we have learned how to have it work better for veterans. programeed a better like this. we do not need another new program to start over again. and congress needs to reauthorize the choice program and take some of the problems and basically leave it alone. host: is in their suggestion of process ofp in the choosing someone for veterans administration. what would you advise that person coming in? caller: working with secretary mcdonald, actually, he should stone as the secretary of the v.a. he has created and working to create a service oriented veteran administration in a rural area. have 5000 miles, we

veterans. we have had a chance to work all the way up through the chain. the problem is middle management, not upper management, and not to the field line staff generally, but with lost a lot of good people that are in the v.a. system that has worked for the v.a. they have good ideas. we have put forward some ideas and some of them have been adopted. some are being looked at. to talk toeeds to go individual veterans, not adjust the american legion and the vfw organizations that have management there. but get to the field, come to rural area as it were veterans have to do and put up with and find a way to make it a service oriented organization.

host: that is richer. the military times reporting on saturday that the choice for the by president-elect trump on heading to the v.a., quionen es drew -- with the drew his knife. toby is the most likely -- withdrew his name. toby is the most likely. let's hear from jim in tennessee, independent line. caller: good morning to you. i would like to see the swamp drink. by that i mean i would like to see an end to people like the last caller going to washington hat in hand to ask the government to do this or that for them.

that wouldy i see really be possible to drain the swamp would be to abolish the crown jewel of progressive/socialist legislation which was the individual employment or income tax. it comprises about 49% of the government's revenue, i believe. without that, the swamp would have to be trained. -- drained. it is the most intrusive tax it is. it robs people of their privacy. , it makes you a slave to the government. some cases 30%, 40% of some people's income which is a more taken from them in europe. host: that is jim. we will continue on with calls about your message to washington in 2017.

(202) 748-8000 for democrats. for republicans, (202) 748-8001. for independents, (202) 748-8002 . we are being joined by columnist and a pianist. mitch kokai is a columnist for "carolina journal," joining us on sky. guest: i hope you are doing great on this first were of the new year. host: thank you for asking. you cover a lot of things when it comes to the economic. what you think about the last call? swamp about draining the as mr. swamp has said about how to reform taxes. thee talked about joining swap and mr. trump has said about how to perform taxes. guest: making sure you get the economy jumpstarted. the last call the reference to the joined the swamp mantra. one of the things i've been

mulling over is what to talk to you about about people in this state and what they are saying the new administration should be doing. that has been one of the ideas will perhaps not in those exact words. washington has become far too powerful, makes too many decisions about our lives and it would be much better if washington scaled-back and became the limited government it originally was intended to be in the constitution. to the extent the government plays a role of getting to the question at hand, yes, it would be great for the trump administration to focus on the type of tax changes that would help economy. they tend to be lowering rates, broadening basis, reducing regulatory burdens. washington has such an impact on everything that everyone of us across the country does every day, it makes it hard for people to figure out what can i do that the government will allow me to do.

that's when the huge barriers on innovation and types of things we need to get the economy going at the pace we would like to to go. host: as far as where you are in north carolina, top of the businesses that could be most affected if mr. trump put his economic policies into place? guest: will would like to see just what we would like to see a and they in tax policy idea you will see the government not try to pick losers and winners at great of an extent as possible. the possibility of a limited government, free market that i take to writing for "carolina journal," the think about that carrier deal was something that was a little bit disturbing to us. this the case of government stepping in and picking winners

and losers to the extent instead you level the playing field for all and try to make the burden as light as possible and allow federal government to still do the things they need to do. that will be a positive. to the extent mr. trump and his team take a look at things that will lighten the burden for all without picking winners and losers, i think it will be a benefit for companies in north carolina and across the country. host: give your assessment of the economic team that donald trump is picked so far. treasury secretary and the like. what do they bring to the table? do they help mr. trump of getting that agenda across? guest: to the extend i know the members of the team and we have seen good signs. one of his advisers early on with steve moore, a person we have dealt with and is a

supply-sider and supply-side economics has been a major driver as of the reagan administration shows to getting the economy moving. entrepreneurs, business owners to move forward and making the steps of the knee that will create the jobs. to the extent steve moore, that is good. one of the people we would liked to have seen on his team who has so far is not is former head of bb&t, john allison, who was one of the last two or three names up for treasury secretary. that would've been a great addition. hopefully, john allison will play a role even if only advisory role. he has run not one of the largest banks but one of the larger banks solve what the regulation of the banks did that was good, what the regulation of banks did was bad. and some of it is counterproductive out of

washington, d.c. the benefitswhat of banks working locally with customers they know and to know what who is it that can pay back alone rather than let's benefits of banks working locally with customers they generate as much as the numbers as possible. i think that will be the type of perspective helpful. haverms of the names i seen, nothing has believed out as a red flag, saying, oh no. host: let's talk about policy. we heard donald trump pound on an infrastructure plan. will seen a price cap possibly of $1 trillion. a lot of interest of democrats and republicans to work with that. what you think about an effort by the trump administration on infrastructure not only in washington but those in north carolina? guest: the devil will be in the details. stimulus package from the later days of the bush

administration, early days of obama administration. much of a was to focus on infrastructure. a lot of it was diverted into a lot of things. to the extent we will see a dead -- a package that deals with real needed infrastructure and not other projects that have anything really to do with infrastructure, that will be a positive. it will be a very good package if as has been advertised that it will be largely driven by private sector. makef the key things that free government folks like myself shaking their heads is when a government decides that of the way we are going to get in the economy jumpstarted is by spending a lot of taxpayer money. that comes from somewhere else. the government is taking the money out of the private sector and deciding on his own how to spend the money and thinking they end result is going to be better than the people with their own money deciding to make

the choices. we tend not to like that on the limited government perspective that well. that what taxpayer money is used in it is infrastructure plan is basically just a seed money to drive private investment and public/private partnership and that the bill very good thing. the devil is with to be the details. host: mitch kokai who writes for "carolina journal." local politics for you. a new governor. roy cooper. gift and us -- give an assessment. what he faces from your stay, transgender the bathroom? guest: you have interesting challenges. he is a new democratic governor unseating patent recorded. the general assembly with homely as well to work very closely is very much controlled by republicans. cap super majorities in both the north carolina house and senate.

they have not signaled they have any great interest in changing policies. they will be focusing on things they have been focusing on, and to the extent roy cooper puts aside the political arguments he made to win the election and decides some of these things the assembly has done are very good, let's build on those, i think that can be successful. take the fights where it is necessary, but on the things that have driven the economy, work with the general assembly and on that issue of house bill two, just before the start of the year, there was a real dustup on this issue. if cooler heads can prevail, that can come up with something. there was an idea coming out of the state senate to repeal the controversial house bill, but also have a six-month cooling so no local legislation of this type would crop up until there was time to

come up with some sort of good statewide policy. if people can agree to that and not just see it as political gamesmanship, we can see some long-term solution. host: a columnist for the carolina journal. carolinajournal.com is where you can see his writing. talking about the issues of the incoming congress and incoming trump administration. thank you for your time. guest: have a great new year. host: we have done our first hour. viewer messages to washington in 2017. we want to hear from you. democrats, (202)-748-8000. republicans, (202)-748-8001. .ndependents, (202)-748-8002 post on our twitter page. we are having a bit of trouble putting those tweets on the air. we are addressing that. facebook, if you want to post on that as well. new york, republican line, donna

is next. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. anmessage to washington is , whoof a previous caller says he was an insurance agent from arizona, who said that we should expand medicare to cover everyone from birth to grave. i agree with that idea. the affordable care act is not affordable. first, they contracted a canadian company to set up the health care exchange. when you log on to the health care exchange your first time, it automatically has all of your financial information from your previous tax return. this means our government has given every american's financial information to a canadian company.

care -- withth these subsidies, the least younsive plan and they give 46 different choices, the least expensive plan cost me 36% of our income. it is not affordable at all. i believe his idea about expanding medicare is where the republicans should go with this. host: david is up next, florida, democrat line. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. my plan for washington would be to the new congress not to pass tpp. on theto put a cap social security tax and i want to see tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas and see

them repatriate that money. host: you listed the transpacific partnership, first. why is that important to you? that stop has flaws sovereignty of u.s. laws. would affectthat other companies, we could be sued for that money and it would .ome out of the taxpayers , also fromck florida, independent line. caller: good morning. i would like to see this year's government actually follow the constitution. i would like to know where in the constitution fdic, flood insurance, i would like to know where in the constitution that

it is up to us to protect the europeans from each other's throats, as they have been killing each other for 500 years. flood insurance covers $250,000 in personal property beyond the value of the home itself. i know on c-span, the only top you -- only time you talk about the constitution is gun rights and abortion. the government pays 80% of the medical bills through gun violence. where is all this craft in the constitution? thank you for taking my call. host: charlie from texas, democrat line. i want to talk about the va.

i have a backlog claim that has been the system 13 years, and i still have not gotten results from it after 13 years of being in the system. i served my country well and i deserve to be treated. i should be able to be treated more fairly. should announcer: the new congress starts tuesday. watch all of the events on c-span. we live from the u.s. capitol starting at 7 a.m. eastern. you will meet a new representatives and hear from returning members. opening-day business includes the election of the house speaker, his address and debate and a vote on rules for the new congress. one rule in particular is getting attention -- a proposal to fine members who live stream video from the house floor. it is in response to last summer's democratic sit-in that

was streamed by several democrats. on c-span2, our live coverage of the senate starts at new eastern and includes the swearing-in of senators. c-span3day continues on with live coverage of the ceremonial swearing-in of members of congress. at 1 p.m., vice president joe biden presides over the swearing-in of individual senators. at 3:00, paul ryan swears in members of the house. we will have a full replay of opening day at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span and c-span2. >> as the 115th congress gets underway, we have been asking what message do you want to send to washington? hundreds of you have weighed in "getluding brenda who says your act together congress. we put you in office and we can remove you." debbie says "stop the hatred

and the division. respect the president and the constitution. work for the people, not your personal interest." we would like to hear from you. log on to our facebook page and join the conversation. covers policy for "national journey policy." good morning. back to a piece you wrote about a month and a half ago comparing senate democrats to visiting the cafeteria, trying to find something palatable. the headline, democrats plan to pick their battles with the donald trump. explain. guest: democrats are in a period of mourning given the elections and election of trump as they do not have either chamber. analogy.eria let's say you're in a cafeteria a you are unhappy with a you do not want to eat something and

maybe you can find a couple of things you want to choke down. will send the democratic strategy with the incoming trump administration. the republicans who will be calling the shots. democratsalk about about compromise, you hear about infrastructure is one thing. there might be a couple of other small things. will see strong democratic opposition right out of the gate. obamacare, unified democratic opposition to that. depending on what the infrastructure package looks like, that the be an area of some overlap. toocrats have been trying sort of do infrastructure spending for quite a long time and quite unsuccessfully. havees schumer and others said they are open to the concept. if you look at the early signals from the incoming administration, they want to have some type of largely

