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hi welcome to the kaiser report, imax taiser with stacy herbert here with our annual summer solutions where we dell not no problems, but on the solutions they think, hey, right, well, i want to throw this question to tyson slocum, you know, joe biden has announced a slew of sort of renewable energy programs and infrastructure spend on renewable energy projects. i want to in particular, talk about in the last week or 2, he's announced an energy efficiency and clean electricity standard, mostly focused on utility companies. and the reason why the stood out to me is because you have been recently tweeting about paul singers, elliot management and his role in public utilities. and so, like,

does it does eliot thing or does elliot management that therefore stand to benefit from this? and what do you think of biden's overall plan so far? yes, i'll start with biden's plan. i think it's, it's necessarily ambitious. the challenges he's going to need the support of congress. and i think that's where the roadblocks going to be. we've already seen similar clean energy standard legislation be approved in the house of representatives. i think there's strong support in the house for this, but getting it through the stand it is going to be very difficult. even for democrats, senator joe mansion, a democrat from west virginia, he's in the senate democratic leadership, and more importantly, he's the chairman of the senate energy and natural resources committee. and he's very conservative. he's from a, a call and now big natural gas producing. and he is put the brakes on

a lot of items, clean energy agenda. so i actually don't see good prospects biden's plan excessively, getting to congress this year. i think it's going to be debated. i think folks are going to be talking about it a lot, but in terms of something getting to the president's desk for a signature, i think it's a long shot. now, on the other hand, there are some unilateral authorities. ready that bided is going to be pursuing. he actually has about $40000000000.00 in the loan guarantee. over at the department of energy that's been getting over there for several years. and he just hired up a big name in the world of clean energy invest in a guy in jigger shaw who is now going to be running this $40000000000.00 loan guarantee program. so i think we're going to see a bunch of capital investment by the department of energy through this loan

guarantee program in a number of different clean energy initiatives. but in terms of sweeping legislative mandates, i don't think we're going to see a lot of legislative action because of the roadblocks in the senate. that said, you know, the market is moving towards clean energy and you bring up elliot management. and i mentioned to some reporters earlier this week that elliot management is the most powerful investor right now in the u. s. due to the industry. elliot management run by paul elliot, singer. he's a taurus activist ah, a hedge fund. and he's, he's got simultaneous positions in 4 different utilities. i actually filed a complaint last year. what did you regulatory commission against him? and one of the utility and she was targeting center point and regulators ultimately

dismissed my complaint. but i think they're regretting it now because basically for a number of regulatory reasons. elliot management is under no jurisdiction. they have federal regulators have no ability to, to regulate their operations and all of these different utilities. and he stands to benefit from a number of the moves that he's pushing at these different companies. so tyson slokum of public citizens energy policy. you talk about joe biden's initiatives, he talk about congress being the stumbling block. ok, now let's go back to another man made national disaster in american history. the dust ball of the 1930s man may last decade, an existential crisis. so the not estate dust was blowing into washington d. c, and new york city all the way from the great plains in the midwest or out further

west. why can't joe biden take a page out of the book and show some leadership? why can't joe buy it? and get a spine and say, hey, let's do something for real macs, you're absolutely right. and we actually explored this and found that he has a number of unilateral executives, it authorities to declare the climate crisis, a threat to national security and the national interest. and accordingly, with that kind of emergency declaration could initiate a number of emergency actions to deal with the climate crisis to promote renewable energy on a much bigger scale than what we're currently doing. to initiate a number of energy efficiency initiatives, through the department of energy and other entities to the federal government is

one of the largest procures of energy, the department of defense, and all of our military equipment and all of our federal buildings. you're absolutely right, max, that, that bite and doesn't necessarily need congress. he declare an emergency. he's very reluctant to do that. you know, i mean, joe biden ah ran against bernie sanders to get the democratic nomination. he's never been a candidate or we're a politician like bernie sanders. he's very moderate, very middle of the road and i think we're seeing that in his governing style. and so i think he would be reluctant to, to declare the kind of emergency for the crisis that you're suggesting. so as an effective, as a leader is what you're saying. now let's talk about the last thing 1st like, and he's a guy who makes his bones by borrowing money from the fed at 0 percent. if that wasn't available to him is an entire vulture. capital model would collapse in

