two communities with more parity and fairness, that would be the right way forward. p.m. johnson: completely right. it cap -- it cannot be -- as others have been saying ♪ >> c-span's washington journal -- every day we take your calls live on the air on the news of the day and discussed policy issues that impact you. coming up sunday morning, a cybersecurity expert from the r street institute discusses ransomware attack sent out the u.s. should respond. and the pew research center talks about a recent analysis about the 2020 presidential electorate. watch c-span's washington journal live at 7:00 eastern sunday morning and be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments,

texts, and. jesse: we are back with "the new republic's" kate aronoff to discuss a new bill that she says is detrimental. the bipartisan infrastructure bill supported by the white house, we expected to be pushed through the senate later this month. but the version they are working on cut out some of the president 's key climate initiatives including carbon free electricity and clean energy tax incentives. why were those pieces left out and what effect will that have on the bill? kate: to give context, when we talk about things cut out, the american jobs plan, the american -- the administration put out months ago and it is already for climate activists and people paying attention to the atmosphere, it is already a compromise.

the american jobs plan was about $1 trillion in climate spending to be spent over eight years, which compared to the scale of the crisis is about 1% of gdp, not on par with an existential crisis or what economists say is necessary to deal with the crisis. so the bill was already small and what we are getting in the bipartisan infrastructure package, the virtue of being in negotiation between republicans and democrats, is much smaller. the spending on climate is quite small, just a few billion dollars each for things like grid investment for electric vehicles, much smaller than what the biden administration pledged coming into office, and in the american jobs plan.

and it includes pay for mechanisms that myself and other folks looking at the rush toward privatization have raised concerns about. this program ball load -- borrowed from australia in exchange for quick cash to build more public assets and infrastructure. and this is a way to put public good, things like water pipes, water systems, electricity grids, all these things which are critical to living life in the united states, sold those off to private actors who want to extract user fees from them for cash which may or may not be enough to fund the infrastructure. public-private partnership are part of how the biden administration plans to pay for

this, which many people argue the bipartisan process was a waste of time because republicans are not interested in giving the president something he can run on in 2024 and giving house democrats, senators, something they can run on for reelection. republicans have never been interested in tapping something -- tackling something the scale of the climate crisis, but even something that is popular that could help democrats with reelection. so the pay fors in this plan are [indiscernible] and some of the critical infrastructure we need to deal the climate crisis, people have been told that is not the goal, the goal is to extract profits which again, nobody should be extracting profits from it.

that is why i argue in this article and others in the advocate space has argued that there could be a bipartisan infrastructure plan that works for the climate overall. because we know traditional infrastructure packages which include concrete and big investments need to be balanced out by things that take carbon away from the projections we have for the next 20 years, and the spending included in this bill is on climate priorities but probably would not balance that out. i have not gone through the accounting to say for sure the carbon intensity of the bipartisan infrastructure plan, in part because we have so few details. but it is very worrying that even compromise legislation, the compromise plan the biden

administration put out, has been winnowed down so much. we have to see what will pass in reconciliation, which we don't have great signals on so far, but many people are hopeful about it. jesse: kate, you addressed this in your statement but i want to ask directly -- there has been a lot of talk of the definition of infrastructure during this debate. that brings up the question, are climate concerns, is this the place to have that discussion, the middle of an infrastructure bill? infrastructure isn't about climate, is it? kate: great question. i would say infrastructure is all about climate. look at the last couple weeks. in the pacific northwest, there were transit lines whose wires were melting in the heat. the building that collapsed in miami, the ground below it, it should not have been built.

there are critical infrastructure weaknesses in this country. our infrastructure is not set up to deal what is coming and what is already here. look at hurricanes, heat waves, i leaving new york city -- i live in new york city and about -- after about an hour of rain the other day, you saw people wading through our subway system, looking like "titanic" the movie, kate winslet and leonardo dicaprio trying to get to the upper deck. but that is what subway officials and many people face just to get to work or school or home. we have an infrastructure which is not equipped to deal with the climate crisis. you hear this line often from republicans, but all theses extraneous to a debate about roads -- that all this is extraneous to abate about roads and bridges. nothing could be further from the truth.

