c-span has done. you can learn more about the surveys. go to www.c-span.org/ thepresident. you can purchase the book there. profits go to c-span's nonprofit education foundation. i want to thank professor beasley further the conversation. appreciate it very much. interview withn mandy gunasekara about the energy agenda. she is here to talk about your company and policy of the trump administration. please explain what energy 45 is. guest: it is a nonprofit organization when it comes to energy, environment, and the overall economy. host: what is the good news story? guest: there is a lot.

on energy development, we have drastically expanded energy development in the united states while improving environmental progress. we have, when it comes to clean-air protection, we have reduced criteria pollutants. by 73% reduced those since 1970. we continue to make advancements in the clean water area as well. recently in this administration, we have invested billions of dollars on clean water infrastructure. when it comes to cleaning up lands to make sure we have healthy communities, we have delisted 22 sites when it comes to the national priorities list, the superfund site area. which means we are returning these areas to places where people can come in and live and be healthy and live happy lives. host: why did you leave as former epa deputy assistant to start energy 45?

guest: i think republicans in general, and when it comes to issues on the energy and environment, there is not a good dialogue, a good positive dialogue, about the statistics that are out there, so i left to fill what i would characterize aa a communication void when it comes to having these types of conversations, which i see as a benefit for americans as they go into 2020, but also the benefit of this administration and talking about the actions we have been taking, the good responsible actions we have been taking. host: and naming it after the president, energy 45, the 45th president. who funds the organization? guest: it is funded by people who believe in the mission and which is telling this good news story, and support the president's overarching agenda, which is defined by energy dominance. host: the oil and gas companies? guest: it is a range of constituencies. it is everything from different companies to different entities to individual people who believe in the mission of

energy 45. host: do you put your donors out there publicly? are they on the website? guest: they are not. host: are not? -- why not? guest: there are different ways that you can organize nonprofit organizations. i organized as a c4. some people have a preference for privacy in donation. when it comes to these issues, it is unfortunate that there are some primarily on the left, ngo organizations, that will go after people because they support endeavors like mine. so, people have prioritized privacy to ensure they are not the subject of sometimes needless and sometimes personal and harmful attacks. host: would like you to respond to reverend mitch epcot. he was at an event for the new democrat coalition. here is what he had to say about the trump administration energy policy. >> we have to work to build a national policy, whether we believe in some type of

market-based system. whether -- i mean we can talk , forever about the various proposals. we like market-based systems because we want the market to work. but i think that'll has to be bedo up -- that all has to teed up, and hopefully in 2020 when we will have new leadership that can get something done. even with all of congress, it is not vetoproof. and believe me i do not know if , you can see this from back there, i wear a tie that is a faith time. i am an evangelical christian, but it is not to advertise my faith. it is to remind me when i on capitol hill, of who i am supposed to be representing. i freely admit that this is the worst administration ever for environmental rollback. i am fighting the mercury and air toxicity standards right now. even congress thing they should keep it, you know something funny is going on. host: mandy, your response? guest: i think this administration has been successful in terms of advancing

environmental interests in a very practical way. deregulatory actions, that has certainly been at the forefront of the overarching agenda. it has somewhat of a negative connotation in some instances, but it is actually a very good thing. the important context is, where are we starting? the last administration used epa and the department of energy and the department of the interior as proxies in ways that were unprecedented and was against the parameters, the clear parameters set out by the law and congress. when we came in, we were deregulating. it is important to know that in the context of deregulation, it does not mean we are setting aside the important mission of the epa and the environment, but to do it in a balanced way that is consistent with the law and that does not take away the cost

s and benefits without unduly burdening businesses and consumers with high costs. host: we encourage our viewers join in on this conversation as well. republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8002. independents, 202-748-8002. you are at the epa under the trump administration. tell us why you and others argued about being in this deal. guest: the overarching reason was, it was a bad deal for the united states because it put a lot of the cost responsibilities and regulatory responsibility that was going to have negative impact on energy jobs, on the cost of electricity prices for consumers across the country, and put all the burden on the united states and let most other signatories get a free pass. the focus of that should be on india and china. if you look at what has panned

out today, the united states , from 2005 to 2017, we reduced our in missions by 14% while the -- emissions by 14% while the the world has increased their emissions by 20%. the rest of the world are still signatories to the paris agreement. it just shows you that the paris agreement was a lot of empty rhetoric that frontloaded a lot of the cost on the american people. host: how do you respond to people who say if we are not in it, we cannot influence those countries? guest: i completely disagree. i think the best way we can influence those countries is to continue to develop out the response to doing more with less, making energy use more efficient and safer by developing technologies and exporting those technologies to different countries like china and india. now, going into china, they continue to develop coal plants at a very fast pace, and they do not use basic pollution control equipment. i am not even talking about

