theoming up monday morning, future of health care. then boston university professor nina crawford talks about the cost of the war on terror since september 11, two thousand one. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal live at 7:00 p.m. the midterm election of 2018 changed the balance of power in congress with democrats taking control of the house and republicans holding majority in the senate. members now prepare for the new senate in january. , new leaders. watch the process unfold on c-span. >> this week on newsmakers.

we also have in studio with us tonya snyder. and kelly. tonya, go ahead with the first question. >> i wanted to start by asking about the infrastructure brand that you talked about. you plan to start off the session, trying to get in infrastructure plan, not unlike the one that donald trump could not get through progress. i want to ask you about the politics. why you think that republican said be willing to go along with a big infrastructure spending bill. >> -- rep. defazio: the president will not be able to claim credit that they control the senate, white house, and house. there's was based on privatization, polling, etc., which went nowhere with a republican congress.

it would be laughable to talk about that in a democratic congress but when i was at the white house, the president didn't seem to be on board with his own advisors. he expressed an interest and recognition that we need real federal investment and new partnership with states in rebuilding america's infrastructure. just before the election, before he left washington, they had a white house congressional affairs came to visit me. i didn't even know they had a congressional affairs office, but they had their finger in the wind and we talked about areas where i could agree and potentially work with the president. there were two things, infrastructure and trade. she said there was a recognition presidentt of the that we need to rebuild our infrastructure and make real federal investment.

it is doable and a few colleagues have said you don't want to help trump. i said this is not about trump. it is about the united states of america and we have been ignoring these needs for a long time. the country is falling apart. the country is falling apart. we had three examples in this it.tion that showed california's kevin mccarthy sponsored an initiative to repeal the gas tax increase. they failed miserably. tim walz, one of my colleagues, campaigned on a gas tax increase and turned that state from red to blue. he got one of the largest margins in history, and the new governor of michigan red to blue. she said fix the roads. americans get it. it is not politically toxic.

there is a bridge that mitch mcconnell is interested in that cost a couple billion dollars. we cannot do it with existing funds. >> you are likely to be the next chair of the committee. what is the timeline for an infrastructure bill? rep. defazio: i had a package of three bills with republican sponsors. one i am going to put forward. it passed out of my committee unanimously. americans say, i am paying a tax. it makes republicans uncomfortable. that one should be easy, a no-brainer. pricess to higher ticket , people sitting on the tarmac and waiting for their plane to get a gate. it leads to longer throughput time in the airport because we have not reconfigured for security needs.

program i was the democratic author of a while ago. that is part two and part three is the big one. that is outside my jurisdiction in terms of funding. he understands and is very need for aof the revenue source, probably doing bonding with some kind of dedicated revenue. my hope is we will do a short-term within six months, infrastructure package out of the house. it is not just my jurisdiction. and commerce, drinking water, for rural areas, schools, things that were in the original house recovery act that

got stripped out by that jerk larry summers. we've got a lot to do and i got support from other incoming chairs. >> i'm glad that you brought up funding because i want to drill down a little into the budget debate behind that. i know it is not particularly your jurisdiction, but you will have to cut a deal with senate republicans and president donald trump. it is hard to get private industry to pay. how exactly are you going to pay for that? we saw that lawmakers opted to not deal with the underlying problem. it does not bring in enough revenue to pay for the bridges. what exactly can you square between the president and a republican senate that will

become wall? rep. defazio: well, the president -- i was at the meeting and i didn't rat him out, but the president did say he could sell $.25 the american people. a couple of senators said that publicly. >> a $.25 gas tax increase? rep. defazio: i said mr. president, we don't need that much. if we do bonding and dedicate part of the gas tax or other revenue increased to bonding, we can generate more money in the short term. in a way, we are kicking the can down the road. we will have more penetration of electric vehicles. we are looking at what can we do short-term and what can we do with a six-year bill due on october 1, 2020? six years later, someone else will figure out what is the future of funding for

transportation, but right now, this is the way to go. >> did senate republicans indicate that they would be supportive of a gas tax increase? was it just the president? rep. defazio: the senator said democrat -- they will just attack you. i said i will stand in front of them. he is not enthusiastic about it and i don't know about others but we have seen, if the president takes the lead and once infrastructure investment, we can get it done. i am hopeful. we can sell it to the american people that this will improve so it's aute time, business and industry in terms of what it will mean for delivery.