we have to deal with the climate crisis and ideally, an infrastructure package could be a way to deal with a lot of it, to lower emissions instead of contribute into them. and that has not been where republicans want the conversation to go. one thing i will mention since you brought it up, there was a call the journalistic arm of greenpeace, last week they released transcripts of calls and undercover journalist had with someone who said honestly through the call, was very transparent, they wanted washington lawmakers out of these discussion, to refocus the base of our infrastructure from climate to just roads and bridges and traditional things we have come to understand as

infrastructure. it is not hard to parse out why republicans might be saying that, especially those that take a lot of money and have regular meetings with exxon mobil. jesse: viewers can take part in the conversation. we are going to open regular lines. democrats, you are at [indiscernible] , -- you are at (202) 748-8000, republicans, (202) 748-8001, independent voters, (202) 748-8002, we are on twitter and you can follow us on instagram at cspanwj. the infrastructure package in front of congress right now has money to build a national network of electric nickel charging stations. k of electric vehicle charging stations. they are going to purchase thousands of electric buses and

upgrade the grid. is that good enough? -- electric vehicle charging stations. is that good enough? are positive. we live in a country where a lot of people drive and people should have cleaner transportation options to get to work. but the american jobs plan mentioned that it would fund 500,000 electric vehicle charging station. that requires tens of billions of dollars. what we are getting in the most recent proposal was $7.5 billion in grants to build electric charging stations which could produce maybe a couple thousand. definitely not 500,000. and another tax credit to maybe incentivize some corporation somewhere down the line to build these things.

if we are investing in the climate crisis as a thing that's worth spending public money on and worth protecting the united states from this really dire challenge, we could spend that money directly. there is no shortage of cash to go around in the u.s. government. there's no reason we cannot spend the money directly instead of using this tried-and-true method of coaxing private capital along. there are strings attached. so even by the administration's own terms, they are not going to get to the 500,000 charging stations. that should be worrying. this is a small part of what we should be getting. we need electric transit, we need funding for trains buses, high-speed rail. all these things requires many millions of dollars.

it's not controversial logic about deficit spending. if you put it towards investments you get the money back. there is no need to be beholden to those who put public assets into the hands of private capital. you don't -- you can make those investments directly through the federal government instead of helping that private companies will come along and make good investments and make them work. we have too many examples of private companies building public infrastructure which falls short. they don't have the expertise. that should be in the federal government host: i think you just touched

on this a bit. but explained us how this would benefit wall street. guest: sure, one thing -- i did not have details as of yet, but i laid out a couple of these reasons in the article. there are all of these documents in major banks that we are really excited. to put these things on their balance sheets. have the government the risk and what that means is essentially that the government will come in and shoulder all of the project. they will come in and say, if you lose money on this, if you are going to take a cut, we will absorb that cost. that is the role the government traditionally played and that has allowed wall street to come in, take no risk, just make profits off of critical climate infrastructure through assigning

user fees which has been the case for highways. to set up climate infrastructure like the highways. it makes it expensive to beyond, -- be on. that becomes a steady asset class for whether or not blackrock or goldman sachs or any of these companies who very much like to have something steady and robust, but those goals, the go street -- the goals of wall street investors are not the same. -- the same as climate change solving. to make our basic binational -- foundational infrastructure, the things we need to get through our lives, to get to school, to

get to work, to get home, to make that contingent on private companies making a profit is irresponsible. that is why myself and others argue that this could be dangerous, actively harmful beyond spending on climate change being lower than it needs to be. host: that some -- let's let some of our viewers take part. let's start with pamela from new york on the democratic line. pamela, good morning. caller: good morning, i have not heard from the beginning what kate had to say because i just tuned in. but i have some things to say about both of these topics. i am a senior citizen and from 2001 -- between 2001 and 2009, i drove the country from new york to california six times. back and forth. i was completely appalled at the infrastructure problems we have

in america. i did not even know the extent to what it was until i drove these highways. and i have done the northern route and i had down the southern route and i can tell you if the american people who want to go on vacation just take a drive, across the country, they will see that the infrastructure is crumbling. -- crumbling in america. it is horrific. i do not even know a whole lot about that, what it takes, but i note that is the price of a two by four would make your hair stand on end. the fact is, we need the money to do this and it is going to be next to impossible to get this through congress. that is one thing. i have a question about that in a minute. the other thing about climate is, i just came back from oregon in june. i lived out there for a year and a half trying to be closer to my son. between the covid -- it was

enough when it shut. i got there in the fall of 2019. when covid struck, that was bad enough. what got me back to my home state in new york was the firestorms. in oregon, washington, northern california. i really thought that was going to be the end of me, i am 73 years of age and i could not to another firestorm in that state. i am telling you now, if you do not believe it, climate has something to do with it. my son is 46 years old, he was born in portland, oregon, and it used terrain 282 days on the average -- to rain 282 days on average and now they are in a drought. if you do not think that is just enough proof, i do not know what to tell you. but the question i have about this is, you touched on it a bit saying, what is the deal with the finances of doing this? what is the real bottom line that congress does not pass this?

