we have groups on the ground in georgia, like the new georgia project or fair fight led by stacey abrams and others who are working to fight the laws. and we are working to fight the for the people act and the john lewis voting rights advancement act, which would restore the strength of the voting rights act. again, the answer in the end is to make sure that we have one national standard so that it doesn't matter who you are, black or white or latino or anything else, if you are eligible you have the right to vote. we will make it as easy as possible for people to vote so we all have our voice in this democracy. host: thanks a lot for your time this morning. we take you over to the house [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] >> we are live at emory

university in atlanta, georgia. president biden and vice president kamala harris came to atlanta today for a number of reasons, to meet with georgia asian american leaders in the aftermath of the shootings in the atlanta area. particularly of the asian women in that area. the president and vice president also toured the c.d.c. and got an update on the fight against covid-19 and here we'll hear from the president at emory university in atlanta, was set to get under way about 20 minutes ago. we'll have it live for you when it starts here on c-span. while we wait for that, we'll show you some more from "washington journal," a conversation on the biden administration energy policies. >> one of the headlines yesterday, challenges galore

await deb haaland. explain what some of those challenges are. guest: deb haaland comes into department of interior with very much different agenda from the trump administration. she's going to be looking at restoring national monuments, how far does the biden administration go on this pause

>> you have stated that you oppose all fossil fuel infrastructure. if confirmed, president biden is likely to ask you specifically whether he should extend the ban on oil, coal ol cold waters. you said president biden's agenda is your agenda.

how will you advise him? how will you act, because you are the principal role as secretary of interior. how will you advise him and will you encourage the president to extend the 60-day ban on leasing or not? thank you, ranking member. i appreciate the question. yes, i will reiterate again president biden's agenda would be my agenda and the roles are different. the role of a congresswoman in one district in the country is much different as the role of a secretary who is fighting and working for every single american in all of our public lands across the country. those are two different things. i recognize that. i want to make sure that if i'm confirmed that we are looking at things and working to strike the right balance. we need to care as much about

the environment as we do about the fossil fuel infrastructure in your state and other states. we need to balance those priorities. and i feel that yes, sometimes it might seem like a tricky sort of balancing act, but i feel very strongly if we have a mind to protect our public lands for future generations, we will be able to protect jobs for future generations as well.

>> president biden and candidate biden olsh also would would say i'm not the green new deal. i have my own deal. this is my plan but progressive allies of president biden is how he influenced his agenda on climate change on the environment and energy and various aspects. it will be interesting to see how this moves forward. it is fair to say

host: if you want to talk about the biden energy environmental agenda and have questions on it, call in to phone lines. guest: he was confirmed 66-34 vote.

had 16 republicans support him. and more bipartisan support for him. he is coming from the north carolina department of environmental quality where he was secretary. and served there for four years. he has come in as someone who could rerestore staff around and similar job he did at the department of environmental quality down in north carolina. he has been telling staff and had his own meeting later today, i should say, i hear your voices matter and listen to you and restore science. eep during the trump administration was with proposed budget cuts and didn't come to pass that they wanted to downsize the agency.

>> and saying we value you. please stick around. let's move forward and get back to the job of eep which is protecting human health and the environment. host: we have a national climate adviser in former eep adviser mccarthy and special envoy for climate and former senator john kerry, how are they going to work together in the same space. >> i think that regan will his m.o. will be eep and will have

on climate. and will have a huge role to play on water, on chemicals, on toxic waste sites. there is a lot for eep to do that he will be at the front. of course e.p.a. is going to be drafting and working on new climate change regulations but essentially i think how these people are going to work together, to get back to your question, reagan will have eep and mccarthy will have the domestic slice and will be responsible for the whole of government approach and it's not the lone agency in climate. there are plenty of agencies and with john kerry, basically i wouldn't call him the second

secretary of state but he served as secretary of state under president obama. he is in europe this past week meeting with dig any takers and trying to up their goals and reducing carbon emissions. senator mccarthy is making sure we can meet these goals that kerry is promising in meetings with foreign diplomats and get the momentum again on cutting down on carbon emissions. host: michael regan his confirmation supported by the two republican senators in north carolina, what does that say about his ability to build consensus? guest: that's a good question. getting back to regan, he was known -- he came in in a

difficult time in north carolina after a contentious election. governor cooper won the close election but the state legislators controlled by republicans. so essentially regan had to deal with republican lawmakers all the time for his budget and for any action.

>> and her nation.

and she lives in an area that has been hit hard by not taking account of the climate change. and she can now work making possibly a way in which we can work with climate change across nations. there is an artificial alignment within her nation that separates the nation in half. now we can have cooperation working with new mexico and establishing solar and possibly

>> and interior has a huge role to play in climate change, studying and researching the issue and the big thing is going to be this drilling on public lands. does this new leasing of oil and gas drilling on public lands be clear and does that pause become a permanent ban and i think that is something that is going to be

a lot of africa shon of what we are seeing from her as a lawmaker than interior secretary haaland. she had to make a lot of promises and commitments to help win some votes but see how far this policy becomes a permanent ban and will become a huge issue and will be a big part of what department of interior does on climate. host: about the size of the land that interior is responsible for, some 500 million acres of surface land and resources that lie beneath the surface and 50 million acres of native american lands held in trust and 400 national parks and water supply for some 31 million people.

taking your questions about the biden agenda this is steve out of illinois, an independent. good morning.

>> and do we raise the higher gas tax. i think there is a debate of a mileage tax, which is how often does your vehicle -- how often -- how many miles your vehicle travels impacts by that. i think there are some people nervous about raising the gas tax. s >> democrats are trying to get republican votes on this one and no republican votes for covid-19 recovery bill, but there has been hope that they will be able to get we'll have to see what

happens. but basically, that is going to be the stickiest issue on infrastructure is how do we pay for it and if we do pay for it. >> if they can't get any support from republicans on an infrastructure bill which has been a bipartisan issue, what does that say about the ability to get votes on a major climate bill that joe biden is promising? guest: if the infrastructure may be the only train out of the station where they can get republican votes on the biden agenda and if they don't succeed on that, i think climate is -- major climate legislation, it is

always looking very tough even after the special elections in georgia and you need 60 votes to overcome the filibuster. and it's not clear they have all democrats on major climate legislation. i'm thinking of senator mampin, who comes from west virginia, a coal-producing state and big opponent of climate legislation. if you can't get climate legislation, what do you do? you have to turn to the eep and have them develop climate change regulations which basically the eep and regan under the biden administration is much likely to

do and working on such rules looking even further down the road, i are going to run into litigation and it will be interesting how those rules survive in court especially with the supreme court that is skeve leaning. climate change getting all the snow and ice and so forth. as the solution to global

warming. how come we moved away from global warming because that could be measured where climate change really is more of a difficult thing since the climate has always changed. guest: climate change and the politics of it on capitol hill today.

. senator romney talked about a carbon tax. and he also has seen senators like senator mur could you ki how it is affecting her state of alaska and seeing villages and towns starting to lose land and coastlines change very gradly but it is happening across the country. one thing if you look at the supporters of aggressive action on climate change, they told me and say look at the coastal republicans and infrastructure, you mentioned earlier climate legislation might not be climate legislation per se but might be showing up in an infrastructure bill and a lot of measures and so forth, to combat climate change.

and clean energy, electric vehicles and things like that. the infrastructure bill might end up being the climate change bill. >> we have two minutes left. the web site, die an, thanks for waiting. make it quick. >> i would like to know if somebody could address when they were testing the nuclear bomb when the bomb was tested on the decommissioned war ship and after a period of time they did not come down to the government [indiscernible]