a day. so he's just enabled by the fed. well, j powell is making the situation much worse. why can't j pal raise margin rates are borrowing rates for private equity, so that they stop terrorizing america. what about that? can we have that maybe or why don't they do that max, or maybe you should be fed chair. i think that you would be doing a much better job than paul. i don't know if you would take the job, but you're absolutely right. we've got monetary policy that that strengthens the hand of these vulture funds, like elliot management that are absolutely running wild in the u. s. economy. i don't see them as providing any value added. they're not adding any productivity. they are draining these companies that they target and it's a serious problem. and like i said, we tried to get hello energy regulators to intervene. but maybe we should have

started at the fed because that's where it all begins. while speaking of the fed, maximize our bit corners, and we believe they can fix this quite a few problems. and bitcoin has been in the news about this energy, which we call fun because, you know, we are, we've covered on the one hand, there are energy rigs that flare, right? like there's a lot of crackers flare and the huge quantities of methane have been spewed into the air and the united states since barack obama, like really push cracking as a green solution. but there was a lot of methane, which is, you know, a more powerful greenhouse gas, at least for a short term. you had tweeted in the u. s. private equity owned oil drillers, flare 423 cubic feet of natural gas for every barrel of oil produce compared with just $74.00 for publicly traded companies. we have a private equity problem. now, in the sector, you're able, now they capture all that flared gas. now no,

flared gas would ever come from any of these rigs if you put a big, quite minor on top of it. so there is a solution to that. but there's another solution here, and this is the interesting thing that i saw in another tweet of yours. you've been on a roll face on the growth of renewable energy production in europe has led to increasingly volatile spot market trading. we need to maximize renewables growth while improving market oversight, ferc and c, f t. c, to protect consumers from speculative price volatility. and that's another thing i want to say about why i think bitcoin fixed is it, despite all of the story of, you know, it being boiling the oceans and stuff like that is that it does provide, it's always, it's a user that it can turn on and off my mind in an, in a fraction of a moment and it doesn't matter. so it does provide a, a, decentralize more it uses utilize grid that would otherwise not exist. so in west

texas there's a lot of big reminders out there. they build out infrastructure and you know, they are a user that helps in that reduce volatility in my opinion. so what do you think of that? first i agree that i think that bitcoin mining has a potential and that there are opportunities to be part of a clean energy future. i think that there's some operations that are relying on fossil fuels and there's others, like you're saying are capturing waste by products in the, in the combustion and emissions process. there's others that are relying on renewable energy. and so i think it can be part of the solution. and like you said, in terms of bitcoin mining, being able to be flexible in its energy use. that's something it can move to what's known as off peak times in the middle of the night. when most people are not using as much electricity,

so you're tapping into existing generation and store instead of having to compete with new generation coming on line to meet higher overall demanded middle of the day. so absolutely, there are opportunities there. i think, you know, in general, getting back to the tweet about, you know, conflicts with rising renewables and more volatile spot electricity pricing. again, the rise of renewables. they huge, necessary plus for what's going on in the economy. but we haven't been adjusting our sort of market oversight in market operations because in electricity market that feature significantly more renewable energy because of its intermittent nature . the way that it's, it's coming out of line. there is more a price volatility. and some traders are exploiting that to the doctor of consumers

. and so this isn't a problem of we can't handle these renewables. it's about up redesigning sort of market structures to ensure that consumers are going to be enjoying the advantages of low cost renewables. alrighty. are going to take a break and then we'll be back with tyson slocum, of public citizens energy policy on summer solutions with mac, the stacy don't go away. the, me, ah, join me every 1st on the alex simon show. when i was speaking to guess in the world, the politic sport business. i'm show business. i'll see you then me the one of the persian gulf, the wealthiest country, it has spent billions of dollars on state of the art stadiums.

well look at this, the stadium is really taking shape. you can see the bowl and most of the stands now, when we were here a little bit over a year ago, at the same construction site, it was just the foundation in a few metal structures. so it seems that time why this idea to use shipping containers as building blocks has definitely paid off. i mean, they're easy to assemble and easy to dismantle, just like playing with lego the, for the 1st time in a world history, the stadium will be billed from shipping containers and what's more, it will be completely dismantled after the tournament. we're here in saint petersburg at the international economic form, and the topic of our program is the global economy. how is it changed since coven,

for the winter? for the losers? what are the challenges and what are the opportunities? the me. alrighty. we're back summer solutions with maxima, stacy, our annual summer probe into not the problems, but the solutions. now tyson slocum, is with the c, as from the public citizens energy policy in washington, d. c. i wanted to follow up typhon before the break. we were talking about renewable energy production in europe is led to increasingly volatile spot market trading. and you were suggesting that there needs to be improved oversight of the ferc and the c f t. c to protect consumers. question for you as have the various scandals over at the c f t c been cleaned up?