i think the senate would be hard-pressed to say we are not going to do anything. >> you indicated you would like to see a return to earmarked. name because of transportation and infrastructure projects like the bridge to nowhere. can you say a little more about why you think your mark would be helpful? you putd of rules would around it to make sure they are not of -- not abused? rep. defazio: i reformed the so-called earmark process. it really isn't in your market. an earmark is when appropriators spend money on something that is not authorized. what we have is congressionally designated spending. i reformed the process when i subcommittee. i said we would have a totally transparent process, you would submit your request online and it would be available immediately for the public, the

press and watchdogs to review. you have to show that it has local support, you have to show that it is consistent with the long-term investment plan. affidavit ofign an no interest in that project. i had over 400 members submit projects, bipartisan, obviously. we were going to fund a tiny fraction. --erally, the earmark are the earmarks constituted about 4% of the total spending. say, let's let the secretary of transportation determine where the money goes? -- theet the bearcats bureaucrats decide or a member of congress from a district who knows the area better. you are ignoring my district. we are far from the state capital.

there are projects that do not come to the attention of the or theureaucrats secretary of transportation. i think it is something that can be done in a transparent way and eight -- and unaccountable way. the other part of the problem has always been the senate because the senate pretends that they are holier than thou. we are not going to do earmarks. we get to conference on the last couple transportation bills, the last one with earmarks. projects where are our ? you did not legislate projects, but we want money and we want the project. that is in part where the problem comes from. i do not know how they will handle it in the senate. it --m going to pick

pivot. can you set -- can you shed some light? how do you address that as who will be leading in the new congress? meandoes this leadership toe broadly for how you want go about controlling the chamber next year? rep. defazio: i don't talk about family discussions. >> do you have anything to say about how democrats can maybe bridge the gap between progressive democrats and more moderate democrats in the house? that seems to be the main contention here currently. rep. defazio: look, i represent a swing district, but i founded

the progressive caucus. i don't find an inherent conflict between being progressive and getting elected in a somewhat moderate or conservative district. i don't think the gap is that difficult to bridge, personally because i have been bridging it for a long time. >> i wanted to ask about self driving cars. pivoting back to transportation. generally, self driving cars are under the energy and commerce committee, not your jurisdiction but certainly in the next two years, there will be other kinds of transportation, infrastructure initiatives that can help advance emerging technologies like self driving cars and i wanted to ask what thoughts you have about that as the incoming chair? rep. defazio: technically,

energy and commerce has the jurisdiction there, but the self driving vehicles or driver assisted vehicles will be using the infrastructure we build and it has to be compatibility issues. i am friendly with the chair of that committee and we will be working together. we will be doing oversight on those issues, because dot, a few weeks ago, some idiot at dot said we don't care about spectrum for soft driving cars. -- self driving cars. wait a minute, everyone hearing says we need a dedicated spectrum because there has to be seamless communication between these vehicles. and dot walks that back next week. we will be doing oversight in that area and i will partner with frank because you can't rebuild our infrastructure in isolation from the impact of

self driving vehicles. it has tremendous potential to help with congestion when you are not sitting at the light for two minutes because someone is on their cell phones. there is tremendous potential, but it is going to require a lot of guidance from congress because dot doesn't seem to be dealing with it very well. >> i was looking more broadly at your chairmanship next congress. can you talk about how -- what will the american people see are the biggest things about how you lead to the panel differently than the retiring chairman? rep. defazio: tni transportation infrastructure is one of the less partisan committees in congress. we had historically worked together.

we will disagree, but we can disagree on tax. it does not have to get ugly. the biggest disagreement i had was advocacy for privatizing the national airspace. it took me three years, but i killed that idea and we work together to get the first long-term federal aviation administration bill since 1983 and we got consumer protection provisions in there and we are moving ahead. we have a tradition on the committee of working together and not being just a partisan divided group like so many other committees in congress. >> do you plan to continue focus on a bill or is there something else you want to bring up?