private-sector initiative around tax credits for creation of private sector jobs. i think there would be pushed back. returnsul ryan as he following the election returns back in november's from reporters about what to expect when the new congress convenes on tuesday. house speaker ryan: welcome to of a new- dawn republican party. a government focused on turning president-elect trump's victory into real progress for the american people. our team is excited and we cannot wait to get to work. we recognize that task ahead of us is enormous. if we put our country back on the right track, we have to be bold and goal bit. this country is expecting no less. in the days and weeks ahead, we will work closely with the president-elect and his transition team to put out our ambitious plan. --t seems led by mike pence

that team is led by mike pence and we are working hand in glove from the start and want to make sure we hit the ground running to deliver on the president's new agenda. better days lie ahead for our country. tot: he was reelected another term. how unified will the republican party be with the donald trump? guest: we will see less friction within the hubble the party right out of the get -- we will see less friction within the republican party right out of the gate. the most hard-core republicans, what they wanted for the past several years was a stronger, firmer stance and aggressive posturing toward president obama. they have a the same party. scissors some real with a both parties that we can see going forward. one of the things that are trump made a hallmark was unlike many

republicans he does not necessarily want to go after long-term and title programs. -- entitlement programs. that is something speak ryan has been aggressive about wanting to privatize elements of medicare. that could be one area of tension. in the democratic ranks, you have divisions on the house and senate side. on the senate, grassroots energy with democrats, the bernie .anders, elizabeth warren wing the 2010 map for senate democrats is brutal. there defending 20 56 including a bunch that trump won by 20 points or more, west virginia, .orth dakota, joe manchin they will be up for reelection. is trick for the democrats to find ways to keep their pockets together when conservatives are sweating. host: two democrats that met

with the donald trump for possible seats. senator john mccain who donald trump was critical of will be holding a hearing we will be covering this thursday. .he issue of cyber threats donald saying it is time to move past the sanctions put in place by president obama. this thursday, live on c-span3. streamed on the web at www.c-span.org and c-span radio. what can we expect? seeing is the are potential divisions among republicans you were mentionable for. donald trump has had a friend julie posture toward -- friendly posture toward russia. even congratulate russian president putin for not retaliating when obama announced sanctions and diplomatic penalties on russia. on the other hand, you have a real defense and national

security hawks on the republican side led by senator mccain. i think he is raring to go, look at out of the gate, the first week back, he wants to put a real spotlight on the russian meddling the russian involvement in our election. that is an immediate source of tension between some of the defense hawks and trump. it is now much love lost between john mccain and donald trump. we remember things like very early and donald trump's campaign and one of the things people thought would be fatal to his election that did not turn out to betrayal, if you recall in 2015 he questions and criticizing john mccain's record as a war hero. i do not the mccain has a great reason to shield donald trump on this issue. host: one of your areas of expertise is energy. we will have a confirmation hearing for governor perry and all of president-elect trump's

nominations. why did he want the job and white except the job? been: rick perry has interested in energy for a long time which makes a lot of this. he was a longtime governor of the state of texas. that is a dominant oil and natural gas producing state. there's a lot of wind power in texas. he may several successful efforts as governor to expand wind power there as well. running the energy department is a really, sort of, fascinating job. sure, it is involved with research and development programs on specific energy technologies. the bulk of the budget is on something that's on related to energy, which is maintaining emissions and nuclear stockpiles. is in them is in -- perry for an interesting confirmation and will be asked about a series of nuclear security issues. a department he talked

about cutting as a presidential candidate in 2008. guest: he had the famous moment momentople -- oops that people thought ended his candidacy. he cannot remember the energy department was the third one of them that he wanted to eliminate. one footnote is he is not the first likely energy secretary to be late in the department he tried to abolish. spencer abraham was george w. bush's first energy secretary. he cosponsor legislation that would have abolished the energy secretary. energy department. his legislation one not have done with all sectors, it was a euro credit realignment. rick perry gets a lot of attention. not the first energy secretary to do so amazingly enough. host: let's get your calls. our guest is ben gorman at

"national journey policy." line for-8000 is our democrats. we have new numbers today. don from houston, texas. caller: good morning. host: you are on the air. -- whatthe question is would our energy policies look like had we embraced more of tesla's ideas? tesla came here with ideas. host: thank you. guest: to bring it back to perry. when you think about tesla motors. back in 2014, the wind is was

governorship launched an aggressive effort to a tesla motors build their huge factory in texas. ultimately, nevada won the competition. if you were to look at some a brutal for-eight years pretty you have cabinet picks including rick perry whole denies climate change. -- who denies climate change. if they want to find more keenly signs, rick perry understands the job crating potential of energy sources of all kinds. he wanted the tesla he plant in his country but because he simply realized it is a lot of economic development and jobs. one of the things on the electric vehicle front is as congress looks to do policy

overhaul, what will be the fate of the test credit for purchasing electrical vehicles which the important right now. there is a credit for purchases that make the vehicles more attainable. if that were to fall victim for an overhaul, that is something the industry would feel punished by. host: sometimes we switch and numbers. the number for this segment is (202) 748-8000 for republicans. democrats.48-8001, we will keep the numbers on the line. sean, independent line. you are next. noticed we discuss politix ad nauseam, we dissect as if it had great importance. i am a former investigative broadcast journalists whose my

-- i find it a waste of time if we were such great detail a harry potter movie and i second get. it was seem to me it would have as much importance. is notrage individual taxed at all about what is happening. it is not real, whoever is in control of whatever is making the decisions. but we have such energy in this discussion as if it actually meant anything. it is an incredible waste of time. and very, very depressing. i am curious of your position, you as an expert in politics and discussing these matters in such a detail and death and expertise. -- depth and expertise. does it have anything to do with anybody? would it not be more important if we put our energies elsewhere ? the political races are some

sort of sporting event where the outcome is probably -- anyway, a very pleasant good morning and a happy new year. host: thank you for the call for the does it matter? would respectfully disagree with the caller a little bit. respectfullyould disagree with the caller a little bit. the political horserace journalism but one of the reasons is the policy stakes of these races, up and down the ballot are quite that it. we will see it very quickly out of the gate and the new congress. one of the things republicans what to do fairly quickly is move to repeal a number of obama administration's regulations. their ability to do it is compromised by the way the regulatory process works. there will be some regulations and donna lake and the president's term using these

privileged proof resolutions notr something that's been very done much. to get back to the caller's point, one of the things republicans might try to go after his department of labor's regulations on overtime. that is something that would because a for a lot of people. they are poised to go after environmental regulations. one of them could be some very recent finalize interior department regulations that deal with prevent country from dumping coal mining waste close to streams and appalachia and elsewhere. yes, back to the caller's point, a lot of attention to the horse race, but the policy stakes are very real for very large numbers of people. host: all this with a new democratic leader, charles

schumer. here's what he had to say. something none: of us expected, i suspected that is true for many of you in the press as well. it certainly do not go the way we democrats hoped. it was a tough night, no doubt about it. election likean this, you cannot flinch. you cannot ignore it. you need to look at it right in the eye and ask, why, analyze it and learn from it. one thing we know is that we heard the american people loud and clear. they fell to the government was not working for them. they fell to the economy was rigged against them in many places. and the government was so beholden to big money and special interests. there is a debate going on on whether we should be the party of the diverse, obama coalition or the blue color american in the heartland. something we need to make a

choice. and spend oliver energy focus on one group of americans or spend all of our energy focused on one group of americans or another. i believe there does not need to benefits -- division. there should not be a division. we should be the party that speaks to and work on behalf of all americans. and a bigger, bolder, sharper asked economic message -- sharper edged economic message for those struggling to make it to the middle class can make a there and deal with the unfairness and the american economic system. andill unite our caucus speak to the blue-collar worker ,n west virginia, in michigan as well as the people who live along the coasts. bolder, sharper, the words from charles schumer

as the democrats lost an election. as he takes over as leader on tuesday. guest: if you are the incoming leader, this need for a sharper message on the economy and the working class voters, the democrats will be tried to road test that message fairly quickly for a couple of different reasons. you will have a whole series of nomination hearings. we were talking about governor rick perry and also a whole series of other confirmation hearing scheduled for the opening weeks of this month. what i am hearing from democratic aides, they want to use the hearings took rate contrast between the wealth of the nominees, multiple billionaires. they will try to say, while trump campaigned on a message of appealing to working-class voters, democrats will try to say his nominees are not sort of faithful to those messages or those goals.

another thing after the date is that republicans are going to take the first steps to end obamacare. the way there are going to do do not because of they have enough power in the senate to beat back filibusters, they need to find a way to strip away striptop they need -- away. they need budget reconciliation, which means there will be budget resolutions introduced fairly quickly that essentially paved the way for future legislation down the line, but one of the fascinating things about budget resolutions, which are often have this burst of relevance, likely will seek soon is that they allow for a full series of boats on the senate floor and members can bring up essentially what they want, often times, the senate floor is famously slow and difficult to get with you want up there.

in this case, there are a lot of opportunities to test out the message and try to enforce the of party into taking a difficult vote. if you're senator schumer's plans for how democrats resent goals going forward, they will be able to go through this the confirmation hearings and all the upcoming budgets. host: tomorrow morning, "the washington journal" will focus on your message to washington as we begin a brand-new year and are start of the 115th congress gets underway wednesday morning, january 3, at 7:00 eastern time on c-span's "-- tuesday morning on c-span's "washington journal." live all day coverage on c-span and c-span2. stephanie come you have been patient from new jersey. democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning and happy new year. host: happy new year. as far as question is congress goes, all the things

they say they will to, which they did not do this past eight years, and why all of a sudden to do these things? they did not want to spend the money for infrastructure, this andother, and donald trump others say that the way to go is and heg industries in also said they will be making money off of this. ok? erssaid that the contract would pay -- contractors or pay taxes and then be taxed again, which means contractors will pay for this and so will taxpayers. host: based on stephanie's question, office of the debate she outlined. the point that stephanie was making on calls is that for

years, there have been great deals of discussions on the need to rebuild various types of like crumblings bridges, highways and airports but there are other infrastructure needs, as well. how to pay for it is going to be a topic of great debate, you can till with deficit spending come at a time when borrowing rates are really attractive or do do what the incoming president is looking to do, which is have the system or you provide incentives toward private industries. is in thee devil details. you hear that everyone is on board with the concept of infrastructure but how far they can go remains to be seen. not only you look at how it is paid for but what type of infrastructure, so one example democrats often want to seek the type of infrastructure that supports green or low carbon development and they

could be in any one of the infrastructure packages. and where democrats come around would depend on some extent to some competing wings of the party because senator of west virginia, schumer put him in the new democratic leadership team and he will have a voice around run the table, but senator bernie sanders also has a seat on the democratic leadership team on the chairman about reach , something to what extent that is within the democratic caucus, given who is up for reelection, will dictate where they come out. host: the headline that bernie sanders wants to help congress and bring some of the issues to the floor by having his base storm congress as the chair, the chairman of the outreach, national journal.com. beth from tennessee, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i have some concerns and questions. on the federal reserve, can you

hear me? host: we sure can. go ahead. caller: sorry about that. it concerns me that with donald trump, i think one of his main goals is to get control of moneys, or about the federal the federal bank, and my concern, especially on the , donald trump does slam the environmental protection agency, are we going to get more businesses by polluting air like china has? -- water systems westmark systems? will it placate the middle class in a way with infrastructure but have the main money people control pretty much everything. host: thank you. there,my wife is from great place. i like it there.