are they still pretty much the same captured regulator that we've seen now for 30 years? well, i think there, there is a problem of a lack of compare at leadership at the c s t c right now. so biden nails commissioner ross banner as acting chair back earlier this year and didn't name him as a permanent chair. and without that title of a permanent chair, the chairman can't really initiate a lot of wholesale reforms. and so as a result, we haven't seen a lot of movement in terms of cleaning up problematic aspects of the agency. announcing new major initiatives, there's sort of a leadership back room as we wait for president biden to name a permanent chair, and we don't know what that hold up is. there is an open seat. and so it might be

something where they are trying to figure out who to name to that open seat and then designate that person his chair. you know, as you know, there was a for c s to see a chairman garry against lar, who is now the chair of the security exchange commission. he had been chairman of the cf 2 c back during b, a obama years. i thought he did a pretty good job in the time that he was there. but you know, his, his focus is now at the fcc. so i don't see the problems at the see if you see being fixed until we get some new blood in terms of a new chairman that's going to be able to address those problem. so i want to segue to electric vehicles and also hearken back to the last part of this episode. because i disagree with one position, the 2 of you took,

which is that we should have declare a state of emergency and just pushed through things that gave us the patriot act. that gave us the response to the pandemic, which we're not allowed to really talk about in social media, including youtube. this goes out on youtube as well. so we can't really talk about the disastrous policy there. i think they tend to roll out policies that end up benefiting their friends and corporations, often the expense to the population and are never quite forthright at the actual costs. so electric vehicles are great. they go to 0 to 61 point one seconds. if you have a turbo thruster on it as much as talking about and you know, they don't spew emissions, but okay, we're building the this lithium mining operation. the clayton valley lithium project in nevada. it was rushed through their approval process than native

americans in the area. we're not really consulted. you're going to have 24 hour mining for, for decades. after 2 years of 24 hour construction of this. so a uses a lot of water, like what are the cost of having electric vehicles like well, let's talk about the lithium and then if we have time, we'll talk about cobalt, but we're having a lithium at mining now in the united states, what are the costs of that and to the benefits, what's the cost benefit analysis on that? there's no question that there are challenges and issues with the store thing. key models like lithium for battery production that i've said when you're comparing the, the environmental impact of extracting oil and refining it into gasoline for your internal combustion engine. gasoline powered vehicles versus the life cycle of

operating electric vehicle. the electric vehicle is, is going to win in terms of a far smaller emission and environmental impact. that said, there is still an impact than you highlight. an excellent issue out west where, you know, some local tribes were against this facility and what you're seeing is a lot of pressure to come up with domestic sources of lithium production. because we remain so dependent upon china as the rest of the world for those important battery inputs. so i think it really, there is a federal role here to ensure that we are developing lithium and other needed components as sustainably as possible. that we prioritize investments into you know, making sure that we're using less water in the extraction process that we embark on

an aggressive, mandated recycling program for batteries as they grow older and are not operable anymore. so none of these, our big barriers to continued e v deployment and adoption. it just means that we need to be ah, extremely aware and prioritize the, the entire sustainability of the supply chain. but again, moving towards electric vehicles, replacing them with gasoline. powered cars is going to provide a lot of net benefits for the planet. but you know, we just need to remain vigilant on making sure that the supply chain for electric vehicles is as sustainable as possible parts. the biggest supplier of left him in the world is afghanistan. us has been dropping bombs there for 20 years. did we

manage to get any lithium? you know, i don't know, but i'm glad that it looks like we're getting out of there. you know it's, it's been a really tough floor for and for a lot of people, a lot of americans, a lot of afghans. oh, but i don't know whether or not we got any lithium or on our way out there. and the other issue is cobalt and that is, are, are there sources within the us or other more, you know, sustainable areas right now, most of it comes from the congo and there's child labor there and all sorts of abuses. so, i mean, it's just interesting that a lot of this is being driven by e. s. g sort of funds and investments, but like like it, you can't have an electric car right now without child labor. essentially it happens via the congo. this is absolutely an issue that, that the industry needs to have more leadership on. and i think there's a role for the federal government to,

to initiate regulations and standards as well. again, there's, anytime you're talking about a transition away from fossil fuels into renewables, you are going to have disruptions there with that transition. you're going to have pickup. ah, these are all problems that can be addressed and can be solved. if we commit resources to solving them and not just, you know, pushing the problem on the people of congo or the people in china or the people are gonna stand to deal with. we have to take responsibility for that supply chain sustainability. well, that's the point i have about bitcoin, and bitcoin mining is psych between minors need to mine at electricity costs under $0.04 a kilowatt hour. that's not coal. you know that this is, these are renewable sources. they need to find and they could take those mining

