yes, christine from cei in the front row. christine hall. >> hello.so i'm wondering what you think, what your thoughts might be on whether some of these sort of kooky and very wrong-headed ideas in liberal academia actually translate to lawmakers, you know, for example, state attorneys general or members of congress or state legislators. do these ideas, in fact, have an influence and become bad law? >> yes, i think they do, and i give various examples in the book. i could easily have filled up several books with other examples. in areas that i know cei's interested in through its work on things like the tobacco settlement whether it be the proper role of state attorneys general, the proper role of statute of limitation which became relatively unpopular in the academic literature and without the overthrew of statutory litigation, you would never have had most of the tobacco lit case and -- litigation and things like that. when it ceases to be respectful to defend statute of limitation, sovereign immunity, various other old limits on liability, when it

fred smith from cei. >> i haven't read the book yet, but you make a very good case of the intellectual self-interest would pursue quite well because their ability to gain moral prestige and also they gain power of in government and the sector. why given the threat this poses to launch of amoore businesses because after all they have great resources, the general counsel and so forth are faced with a dislike the act and a business in this area and so many other areas seems to be passively waiting for? >> that's a good question. why has the business and those interested in the thriving of the entrepreneurial capitalist system, one has paid attention to the law school's coming and you could ask even more poignantly after reading the book because i tell at a considerable length how a very different group of mainly the town nation starting in the 1940's and 50's and later joined by other liberal, they were not neglecting allow all schools. they were calling in vast amounts of money and a great deal of other organizational skills into making false schools this almost conscious introduced in v

i think if people -- i think of people like craig leonard who owns bonn cey craftsmen in londonderry, new hampshire. he remodels bathrooms and kitchens. with the uncertainty, everyone is keeping their wallets closed he recently had to lay off three employees and pairly has enough work to keep himself busy. without the confidence that can come from passing the path to prosperity, there's no telling when his business will return to prosperity itself. and when he can dare to hire again. i think about people like charlie and laura morgan who own a storage company in new hampshire. they've lost tenants in that down economy, charging -- causing them to reduce the rents they charge. this is keeping them from hiring additional employees and creating depretter opportunities for our fellow granite staters. the path to prosperity provides confidence by charting a responsible course so that creditors can loan with confidence and people can borrow money knowing that they'll be able to repay it. the example of hard-pressed small business owners i cited are located just in new hampshire but all over

this bill would not do a single thing to bring down the price of gas but would keep america from ceying 1.8 billion barrels of oil other the lifetime of our new cars. we would not have gotten there, frankly, if some of the proponents of this bill who opposed getting to those standards has prevailed. it would do so at a time when the turmoil in the middle east should serb as an energy independence wakeup call. i'm for using all our energy if we can do so in a healthy, safe way this bill, however, would significantly weaken the clean air act other its 40-year span. the benefits of the act, longer live, healthier kids, greater work force productivity and protected ecosystems have outweighed the costs by more than 30-1. that's a pretty good return, ladies and gentlemen. last year, according to the e.p.a., just one part of the clean air act prevented some 160,000 premature deaths. 130,000 heart attacks. and 100,000 hospital visits. that's a pretty good return on our investment. according to the american medical association, quote, if physicians want evidence of climate change, they may well