rep. defazio: it is every two years. we have six year service transportation authorization coming up. we have the bill every two years, we have worked to do with fema, work to do with tsa. there are a lot of things that are on the agenda that's coming up, and i think we have to reauthorize the pipeline safety act. there are a lot of things pending that have to be done and will be done in a bipartisan way. >> you talked a little about self driving cars, but what else is down the road? what innovation, technology do you see that the american people will see your committee working on and you feel the government needs to help in that industry. rep. defazio: first off, the federal government has not been an honest partner with the

states. we have had 26 states, many of them red states raise their gas tax or other user fees to fund infrastructure but infrastructure doesn't stop at the state line. we need an efficient national system. the federal government has not been a good partner. i am determined to make the federal government a better partner. wastewater, i was a county commissioner. when we build our metropolitan wastewater management system. we had a strong federal partner. the federal government has walked away from that. we still send mandates to the states for clean drinking water, -- drinking water, air pollution , but we are not helping them meet those goals and i think we can do a much better job there and there will be a lot of consensus and the american public wants these things. it was one of the three or four things democrats ran on was

rebuilding, restoring america's infrastructure and i supported quite a number of the red to blue candidates and have been meeting with them since they got elected and talking with them. i think my committee is the number one choice for some of this new groups. they realize it is a place where we can get things done and do it in a way that is bipartisan. >> you mentioned one of the major responsibilities of congressional committees is oversight over the executive branch, and i want to ask about your top priorities for oversight as chairman of the transportation committee. rep. defazio: there is a lot of talk about deregulation and getting government out of the way, but somehow dot has constructed an unbelievably and torturous process of authorizing transit projects and they have clogged up the pipeline.

there are rumors that is because of a dispute between schumer and the president because schumer is a big advocate for the gateway project. the president wants his wall and is trying to leverage that. i don't know, but the bottom line is even the republicans are pissed off. they said we appropriated these projects and you are not spending the money. that will be number one on my agenda, to drag some of those people in here and say why did you create this torturous new process that isn't putting the money out that has been appropriated. >> you mentioned gateway. i'm glad you mentioned that project, one of the biggest problems currently with public transit on the east coast. can you tell me, do you think that an infrastructure bill is a

the problems with related to that project or is it something congress will have to revisit with the highway bill, stand-alone legislation. what does congress need to do to help that along? defazio: we have adopted a title in the act, some minor emphasis, not enough funding. funding is at the root of most of these issues. we need to put new emphasis on projects of national and regional significance, gateway is one of those. chicago is one of them. the bridge over the columbia river between oregon and washington is a smaller version of those. we have projects around the country that will choke us if we take them to failure. the rail tunnel under baltimore

that was built during the civil war, we can no longer ignore these problems or we will paralyze the country. bringing back and emphasizing projects of regional and national significance, putting more money into freight mobility, the bottom line is we need more federal funds. >> we have three minutes left. >> i want to ask you about the legacy. he is leaving congress at the end of the year after 16 years in the house. he has been chair of the committee, and i wanted to ask you about the legacy he's leaving? rep. defazio: it is the first time the committee will be schuster-less since i came here. i served with his dad. he was for the time in the

minority then went to the majority. bud and i worked on harbor maintenance. we're still working on that. as i observed earlier, this is the first long-term federal aviation bill since he served on the committee. we have a tremendous legacy with that family. bill and i are good friends. we can disagree on things like privatizing air traffic control, but then go out and work together on things that help move people and freight more efficiently. he has continued a tradition that i aspire to continue on that committee. >> i wanted to ask about drinking water. what do you think the committee's role is in dealing drinking water issues? people think about contamination in flint, as one place where the federal government could have

stepped in and provided the amount of funding that the small jurisdiction could not handle for making massive repairs to a contaminated system. i think about other contamination issues like chemicals. about plastic stuff like that? can you talk about what tni's role is and what oversight you plan to do? rep. defazio: we have jurisdiction over wastewater. the energy and commerce committee has jurisdiction over drinking water. frank and i have been talking about doing a joint bill because you cannot isolate those two things. what goes out in the wastewater is potential contaminants for the drinking water. we are talking about a major initiative that would come from