rigs to the location. most of our energy in the united states is actually law, and the whole world is lost in transmission, right? because it's difficult to transmit energy between minors can go there, capture the wealth, and then you know, help build the economy. but you know, that's the other important issue here is unless you're coming to kaiser report, you know, now the media covers any of these stories where we do have to make a major change. you either have only the positive side and or only the negative side on the, to partisan, sorta coverage of whatever the topic is. so like, there is no sort of, you know, conversation, public conversation allowed on any sort of major thing like the pandemic or here having to transition to a more renewable energy sources. you know, what are you doing to rectify that situation? i know you're out there, you're coming on programs like this and,

and clarifying topics. people can contact you, of course, on twitter, and you're really great at engagement and just answering, honestly and forthrightly. i appreciate that i, i think, you know, the problem is with a lot of big media. well, it's not a lot of nuanced. like you said they, they looked at things through a sort of a lens that is sometimes filtered out through partisan affiliations in this country . and these challenges that we're dealing with in reality look, nothing like that sort of approach that, that there's, that there's a lot of different angles and it's important that we get it right. and you know, i'm grateful for programs like yours that are dealing with these issues. you know, we're going to continue to be independent. you know, one thing about me and my organization is that we're not partisan. you know, we don't support democrats, we don't support republicans. we support the right policies that are going to work

for the most people. and, you know, sometimes democrats are composing that and sometimes they're in the way of that. and it's our job to not be best friends with joe biden, or nancy pelosi or mitch mcconnell, but to promote the right policy for, for that majority of working americans. and that's, that's what we're going to keep doing. right. so last year, annually, $160000.00 tara watt, hours of energy produced on planet earth. the tragedy of that is a 3rd or 850000 terre one hours is wasted. that means it's an infrastructure problem. roads are bad pipes are bad, or the, the organizational capabilities are bad. why not jobs act and put americans to work or new jobs, fixed the infrastructure. don't waste all those. tens of thousands of tara one hours of energy before we start going, digging for let the m and cobalt and getting all fancy with our electric vehicles.

want to clean up the mess tyson? right? no, you're actually right. there is a huge challenge. so called wasted energy and some of it you're on the electric side is through line loss. you were moving electricity over large physical distance . and the longer that electricity travels over those lines, you're losing energy. we're also losing a lot of energy in terms of your inputting a fuel, whether it's natural gas or cold. busy and you're losing efficiencies within the combustion process, especially for thermal plants and internal combustion engines. typically, renewable resources don't feature that type of a fish and sea loss in the energy production. and if you locate especially smaller scale renewable resources, closer to the, to the sources of,

of consumption are small scale renewable farms and wind farms. that instead of being out in the country side, they're in urban areas where people live. then you don't have that sort of transmission load loss, and you're able to, to recapture more of the energy that's being produced. and so there are definitely benefits to look like sources of energy. alright, tyson slocum, public citizens, energy policy. thanks. have a good summer solutions. always my pleasure. all right now is going to do it for this edition of summer solutions with mac, kaiser and stacy herbert. thanks guests. tyson slocum, until next time, via the me. one of the worst in a nash shootings in america was in las vegas in 2017. the tragedy a close a little of the real last vegas where many say elected officials are controlled by

casino owners. the dangerous shooting revealed what? the l v m p. d. really is, and now it's part of the spin machine to the american public. barely remember that it happened just shows you the power of money in las vegas. the powerful showed that true colors when the pandemic had the most contagious contagion that we've seen in decades. and then you have a mayor who doesn't care. so here's caroline goodman, offering the lives of the biggest residents to be the control group. to the shiny facades conceal a deep indifference to the people who might have been saved if they were to take an action. absolutely, keep the registering and keep the slot machines doing. this is a money machine is a huge cash register that is ran by people who don't care about people's lives being lost. the

ah headline story this our s thing investigation reveals that a host of america has riches 1000000000 ers, are avoiding taxes, but the u. s. revenue service seems more concerned with finding out who leave the information you a for back track. so it's a previous full approval of ukraine's controversial care for the european football championship thing a slogan on the players. shirts must not be removed. on the eve of the delayed euro 2020 tournament, the world health organization warns the 11 host nations to stay vigilant. some prevent a repeat of the coven ups or theme last.