on theg with the points epa, that will be one of the flashpoints. pull betweensh and the parties regulations in general, to what extent are protections for clean air and clean water? how far should we go? whathould we dictate industries need to do? the president-elect and a lot of congressional republicans have for years wanting to be here back what president obama has done through climate change and other things. how far they can get with that will be one of the most interesting stories going forward. becauseon for that is republicans have this view that these regulations will be damaging to the economy, but how much that they can unwind the -- depends on factors because we think of executive actions with a broad paintbrush, but what kind really matters.

from executive order can be unwound quickly come up something general policy matter, like insurance department policy not giving any more: dining in western states, that would not be hard to unwind. what is known as formal notice in rulemakings, that is the bulk of the most aggressive policies of the obama administration carried out to the epa and you cannot just snap your fingers and take them away. you need careful documentation under the environmental procedure act, and it will be howly heavily litigated, so much of the kind of obama regulatory kind of prolific regulatory efforts and what we see can unwound will depend on different factors because it is a slow-moving thing. host: our guest with "national ," and fred is next on essex, maryland, independent line. good morning and happy new year. caller: good morning, happy new

year. my question -- can you hear me ok? host: yes. is related to germany and the changes going on in germany. it looks like germany is going to fill the void in leadership. i guess that is a controversial matter of leadership in general, , thatwas just wondering is my one question about germany . my other question is about i think the biggest events in the last year was a discovery by the chinese scientists and scientists that the bloomberg school medicine at johns hopkins, that it is much more sensitive to pollutants than two and these thought scientists are just coming out and saying point-blank that the regulations are not adequate. apparently, the mass media has not read this or discovered this.

inhink it needs to begin publicity and have some bearing on our energy policy. host: thank you. on both points, a response? guest: sure. on the second one, i'm not familiar with the research fred was referring to, but it does get to the kind of the debate on regulation, which is how much should the federal government be levelsng to the types of of different a mission that can happen in what will be the economic effects of that? defenders of the epa will say, ourave been tightening pollution standards and it has not hindered or humpback economy or growth. that said, they drill down into specific sectors and it could be more pronounced. donald trump talks about the coal industry and a qs president obama waging a war on coal. it is accurate to say epa

regulations to some extent had an effect on coal in the electricity sector, but the dominant and strongest reason that coal has been declining for years now is because of the rise of relatively cheap and natural gas developed through fracking techniques, circuit court of the difficulties donald trump might have is if the sort of tries to andg back the coal industry simultaneously try to provide the natural gas industry with deregulations, those do not sing in harmony. but is good for natural gas is not good for cold. on germany, i am not sure what the caller was referring to. germany has had an aggressive program on conditioning the energy sector, but -- host: a new year, a new congress . we welcome our listeners on c-span radio, check out our free radio app and serious xm, live every sunday morning on the

potus channel, 124. kim from pittsburgh, pennsylvania, republican line come you are next. caller: good morning. this global warming, this debate ist saying the over. we never had a debate. these global warming people are going to lose. i would like to ask you a question and i went to ask you and i'll tell you why i am asking the question. what is the diameter of the earth? me?you tell host: wehost: have no idea, so why do you ask? statement gore made a that it is one billion degrees in the middle of the art. [indiscernible] in this global warming nonsense, there has never been a debate. produce they are being paid by the government. host: thank you. guest: certainly, i guess i would disagree with the caller to some extent. if you look at the overwhelming

opinion of the scientific community, whether we talk about federally funded science or science conducted within preparation like exxon mobil, which you can get to in a moment, the dominant scientific view is the earth is heating up and warming at this point since the middle of the last century has been human activities, notably burning of fossil fuel and deforestation and other types of industries. heating up at what rate? guest: the last several years, i think 15 of the 16 hottest years on record have occurred during this century. heating up at what rate? guest:the one that was not was , so it has been very pronounced. what is less concern is how much warning we are in for. climate of the paris change and the goal of a lot of experts is to hold off some of the most dangerous forecasted effects of global climate change. you would not want to see global

temperatures rise by more than two degrees celsius over their preindustrial levels. we are about halfway there right now. if we did nothing to abate emission, you could see projections that go far higher than that. how much you can hold lower than that is difficult to say. is theer question of global warming, is it human induced, and will it have a dangers affect on the road and do we see some of those effects come into being already? i don't think there is a huge amount of this paper, but the economic effects of u.s. policy and how far we should go is something that is subject of massive debate and a lot of that plays out quickly in congress. there will be a lot of focus on repealing the affordable care act and that will be a source of contention and they have one of the chance to pay back what they see as overly aggressive obama administration and regulations. hardest tickethe

in the house, giving that the outgoing ceo of exxon mobil is the nominee for secretary of state. the biggest source of questioning for him at the senate foreign relations committee is quite certain will be his views about russia, gigantic explorer -- expiration deals in russia, and rex tillerson was awarded a medal by the russians, so i think what the senators will be looking for is on both sides of the i/o is some type of signal from rex tillerson and that he is willing to adopt a somewhat aggressive posture toward russia or at least they will be looking for him to sort of not just be buddy-buddy with vladimir putin -- host: i think i'm correct in saying the former senator tower forlast time nominee president elect herbert walker bush, designated him as treasury secretary and it was scuttled by the senate. to think >>'s tillerson -- see

think rex tillerson could face the same or he will be confirmed? guest: if i had to guess, and everyone who guesses is wrong, but if i had to guess, he will be confirmed. i would imagine democrats to be fairly united against him, so you only need three republicans to go against him. john mccain, lindsey graham, marco rubio and some of the other hawks in the senate will look for some fairly strong reassurance that he is committed so if thatf solid goal can be filled, it is hard for me to imagine them floating him down. there was one nominee that will face the most difficult road and it would be tillerson and to bring that back around to the climate issue, i think we will see a lot of questions toward him or some about his own company's history of in the past funding organizations and think tanks that sort of tried to show doubt about the reality of climate change, but that said, i think the greatest number of questions will be about his connections and experience with russia as the ceo of exxon. host: it begins tuesday morning

with the swearing in of the 115th congress, live on c-span2, asked the president of the senate, vice president joe biden swears in new senators, an interesting thing to watch. we stream it on the website. we will be your place for all of the confirmation hearings, the president-elect nominees for cabinet positions, you can check out the full schedule as the hearings continue into february orthe website at c-span.org that's go to janice in east st. louis, illinois, democrat line. good morning. caller: how are you? host: we are fine, good morning. caller: good. you know i called -- it was the and he wasn earlier telling the geither what he was saying wasn't really important or doing any good -- i apologize for him because what that guy is doing is very important. again to what i was about to say

can you hear me? host: go ahead. caller: my phone was cutting out. all those people will be nominated, every last one of them, will be sworn in. every last one will get the job everyone -- job. everyone except that the president. the first time after he swears in an officially got that seats, the first [indiscernible] will be the one to impeach us, and i'm talking about the republicans. guest: i agree with janice insofar that she mentioned everyone of the pixel be confirmed. i think that would be -- if i had to bet -- that would be my suspicion. we talked about difficult to tillerson my face, but in 2013, the democrats in the senate were forced to able change that prevents filibuster some cabinet

nominees. while i think the democrats will try to exact the political crisis against the current administration, [indiscernible] i think it would take some sort of really damaging or major revelation from these hearings that has not come out yet. host: two democrats regret that moved by harry reid? guest: i think they viewed it as necessary given the slow pace of executive appointments. i think they did say that eventually, the she would be on the other foot, and guess what? it is on the other foot. henderson, north carolina, republican line. good one. caller: i would like to ask a question to the gentleman. i really do not trust the media and he is using a lot of democrat focused words, such as da,atizing health care, the all these other organizations. no, i think donald trump, his

message then he put out is he wants to personalize, , the taxze the v.a. code a little fairer, personalize health care and out like to know what he thinks about that. i think that is the brother -- that is the better word to what mr. trump has put out in his speeches. host: thank you. guest: i think with the term privatize, i was referring to past her puzzles by congressional republicans on have it be something about the voucher program. a lot of that will be hashed out in the coming months in the .attle over obamacare certainly, republicans feel the health insurance law is heavy on mandates and heavy on taxes and has not been that good for people, even though on paper, it has increased the number of people who have insurance.

of the thingsne the caller gets to you is what precisely they want to replace it with this something that is more big. -- more vague. people gained insurance through and it will be a runway, not losing the insurance right away but as digitally at the law, what are the parameters of the replacement what they look like is unclear but they andbuying themselves time they have to work on that replacement legislation in fairly short order but they have to give themselves plenty of time to seek an early transition, undercutting the main parts of obamacare. democrats of do their darndest not to let that happen. obama is going to capitol hill on wednesday to meet with democrats to talk about how they can try to make

the defense of that law as robust as possible against this incoming onslaught. host: i went to share this tweet from donald trump yesterday. he talked about political enemies -- happy new year to all, including my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly, they just do not know what to do. love? -- love! guest: [laughter] beloved part notwithstanding, a fairly aggressive treat. -- tweet. something that will give congress harper and is anything -- giverump -- anytime congress a hard time is anytime donald trump says something over twitter, they are asked to respond and that happens frequently. i would be curious to hear what the next thing he tells people or how congressional republicans will respond. from let's go to lee and austin, texas. democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning, happy new

year. thank you for the show, i appreciate all the information i get. i worked for the army my entire life. when regulations are put in place, they are reviewed. and all of the experts are placeed and they are in for our safety, and it concerns me that mr. president-elect trump -- had a hard time getting that out -- it concerns me that he is so blase about the work that went into the regulation that was put in place to begin with. host: thank you. guest: i think that gets to the .arameters of the debate i think what you will hear, congressional republicans are saying, and incoming president

saying, something to counter that would be the argument that companies when they had -- if there are too many requirements put on them, it would include safety and environmental protection that they would need to free their hands to try and find the more flexibility to it. on way to reach we will see a couple of measures to repeal the obamacare legislation. i think they will try for something [indiscernible] which is essentially giving congress much more sway over whether regulatory agencies go forward. there is simply not 60 votes in the senate, but the fact that it comes up quickly does show that russia andabout obamacare, and tax overhaul,

regulations and paring back to within thestate is priority of the administration and incoming republican congress. , george december 2008 w. bush said he would make room for barack obama, and he essentially did that. based on what we have seen in this transition over the last 1.5 months, what will do think we will see from president obama when he leaves the stage but stays in washington and working with his foundation in chicago and new york? guest: i think he will give the incoming president some deference. advocate for ex presidents going back for a long time is that they do not weigh in on the news of the day. president obama gave an interview on dick black survives podcast and obama addressed the question head-on and he said there is clearly a need and you

