u.s. economy. mr. chairman, while almost every establish or.e. to revise energy efficiency stan tards has been met with some pe of opposition, recently this issue has been pursued in commend both sides in a committee, bipartisan manner. contributions put forward by our president and congressmen even though those congressmen and the white house have been you should

the control of republicans and democrats. it is my hope, mr. chairman, that following today's hearing, we will ultimately get back to and ype of collaboration cooperation on this issue. mr. chairman, it is critically important that the federal government maintain its leader shipp role of promoting, encouraging, and enticing interested stake holders to continue with the progress that has already been made in efficiency technology so that we can continue to keep moving the nation's energy policy forward. mr. chairman, i look forward to today's hearing.

i look forward to these witnesses on the successes and challenges that are facing this nation as it relates to energy efficiency appliances. i yield back. mr. whitfield: the gentleman yields back. i recognize the gentleman from illinois, mr. shimkus, for fife minutes. mr. shimkus: thank you, mr. chairman, and welcome. it's important to hear from stake holders because the stories we weave here may not always reflect the real world. we're hoping that you will give us what's going on on the ground. so i'm going to weave a little story to put this all in perspective too. congressman bost and i met with a small manufacturer about two months ago and they are subject to a d.o.e. enforcement case. of course, because of the enforcement, they've been told to stop selling a piece of equipment. this company sent several months trying to find out why they and

a third party lab that tested the product, why they met the standard and why when d.o.e. got their hands on it, they didn't meet the standards. so d.o.e. tested the product seven months later and not only -- i'll weave the story why the d.o.e. came to a different conclusion but also under a new regulation then when the product was originally produced. here's the catch-22 world in which you all have to try to live in. to try to catch up after a product has been manufactured to a new regulation and then face the heavy hand of the federal government. so the company was not aware of section 2.11 because it was not included in the proposed rule making, it was two lines in a large rule, previously

represented as not materially altering efficiency measures. this piece of equipment did not pass the automatic test, but it did pass the manual test. this is a piece of equipment that you can operate manually or you can hook up a thermostat and operate automatically. it did meet the standard for the manual test, it didn't meet the test for the automatic. d.o.e. would never tell them why they failed the test until months later. even when they asked for transparency, show us your work, tell us what you're doing. so this is a crazy world in which we live in. federal government is there to help. not punish. federal government is there to, if they want to have efficiency and want to encourage movement forward, they should be incenting, not -- so this small

company has a -- a proposed $241,000 penalty because d.o.e. is now saying that they knowingly, knowingly kind of jimmyed the efficiency standards where the equipment met the manual standard, didn't meet the automatic standard. of course when you fall into this regime, you can't sell your product. it's banned from being sold until this conflict gets resolved. small companies just can't work.e this type of it would be best, as we hear, i'm sure similar stories about the struggles of maintaining it, businesses goal is to raise capital, assume risk, hoping to get a return. and while they're doing that

they create jobs. if the government -- we just want the government to be fair players in this system. if we're going to create these new standards, give industry a chance to meet them. and don't play games of delay by not working with the industry and telling them why they failed to meet the standards. or changing the rules for automatic or manual type systems. so, i'm really looking forward to the hearing. i think it's very, very important. i've got questions when we come to it on -- to address the jobs debate which i think people will find pretty robmatic that these are now causing the loss of jobs in our country and i yield back my time. mr. whitfield: the gentleman yields back. i recognize the gentleman from new jersey, mr. pallone, for five minutes. mr. pallone: thank you, mr.

chairman. the energy efficiency standards program has been incredibly successful over the years in reducing energy consumption and lowering consumers' energy bills. the program has also been beneficial to manufacturers making energy saving products more ubiquitous and leveling the playing field nationally. in fact, efficiency standards for consume aero-- consumer appliances and other products likely institute the single most effective federal effort to reduce energy consumption in the united states. according to the energy department, americans saved $63 billion on their utility bills last year buzz of the standards. this is also resulting in avoiding $2.-- of aviding .6 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions, which would equal that from 4,500 million vehicles. the benefits of the important program, consumers save money and our environment is spared billions of tons of pollution