is it just about money with the corporations? can they really ignore this knowing that their own grandchildren and great-grandchildren are going to be affected sunday? -- someday? guest: thank you so much. i would just really emphasized the first two parts of your question. infrastructure is really crumbling around the country and the american jobs plan, which is much more ambitious, was doing the ordinary functions of what government should do, invest in it. in roads and bridges and in many things that are essential to deal with climate crisis, i would thank you for that and i would emphasize that and i am glad to hear your son is all right. that is the situation so many people are facing. the places where they grew up are no longer behaving the way they expected them to.

this is something that should be obvious to people who are living through this, the people who have worked outside or in warehouses that get up to 120 degrees in portland, oregon. that is not normal, right? that is not something that anyone should have to deal with and something that would not be possible as recent scientists have found were not for the climate crisis. the heatwave would not happen happened -- would not have happened if it were not for rising temperatures. there is a willful ignorance among republican lawmakers in particular about this crisis and there is no shortage -- in periods of crisis, it is a fraction of what we are dealing with now. we will reshape the country within. if we spend no money, that will be further work. if we spend the money, this country will be reshaped, our

environment will be reshaped and that will lead people out of their homes or lead people to running to different parts of the country. it will make parts of this country uninhabitable if we do not invest in our infrastructure. and republicans, you know, know that. that is the lie that we have been good at testing, they do not believe in these things, the republicans did nothing climate change is happening. i think that gives us too much credit and we know again and again, seeing people saying this frankly, whether at conferences or i read a book that touched on this, they know the climate crisis is happening, they know how bad it is, they have constituents who are dealing with the stuff day in and day out in places like california. you know, minority mccarthy, his constituents are dealing with

climate change. they also know how big the scale of the crisis is and what the sort of sweeping policy changes would be needed. they note that that represents -- they know that represents a threat to business as usual and that has been dangerous to their donors and in many cases -- study after study has shown us that continuing to dig up fossil fuels is not going to get us where we need to be and that model of these companies is on a collision path. taking on this crisis, even passing and for structure, which can help, which will not get rid of the climate crisis, we have about 1.1 degrees celsius -- what we are seeing now will get more intense in the coming decades what we can do now is head off the worst of that and keep ourselves from getting to two degrees celsius and make the

full court press to do that. and build and infrastructure that is equipped to adapt to the changes we know are coming. the escalation of the types of heat waves plus hurricanes that we have seen over the last weeks. i know that the republicans know this full well. host: this seems to be a good point to define a couple of key terms from your story. first, tell us what critical climate infrastructure is and second, talk to us about what esg assets are because these are important when we talk about the businesses and infrastructure. guest: sure, yeah. first one, critical climate infrastructure is not a practical term. i use it in a broadway to refer to and for structure. as we discussed -- it will be

essential to dealing with the climate crisis and this is basically everything. there was no infrastructure which will not have to deal with the climate crisis. when you look at the roads, the highways that are going to be hit by harder weather, that in some cases are ill-equipped to deal with extreme heat in some parts of the country. those will need to be proofed again cap fires, floods, all of these effects coming our way. bridges, they are the things that can break down if -- and take a lot of stress under extreme weather. we know they will need it more likely. even the bread and butter traditional infrastructure things, where republicans and exxon mobil and these traditional infrastructure investments, where fossil fuels

-- those are climate infrastructure, critical climate infrastructure because there is no piece of infrastructure that is not affected by the climate crisis. there is no part of the country that cannot be affected by the climate crisis. this is the terrain on which all politics is happening and we cannot ignore it. that is the reality we are living in. these are the things we had seen getting much worse in every part of the environment. esg is a technical term, environmental social and governance factors that his -- has evolved a bit in the last several years. that term traditionally referred to a investment where investors in companies like blackrock or vanguard, these big institutional investors, or people who are putting their money there to say, i want to make -- these funds that screen

for these factors. with that transformed into with the rise of green vines, green bonds, a fleet of things not well defined, that transformed into a suite of asset classes which there is not a great definition of, the conversation is a bit more advanced. -- more advanced in the eu then here. -- than here. that can be anything, including something which arguably are not sort of needed to deal with the climate crisis. anything that sounds a bit green can fall into that category. and, you know, that does not go to discussion of what esg means.