would like to encourage new voices within the democratic if they arend out talking all the time and it is hard to develop. he also made the point that when he sees foundational principles something to that effect, he threatened they might speak out, so i don't think we will hear a lot from president obama. i think he might speak a little georgee frequently and w. bush has been very off the states, but to say that he has been more active in that, i don't think we will hear obama talking about the new cycle of the day. host: amy joins us from south carolina. you are calling on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. happy new year to you all. i wanted to make a comment on global warming and the drama .ith the media

i think certain people that believe that people are so powerful they can change the think that from what i have read, you have linda shifts, plates aat are shifting, we have change in our weather. host: thanks for the call. this is an area you focus on. guest: i think it is true that there are immensely powerful national phenomenon that happened with her without human induced carbon commissions or with without global warming. i think the concern is not so much that global warning or human induced climate change creates strong storms but creates a signal boost, sue can have certain climactic effects

that are quite dangerous and damaging in long-term drought, terrible wildfires, and huge storms, that it is not just [indiscernible] it is not that these things do not happen as a global warming, it is that when you have so much more carbon in the atmosphere, it is a signal booster to things that are already dangerous and can be made more dangerous by add-on effects of global warming. from chicago, democrat line. how are you doing this morning? host: we are fine. caller: before you cut me off, this is to the host and gentlemen, can you go in your computer or laptop and pull up all the businesses that donald trump has outsourced to mexico and whatever? i was just looking at cnn and he was saying he will put a 35% tax on exports, so if that is the case, and of the people who

voted to him, if you will put up time from other people shipping jobs out of the united states, is he going to do the same thing for his is this? he is making suits and everything all over it world, and everything, including the host of all of these, you do not bring up stuff like that great when president obama was in the white house, everything that man did, including the color suit he wore, you had something on your station pertaining to that. why is it that people are not concerned about this man just putting some of everything in his? -- in his cabinet? he has some of everything, and he claims he will be a people president, but he has nothing but millionaires and billionaires surrounding him. "the washington post" did a point on your point about the number of jobs he might have lost in the u.s.

trump profiting from foreign laborers, and look at his signature collection made in china and bangladesh and other foreign countries. guest: i do not want to speak for the president-elect, but i think what he would say with his businesses and with a sort of behavior under the tax code is he has done what is legal and allowed and when he is now seeking to do is rewrite those rules to the economy that a much more protected of jobs in the u.s. we saw with the deal with indiana manufacturer caria carrier, i believe it is 700 to 1000 jobs here, how much trump doesn't that going forward is something to watch. handleifficult to one-off deals, everything will be manufactured, but he has threatened to impose heavy tariffs on companies that he feels are not behaving properly toward the u.s. economy. whether or not he goes through with that, we see push back.

there are some things where we see the chamber of commerce and butony in the same sheet, there are concerns about hesitations about what he might do. host: you congress on tuesday, august 2 the ceremonious aspects? guest: there will be a lot of pomp and circumstance in the coming days. we have the swearing-in tomorrow and we have the president here on wednesday to meet with democrats later in the week. we will hear about the electoral college and where there are not that is the house and senate on friday in a joint session with formal accountings of electoral votes. are the kind of events happening next week and the hearing that will happen on thursday about russian cyber attacks, so we will have democrats in the senate and the believe they can get to work on these resolutions that set the stage to unwind obamacare, so it

will be an incredibly busy and fascinating week. host: >> this past september, the national highway safety administration announced the guidelines for autonomous vehicles. c-span, we hear from vehicle technology experts and government consultants about the latest technology in the future of transportation. today, 90% of the accidents that happen on our roadways are due to human error. distracted driving, drunk driving, speeding. in three, if we eliminate the humans from the driving equation, we will eliminate him 90% of the accidents. is huge.tself i mentioned additional mobility for elderly, disabled, and youth. that case is exciting.

another is rethinking our land use. it will reduce parking requirements or relocate them. a shared usere of society, people will not purchase as many vehicles and will share them and we can potentially reduce the land used for parking and in cities, that can be 15%-20% of the land. try to imagine the streets of san francisco without that dedicated land. you can see the potential for adding bike lanes and vestry and lanes. >> you can watch the rest of that discussion tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. the new congress starts tuesday. watch all of the opening day events and activities on c-span. we are live from the u.s.

capitol starting at 7:00 a.m. eastern. you will meet new representatives and listen to returning members. the house gavels in at new. the election of the house speaker, and his address to the whole house and a debate on rules and the new congress. one rule in particular is getting attention. members whoo find live stream video from the floor in response to last summer's democratic sit in. c-span2, our live coverage of the senate begins at noon and includes the swearing in of senators. opening day continues on c-span3 with live coverage of the ceremonial swearing in of members of congress. at 1:00 p.m. eastern, joe biden presides over the swearing in of individual senators and at 3:00, speaker paul ryan swears in members of the house. ofwill have a full replay opening day on c-span and c-span2.

>> this week on "newsmakers," craig fugate. thank you for being here to talk about the last eight years heading the agency and the state of emergency management. also in studio with us is reid wilson of the national correspondent for the hill newspaper along with then, energy and environmental reporter with the national journal. ben: let's say hurricane sandy happened today. how would the federal response be different from what it was years ago in terms of the immediate response and how flood insurance is dealt with? craig: historically, energy has been one of the things at the local and state level that has coordination.

when you are talking about local states with power impacts from the mid atlantic the densely populated areas, you need to be able to give to national utilities and their association that focal point. that is one thing we did differently that the department of energy has codified into their function. a total revamp of the program. two things that stood out was the lack of trained people to go into the program and administer that, and a lack of focus on customer service. two things that we have taken a lot of work in the last four years, lessons we have learned to apply to the most recent floods in louisiana and math -- and matthew to focus on the , customer, the service of the products, and giving the adjusters the tools to do the policies. >> has the agency changed over the last two years? there was low morale after hurricane

katrina. craig: when we came into office, they had started to begin the implementation of that. i saw some areas we could improve upon. that was the tendency to a for assistance before you start responding. with large-scale events, congress made it clear if we think it will be declared, we can begin moving. that was a shift to put more emphasis on completely think something bad is happened, respond and do not wait for a request to it is not about coming in and taking over. it is just we're usually not -- not quick enough to be the first response. that is the role of state and local government. the next part of that response needs to be in motion. we do not get time back.

that was the emphasis on time. do not wait until you have all the information and facts. respond to the event and adjust downward. >> does that mean you are on the ground before the hurricane makes landfall? craig: we had teams in every state, a potential impact before landfall. we have moved supplies for rescue teams. instantly initial rescues in the state of north carolina and flash flooding. it is about other events and earthquakes. and the ability to plan against likely scenarios, build a relationship with state and and localners partners and no with the initial appointments look like versus

waiting for an assessment of how bad it could be. >> something that has been in the news lately is cyber security and cyber attacks. how has fema prepared for and what have been the changes for the potential of a large-scale power outage? craig: from a fema standpoint, the consequences of the event and not necessarily the triggering of an event, cyber has a lot of history and yet we have yet to see a large impact on the grids. it is unknown. does not mean it will not happen or cannot. if you look back to the types of things we have dealt with large scale power outages from sandy and other storms as well as non-cyber events that have caused large-scale power outages, you plan for those events. the real question is how long will the power be out over how large of an area?

that is how we approach cyber. it is not that we have the event of cyber. it is what is the consequence of that and our local governments in dealing with the consequences? >> emergency management can be a fraught political issue, there are a bunch of mayors who have lost their jobs after not responding to snowstorms. what kind of mandated president obama give you, and what did he tell you about prioritizing? craig: the first meeting was for the 2009 hurricane season. i said my approach is to take the team and exercise without notice. really push us to get into areas quickly. do not wait for assessments. a lot of things i had learned from florida and his basic direction to me was then do that. that is what he wanted from me. our relationship has been a lot of making for the team has been working as one team i powering

team byng as one empowering me by saying look, if it is a 50-50 decision, lean forward. there is an area of great. see clarity and move. do not wait for the right answer, have the best answer and act. empowering us to take the steps and not wait is a way we speed up the response. >> the potential drawback, fema has a reputation earned or not and there are some people skeptical of the federal government taking over. is there a danger showing up before something has been formally requested? craig: better fast than late. if you are late, you're too late. i have communicated this with our state partners, i communicate this with our governors. we are part of the governors association. the thing i always try to make

them understand is that we do not do this in isolation or in a vacuum. by the time we have the information to formulate what you need, it is too late. we are more willing to take a risk on our end. the risk is we are going to expend funds that are not required but the risk is if you are slow to respond, he will not needs will not meet the of those that need that. will increase dramatically in covering that. we may not always be needed but we do not want to be late to the need, so we go early and it is always about a one to one transaction. we are in support of the governors and not the other way around. >> one thing president obama has emphasized during his tenure is fema has it that, the issue of climate change.

resilience to climate change. to what extent have the initiatives you put in place, they are poised to continue regardless of the fact that we will have the new administration. can you talk about this? craig: the president tells me the discussion about climate change, the debate is over. we have to look at how we are adapting it. we have always looked at past data. to make decisions about building for the future. the problem is we do not have enough weather data to make intelligent decisions. we are hearing 5000 year events. the question is, why are we only looking at past data regarding infrastructure decisions.

what does it mean for investments. the idea we want to move towards is that everything we pay for and disasters is because of uninsurance. we end of reimbursing local and state governments because they have very high deductibles. we want to say, can we build it in a way that the private sector is incentivized to ensure the risk? the risk on a taxpayer to the private sector, then have them set the goal post of what we should be building two, wherein how we build, based upon insurability versus the taxpayer, which does not always change the behavior long-term. we will have to deal in figure out how to maintain those -- the

-- how to maintain response capabilities. risk, we should be looking at how we put this into the private sector so they manage the risk, versus you, the taxpayer, who absorbs the risk when we do not do these things, looking at the future. >> one of the issues around those ideas is the so called disaster deductible. it is a way to incentivize states to pay less of a cost increase in terms of disaster response in the otherwise would. that initiative is not complete as i understand. can you talk about the future of the disaster deductible initiative? craig: it is driven by the general county office and the better general who says the threshold for disaster at public assistance is too low and we should raise that. for small states, it would be an incremental increase. for large states, it is dramatic. it is probably $1.41 per capita. they would recommend doubling or

tripling that in time. this would become crippling for large states. california, florida they see , disasters of $100 million and will not get the clear and yet other states would double the risk and see $2 million disasters being declared. we propose something different. instead of raising the threshold, do not go back to the first dollar. the way it works now is if they hit a threshold for disaster we always go back to the first dollar. any insurance dollar -- policy that goes back to the first dollar always? just cannot afford them. you have deductibles in your health insurance and auto insurance and homeowners insurance. in many cases, you get incentives if you do things like put in alarm systems or fire extinguishers. instead of raising it up higher, which we think is detrimental to

adjust to, keep the current thresholds, but do not go back to the first dollar. then provide incentives for states that do have land-use planning, things we know that fight out long-term risk, and give them credit for that versus treating them all the same, which is what the current system tends to do. it does not recognize a buydown risk. the idea being this would be a way for states to get credit. for doing things that the actual savings on the deductible will be that great but the savings long-term would be dramatic if you incentivize local governments to take more ownership of disaster risk, which they are building to minimize. >> out west, wildfires -- have become in this challenge for state and federal budgets. wildfire recovery response is funded differently, as -- rather

than an emergency allocation. how does that challenge emergency managers, fema, and the states themselves? craig: five situations. you have fires that are reimbursed through the major department responding to that, then you have the fires on nonfederal lands. there is a grant program for nonfederal land wildfires. when we talk about the last, west,n we talk about the that is not where the greatest wildfire is. what happened in gatlinburg was not an anomaly. wildfires are actually great on east coast than on the west coast. when you see changing drought patterns, fire on the east coast

actually has more homes at risk than anywhere else in the country. we have two competing interests sometimes, wildfire fighter fighting -- wildfire firefighting on federal lands and everything else. fema has always supported state local governments for everything else for federal firefighting. if you try to merge those, you run into the issue of how we appropriate funds or a federal responsibility versus a reimbursement local government. state within this disaster relief funds, all the other disasters for state and local governments. >> we are a few weeks away from an administration that is new. have you had meetings with the trump transition team to talk about the transfer of management to the agency? craig: not yet. i have a meeting scheduled later this week but our transition team is working on that.

we want to focus on telling the story. of what we did and why we did it. i do not predetermine what the 's priorities are going to be. i want to make sure we tell the story. to the incoming team. not tell them this is what you have to do but in the circumstances we found ourselves with budgets and lack of budgets and the changes in authority we have received to sandy, here is what we have done and here is what we have accomplished, these are the gaps we still have. they get the why and not just the what that we did. when you look at gaps, we find

ourselves preparing for what we are capable of doing. this is a trap the state and local and federal government gets into. we were pushing catastrophic disaster planning. we did off the west coast of the u.s., a multistate very intensive response to an earthquake that would literally exceed our capability. it forces us to look at international response teams to support it. the thing i want to continue is the need to plan for the things that are sometimes considered the unthinkable as far as the improbable's. when you failed those responses, you fail as government. >> what congress has faced in the last few years, government shutdowns, for a lot of agencies that is a minor inconvenience. craig: we have seen everything from our grant cycles delayed in

very short time, to i grew up in the state of florida where you knew what you had, the legislature told you this is what we want to do and this is how much money you have to do it. and you administer that. giving a budget to an agency is one of the fundamental responsibilities of congress that allows agencies to take the will of congress and do a better job and more efficiently implement that, versus continuing resolutions. congress is not really able to come back and make the changes. as an administrator, it is hard to anticipate what may be coming if you have uncertainties. you need time to make sure you're able to carry out your mission.

one of the fundamental things that i would encourage congress and the new administration -- it may seem like it is inside baseball. having the budget with the intention of what you want done, allowing you to successfully execute that, versus short-term gaps, not very efficient, and it sometimes ends up costing more money because you are in a series of short-term processes that you cannot make a strategic investment in buyout future costs. >> one of the things the senate will be doing will be vetting your replacement. what will be fundamental for the senators to ask of those hearings?

craig: defined what the job of the administrator is. both sides will have their opinion about it. to they understand the responsibilities of the position and that they will be a principal adviser to the national security staff, homeland security, and congress? and those possibilities as laid out are much more extensive than many people outside of the programs understand. i would focus on making sure the incoming incumbent as they go to confirmations fully understands what congress intended and that they understand and can explain how they would carry that out. it was one of the things i found going through a transition that many of these authorities were not clearly expressed or it was an assumption that you would know about them. in the confirmation process this , would be a chance for congress to revisit those and make sure the nominee understands that and

what they think it means that congress needs to make adjustments or suggestions. that would be the point to do that. >> let's go back to climate change in the work the obama administration has done. there is discord over whether climate change is happening and whether man caused climate change. has that impacted your work at all? are there minefields you have to navigate as you talk to members of congress? craig: if you say climate change to some folks, they just shut down the conversation. i bring it back to capitalism. is this an insurable risk? shouldn't we be looking to remove risk away from taxpayers? if we make a decision to subsidize risk, which is not necessarily wrong, it is just come are we doing it in such a way that the taxpayer receives a benefit greater or are we subsidizing risk and we are growing risk that is not sustainable nor does it benefit the taxpayer? people always talk about fema in the first person.

-- in the third person. i like to remind people that it is your tax dollars going out in these disasters. are we ensuring risk and moving to the private sector, or are you, the taxpayer, subsidizing risk? why does the risk seem to be growing and not changing? why can we not move this toward the private sector? when you have those debates, i think you can get past what is causing things and more in terms of, how do we adapt financially, how do we build, and how do we not grow risk that we as test -- taxpayers do not want to grow or benefit from? >> congress will consider very quickly a type of infrastructure package. we have heard the numbers floating around, $1 trillion of infrastructure proposals. what do you think needs to be

written into that proposal to ensure that resilience is considered or is there a way? craig: if we are to make these investments, let's build not only to capacity issues but to the risk profiles we see coming. in some cases, this has nothing to do with climate and more to do with the understanding of seismic risk and as better information comes out, how do they perform, and yet we do not want an earth quake to occur and then find out we should have the built better and then come back and say there was actually data. the risk profile should be look at your known personal risk, look to the future and what kind of projections that may look like and incorporate that into engineering. a future and resiliency against

threats, whether it is cyber, or natural hazards, or just changes to the way we operate in use things, that will change risk profiles. >> do you think there is a role for congress to ensure some of these considerations are taken into account? craig: absolutely. when you build your house, to you wanted to fall down in 20 years? we do not want infrastructure built that will fail. if you go out and invest in infrastructure, wouldn't you like it to last the whole time it is there? eventually becoming damaged? this is not like shooting for the moon. this is just good sound practices of building stuff that will last a lifetime in the environment it would be in. and not hope that bad things

won't happen because they usually do. and using the best data and science for what the future may look like. >> you mentioned a possible earthquake. the subject of a new yorker story that caused everybody to panic in seattle and portland, what keeps you up at night? what is the disaster that worries you most? craig: i sleep pretty good. my fear is the lack of disasters or areas that have not had disasters have a tendency to get cannot happen here it cannot be that bad. it has, it will, and it will continue. as a nation we cannot just fall , back on what you're good at doing. we must always look at what can happen. the best way to deal with it is to build for that environment such a way that we minimize risk. responding to the disaster may not otherwise sample there is a

tendency to fall back into what we're capable of doing. >> we will have to leave it there. the outgoing administrator of the federal emergency management agency thank you very much were , being this week's newsmaker. we're back with our reporters. -- and ben.and then ben, let's start with you about where fema is compared to where it was eight years ago after superstorm sandy? ben: during the obama administration, there has been a lot more information on climate change. as we heard the administrator say, the agency dealing with real world of accident. -- with the real-world effects of that. i thought it was correct when he said, look, how often do you hear about a disaster that is supposed to be every 500 years, every thousand years? what we heard was the extent to

which they are putting an emphasis on resilience and trying to be forward with, we heard hopefulness, that they act with some level of forethought in making sure that is not go -- in making sure that the emphasis on resilience does not go away. >> what is your viewpoint on what it has done in the last three years? reid: he inherited an agency that was not only reviled by the state and administrators, but also had that morale problems within the agency itself. he comes from a state background and dealt with several major hurricanes. he has made the effort to reach out to groups around the country. in an era in which everything is

viewed through a partisan lens, the lieutenant governor, as far to the right, elected in the united states of america, he praise on the obama administration for being there on time. disaster recovery and disaster response has yet to be a partisan issue in the last year. we will see how that changes going forward. ben: there is an understanding that certainly when disasters strike, it does not fall along partisan lines. perhaps we will see the proof in the pudding as congress received this infrastructure package as whether or not they were taken -- baked into the cake that if we are going to have huge public

expenditures on infrastructure. some democrats would like to run type of task that scenario. one thing worth looking for the projectsome of undertaken have some type of robust resilience and flood planning hardwired into the system. >> what do we know about the direction of fema in the incoming trump administration? said thatinistrator he has a meeting on the books. donald trump administration has not said any about who the next fema director would be. they have offered some takes on climate change. they do not fall in line with the obama administration on whether or not humans are involved in climate change. the selection of scott pruitt to be the next epa administrator, a clear sign of where the trump administration will come down on change.

whether or not that means fema will continue the resiliency project is not clear yet. >> what is congress saying about the future of fema? >> they want to make sure it has boots on the ground without we have seen just this year. the floods in louisiana and the problems with wildfires in tennessee, i think one and -- i think one thing people are waiting for is to see, there has been a mystery of sorts around how the trump administration will deal with this. with the cabinet emerging we've , got people selected who are very much understanding the topic of the agency. other people frankly have little background on the mission of the agencies.

many things about fema require a level of the areas and technocratic knowledge. i will be curious to see whether -- i will be curious to see which direction the donald trump administration goes in picking someone who does not have a background in this or somebody who perhaps doesn't. >> we will leave it there. thank you for your time. >> the new congress starts tuesday. watch all of the opening day events and activities on c-span. we are live from the u.s. capitol starting at 7:00 a.m. eastern. you'll meet new representatives and hear from returning members. the house gavles in at noon. opening day business includes the election of the house speaker, his address to the whole house and debate and a vote on rules for the new congress. one rule in particular is getting attention, a proposal to fine members who live stream video from the house floor, in response to last summer's democratic sit-in that was

streamed by several democrats. on c-span2, our live coverage of the senate starts at noon eastern and includes the swearing in of senators. opening day continues on c-span3 with live coverage of the ceremonial swearing in at 1:00 p.m. eastern, vice president joe biden presides over the swearing in of individual senators. at 3:00, speaker paul ryan swears in members of the house. we will have a full replay at 8:00 eastern on c-span and c-span 2. earlier today, president obama and his family returned here to washington, d.c. after spending the holidays in hawaii. he has 18 days left in office before president-elect donald trump will be sworn in and it looks like a busy remaining week for president obama. he has plans for a farewell speech next week and chicago.

withll also meet congressional democrats to discuss the nation's health care lost which mr. donald trump and republicans have promised to repeal. >> the presidential inauguration of donald is friday, january 20. c-span will have live coverage of all of the day possibly

events and ceremonies. watch live on c-span and c-span.org, and listen live on the free c-span radio. >> the national highway traffic safety administration announced guidelines for autonomous vehicles. after that, it panel of driverless vehicle technology experts and consultants talked about driver was vehicles and the future of tireless -- the future of presentation. it is about one hour. >> good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the commonwealth club of california. the place where you and we are all in the now. , on facebook, twitter, and check out the commonwealth club youtube channel.