greenhouse gases. i am talking about particulate matter and things along those lines. they do not use the kind of technology that our power plants have been using for decades. and so, it is about engaging in ways we can share that type of technology and expertise we have at epa and other agencies, some of our regional and local officials who have the know-how to take the technology, build an effective pollution control program, and ensure that places like india and china enjoy the same environmental benefits we have established here. host: mandy gunasekara is our guest this morning, founder of energy 45. as we said, she worked for the trump administration from 2017 to 2019 in the epa. debbie. up first from flint, michigan, a democrat. hi, debbie. caller: good morning. thank you for being on. i wonder, what are your thoughts about trump releasing all the gas and oil leases onto our public lands? when elizabeth warren did her

town hall the other night she , said that would be the first thing she undoes. for that, she is going to get my vote. because i think i am really offended that he has handed out these leases to his rich gas and oil buddies. that is our land, honey. and if you were as old as i am and have been paying into the federal system as long as we have, i think you would be offended, too. i am not a trump fan, as you probably can tell. and they recently ruled that we people here in flint, michigan, we can sue the epa because of what they did with the water. they knew it was foul and they deferred it. we are going to be suing the federal government for not protecting us. we pay into this. believe me, people in flint, michigan, because for many, many years, no longer, but for many years, we had a big general motors imprint here. we paid in a lot of money into these systems.

so i will go ahead and take my information offline, but i am really offended that he thinks -- i am almost as offended by him doing this to public land as i am to him entertaining the russians in the oval office. as far as i am concerned, bill clinton can do what he did in the oval office every day for the next hundred years. host: i am going to leave it there and have mandy respond. guest: thank you very much for the question and i think you bring up two important points. first come on the leases on federal lands and developing that out it is important to know , first, that that is a very competitive process. competitive government bidding process subject to a range of transparency processes. number two, when development occurs on federal land, it is subject to the strictest clean air, clean water, and overarching permitting requirements that ensure relative protections in each of those categories. so it is done in a very responsible way. the third piece of that when

, energy is developed in the united states, it is done cleaner, more efficient than any other place in the world. and i think the energy is going to be used one way or the other. we need to ensure we use our resources in a practical and responsible way, which sets us up to then export it out to other countries, other countries that have historically been relying on oil from places like iran and russia, where there are a host of problematic issues that develop from them from relying on them for their source of energy. flint,o brought up michigan, on the water quality side, and that was a massive failure of the last administration when he came to -- it came to ensuring and maintaining clean water in all areas, including less populated areas like flint, michigan. one of the things that we have prioritized in this administration is to go back to the core mission of the agency, which is cleaning up the air, cleaning up the water, and

ensuring communities have healthy land to be successful and prosperous. and on the water side, this administration has helped fund over $4 billion worth of water infrastructure redevelopment projects to ensure that places like flint does not occur in places that are similarly situated. host: let's go to rossville, illinois, an independent. caller: thanks for taking my call. i just want to say, regardless of her responses, because you do not get a chance to give feedback. i really disagree with what -- with the way this woman is portraying the trump environmental policies. first of all, when you establish an organization, have transparencies about your funders. i have three points i want to make. this is the first one. funders should be transparent. they have agendas. you know the idea that you are , protecting their privacy is

really ridiculous. have the courage to step up to the plate if you are making a donation to an organization, that you stand behind personally with your name for the policies they represent. secondly, at a local level, we here in illinois are dealing with the outcomes of the coal industry. ash is about to leach into the groundwater. it is in the rivers. the company is just leaving it there. the epa is not doing anything. they want to put band-aid berms on a river that rages during any kind of rain or flooding. the idea that flint was the obama administration is ridiculous. that was the local and state republicans that made very bad decisions. the health department, the governor all those republicans

, that are responsible for the terror caused in flint, michigan. and third, at the national and international level, the stuff you're saying is ridiculous. being oil wells in national parks is not responsible. i do not care how you try to portray it. and at the international level, our environmental policies are considered ridiculous. you know what? we are not creating the kinds of treaties, we are not participating at an international level. and while maybe, thanks to california and the democrats there, we have some decent environmental policies that have developed over decades and decades, trump is trying to completely destroy anything, and particularly his absolute obsession with obama. host: ok. i'm going to leave this. we are going to get in more calls and have mandy respond.