it is primarily a way for wall street investment banks and companies to make themselves look green by offering green funds and esg funds and building that culture as a revenue stream. there is not a great definition for what that actually means as of now because we are still evolving. host: we will try to get some of our callers in here, let's start with david, calling from massachusetts. david, good morning. caller: good morning, sir. thank you for having me on. it is north acton, massachusetts. i did not hear -- staff writer there. are you with me? host: keep going, david. caller: i do not know if she has a degree as an economist, as a

finance major, as an engineer, or science, i do not know what. she is all over the waterfront. let me go from -- to a larger example. in this time, we have woke select persons who want to have electric charging stations in the town. many people did not want to do, but it happened. they told us at the same time that they would not use any of our tax dollars to buy an electric car for any of the town's departments. within a year, they bought an electric car for the fire department when quality was readily available for the same purpose. that is in a microcosm. we go to the much larger thing, that they want to essentially take that same example and have

it all across the u.s. at a great expense to taxpayers and never mentioned the level of pollution that the chinese -- that china puts today or india puts out. we never talk about that. it is not in the discussion at all. yet they are polluting far beyond what we have a clue. now, people have talked about the infrastructure in this country. i have driven on these roads. i am approaching 70 years of age. in my working history, it has brought me back and forth across the country. we have been doing nothing but building new roads and bridges as long as i can remember. almost everywhere you go in this country, they either have recently completed new bridges and roads, are in the process of building new bridges and roads, so for some to say that it is all crumbling, i am sure that there is some stuff that still needs work, but a heck of a lot

of work has been going on for the past 30 plus years. host: go ahead and respond, kate. guest: sure. there's a lot to respond to. i would say that we have different readings of what is happening and that is ok. i am sorry that your town of massachusetts bought an electric charging station without consulting you, is maybe what it sounds like. i would say that federal infrastructure investments in any climate smart infrastructure -- i am not hearing the downsides of that. is it bad? are your town bought it -- or your town bought it. i know that the climate crisis is happening, people are dealing

with it in the here and now and we have an interceptor that's it up to deal with it. -- ann infrastructure not set up to deal with that. host: does bite and have an overall policy on how to fight climate change? there are two types of climate infrastructure, does that help mitigate climate change and those that fortify structures against it. which does this infrastructure bill spend the most money on? guest: i would say the latter, and that is a good question. i would say this is more -- in the bipartisan package, it is geared toward sort of making our existing infrastructure more resilient. what we have not seen and maybe what the commenter was getting not -- getting at was a broader use of power, around what can happen through executive action, other arms of the u.s. government, that does not an

easy set for the interceptor package -- for the infrastructure package. that can do a lot, we can get something to electricity standards, not in the bipartisan infrastructure package, but in a reconciliation bill where more is possible. with a partyline vote. it is hard to do under the government's purview, like regulate in carbon dioxide, which during the obama administration came under a lot of pressure, was held in a lot of lawsuits, but there is a broad goal that the administration can use in raising capital requirements are for wall street banks to invest in fossil fuels so that they have -- it raises the cost in

investing in fossil fuels. what we are seeing in the infrastructure proposal is a small fraction of what is needed to deal with this crisis. and even that is much smaller than what we would hope for that segment of it to be. host: let's talk to randy calling from alabama on the democratic line. randy, good morning. caller: hi, how are y'all doing this morning? host: go ahead. caller: she reminds me a lot -- the world will come to a end in 10 months, 10 years, and we listen to that forever. thank you. host: do you consider that a compliment or not, k? guest: when i was younger, -- that is hard to hear. the climate crisis has gotten

worse. i do not think you need to look at anything beyond the last couple of weeks. that we really are facing an existential crisis in this country and around the world. it empirical reality would show for that fact. host: let's talk to louis from marlborough, massachusetts on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. hi to your guest too. i am fifty-year it -- i'm a 58-year-old man. i have seen democrats and republicans fighting it out over votes. when it comes down to it, each party wants to get the other party out of office. the green new deal is a great deal, i care about the planet as well. it is not really one of our

talking points because we really want to move ahead with and. we do. i understand kate's point where it does affect bridges and i get it. you have to have something to deal with the environment. i get that part. great talking point on her part too. but the bottom line is, what are we going to do? it is a serious question. electric, does not run by coal? if we have all electric cars, i get it, what will happen? we will still pollute the atmosphere with coal. how many -- not wind mills. how many turbine plants do we need? how many solar paulos doing it. -- solar panels do we need? where will we put this? won't that affect the environment too? beside looking for votes, talk to me and the people so we can all pitch in. republicans and democrats. i will leave it at that. guest: that is a great question.

