however, as miss harbert and mr. eisenberg has testified today, the epa to veto the army corps of engineers is potentially crippling effects to the rest of the economy if it is allowed to stand. america's businesses are already being crushed by the uncertainty of regulations coming from obamacare, other epa and interior regulations and if the epa suddenly had the power to veto permits justly issued by other federal ag

now, the first question is for you, miss harbert. i have a question for you. that is, when you get a permit, you assume that as long as you fulfill the responsibilities in that permit, that should stand existent. is that correct? >> absolutely. >> now, what happens if you're an employer if -- or a business if you can't count on that permit to be a factor, that it can be revoked at a whim, even though you're fulfilling the rules of that permit? >> you give second thought to i can maing the making the inves. do you halt construction and lay off your workers or do you continue at a risk of the regulatory process? this is all new territory. the business community was set back by this decision by the epa. and the system steps in and say they were overreaching the authority but at the same time we have epa overreaching their authority in alaska and pre-emptively perhaps a project that has not gone to final decision. so we are seeing very scary signs and they want to figure out a way out of this. >> is there any statutory authority that the epa has to retroactively r

miss herbert -- harbert, excuse me. do people working in regulatory agencies have a clear understanding, in your opinion, of the problems caused in our economy by increasing uncertainty? >> in our opinion, absolutely not. the reverberations of decisions like this are not just in one county or one state. they're across the country. they're affecting industries unrelated to mining and unrelated to energy. it is building, it is transportation, it is roads and bridges. these decisions that are taken should not be taken so lightly. we have to understand that these are billions of dollars that are at stake. boards of directors need to make decisions and hire people and they can't do it if they think some time down the road somebody might change their mind and revoke their permit. >> would this have the risk of driving jobs overseas? >> we have to want investment in the united states. we have to attract and and we have to be inviting rather than take to capital investors take your money elsewhere because you will have that typ

miss harbert, do you have any comment on that analysis that you think is true? >> if you look at the world's appetite for energy and the economic growth we hope that we will see around the world that there is no doubt we'll need more minerals and more inputs and more infrastructure and we have to decide whether we'll be complacent and import those things or whether we'll cultivate our own resources and have a comparative advantage. we have a lot of resources in this country and those resources in the technology to take those resources to market advances every year. we have the opportunity to use coal, use oil and use gas including wind and renewables effectively in our country, but the epa is standing in the way. i'd like to address the comment about natural gas. it launched a coal campaign and they've been successful and now they've launched it beyond gas campaign, it is completely against american resources and we have to figure out who is complicit in that and we can't let the regulatory overreach of standing in the way of getting our economy back on its feet

captain harbert, at the time, told me to keep my head down--don't remember that at all. i just remember this arm kind oud piy o cnab c-span: did your dad ever regain consciousness? >> guest: no. no. c-span: and you read the "monster" knowing this, stephen crane's novel? >> guest: i knew that it had something to do with a man disfigured in fire and i was riabitt dn knnythtaan didn't know crane's work at all i somehow had missed "the red badge" and his other great short stories, so... c-span: where were you living when you did this? >> guest: when.. c-span: when you read the "monster"? >> guest: when i read the "monst i li issse at twa benks d shy t a s sting about for another idea, but i really wasn't thinking of doing another biography, so itind of came out of the blue. c-span: what was your first biography? >> guest: it was of the new yorker magazine editor katharine it spanat gn teedth g: well, i was a fan of the new yorker and of e. b. white's writing in particular. when i was in graduate school in boston, letters of e. b. white were published and i read it and though

miss harbert, excuse me. to people working in regulatory agencies have a clear enough understanding, in your opinion, of the problems caused in our economy by increasing uncertainty? >> in our opinion, absolutely not. the reverberation of decisions like this are not just in one county or one state. there are across the country. they're affecting industries unrelated to mining and unrelated to energy. it is building and transportation. it is roads and bridges. these decisions should not be taken so lightly. we have to understand that these are billions of dollars at -- at stake. sometime down the road somebody might change their mind and revoke their permit. >> is this the result of driving american jobs overseas with this kind of uncertainty? >> it most definitely has a chilling affect investment. we have to wanted and attracted -- be inviting, rather than saying capital investors, take your money elsewhere. because you're going to have that kind of certainty somewhere else. these decisions of more like hugo