guest: she said three. i got four. so i will go through those pretty quickly. first, on the funding and the relative transparency. look my opinion and approach to , all of these matters has been shaped and informed by my experience in the u.s. house and u.s. senate and working in this administration. my approach to these issues, it has not changed because i have started this organization and organized it in the way i have. on coal ash, i know the epa is paying particular attention to it. this has been a topic of ongoing discussions on capitol hill for a very long time. it is also something that i briefly worked on before we got a larger political team at epa to ensure that the companies out there are complying with the gold standard of environmental requirements when you are talking about coal ash or you are talking about other industrial operations. and in illinois, this is our

region five office. they have a robust oversight and enforcement program, so i know they are out there on the ground, ensuring that operations are being done consistent with the requirements and expectations of those federal laws and the illinois state law requirements. on flint, i think that if you go back and look at some of the reports that have been done, it was a failure of the last administration. and the reason the previous caller brought up that it was decided by the courts the other day that the citizens consume -- can sue epa, that speaks to the veracity of some measure of responsibility. that occurred at the u.s. epa and this was under the last administration. and finally on international , participation, we are still very much involved in international discussions. i myself went to the g7, they have an environmental ministerials, they do breakout

sessions, some focused on energy, environment, and other relative areas. but we continue to participate and to have very robust, meaningful conversations with our international counterparts. i would say that in those conversations, when we are talking about clean air and clean water and the relationship of the federal government to state entities, every one of the ministers from other countries are looking to us because we not only have a clear measure of organized leadership on all of these we have clear actions that , produce positive results. and this comes in terms of what i started out with. we have reduced air emissions by 70%. we are cleaning up water, we are building out infrastructure, and we are trying to share that information with our international counterparts, and continue to engage in meaningful ways. host: next, tulsa, oklahoma. kidd, on the republican line.

good morning. caller: good morning. mandy, you are a breath of fresh air. you are intelligent and you are presenting logic. yet that drives the democrats crazy. and the thing that i think the public misses on the huge benefit of trump's decision, to get out of the paris accord, was this was a transfer of wealth from the people of the united states to the u.n. for them to distribute. that was all -- that was a big scam. and the idea that now, through the deregulation, we have energy independence, truly and actually are exporting. we are the main exporter of oil, so we are not dependent on the mideast. so i really appreciate what you

are saying and what you have done for the country. host: you were shaking your head while he was talking about distribution of wealth. why? guest: absolutely, so a big part of the paris climate accord was financial commitments from the developed world that was going to be distributed to the developing world. and a lot of this was the green climate fund. and you know we had major , problems when i was working at the u.s. senate with the setup of it. we characterized it as a u.n. slush fund. it was billions of the dollars. administration committed $3 billion from the united states while converting the appropriations process. that is a story that a lot of people do not focus on, that the first installment was $500 million. in the appropriations budget, that has been zeroed out. nonetheless, president obama redirected funds from state department funds that were set

aside to combat terrorism. he redirected those funds to go to the united nations green climate fund against the will of congress and against explicit laid out instructions in appropriations bill. that did not get a lot of attention then and it has not gotten a lot now, trying to assign some measure of similar discussions with president trump's actions in other areas. so again it was a massive theansfer of wealth from developed world to the developing world, and giving the money is not what they need. the best thing we can do as a country is, we already have technologies they don't even use that we have been using it for decades. let's start with employing and integrating these technologies into their existing infrastructure, and continuing that dialogue and those relationships. as technology evolves on our end we can deploy it elsewhere. , host: are you talking about renewable energy technologies? guest: i am talking about all

sorts of advanced energy technologies. so a lot of places have coal reserves, natural gas reserves. they are well situated for building out advanced nuclear technologies and renewables. so it is really all of the above, but just making sure that the technologies they are employing and we are helping them with our consistent with the resources that they have available and the amount of money they can invest in building these out. host: all right. we go to fred. cherry hill, new jersey, on our line for democrats. caller: i just want to say that i agree with the minister we heard from earlier. there are so many examples of why mr. trump's energy policy is the worst ever. i just have i want to mention three briefly three. he is trying to bring back coal, which is the energy source of the 19th century, not even the 20th century but the 19th century. and we should keep coal in the

ground. he wants to allow drilling in the habitat of the sage grouse, and that could drive that species extinct. thirdly, he wants offshore drilling in the atlantic ocean. and here in new jersey, we love our jersey shore, we love our beaches, and even chris christie is against offshore drilling in the atlantic. here in new jersey, we will fight him on offshore drilling to the bitter end because we do not want our beaches to become like the beaches in the gulf of mexico a few years ago. host: ok, fred. mandy, go ahead. guest: absolutely. coal is going to continue to be used. what we have done in this administration is something the last administration failed to do, which is that the first ever greenhouse gas standards for existing sources. i am referring to the clean power plan, which was the centerpiece climate action of the last administration, that failed miserably because it was