both committees. we are in the early stages. it is easier for me to point to the funding for harbors or airports or roads, bridges, highways and transit, we have to get creative on funding sources for that. >> obviously there is more to talk to you about and will be doing that when you take over as a transportation infrastructure committee chair. thank you for being with us. rep. defazio: thank you. >> we turn to our to reporters. that he has for this committee. is it doable? >> the transportation committee has shown that it can get a lot done. it is becoming increasingly partisan as revenue has become

more of a problem. teetering onbeen the brink of insolvency for years now. it has been hard to get the political wheel to raise new revenue. that is the biggest sticking point. other than that, transportation infrastructure is one of the places in congress where democrats and republicans worked together. >> it is fascinating to me that the congressman said the a $.25nt would support increase in the gas tax. i would be curious what senate republican reactions were. that he said he was pretty much alone in supporting that among republicans.

it also speaks to the new dynamics that we have and how like ase and senate is three-way negotiation. he knows that filling potholes is not something private industry can make money off of. i'm curious whether a gas tax proposal goes anywhere. some viewers will remember george bush one got in a lot of trouble for raising the gas tax. people say that is part of why he was not reelected. i'm sure republicans will be talking to him about that. that speaks to a source of conflict in the house on the committee. >> it was interesting he said in

the meeting the president said i can sell the gas tax increase. could there be a deal that is cut between democrats and president trump and senate republicans? >> i think president trump thought he could sell an infrastructure package and the republicans disposed of that when it came to the desk. it will remain to be seen in this congress how much sway muchd trump has and how political capital he puts behind any one thing. the focus swings wildly back and forth on a lot of different things. sometimes he might take a position on something but not necessarily spend the time on it and with the votes he needs.

i don't know that i would count on that. and donald trump with his infrastructure package, which was a campaign initiative, a lot of people thought he did not do the work to sell it in congress. >> i think one of the hardest things about that, we do not need a big stimulus package. he said things about infrastructure. that will be a big hurdle to get over. the other thing is the fiscal situation has changed. the deficit is going up, the national debt is going up. more deficit spending will be a really hard sell to a republican senate. on the other hand, what was one of the first things mcconnell mentioned as an area of common ground? infrastructure.

it will be interesting to see, is this the same infrastructure talk that we hear? it is popular to talk about it and there is a running joke that it is always infrastructure week. when push comes to shove, we do not see the legislation go anywhere. -- what are the other proposals on the table to pay for more spending? >> republicans would like to see a charge for example on repealing the tax credit. because electric vehicles -- the gas tax is how we pay for roads, bridges and transit, other vehicles that do not use gasoline are not paying for that. we would like to see them pay into that system. down the road, he mentioned the

miles traveled fee which sam is also a proponent of. most experts think that that is a decade away. a taxd of people paying when they buy gas, they have an automatic odometer reading or gps reading to figure out where people are going, how far they are traveling and charged by the mile. it is complex. a lot of people think that is eventually where we are going but it will take time. >> you also look at the senate where rural representation is higher proportionately. rural senators will say we think of vehicles mile traveled is unfair. our residents have to travel 30, 40 miles to go to the grocery store. why should they be penalized for the fact that the places they need to go are out where is

someone in the city can walk down the street to get what they need. it speaks to how there are these competing interests. when it comes to transportation everyone wants their hands on it but do not want the political blowback that has to do with what is expensive. the national highway system is an expensive asset. the politics of recognizing that, is not something either republicans or democrats care to spend time on or effort on. it does not help them politically. it helps them to take a picture of shoveling dirt, but not increase prices at the pump. when you constituents are trying to make ends meet. >> kelly is the congressional reporter. thank you. >> thank you for having us. c-span, a monday on

look at the peace process between the u.s. and afghanistan and the role of the u.s. military. the discussion is at 11:00 a.m. on c-span. and from georgetown university on monday, also live, a discussion with experts on religious orders and their impact on the 2018 midterm elections. next, remarks by governor john kasich, a potential presidential candidate in 2020. he spoke in manchester, new hampshire. kasich was a congressman for nine