ofm jeanette shock, ceo techolicy, and your moderator for tonight's program. autonomous vehicles and the future of transport. the president of technology for 30 years, techolicy provides public policy knowledge, advocacy, and stakeholder engagement to meet the needs of the innovative technology sector, such as autonomous vehicles. prior to techolicy, i worked at a fortune 500 company. establishen to technet, a national tech focused public policy organization. this evening, i'm going to be honored to introduce such a wonderful panel. once i introduced the panel, we are going to go ahead and review the definition of what an autonomous vehicle is. then each panelist will have three to five minutes to talk about their vision and what the

landscape looks like to them for autonomous vehicles. following the panelist openings, we will have a queue and day. that will include audience questions that you will have was that you will have written on a card and brought up. starthat, i would like to and introduce emily castor. she is the director of transportation policy at lyft. she is been on the forefront since the birth of the industry. she leads their work with transportation in -- presentation agencies to measure their impact. it is a critical tool to expand access, reduce car ownership and cut carbon emissions. advisory board member at the institute of transportation studies at ucla

on the sharing economy advisory network, and on the leadership council of the national center for sustainable transportation, augment -- among many other board positions. each panelistask a lot of fun fact. her fun fact is that she has a hidden talent for saying that often accords very fast -- for saying the alphabet backwards very fast. she is also addicted to ice cream, and can recommend at least five shops here in san francisco. maybe we can all take an autonomous vehicle to go out for ice cream. is clear toelist lonnie -- claire delonghi. , which wasith otto

recently purchased by uber. after graduating from france with an and as in computer engineering, she worked on autonomous cars and robotics for stanford research institute. she is a founder of several robotics companies, including robotics valley and core bots. most recently, she worked as a staff software engineer for google, where she led several innovative robotic roddick's -- robotic projects. fun fact about claire, when she was younger, she was choosing between veterinary sciences and computer science. despite her love of nature, she ultimately chose computer science. thankfully, because we have robotics projects today. welcome. panelist, no stranger to the autonomous vehicle world, is lauren isaac.

she is the manager of sustainable transportation at wsb parsons brinckerhoff, a professional services and transportation consulting firm. advancedvolved in technology projects that can improve mobility in many cities. she was awarded the firms william barclay parsons fellowship for developing a guide titled driving towards driverless, a guide for government agencies regarding how local and regional governments should response to autonomous vehicles in a short, medium, and long term. in addition, she maintains a blog driving towards driverless. she has presented on this topic in more than 30 industry conferences. she recently did a ted asked talk and has been published in the new york times and chicago tribune, among other publications. she has a master of engineering

bachelor's degree in the same discipline from cornell university. we have placed our two engineers in the center of the panel. shen fact about lauren is just got married a few weeks ago. she was on a mission to get a driverless vehicle at her wedding. emily was recently engaged. despite having multiple companies and people and it industry working hard to have it happened, she may have been just a little early. companiesf the thankfully have promised her a driverless vehicle at her one-year anniversary celebration. final analyst interaction is lindsey pelas. she is the director of external affairs at contra costa transportation authority.

she is responsible for directing communications, advocacy and community engagement efforts. her leadership has produced award-winning public engagement, programs that international recognition for innovative utilization of technology. contrahave not been on costa transportation authority website, i highly recommend it. the technology is amazing that she has been together. she has been responsible for increasing brand awareness for 1.3 billion and local transportation projects and programs. this includes establishing a brand and directing the launch of go momentum station in concord, california, the nation's largest secure, connected vehicle and in taunus vehicle testbed -- and autonomous vehicle testbed. something to watch airplanes. he could just watch autonomous vehicles go by. prior to joining the authority,

she spent nine years leading marketing and communication initiatives in developing strategic partnerships for the capitol corridor joint powers authority. a fun fact about linsey, her first introduction to transportation, other than sharing the backseat of a station wagon with her three sisters, was a train trip from california to vancouver for the 1986 world fair. many years later, her first job in transportation was at the capitol corridor train service, which is here in california. that is our panelist. what is autonomous vehicle? names, such as driverless vehicle, self driving vehicle, highly automated vehicle -- which is a new term we recently have seen from the federal government -- or robotic car. do you think of johnny cab in total recall, featuring our

former governor arnold schwarzenegger when you hear autonomous vehicle? that sometimes comes to my mind. vehicleomous car is a that is capable of sensing its environment and navigating without human interaction. theirmous cars can detect surroundings using a variety of techniques, such as radar, sensors and communication networks. now i would like to go down the line starting with emily. if the good just paid a picture of how you would define autonomous vehicles, and how you see the future of autonomous vehicles looking like. >> i am excited to be here and share a bit about lyft possibly for autonomousn vehicles. ridesharing has already started to lay the groundwork for what that will look like, this transition in mobility behavior that we are starting to see coming down in the next few years with autonomous. it is really the beginning of a

major transition away from the relationship with vehicles being one of ownership toward a relationship of transportation as a service. has taught people to have that relationship over the last few years as we have rolled out on demand mobility through a digital interface, getting people the ability to tap a button, have a driver show up. there is not such a huge difference between the behavior of tapping a button on your phone and having taunus vehicle show up. you're not driving it, you're not only get, and you are accessing it when you need it. have built that we has laid the groundwork for what can later be layered on top as autonomous technology becomes available. our founder spoke recently and published his thoughts recently about what we see as this coming third transportation revolution first transportation revolution

was the development of trains and canals that facilitated interstate commerce and led to the development of big cities. the second transportation revolution is the one we are living in now and grown up in, the automobile. interstate highways that have our cities and really changed the relationship of people to the urban environment and what many would say was a negative way. we are really on the cusp of an opportunity to reclaim the urban vitality that we lost, to restructure our environment so it is no longer centered around car ownership. instead, you can take that space, devoted to new, more productive uses. that about the parklets proliferate on the streets here and are so good at restoring common spaces. that is a small case of what we can expect as urban voters in the future as the need for parking is eliminated. the need for car ownership is eliminated and we can reclaim that urban space, use it to

build housing and green space. this can be accomplished through leveraging a thomas technology -- leveraging autonomous technology. can put that on top of the existing platform so it is not an abrupt transition for our users. it can be gradual in environments where this is something we believe we can test successfully in the early deployment. there may be corridor doors, fixed routes or zones that have been extensively mapped. to make sure they are appropriate for autonomous vehicles in the beginning. gradually expanded broadly to the point where ultimately, it will be available anywhere. to do so in a way that you could then see it with what you experienced with wireless networks coming online word first you had that slow data connection. over time 3g and later 4g became available, it just dropped onto your phone.

you did not have to buy new technology. you could automatically tap into it. excited to see this and see the potential frankly of democratizing access to our platform. it happens quickly as the cost of getting a lyft ride comes with autonomy. white and i start talking about trucks instead of cars. -- ons in a taunus truck autonomous truck? it is basically like the old trucker that we all know. it could perceive the environment much better than a human could do. cameraswith radar and where the truck is in the world, with gps. , it all this information can take this knowledge to where

it is and what is the surrounding environment. how does it relate? that is the kind of thing we put in the cars. this is why uber decided to acquire otto, to merge the technology. the autonomous vehicle spaceport. -- space forward. it is not necessarily like the car you can imagine with the drivers. -- we callstarted them aid assistance to driving. we are already accumulating little by little component technology that are essential to

make the vehicles fully autonomous. it will take time. around.e to evolve ,hen you think about the word everything we see was designed for humans. stop signs. lights. everything was designed for humans. moving forward, if you really --t to make a taunus vehicle on autonomous the goal -- autono vehicle. you will adapt it to make it more machine friendly. be the technicality

and when i said talk about social impacts. >> i come at this from a different angle. i work at parsons brinckerhoff. a piece of what we do is consulting for government agencies, advising them on transportation and infrastructure projects. i have been in the space my whole career. i started reading about driverless equals 2.5 years ago. the technology was advancing very quickly, what our clients, the government agencies, were really at that time not very aware of that technology. if you look at the headlines, it was all about who was putting the most test miles on the road and what technology was out there and what companies were getting involved. almost nothing about what the government was doing. that was around the time i was doing my research about what the government could do to plan for driverless vehicles. fast forward to where we are

today, that arroyo government has been very involved. -- the federal government has been very involved. i'm interested personally because we are seeing the technology out on the streets. if you look at our government agencies short and long-range plans that go from five year plans to 40 and 50 year plans, over 90% do not acknowledge that driverless vehicles are coming. what is amazing is the impact they can have on society, both positive and taken it here and there are a lot of -- both positive and negative. better mobility for populations like the elderly and disabled. there are also risks. government agencies should be aware of what these are. if we have a society where lyft and uber do not and up with these shared fleets and other automakers are investing in shared fleets.

we are saying a lot of vehicle ownership, single occupancy vehicle trips. trip beingccupancy allowed, we have a huge risk of an increase in vehicle miles traveled. i cannot wait to see driverless vehicles proliferate, but i think government has a very important role to play in terms of managing the benefits, to make sure we reap the benefits, but also to mitigate the risks. i first met lauren, her question was why is the government agency involved in driverless vehicles? i wanted to give you a little background for those of you that do not know who the contra costa transportation authority is. we're not quite as famous as these companies. costa8, voters at contra wanted to tax themselves to pay for transportation. our agency is the agency that

plans, funds and delivers those transportation improvements that voters voted for. in california, there are 20 counties that tax themselves through sales tax to help pay for transportation. the bay area is full of them. san francisco is one of them. they play a critical part in keeping california going. billion a year$3 into the transportation system and infrastructure. kind of rolls out, fast forward to 2004. that 19 88 measure was about to expire. we went back out to others to ask them to decide to renew that sales tax for another 25 years. you may be of to get people to choose to tax themselves once. if you're not delivering on your promises, they are not going to give you another chance to do that. i am proud to say 71% of voters chose to continue that tax to

continue to fund transportation improvements. our job is to make this happen in addition to making those improvements happen. part of our responsibility involves being the management agency for the counties. we're trying to find ways to mitigate traffic. also the long-range transportation planning agency for the counties. we are pretty busy. those last two responsibilities really kind of led to our interest in autonomous vehicles. look forwardcies as they develop their long-range plans. the tendency is to take today's technology and embed it into a plan for the next 25 years. if you think about the plan -- the fact that the iphone is less than 10 years old and how much that has revolutionized how we work and travel and communicate, it seemed really foolish to us to just assume that technology was going to remain static.

it is changing so quickly. we decided we really needed to pay attention to what is happening in the technology and transportation space so that as we build long-range plans for the county, we can be prepared and responsive to new technology that is coming online, instead of just being reactive. cofound a station in concord, california. as the largest secure autonomous vehicle test facility. it is a partnership where manufacturers can come and test their vehicles and technologies in a secure location. is a forming a the -- a former navy weapons station, it has sidewalks, tunnels, buildings. it is a great place to reenact scenarios that take place in the real world. it does for us is it gives

us the ability to talk with the folks who are testing, see what they are testing and find out what it needs and what do we need to be looking at to upgrade our infrastructure over the coming years to make sure those cars can operate optimally and safely and help get you where you need to go. that is excellent to set the stage for the viewpoints. we have talked a lot about autonomous cars and trucks. you talk about autonomous vehicles, they can be inclusive. what are the benefits? then i would like to ask what are the kind of negatives? if you can start with the benefits to community, to a city for autonomous vehicles? >> there are quite a few. the biggest one from a government perspective is the interest around safety.

today, 90% of the accidents that happen on our roadways are due to human error. distracted driving, drunk driving, speeding. in theory, if we eliminate the humans from the driving equation, we will eliminate over 90% of the accident. that it'd itself is huge. i mentioned before the additional mobility for elderly, disabled. that is really exciting. another one is the rethinking of our land use. driverless vehicles will create the potential for you to reduce the parking requirements, or even relocating them. when people are purchasing as many vehicles but they are sharing them, we could reduce the land use dedicated for parking. in cities, that could be around 15% to 20% of the land. try to reimagine san francisco's streets without that dedicated land. you can see the potential for

adding bike lanes, adding more pedestrian space. the other side of it is even if nightmaree more perspective of more people owning vehicles, it still could result in relocated arcing spaces. these vehicles could bring people to their work in the morning, and then the vehicle goes and parts itself in a remote parking lot. it is amazing from a land-use perspective, but terrible from a timested travel reliability perspective. you can also have improved acceleration and deceleration which will impact our roadways. people in theory will be able to drive more closely together. there is more, but hopefully that gives the flavor. what are some of the negatives, some of the aspects where it may not be as positive, and areas where you can improve?

>> if you talk to the experts, people are seeing that the fulcrum is whether these are shared vehicles are owned vehicles. people are pointing to that very correctly. if you think about it, most of the ills of private ownership and the unsustainable transportation system and its land-use impacts that we have the fact thatom vehicles are so poorly utilized. there is idle 94% of the time. occupied when in motion. it is an underutilized acid that we are paying to store and using precious land to store. thathink about sort of how has been telegraphed into an autonomous vehicle world, it is probably something magnified when you go the ownership root and every owns their own autonomous vehicle. maybe not with respect to

parking. certainly in respect to miles traveled. it would be magnified if equity of the rom. if you look on the shared side of the equation, it is very fascinating from a couple different research groups looking at a national laboratory. they put out the simulation study finding that shared electric autonomous vehicles using a platform that dispatches them on demand could actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 90%. of the vehicles adopted electric powertrains and we certainly expect that on our platform, that could eliminate petroleum consumption 100% in our transportation system. pollyanna,ound like unbelievable expectations. there was another report that just came out with very similar

conclusions from the rocky mountain institute. an energy think tank found them -- enormous responsibilities. including the expenditure of cost for operating vehicles. there is a really good economic argument for why it will happen that way and why we should leave the fact that urban car ownership stays or numbers -- day's are numbered. comparing in their household budget the cost of owning a car with that lease, with a car payment, insurance costs, parking in an urban environment, and then comparing it to greatly reduced costs of transportation as a service, walking, biking, on-demand .utonomous transit that package on the shared side is going to be much cheaper than

what the cost of car ownership is. it will be a much more dramatic difference. that is what will precipitate a shift a way from car ownership. it will bring benefits rather than being the potential negatives in the public realm. >> i totally agree. i think it is important to point out the distinction between autonomous technology and electric elegy. they are -- electric technology. they are entirely separate. go entirely of a electric for autonomous are huge. not all the auto manufacturers that are developing our electric, so it is not an assumed thing. i think it is wonderful that lyft is. >> i think the majority of them are. i want to comment briefly on why that might be the case. people may have heard why financially, but the cost of operation of vehicles over the life of that car is much lower with electric vehicles, at least

at the current cost of electricity versus petroleum. it makes financial sense as long as operationally there is sufficient access to charging infrastructure. that is something policymakers should be paying attention to. there is a spong -- a strong business case, especially with the new battery technology that is advancing. was one of our audience questions was the impact of electric and what the future would look like. i want to give an opportunity to talk about the benefits for trucks. right now in the u.s., we have a shortage of drivers, just because it is a very painful job. the roadto be alone on for long hours and for a very long time.

benefit of autonomous ichnology is that basically, it won't happen just tomorrow. it will be gradual. step will be like the plane. the pilot is here to do the landing and takeoff. during the flight, the plane is driving autonomously. the pilot can do other stuff. for driving. when you look at the highway and see all the cars going by it is like a trainer railroads the truck driver would just bring the truck to the entrance of the drive bynd it would

itself until it reaches the destination. the drivers will have a lot of time to do something else in the meantime -- read a book, watch tv, learn something new. >> drink a beer. [laughter] >> the truck driver -- trying to keep focused long hours without anything changing at a landscape or anything else happening. that moment we release the driver, we can actually -- most of the fleet in the u.s. which , these peopleator

could spend all this time in the truck to do something else. spent time with the family. it could be a completely different long-term. it's hard to give an idea. we worked very hard with the government and are very safe. we can guarantee they reach 99.99% without problem. safe.y would be very in that case, it would probably mean that we do not have to have in this anymore particular area. we can just let the cargo by itself.

uber to takeuse the trucks out of the highway. to take the trucks out of theone of theg trucks is because we don't have a lot of drivers. we want to make sure that we put everything in a single convoy. we will minimize the number of drivers. the moment you do not have a driver, it means that you can get smaller trucks and able to do more power efficient. you can also have better logistics. you can be smart. when you start digging around

this efficiency and you start with autonomous vehicle. how goods are transferred from one point to another you can see audio -- even see autonomous vehicles would be more efficient in the future. efficient good transportation can be in the future. i think it is more than a passenger. you like driving your cars. when you have a nice car, don't you like driving. it's a pleasure, right? everywhere into our economy. detail was brought by a

truck. when you think that you can make , thatore efficient negation are tremendous. right after safety, efficiency is something that transportation professionals really have to look at. it is not just a passenger vehicle. that is how you move freight. that is how you move transit. i think one of the big promises for autonomous vehicles is that you can move more things, more people, more cars, more kids -- more goods through the system more safely and faster. if you have ever been stuck on a i-80 in bumper-to-bumper traffic

, if your car could take over and drive itself autonomously, if they could follow a safe distance behind the card front of it that is much closer than you might be a will to follow as a human driver, you can get more cars through that stretch of freeway faster and smoother. that is something we are very interested in looking at. capacitynt highway when you build a freeway and an urban area has to take 2400 cars per lane per hour. think about how much more efficiently that system would operate if you could bump that up by an extra 1000 cars per lane per hour. you smooth out the entire system and make it much more efficient for everyone trying to get where they want to go. our would like to remind audience that this is the commonwealth club of california and we are talking about autonomous vehicles and the future of transport. we have emily castor, lizzie willis -- linsey willis, lauren

and claire delonghi from otto. our programs are on radio, and you can see our videos on youtube. you can also see us on our website and on facebook and twitter. i am the ceo of techolicy and the moderator for today's program. we have a number audience questions about jobs. in particular, you may recall that james hynes says connected vehicles will continue to products and service, innovations and create new companies, and will enable a new value proposition. we hear that a lot, but have several lessons about will drivers who drive for lyft or other companies be able to

drive? and what is the risk if this technology creates unemployment? >> this is a great question. we really approach this seriously at lyft. we differentiate ourselves in the market as a company that cares more about our drivers. we have invested in great relationships with our drivers because we believe that translates into a passenger experience. that is the core of what we offer. we want to be transparent. this isnd of the day, something that is coming to our society. i think it is incumbent upon any entity that is working in the transportation today whether it is private transport or automotive companies, to be the netflix in the situation rather than the blockbuster. we have to remain relevant and capable of making an impact. said, it is not going

to be an abrupt and immediate transition away. it is important to understand how people participate in lyft driving. the vast majority of people are doing it on a very part-time basis. 85% of them are doing it fewer than 15 hours a week. even those folks who are doing it on a more full-time basis, they aren't necessarily doing it for a long period of time. it is a rather transient population. they say they need extra income, they are in a life transition, they need flexibility. that is why they came to us in the first place. our driving is not structured with the rigidity and permanence of a traditional job. of time forot people to absorb this transition that is coming. however, we expect that in the near term, the demand for lyft drivers will increase as

automation rolls out. that sounds counterintuitive. the reason why is because of what i described earlier -- the fact that there will be an explosion in the market size of these businesses like ours who are offering this service. all of a sudden, it will become so much more affordable that people will be able to use it much more often. they will look at that calculation about what they want to own a car anymore. or are going to start saying no, they do not want to own a car. they're going to use lyft more. that, sometimes we will get an automated left because that is where it is available. the market size is going to grow in the near term. asimately it will taper off the technology becomes more capable and available in a greater variety of geographical areas. that will be a transition that is transparent. career i live in, as

well as science and technology , there is a huge increase in individuals who are being contacted by companies to go into a learning how to do coding or software or engineering, so there is a whole companies that can describe what the positions are, but a whole host of companies looking for new opportunities to train individuals for new jobs. i would like to pass it on. think one of the places where we hear a lot of concern about the coming of automation is in the transit world. there are quite a few folks employed as the bus driver, your parched driver, the folks who get you where you need to go. they are worried about what this need -- what this means for them. we have to give them the confidence.

earlier on, the state has some climate goals. we're trying to achieve, and one thing is to encourage people to travel together to reduce greenhouse gases. one of the things we have been working hard on is to encourage people to potentially use autonomous vehicles to get themselves to transit. these are great solutions for that first and last mile trip. how may times have you driven your car to try to park and you are circling encircling and nobody is leaving and there is no spot and you end up driving to your ultimate destination? if you could get a shared ride to that particular location, then maybe you would be more inclined to use public transit. it would take out the aggravation of trying to find parking. when you think about autonomous vehicles and shared autonomous vehicles, these are going to be large fleet that will need to be maintained. they will need to be monitored. those are jobs that are still going to have to be done by

someone. with transit experience. there could be some opportunity to kind of read train some of the existing workforce to take on some of the new duties. ito think transit as we know is really going to benefit from autonomous vehicles. i think a lot of the first trips you're going to start to see will be short trips to and from transit stations or to and from schools and business centers. we have to take your mother to the hairdresser and you don't want to driver, you can put her in the car and let her do it herself. your have to have a conversation with your sister about who is going to drive grandmother to the senior center. you are going to see those short trips happen first. claire may be giving us a run for our money with long-term freight hauling. is going to be

gradual. happeningon't see it just tomorrow. i know it is exciting technology. there is a lot that has to be solved. that is a good mayor to the panel may have today. about companies who are .perating with consumers, otto was targeting a very dedicated problem. is a lot of issues in the future that we need to plan and think about. it is such a huge problem. it touches a lot of aspects of the way we live life

in cities. think for all these reasons to make it right and to make in the right way, it will take a lot of time. i think it is a lot of opportunity for a lot of these graduating andy allrained and learning over these jobs that are around autonomous vehicles and what it means to get them all the time. .t would have to be created we will still need places to recharge the cars. the four seat cars, it is good

to take more space. fleet that has to be correlated together. threatening right now, but most the time when things evolved slowly, if we -- things happen slowly and gradually. are other areas of interest. just because -- of a car drives better than me, i'm going to be bored anyway. it is not very fun. remember the stock market. at the beginning, it was super exciting to sell stock and to be like a traitor.