every year. all this began with enactment of the energy policy and conservation act which was signed into law by republican president gerald ford. a highlight republican. this apparently started a trend because with the exception of an amendment to the statutes directing d.o.e. to establish efficiency stan tards for consumer products under the carter administration, every major expansion of the appliance efficiency standards program has been signed into law by republican presidents. so while some of our witnesses and our colleagues on the other side of the aisle may lament the long list of appliance standards proposed by the obama administration, they should remember that depending on your point of view, much of the credit or blame for the obama standards can be traced back to two laws signed by president george w. bush. the energy policy act of 2005 and the energy independence and security act of 2007. while the 2007 act wud passed by -- was passed by democratic

congress, the other was born out of a fully republican congress and authored by the former republican chairman of this committee. i don't know why i have to keep saying fully republican congress, that's obviously not what i like. but the fact of the matter is that that most of this legislation was done by republican congress and president. this underscores the fact that energy efficiency has been a bipartisan issue where republicans and democrats have come together to reduce energy consumption and save consumers money. times have changed, obviously. certainly, there are a few republicans who still understand the importance of energy efficiency, mr. mckip lee has worked with mr. welch to demonstrate the bipartisan shipp of this to some degree, yet regrettably that seems to be the only republican support for major efficiency legislation in this congress. consider the recent house votes to go to conference on an energy package that would increase

consumption by rolling back efficiency. again, how times have changed. could the efficiency standards setting process use improvement? of course it could. there's always room for improvement. would te a revision that reduce efficiency standards are a new development, the fact is the standard setting process has always yielded controversy from one industry participant or another. the conflicts were worked out and resulted in often useful standards to the -- changes to the standard setting process. my point is, solution mace not be possible in this congress. when we were working to find a bipartisan compromise last year, the positions taken by certain stake holders made me question the possibility. what some stake holders view as minor tweaks look to me like a

thorough gutting of the standards program. i believe that a serious and successful program for our nature must include demand, not just supply and the idea to get more from less is common sense and that's why efficiency has traditionally been a concept that brought parties together and i hope that one day we'll see that again. it doesn't seem like today is the day. thank you and i yield back. mr. whitfield: the gentleman yields back. that concludes the opening statement on our side. our first witness will be ms. sophie miller, senior policy analyst at the george washington university regulatory studies center. thanks for being with us. you'll be given five minutes and just make sure the microphone is on and it's up close to you so we can hear every single word that you say. and you're recognized for five minutes. mrs. miller: thank you very much, chairman whitfield, ranking member rush, and members of the subcommittee for inviting

me to share my expertise today. i appreciate the subcommittee's interest in the department of energy's energy conservation program as well as the opportunity for congress to improve it. i am the senior policy analyst at the george washington university regulatory studies center, where i analyze the effects of regulation on public welfare, including the effects of d.o.e.'s energy efficiency standards on consumers specifically. through my research, i've identified ways in which the standards can harm consumers rather than benefiting them by limiting the products available and removing from the market appliances that might best suit their needs. d.o.e.'s energy efficiency standards regulate appliances used in most households such as dish washers, air conditioners and refrigerators and as a result they affect almost all u.s. consumers. these standards increase the prices of common appliances in exchange for reducing consumers' energy and water bills in the future. while d.o.e. does estimate that

consumers receive large net benefits from this tradeoff, it does not take into account the diversity of americans or that u.s. households have very different needs an preferences when it comes to household appliances. as a result, one size fits all energy efficiency standards can deprive consumers of the ability to make purchases that best suit their circumstances and constraints. in such cases, these regulations are a cost to consumers, rather than a benefit. for example, efficient dish washers or clothes driers save consumers more money in the long-term the more freerktly they're used and tend not to benefit households with lower frequent soif use which includes couples or single residents, such as the elderly. in proposing energy efficiency standards for clothes washers, d.o.e. calculated large benefits by estimating that a household operates its clothes washer 392 times per year. or more than once a day on arch. while this might be realistic

for large families or households with small children, it does not represent every household. in fact, even after accounting for their lower energy bills, the stan cards ended up costing the nearly 70% of american households that use clothes washers less frequently than six times per week. to illustrate from personal experience, a very efficient dishwasher made sense for my mother who has nine children and used to run the dishwasher as much as four times per day, if you can imagine that but my current household of two, we run the dishwasher twice a week and it's not likely that a more efficient and more expensive appliance will be worth the investment. in addition, efficiency standards are particularly costly for low income households. wealthier americans can afford to wait years even decades to recoup the higher costs of an efficient appliance while poor americans with less certain streams of income have higher

opportunity costs. d.o.e. calculates high benefits by using a relatively low time value of money which studies find represents wealthier households. changing d.o.e.'s mod tole reflect the actual time value of money to low and medium income households shows that they encourage large net costs as a result of efficiency standards. when a paycheck has to cover rent, food, and other necessities, a very efficient appliance may not be affordable, even if it does reduce electric bills in the future. tealfamilies simply cannot with the % rates d.o.e. assumes. but energy cost savings are not the only justification for the standards as they can reduce environmental eemissions. but environmental benefits are typically quite small. in fact the cost outweighs the benefits by a factor of three to one. by looking at environmental

benefits aloan, d.o.e. would not be able to justify the standards set for most aprineses. in sum, the payoffs from more efficient appliances will vary depending on a house eeled's income, size and other characteristics such as geographic location. it is perfectly rational for individual households to prefer to purchase different appliances, including those that don't meet d.o.e. standards. by taking away those choices, and preventing households from bying the -- buying the appliance that best suit theirs individual needs, d.o.e. is imposing a cost on on sumers, not a benefit. this is particularly true for low and medium income americans and the elderly who bear the highest cost of appliance efficiency standards. thank you all for your time. i look forward to your questions. mr. whitfield: thank you, mrs. miller, very much for your opening statement. our next witness this morning is mr. joseph mcguire, who is the

president and c.e.o. of the association of home appliance manufacturers, thanks for being with us and you're recognized for five minutes. r. mcguire: chairman whitfield -- mr. whitfield: turn your microphone on and get it close. mr. mcguire: chairman whitfield, ranking member rush and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify this morning. our member shipp includes more than 150 companies throughout the world, employs tens of thousands of people throughout the united states. our member pross deuce more than 95% of the household appliances shipped for sale in this country. i don't think there's any disagreement at this table that the appliance standards and energy star programs have been successful. energy efficiency gains across core major appliance categories are dramatic and undeniable. for example trk the most commonly purchased modern refrigerator uses the same electricity as a 50 watt light bulb. a new clothes washer uses 70%

less energy and half the water of one in 1990. our group has been a strong supporter of these programs an been involved in rule making to strengthen and improve programs. in 1987, i personally led the 200-plus organizations that initiated and supported the national appliance energy conservation act. we strongly support a system of federal standards and state preemption and do not propose a rollback of any standards. but while these programs are successful, they are both in need of modernization to recognize the success achieved and to establish a framework for policies and programs focused on meaningful additional gains. yes, there should be federal standards to guarantee savings nationwide but absent technological breakthroughs a process geared toward continually ratcheting up efficiency standards, particularly for products already subject to multiple revision, doesn't make sense for the environment, the consumer,

or the economy. this will not happen under the current standard construct. reform legislation is needed. h.r. 8 is a practical step along that path offering modest, sensible changes to the rule that will require d.o.e. to follow the regulatory procedures it agreed to with the organizations that advocated for reform in 1987. today we are calling on congress to take further steps to modernize our national energy efficiency law by ending mandatory serial rule making and permitting amended standards only when justified by quantity final met recks. including a list of covered products for which no further rule making is needed, absent technological game changers. requiring d.o.e. to meaningfully consider cumulative regulatory burdens on product manufacturers. mandates procedures regarding trands paraphernaliacy and public engagement, no more black ox analyses.

applying administrative procedure after the energy star program. there have been more than 30 standards and amendments that apply under the program and there have been new mexico rause test procedure revisions accompanying them. the reality is for many product cat goirs the relentless march of sequential rule making is not justified. that's because opportunities for ea adecisional energy savings beyond those achieved are severely diminished as products near maximum efficiency under technology. further standards are likely to increase costs beyond an acceptable level and for some products redeuce -- reduced energy use will likely result in degraded performance and functionality. we saw this in the flawed proposed dishwasher rule last year whose consumer payback period exceeded the product's life and resulted in products that could not clean dishes. d.o.e., too its credit, retracted the proposal but it shouldn't take a national uproar for this to happen.

the rule never should have been proposed. as for energy star, the program has drifted from its original mission of energy efficiency into other areas beyond its expertise and authority. this this must be considered in concert with the reality that the success of the program has essentially made it mandatory in the marketplace. congress needs to bring this program under the much more traditional procedures and specific criteria of the administrative procedures act which applies to virtually every other program e.p.a. administers. it is also important that congress make clear that energy star is about energy efficiency only, not about e.p.a.'s ideas regarding quality, functionality, sustainableability or other nonenergy factors. our ultimate objective is to improve the u.s. regulatory environment in measurable ways that call for fairer, more predictable, more open and more efficient regulatory landscapes. as an industry we will continue to live up to our responsibility to provide consume wers life

enhancing products that deliver superior performance and energy and environmental benefits. our industry is very competitive which drives not only innovation but also reduced product costs through hundreds of millions of dollars in product improvements. that is why home appliance prices don't keep up with the c.p.i., not because of appliance standards. productivity investments hide the fact that changing product design and materials to meet energy standards adds cost, implying that the huge efforts in time and capital investments to achieve productivity somehow make energy efficiency free is a great misunderstanding. mr. chairman, members of the subcommittee in summary we call bycongress to modernize epca recognizing the diminishing energy savings tuns for many products, evaluating cumulative regulatory burdens and the actual impact of past rules in improving transparency and stake holder engagement. thank you for the opportunity to

testify. i'd be happy to answer any questions. mr. whitfield: thank you, mr. mcguire. our next witness is ms. elizabeth noll, leng slative director for energy and transportation at the natural resources defense council, ns noll, thanks for being with us. you're recognized for five minutes. ms. noll: thank you for the opportunity to share the perspective of the natural resources defense council on national energy efficiency standards set by the department of energy for many household appliances and commercial products. this program sets dependable minimum levels of energy efficiency that all americans can count on to reduce their utility bills, the carbon pollution that harms human health while promoting new job opportunities. i'm the legislative director for the energy program at nrdc. nrdc has long supported nrning efficiency standards and we're far from alone. we've successfully worked alongside many groups, including nema, and aham here today and

support was reiterated in a recren op-ed authored with the national association of manufacturers. let's not forget the initial law establishing standards was signed by president ronald reagan, then expanded and approved with broad, bipartisan support in laws signed by presidents george h.w. and w. bush. why is there strong support for efficiency standards? it's wildly successful delivering tremendous consumer and national benefits. it has broad bipartisan support, founded on a long history of collaboration ancon census building by all at accounts there's still huge potential for even more energy and financial savings now and in the future. to my first point, by every single measure the program provides huge benefits. national appliance standards are the second biggest energy saving policy in u.s. history. second only to vehicle fuel economy standards. appliance standards are saving the typical u.s. household about

$500 per year on their utility bills. last year alone, american consumers saved $63 billion. thanks to standards already on the books today, consumers will save almost $2 trillion on their energy bills due to improved appliance and equipment through 2035. because these standards are cutting american energy consumption, it also reduces the need to burn polluting fossil fuels to run those appliances and equipment. last year alone, national appliance standards helped avoid emission of 300 million tennessee tons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of pollution from about 63 million cars. as i noted earlier, three republican presidents have signed laws supporting energy efficiency standards. for the first time since the early 1990's, the department of energy is up to date with its legal deadlines that congress enacted. in the spirit of consensus building aen collaboration, the

agency has done more than ever to open up avenues to increase stake holder participation an collaboration. othe 4 standards final sized since 2009, almost a quarter stemmed from consensus agreements negotiated with industry support. those that aren't negotiated go through a normal rule making process which includes multiple opportunities for input from industry. as a result the vast majority of american energy efficiency standards go into effect without controversy. as noted in other testimony today, manufacturers much prefer a single national standard over a state-by-state patchwork of requirements. consumer groups, state governments, business groups, utilities, all have engaged constructively and support the program. one might ask, are there more energy consumer and environmental savings to be achieved? emphatically, yes. one example involves the biggest energy and pollution from a

single standard in the industry's history, completed in january for commercial air conditioners, heat pumps and warp air furnaces and it represents the third revision to the standard this standard is expected to save 15 qua drillon b.t.u.'s of energy other a 30-year period, nearly equivalent to the amount of energy in all of the coal burned to generate electricity in the united states in one year. a forth come regular port by the appliance standards awareness project and the american council for an energy efficient economy finds that the savings potential for federal standards that will be eligible for update within the next eight years exceeds what has been accomplished over the last eight. innovation by our leading manufacturers is likely to ep open up new opportunities if savings we cannot even contemplate today. without standards, cost effective energy efficient tuns will be lost, leading to unnecessarily high energy bills, increased energy consumption, more harmful pollution, and