patently illegal, and the supreme court stopped it in its tracks early on. so what we have done in this administration, again because we are taking the approach of acting within the confines of the law, and respective of that, we have proposed -- and it will soon come out as the final version -- the affordable clean energy rule, which stops -- sets greenhouse gas standards for existing coal-fired power plants. this goes to show we can continue to use the resources this country has been blessed with but in an environmentally -friendly way, and this will ensure that we have the energy we need to support the growing and robust economy that we have experienced under president trump's economic agenda. on the second piece, i essentially wrote it down as the endangered species act issue of the sage grouse. there are significant requirements to review any potential projects that could have implications for any species listed on the endangered species act. now the problem is that it has been used to stop some projects

in their tracks because there is an imbalance between figuring out how to protect livable -- critical habitats but ensure that projects that go forward that have minimal impact can in fact go forward. and there is ongoing discussion about how best to do that and that it's very much at the forefront of conversations across a number of agencies in this administration. but it is somewhat of a false dichotomy to say that you can either have this project or you are going to have negative impact on this species. there is a path forward where you can continue to protect species and you can develop out clean, efficient infrastructure projects that are needed to build the economy in an environmentally-friendly way. the piece on offshore development, again, offshore development is subject to the department of interior's offshore agencies, and they have undergone significant review and rightsizing in terms of ensuring

that offshore development is done without having any negative implications for the offshore ecosystem. and so, there is this path forward where we can all have a little bit of what we want, which is a safe environment and robust energy development that will need to continue to move the united states forward as an economic powerhouse. host: jerome, anderson california, on our line for , independent callers, you are next. caller: good morning, greta. how are you doing today? host: morning. doing fine. guest: my statement is that -- caller: my statement is that i have yet to see a responsible drilling project in the united states of america, no matter what kind of regulations or stipulations you put on it. we can go down the line of how many of those we have had. and it is also -- what else i wanted to say was, i am getting sick and tired of this administration -- of all administrations -- saying they

did this or they did that, and we are ahead of these guys. and we are ahead of these guys. i don't care. it is like the old mother said. if your friend jumped off a cliff, would you jump, too? no. it does not matter what way did. it matters to me what we do. host: ok, jerome. guest: he makes a very good point. it is all about what actions are we taking? and this administration has taken extensive action to ensure that the energy development in this country continues to comport with the gold standard of environmental protection. and on the drilling sites, i have been out to a number of drilling sites across the country -- in ohio, oklahoma, texas, even my home state of mississippi -- and these are done -- i would urge him and others who are interested to go out and take a look. these are efficient, clean processes that have to comport with an extensive amount of very complex regulations put in place by a team of engineers to ensure that people do not mess

up or slip up and then caused some undue harm. when it comes to oil and gas development, this 1990 oil and gas development has more than doubled while methane emissions associated with that have gone down by 16%. so it just goes to show that this is not just talk. this is serious, thoughtful engineering practices that are producing real, tangible results that matter when you're looking at an environmental impacts. and then, you know, you bring up the point of spills. it is true. accidents do happen. i am not here to defend those accidents and to say that is something we should look past. again, when those sorts of things do happen, they are tragedies when they occur. that is a lessons-learned process for everyone involved, but what the administrator and -- has done in the -- what the

administration has done in the past and even today, when things happen, you take a look at what are the problems and you ensure you have protections in place so you do not get yourself in that situation again. host: let's end with a lighter moment, or at least talking about what happened on the floor of the senate in 2015. you worked with senator inhofe, and this is a memorable moment for many c-span watchers. when the senator comes on the floor and talking about the , issues of climate and global warming. he tosses a snowball. what led up to this moment? what was behind it? guest: so we -- the speech he was doing was doing was expressing frustration to the administration, the previous administration, that base had said -- that they had said that climate change was a greater threat than terrorism. so we had the whole speech talking about that. that morning, it had snowed and he wanted to take a snowball. part of it was that it was an interesting moment. but part of it is, it is a commentary on the media. and no offense meant here, but

in general, the media has been somewhat dishonest when talking about and covering issues like climate change. and so, he took the snowball to poke a little fun and make light jacob it was february and snowing. there have been other weather-related events that occur and media takes it and runs with it as a justification the climate change is an existential threat. it was a little bit of fun commentary pointing out some of disingenuous coverage by the speech itself was pointing out a very serious issue in terms of terrorism is actually a more existential threat than climate change and he is that in context. >> founder and president of energy 45, thank you for the presentation that conversation. >> c-span's "washington journal," live with news and policy issues that impact you.

coming up thursday morning, the center for climate and security director john conga discusses the national security risks of climate change. former energy secretary talks about the future of energy policy, and former trump campaign manager transition official jason miller on campaign 2020 president trump's regime election strategy. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal," live thursday morning. >> attorney general william barr heads to capitol hill twice next week to testify on the mueller report. his first appearance is wednesday before this and it -- senate judiciary committee at 10:00. he speaks to the house judiciary committee at a time to be determined. we will have live coverage of both hearings on c-span3. you can also watch online at c-span.org or listen on the

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