-- to be like a trader. then algorithms became more efficient than people. at some point, when you compare the algorithm and yourself and you see an outgrowth of his see someoneyou, you removes the fun of it. you cannot compete with an algorithm. it doesn't care anyway. >> it is a little bit different on the equity impact. the labor question is not the only equity question. another one is about mobility access. that is what i think is one of the most exciting benefits that can come from this. it is definitely also hinging on shared versus owned as a model of how this rolls out. transportation is a huge economic barrier in our country, especially with the rio

urbanization we have seen in major cities. -- of housingving is going up. there has been this urbanization of property and has pushed people out to the areas that have been least well served by transit and giving them a huge problem for the most vulnerable population. people have these super commutes trying to piece together bus routes in areas where it is not efficient to operate us is. point-to-point transportation saves people hours and travel time per day. these are families who cannot necessarily have a $9,000 a year cost of owning a car. it connects with the affordable enough that it could be something that is accessible for those folks, and actually making it possible for more people to benefit from this technology who would not necessarily be able to buy autonomous cars. there are all kinds of technological pathways that can be established even when people

don't have bank accounts or smartphones. these are things you already working with in our public-private partnerships very -- partnerships. we can look at all this in terms of technological advancement, but there is also a real impact on people's lives. it is an excellent opportunity to discuss that. >> it really is the opportunity for shared mobility that will impact equity. i was agreeing with everything everybody said. i completely agree this is not going to happen overnight. i also agree there will be job loss that comes from this -- thiswledge he has technology. at the same time, there will be job opportunities created.

i think things like stem, getting more of the younger generation going through college and getting educated in the right yields. things like data science, that is such a rich field. all of this technology will create a tremendous amount of data. from the government's perspective, the government once the data. -- wants the data. they also need to be able to do something with it. you need to have the right skill sets available. there is a transformation that is going to happen with the the jobeeded, and as loss happens, there will be just as many retraining opportunities. we are seeing it right now amongst the automakers. are saying the companies buying out each other and establishing partnerships very -- partnerships. part of it is because they want the talent in the other companies. there is such a dearth for talent in this field.

andre going to see more more people getting into the right field. as community colleges and colleges keep up with technology and company requirements, we will see that many more jobs created in this space. the hacking has been at the news. there is a fear that cars could be hacked. that has come up a number of different times in each of your industries. something that you get a lot of questions? >> it certainly is something we have to because is about. i think claire is probably smarter than i am on cyber security with her engineering background. clearly that has to be a top priority. if you think about it there is an increasing integration within the different technologies deployed in this. you have an automaker manufacturing a vehicle, you have the self driving system,

you have the consumer network. all of these are participating at some level with the operation of that service. alle needs to be focused on those different levels to ensure there is security. i think security would be yourprecaution for computer or phone or car or any piece of technology. the search for a way to protect ourselves from hacking, i do not think there is a amazing ways to do incredible hacking. most of the time if your car gets hacked, it is just not going to start. it will sit there on the sidewalk and not start.

it is very inconvenient. people will probably have a solution for that and take your car somewhere to fix it. like any other piece of technology, there is ways to ensure that the technology is safe. a matter ofs just anding with government cities to make sure to define what is unacceptable behavior and if you have a problem with the car or a sensor or something like that, where can you pull on the side? can a car pull all of medically do this -- carpool automatically do this? going into a lot computer science. that is a whole other career field that is rife with opportunity. >> i don't have too much to say

on this. the one positive is that this is very much on the radar of not just the federal government, but every technology developer in this day. it is an issue on all sides. no one wants to see a cyber security issue. at the federal government level, they put up policy guidance that was really exciting and covered a lot more than just cyber security. they became precedent-setting by putting out guidance around driverless vehicles about a week ago. cyber security is one thing that is addressed. it is not in the level of detail -- first of all, i don't think anybody would want to know the level of detail -- but it does start to address it. what we seeing is coalitions form amongst competing technology developers that are trying to address this as an industry. it is very much at the forefront of the autonomous vehicle

discussion nationally. one of the ways that the new regulations, there have also been some in california as recently as a few days ago. will federal law preempt state law? is that a discussion that is still in the works? what is happening? statehink everyone from to automatic factors are all really excited to see the federal regulations come out. up until this point, different states, even down to different jurisdictions, were putting into place their own laws and their own way of thinking about how autonomous vehicles can operate on their roadways. at a long-term to see a situation where if you are driving your car from california to nevada and nevada has different rules from california, you do not want your car to just stop at the state line because nevada does not allow it. i think it is wonderful to see

federal regulations. it is the framework for how states should be thinking about putting into place policies. california's policies very much hopefully follow the federal guidelines. i think a lot of states will follow those guidelines. as a model policy for states to consider adopting or for basing their future policies on to encourage there to be some sort of level playing field or platform across the united states so that on a manufacturer is in different technology companies do not have to do something different for every single state or every single jurisdiction. so far, i think people are really happy and i think it remains to be seen how they get rolled out -- rolled out. they're letting everyone read them and taking, and on them.

they have a workshop on their proposed policy and a couple of weeks. i really think that in terms of the state versus federal, the state will choose to follow the federal guidelines more closely. i would hate for the cars to stop at the border. we have had so many wonderful questions. the one that keeps coming is will and autonomous vehicle or truck have a steering will -- steering wheel? >> as of one week ago, california was for wiring that driverless vehicles have a steering wheel. it was actually very controversial. they had stern will breaks and licensed -- a steering wheel, brakes and a licensed driver behind the wheel. they had stern willthis is somey

has watched very closely. it was controversial and had white of the groups, technology developers come out opposed to it. it was in theory limiting the development of the technology. really not allowing some of the communities that would then of it most greatly to reap those benefits. now, one week later, federal policy is out. california has changed their guidelines. have eliminated the need for steering wheels. a very relevant question. >> any other comments? >> the benefits i described of bringing down the cost for service will not come if they are not fully driverless vehicles. that is our focus. we want a vehicle that is fully capable of that. the design of the hardware, that is one of the most exciting rings is the opportunity to

reimagine what this experience is like. having it be a hospitality experience, a service you can have. maybe even customization depending on who you are or what you need or even what experience you want in that moment. that is where you will see some of the brand differentiation,. people talk about how automakers are going to be commoditized and will lose that rant relationship that they have now with the customer. there will be an intermediary of the network like lyft that has a relationship with the customer. there are new opportunities for creating consumer value and differentiation in that market. >> we are excited to see it. we also have a number of questions of, should i buy a new car soon?

could you talk about time frames? >> don't buy a car. i'm pretty sure you agree with me. much every automaker and technology director is promising a fully driverless vehicle in frame with22 time the exception being porsche, because they believe people like to drive their vehicles. >> i would like to drive a porsche. [laughter] there are countless forecasts out there of when we will see the proliferation of driverless vehicles, but if i was going to generalize it i would say about 30% proliferation in the 2030 timeframe. should you buy a car now?

it is the same question, should cities build parking garages? it is unique to people situations. what is exciting is we are seeing more and more mobility options coming out, especially in urban areas you'd i think we're seeing even more in suburban areas, as well. we have reduced the need for car ownership and you at all of these other options. carpooling, right sharing, and all of the technology that supports it. that tell you how to leverage a combination of them. the more we can reduce car ownership now and encourage people to really do right sharing behavior today, it will be that much more important when we have driverless cars on the roadways. -- in syria, we all want to have a driverless vehicle. it is like having a personal

chauffeur. maker and a tv, and why would i go on a shared vehicle? but that is a scary thing for our society, if everybody had a vehicle like that. so i think it is important that we wrap our heads around this shared vehicle mentality. >> i'm going to take a little bit of an opposite view. we barely agree. [laughter] i would say, i agree, i would say most of the major car companies have said they could put an autonomous vehicle for sale in the next five years. i think what we have to think about is the regulations and the policy that govern being able to use that are not going to move that quickly.

as much as we want to see them knowrow, as much as we there are tremendous benefits, government does not work -- move as fast as the private sector and i don't see that changing anytime in the next year or two in order for everything to catch up and you can buy in autonomous vehicle. hasou live in a county that rural areas or are car dependent, my advice is to buy a new car because they're getting smarter and smarter every year. as clear mention, your car can do things for you. it can autonomously forward break, a can park itself, a can keep you in your lane. some of the new cars can even tell if you are to get sleepy and alert you that you need to pull over. we are putting things in place to get those cars to become are manys, and there

being manufactured that could drive themselves, but regulations are not ready. >> we have so many more questions thomas so clearly we need a series of panels on autonomous vehicles. where at the point where there is time for just one last question. do you have ice -- advice to give to presidential candidates about of thomas vehicles? -- autonomous vehicles? it is super exciting what technology is presenting to us today, and i think it will ideas andas potential, but it is important for government at all levels to be involved so we need have funding, policy, supportive regulations, nothing that slows it down and yet maintains the safety of our traveling public. fundwould say,

transportation to its fullest and all forms, including autonomous vehicles. research, because that is how we are going to get to the scenario you can ride in and a taunus vehicle. there has to be -- a taunus vehicle. there has to be enough research for everyone to feel safe. it is going to be a new class of vehicle. it is not going to be like anything we know right now. the private sector cannot do it alone. everybody has to be on board, private and government. >> i would say, the most important thing government can do is focus on performance-based policies. because it is very hard to prescribe the how, the mechanism

of something you don't understand and have not experienced before. i think the best thing you can do is to let the private sector innovate on the way to get to the desired holocene outcome, of safety, mobility, performance. and make sure objectives are met while allowing innovation to flourish >. >> i would like to thank our panelists. thank you very much. claire, lawrence, lindsay. thank you all for your participation. i would like to think the audience for your participation and the commonwealth club for hosting. you have been a terrific audience and good night. [applause]

>> the new congress starts tuesday. watch all of the opening day events and activity on c-span. we are live from the u.s. capitol starting at 7:00 a.m. use term. you will meet new representatives and hear from returning members. house gavels and at new. business includes the election of the house speaker, his address to the whole house and later, debate and vote on rules for the new congress. one rule in particular is getting attention, a proposal to livestream who videos from the house floor. it is a reaction to the city and lastlast year -- sit in year by house democrats. opening day continues on c-span3 with live coverage of the ceremonial swearing-in of members of congress. biden0 p.m. eastern, joe

presides over the swearing-in of individual senators and 3:00, paul ryan swears and members of the house. have complete coverage on c-span and c-span2. >> on tuesday, the congressional black caucus will hold a swearing-in ceremony for its 49 members. louisiana congressman cedric richmond served as the session chair. you can watch it live starting out 9:00 eastern. >> this week, "the communicators" goes to the university of michigan and detroit, where car developers are using a new site to try out new technology. lawmakers are experiment in with technology that allows cars to talk to each other and talk to roads and traffic lights so there will be fewer accidents. we spoke with a transportation

analyst studies this technology and with the director of the university of michigan's mobility transformation of center. where are we right now? >> we are at the university of michigan. builts m city, it was specifically to test and develop automated vehicles. this is a fake storefront. it can create different scenarios for both connected and automated vehicles. we want to test and be able to repeat. when you are out on the street, it is hard to be able to repeat consistently. behind us is a facade. you can move it back or further up. you can make it suburban or urban. we have many different road types, intersections. many different ways to park. we have a pedestrian you can use.