uncertainty from manufacturers. there's no doubt that this program works and will continue to deliver huge consumer and environmental value now and into the future. thank you for the opportunity to share my views and i look forward to your questions. mr. whitfield: thank you, ms. noll, for your statement. at this time i'd like to introduce mr. kevin cosgriff, president and c.e.o. of the national electrical manufacturers association. thanks for being with us you're recognized for five minutes. mr. cosgriff: thank you, mr. chairman. ranking member rush and members of the subcommittee for having us today. i'm the president and c.e.o. of the national electrical manufacturers association, some nearly 400 members that provide virtually everything in the electrical world. i appreciate this opportunity to talk about epca with the subcommittee. we have a central position in this dialogue, given that 20 of the 63 covered products are made

by nema members and an additional 30 covered products contain components made by nema members. my three points i'd like to make today, first, as has been stated there are diminishing energy savings returns to multiple rule making on the same product. that's not saying that we don't believe in energy savings, just saying there's diminishing returns on multiple rule makings that ought to be considered. future energy efficiency opportunities should include looking at energy use systems, not simply components or individual products. lastly, serial regulation does over time limit consumer choice. first on diminishing returns, epco was written 40 years ago and many of the covered products have since achieve then unimagined levels of efficiency. several products have been through two or more different rule makings.

the statute requires the d.o.e. to determine whether higher standards are warranted on every single covered product at least every six years. this applies even to products that have reached a stage of regulatory maturity, as it were, that is to say, the products for which cost effective efficiency improvements have essentially reached their limits. cost effective energy improvements have reached their limits. there are two components to this situation we believe warrant congressional attention. we should retire several mature covered products, and by that i mean retire the current level of efficiency, not back slide. and that stake holders including government should be given sufficient time to analyze the impact of a previous regulation before a new rule making cycle kicks off. barely has a product entered the market before the next rule process kicks off. there's not been enough time to

analyze the information in the real world to see if it works. my second point is that energy efficiency opportunities should begin looking at energy use system. it was crafted for individual product, the challenge ahead i think is to build on this past industry success with a new, more holist exapproach to these savings opportunities. individual products are increasingly interconnected and operate as a system rather than singularly. we suggest congress consider this opportunity when discussing energy savings. -- think energy savings from a building versus energy savings from a lamp. my third buoyant is serial regulation impacts consumer choice. demands from flobal competition and the all-important consumer preference require manufacturers to sprint to remain competitive. while our members are accustomed and good at running this race, an endless regulatory

environment erects hurdles they must repeatedly clear chear time to remain viable. they're the definition of having skin in the game. one tendency of that is over time it will eliminate products from the market. under this regulatory scheme there'll be fewer and fewer choices offered to consumers. we assert that markets should drive and in fact are driving the energy efficient economy. one choice that markets can do without, however is availability of product entering the united states that do not comply with u.s. law and policy. this deprives consumers of energy efficient benefits and disadvantages law-abiding manufacturers. this is an area where the federal government especially could be helpful with policing these imports. in conclusion, electrical manufacturers contribution to the energy efficiency economy

has been diligent and i believe commendable. throughout this effort, nema has made constructive proposals to congress, d.o.e. and working with other stake holders to advance energy efficiency where we believe it was justified and where the savings were significant. we've resisted regulation for the sake of simply doing something more when the benefits were insignificant or the costs were too high. the 40-year-old model of regulating energy use and single products has in many cases done its duty. but diminishing returns are exacting an increasing cost for industry and higher price for our consumers. the legislative overhaul that builds on the success of the last 40 years but allows us to all keep the energy efficiency economy moving forward is what we wish to support. we urge congress to seize this unique opportunity. thank you and i look forward to your questions. mr. whitfield: thank you, mr.

cosgriff. at this time our next witness is mr. tom mast eckman, director of the northwest tower and conservation council. thanks for being with us york ur recognized for five minutes. mr. eckman: thank you, mr. chairman, minority leader rush. i'm director of power planning for the northwest power and conservation council. i'll start with a quick thumbnail of who we are since there are no northwest delegates here, i thought it might be important to know why i'm here representing the northwest. the northwest power and conservation council was established under congressional authorize igs under the congressional act 1980, public law 506-91. we are an interstate compact, authorized by you folks here in congress to do power planning for the northwest. we, for the states of oregon, washington, idaho and western montana we produce a 0-year forecast of needs and resource plan to meet those needs for

electricity. and our statutory requirement is that we are to treat energy efficiency as one of the resources we can rely on to meet those needs. over the past three decades, 35 years, we've produced seven different power plans. we're to update those every five years so we start back in 1982 with the first plan and called for cost effective energy efficiency to be a major component of that plaing process. as directed by congress. over that past 35 years, energy efficiency has been a very significant contributor to the northwest economy and to meeting our needs. in summary, since 1980 the northwest region has saved enough electricity through standards, utility programs to be equivalent of roughly six seattles in electricity, annual

electricity consumption or more than 1.25 times the actual consumption of the state of oregon. it's a significant contributor. it roughly represents our second largest resource in the region. it's met 65% of load gross since 1980. we believe in energy efficiency that is cost effective. the reason i'm here is to talk to you about the role federal standards have played in making that happen and what they look like going forward. over the past 35 years, federal standards have basically produced one fifth of the total savings that we have been able to achieve. energy codes about 20% and the remaining thru rate payer funded utility programs. one fifth of the savings turns out to be worth about $1 billion in annual savings out of the -- on an annual basis and saves about five million metric tons of carbon off of our system. we have a very clean system because about half of our power comes from hydroelectricity. that's a significant component,

about 10% of our carbon emissions on an annual basis. going forward, we look to the federal standards that have been adopted between 2009 and 2014. those standards alone will reduce our forecast load growth from 1 ppt 1% to .8%. about 30% reduction in load growth, saving significant consumer cost for a new generation and saving consumer pain and agony from carbon emissions. we are here to support those standards because not only have they been huge benefit to us but we have been involved in the negotiations that led to not only the federal standards but many of the standards adopted since -- since 1987. i am a member to have the appliance standards rule making advisory committee that was appointed by d.o.e. to facilitate better communication between manufacturers and advocates for energy efficiency to begin to develop more transparent and open processes to engage in rule making.

and that, since the advent of that committee, which was basically formed at the behest of the department itself because it understood that it could do a better job of rule making in negotiations and included in the standard notice and comment process can always do a better job but in some instances, elizabeth noted appliance rule making for air conditioners an package rooftop systems, those consensus agreements between manufacturers and advocates have produced better standards, more regulatory certainty on behalf of the manufacturers, and greater compromise and facility to implement standards on behalf of the manufacturers. i think those -- that particular improvement was not envisioned in the original statute. it's a regulatory process implemented on a voluntary basis and improved immashably the measure of the process on a going forward basis. i think that we can talk more about that in the time that you

have questions for me, i'll stop there. thank you. mr. whitfield: thanks, mr. eckman, our next witness and last witness is mr. steven urich, president and c.e.o. of the air-conditioning, heating and refrigeration institute. so thanks for being with us and you're recognized for five minutes. mr. yurek: thank you, mr. whitfield and members of the subcommittee for inviting me to testify on this important topic. i'm steve yurek, president and c.e.o. of the heating and refrigeration institute. we have 15 men companies that manufacture more than 90% of residential, commercial and industrial air-conditioning, space heat, water heating and commercial refrigeration equipment sole and installed in north america. our members employ almost 100,000 people in manufacturing and more than one million american jobs when you include those involved in distribution,

installation and maintenance of our equipment. i want to make it clear that our industry has a long record of leader shipp when it comes to innovation, energy efficiency and environmental steward shipp. in fact, the equipment our members produce is 50% more efficient than it was just 20 years ago. but even as we innovate and develop the next generation of highly efficient equipment, we always have in mind the needs of our customers who are, after all, the people who buy and use our equipment. we have three main concerns with the current statute that i'd like to discuss today. first, the authority congress set forth for setting efficiency standards, the energy policy conservation act, is 40 years old. it has not been updated to reflect new technologies and economic realities. two, in addition to the impact in our industries, consumers are paying a heavy price both in real monetary costs and in comfort and safety. when new equipment costs more

than consumers can afford, they find alternatives. some of which compromise their comfort and safety while saving less energy and in some cases actually using more energy. finally, american jobs are being lost in part because of the promulgation of ever more stringent efficiency regulations and the worst thing is, d.o.e. admits that these regulations cost jobs. while the clinton administration issued six major efficiency rules during his eight years in office, the current administration issued eight major efficiency rules in 2014 alone. there are real consequences from this rush to regulate. yes, complying with these rulls cost my member companies millions an millions of dollars but what is far more important, and should be far more worrying to congress is american jobs are being lost and consumers who are already feeling financially squeezed are being forced to pay more for products they rely on in their everyday lives, from

comfort cooling and heating to refrigeration to hot water. epca requires that all efficiency standards meet the tests of technically feasible and economically justified. and yet they have issued rules that issue unrealistic assumptions to justify higher efficiency levels. i'll give you a couple of examples. for commercial boilers, d.o.e. estimates the new standard would safe .8% more energy than the existing standard but would cost manufacturers up to $24 million to comply. for residential boilers and commercial refrigeration equipment, d.o.e. justified the economic impact of the higher efficiency levels by using the assumption that no matter how much the product increases in price, demand for that product would never decrease. every time d.o.e. issues a new rule, it issues a press release estimating the rule's benefits

and cost savings for consumers and energy savings for the nation. based on theoretical models. d.o.e. has never looked back to see what the energy savings actually were or if consumers actually ever benefited from spending more money. and the current law does not even require such a review. finally, d.o.e. projects future job losses in several of its rule makings for our products. for example, in two separate rule makings, different types of commercial air-conditioning units, d.o.e. noted small business manufacturers need to redesign their entire offering or leave the market. d.o.e. acknowledged a potential scenario with rule making for commercial refrigeration equipment called cause all existing production to be moved outside of the united states resulting in eloss of over 3,500 jobs. changes to epca should be implemented in fazes with the

collaboration of all stake holders. i urge all members of the upcoming conference committee to ensure that the technical corrections in h.r. 8 remain part of the final energy bill. broader epca reform should stress flexibility, enhance technical and economic justification, and the process should be overhauled to maximize transparency and stake holder engagement. congress should require d.o.e. to convene stake holders to discuss and recommend a new regulatory framework. they are ready to work with congress, d.o.e. and other stake holders on ways we can together fakes and update this 40-year-old law to create a new more open process, conserve energy, help manufacturers remain competitive in the global marketplace and benefit all consumers. i appreciate the chance to appear today and i look forward to answering any questions you might have and to working with

you as we move forward on this important issue. >> thank you, mr. yurek. thank all of you very much for your testimony. we appreciate it. and i recognize myself for five minutes of questions. mrs. miller -- mr. bitfield: mrs. miller, the george washington university regulatory studies center, how old is the center? mrs. miller: it -- ms. miller: it began in 2009. mr. whitfield: and how long have you been there? ms. miller: since 2012. mr. whitfield: if you were running for public office or speaking at a rotary club around the country, could you categorically say the regulations are saving consumers money because the reduction in electricity costs exceeds the additional cost of the new appliance? ms. miller: i would say that

these standards have different effects on different households based on characteristics i mentioned and also some i state as well in my written testimony. for instance, if you live in texas, maybe it's more beneficial for you to have an efficient air conditioner but do you care how efficient your furnace is? how often with will you use it? you may not save money getting an efficient furnace. so i would say that different situations -- mr. whitfield: geographical area would have an impact. ms. miller: absolutely. mr. whitfield: and the use would have an impact on it. and some elderly who use it less would have less benefit from it as well. ms. miller: that is correct. mr. whitfield: so all of us make comments about this is going to save money and so forth but it's certainly possible and in many instances i would assume that low income people and elderly

are harmed more by these regulations than perhaps they benefit. would you agree with that? ms. miller: that seems to be the case. and the department acknowledges there are negative impacts on those groups in its own analyses. that's not a view that's outside the mainstream. mr. whitfield: originally this started because of the oil embargo and the reason this all started was because of trying to conserve the use of energy and certainly that has changed today because we have an abundance of energy in america. but today it's become more of a climate change issue. that's what people talk about. well we've got to be more efficient, les co-2 and so forth. . mcguire, you and mr. cosgriff and mr. yurek touch on the need for reform. and you all made some pretty strong statements, you said that

sometimes the product is not going to be as effective. it's going to cost more to consumers. it's going to reduce consumer choice. and one comment i would also make on h.r. 8, which is our energy bill, one of the most controversial aspects of it related to the process the d.o.e. goes through in adopting these new standards, for example, they really are not transparent on it. the data analysis is not really available until they get ready to notice it. all we were saying in this one provision, which was likes we were turning the world upside down was we want d.o.e. to sit down with the manufacturers, the people who make these goods, and have a more open and transparent discussion with them. i mean, you would agree with that, right?