i would agree with most of that than i disagree. i think electric vehicles are a really -- i am confused because exactly as your guest said, if we have electric vehicle charging stations run out of coal, that can be worse for the planet. then if we had standard internal combustion engine cars running around. i do not agree with any of that. i am not looking for any votes to subscribe to the new republic. it underlines for me what the scale of this transformation entails. we know that this has to be a transformation to invest in the grid, to bring things on to the electric grid. a small amount of activity happens on that grid. it is coming from sources that are not coal, oil, and natural gas and methane gas essentially

in the long run. this is a massive problem. i am frustrated that from a different end of the political spectrum -- these little things around the edges are going to get us where we need to be. i think people should have a say in deciding where solar panels go because some covered companies should not come in and build those in your backyard without a say on how those spaces are used. these sorts of investments, which are on the table in the american jobs plan, could really do a lot for folks who had a hard couple of years around this country. i do not think having that over to private companies to get us -- is going to get us to where we need to be and it could feel

some backlash because of people -- they see a wind developer coming in, making a huge profit off of something that they were not informed about, maybe they are not seeing dollars returned to them in a real way, seeing jobs go to their neighbors or the people around them. why would they support that? that speaks to the needs of structure and infrastructure package that shares those benefits widely. that will get people essay -- a say. over where the job go for these projects. host: let's go to york, pennsylvania on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to say thank you for having this platform. i just drove from the houston, texas area to pennsylvania.

about two weeks ago. our infrastructure needs help and credibly and i fear almost that unless there is incredible loss of life like a bridge collapses, that our politicians will take heat -- he dealt these important counties. you will see a difference from the west of one state to another. it is nationally detrimental to the everyday man -- we get this done as soon as possible, not down the road, not in five years, but right now. this is very much needed and i do not think a lot of the people making the decisions with the votes have traveled these roads. thank you. guest: yeah, i do not have much

to add onto that. what i will say is, what your infrastructure looks like is incredibly lovely. i always think about the county where i grew up, you drive from one county to the other, the roads will get bumpier in the county i lived in and will be less maintained. that is the reality for a lot of people. places like new york city where i live now, wealthier zip codes, will be able to deal with the climate crisis and have higher tax rates in many cases and they will cover a lot of the investments needed to make our infrastructure resilient, to make the roads resilient against the climate crisis, but that will not be everyone. that is the important thing, to level the playing field and make sure everyone has infrastructure that can withstand what is coming in the next couple of decades. host: let's see if we can get

omar from san diego, california. can you get a quick question in for us? caller: yes. i definitely agree with the infrastructure as far as roads, especially in california. but then there are those subject to plate tectonics. please get off the kick of climate change, so the up -- study up -- unfortunately, your generation is pretty much lost on that subject as far as climate change in the previous caller regarding india and china. it is always america first on this. if other countries are not willing to cooperate. at climate change is real, which i believe it is not scientifically speaking, then it is lost.

as far as electric vehicles and what have you, get out that kick in the people do not want electric vehicles. it is a political scan. we need to stop -- start talking scientifically. thank you very much. guest: i would say that i wrote about that addressed these points called "overheated: how capitalism broke the planet and how we fight back." if you are curious to a number of those talking points, you can find it on that book, "overheated: how capitalism broke the planet and how we fight back? i would consult that with answers to this question. host: we would like to thank kate aronoff writes for the new republic for being with us this morning and talking about her article, the bipartisan infrastructure bill is a gift to wall street at the planet's expense.

>> today on the communicators. >> republicans and democrats have been attacking people from all sorts of angles, and antitrust is just one of them. but they have coalesced on using more antitrust enforcement in order to go after tech companies. but they both have very different reasons for doing so, even though they sort of coalesce on the same solution. for democrats, it can be rooted in a sort of typical for democrats, and towards big businesses in general, and corporations in general, and need to shrink them down to size. and for republicans, it's really tied to this sort of culture war against technology companies in general, where they're perceived against being biased against conservatives, either in the way they moderate content or corporate culture. so, the antitrust push against

big tech is tied to the general feeling that tech companies are out to get them. >> watch the communicators with elizabeth nolan brown on her recent article, "the bipartisan antitrust crusade against big tech" today at 630 time p.m. eastern on c-span. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we're funded by these television companies and more. ♪ >> midco supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >>