Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20240622

What do you think of how the media are doing . Doesnt focus on one or two individuals, excluding the others . Are there ways to improve coverage . Here is a chance to let your thoughts be known on Media Coverage campaign 2016. Hear us out you can call us. 202 7488000 for republicans. 202 7488001 for republicans. 202 7488000 for democrats and 202 7488002 for independents. It imposed on her Facebook Page at facebook. Com cspan. You can email us, too at journal cspan. Org. Highlighting those that will not dissipate in the debate facing polls, with donald trump leading those polls with 22 of those polled followed by jeb bush and wisconsin Governor Scott walker. For those who did not make the cut and who will appear earlier in the afternoon, the former governor of texas rick perry also former senator Rick Santorum governor bobby jindal, and others. The first debate is sanctioned by the rnc. When it comes to the process that is used, it was done on polls. Usa today criticizes the fact that uses polls strictly for that, saying confronted with the lineup, fox news decided to be determined to get the play in primetime, fox turned to the alltoofamiliar obsession of todays politics for polls. The ideas for the basis to get a sense of the ideas and the persons of the candidate that they do not know. That is hard to do if they are shunted off to a Late Afternoon debate. Another major problem is that many of the candidates are bunch so closely together that the difference between them is dwarfed by the polls margin of error. That is some of the thoughts out there this morning on Media Coverage of campaign 2016. We want to give you a chance to make your thoughts known, too. 202 7488001 for republicans for democrats 202 7488000, an independents, 202 7488002. We will take those calls in just a moment. We want to talk first to james warren of the Poynter Institute, which covers the chief media correspondent. He is also a columnist for the new york daily news. Good morning. Guest it is good to be with you on an interesting morning. What you noticed what you noted about usa today is the debates on thursday, it sort of underscores there is just no perfect criteria. Yes, Lindsey Graham is a smart guy, but if he is not registering and old in polls you feel a little sympathy for fox, sort of damage they do damned if they do, damned if they dont. They cannot have 16 guys on a state at one time. Host what do you think about the Overall Coverage of campaign 2016 . Give us your thoughts of what you are seeing when it comes to coverage . Guest oh, i think as opposed to what we would have seen 30, 40 50 years ago where there were just a handful of real media gatekeepers who were deciding basically what the storyline was on a given day, and you might hurriedly pick up the mornings New York Times or Washington Post, and i drove a lot of network coverage. I think this is by and large terrific. The internet age, there is just more than everything. There is more good stuff, there is more total, on adulterated junk unadulterated junk. Yesterday, tweeting by americas political reporters, there may have been three or four that is not tweet hyperbolically the fox announcement. It even said if you look closely, scott simon, the npr host, to wonder in a tweet if he were the only person who had not tweeted about who the 10 were. So there is a lot more good stuff, there is a lot more un adulterated junk. There is a nice piece this morning on vox. Com by ezra klein over donald trump, and i think he sort of nails it as we go from pure astonishment to now sort of grudging a sex cents sort of grudging acceptance. Host the number of appearance by donald trump and foxnews, 31 appearances, five minutes of screen time, and also as you go to the Media Research center there is a chart that provides some of the coverage of gop candidates on abc, cbs, and nbc, donald trump leading the pack as well. So there is fascination with donald trump. Tell us more about the time he is getting onair on these networks. Guest oh, it is just all over the place. The Poynter Institute about a week or so ago if you remember, there was kind of a story that was dominating the media echo chamber, particularly in d. C. In new york, about Huffington Post deciding to characterize trump coverage as entertainment. I wrote about that and debated one of their editors a few times on some and i thought and think it is a little bit silly. Then we checked the amount of huffington coverage, and though they were somewhat condescendingly the writing deriding donald trump, they were giving him far more coverage than any other candidates, especially when one looks at all of the stuff on trump they were reusing. His coverage on him disproportionate . Yes, absolutely totally disproportionate. Is there some justification given how he has been resonating in the early going . Yeah, there is some just patient. Are there reason for Lindsey Graham and other serious folks to be frustrated . Yeah there is. But it is also august 2015. We have a long way to go. It is a bit of a silly season. There will be a decent audience on thursday night, but sitting in a hardline, i can tell you, most people are not thinking about any of this. Host before we let go, jim moran, there is jim warren, there is a story about joe biden saying biden 2016 is a media fantasy, why he is almost certainly going to set the race out. Would you agree with that headline . Guest no, at this point, i do not know what he is going to do. He is obviously sitting back and knows that there is some large percentage of folks that maybe just sort of sick and tired of the clintons. The email controversy sort of reminds people why they are sick of the clintons, in their minds clinton has not really offered a rationale for candidacy. The problem with him is obvious the character that may be unfair to him, but it is sort of hard to unravel about being goofy and gaffeprone. As best chance was 1988, arguably, when he blew it by stealing the lines from a british politician. In 2008, he got zero traction and he is 72 years old i think it is a possibility, but it is really unlikely. Host our guest is the chief media correspondent for the Poynter Institute and also a National Political columnist for the new york daily news. Thank you. Guest a pleasure as always. Host campaign Media Coverage of 2016. Republicans 202 7488001 democrats 202 7488000 and independents 202 7488002. We start with jed this morning in baltimore, maryland republican line. No ahead this morning. Caller hey i think there is far too much interest in donald trump and, you know, there are fort there are far too many candidates. If you look at the number, there is this meme going around that the clown call is getting the clown car is getting too full. I think the clown car needs to shove itself up its ass. Host jimmy is next, republican line, good morning. Caller good morning. I would like to congratulate john kasich and all of his orders for their stunning upset of rick perry to make it in to the top 10. I do not think any of the pundits thought kasich had a chance. He has not had nearly the Media Coverage of perry or fiorina. So we have an early upset in august. Host were you surprised that governor kasich is going to be in the debate . Caller a little bit. I am pleased and he is i think one of the more liberal of the republicans, and i think he has a lot to add to the debate. I hope he disagrees with some of his opponents. Host who do you follow other than governor kasich . Who else are you following closely, perhaps those in the field who are not getting a lot of coverage . Caller i was following rand paul for a while, and i think he has changed his foreignpolicy more than i wanted him to. Host diane is up next from san antonio, texas. Republican line. Good morning. Caller hi, how are you doing . I have been watching closely the Media Coverage, and i am pretty content with it because it is what it is. Foxnews will do what it does and cnn will do what it does. The own thing im surprised about is the twist on morning joe. I really thin and light coming out of this Democratic Party and really showing them for what they are instead of people following them aimlessly without checking what is going on around here. But i think one thing about the Media Coverage, which could be better, is more Carly Fiorina because i think she has a lot to say. Host how much coverage you see of her, and how much do you follow her personally as far as what she is saying in the policies she holds . Caller i follow her i follow them all equally because i follow them on the three major generals so when i follow, i want to see if what they are saying is accurate, and basically i do follow her. I never thought to vote for a woman, but she is definitely a woman of my own kind. But i am definitely going to vote for donald trump if he comes up because he is the one who is working. I miss to that about mitt romney. I loved him, but he did not talk enough, because he is too nice, but donald trump is from new york city like me, and we are not going to put up with it anymore. Host that combination of polls who will appear in a primetime debates, donald trump getting 23 of the nomination of polls that were taken. That is part of the story when it comes to Media Coverage of campaign 2016. Again, you can give us a call, share your thoughts, 202 7488001 for republicans, 202 7488000 for democrats, and for independents, 202 7488002. We go next to david in virginia. Good morning, go ahead. Caller i was just thinking you know it is 2015, anything i do not fully understand is how we are still having an issue fitting everybody in, you know . My thought is, you know, maybe the first 10 people, you put them up on a podium and give them a spot there, but why cant you have people remote in and for the remaining folks . Host have them appear altogether even if they are on stage or offstage, so to speak . Caller yes. There are plenty of other forums that do this, that you would be able to get everybody there. Obviously you have time constraints and you would have to consider how much time youre allotting for the event itself, but making it at least a little more fair to get everybodys ace up there. Host do you think you would learn about the candidates and how they differ from each other with having so many people involved in the process . Caller i think so. I think there are so many differing views and opinions that it really helps shape each others policies and, you know, everybodys tone kind of changes as it goes on. Host Stephen Milbank in the Washington Post this morning talks about Hillary Clinton, especially her coverage in the media, saying that clinton lacking a sparring harder other than socialist Bernie Sanders has host adam from brentwood california, good morning. You are on the line. Go ahead. Caller good morning, pedro and thank you for cspan. Of course hillary is battling the press every time she runs. She digs her own grave. I think she should hang it up, spend her money, go to hawaii. You know, the issue with the topic today of how we did the of all this airtime we divvy up all this airtime, we spent way too much time discussing all the candidates. We have been doing this for a month now that would put you at the beginning of july, so a good 15 months, 17 months is dedicated to talking about the candidates. I mean, we should be focusing on obama. He is doing really good towards the end here. I mean, is a year and a half really necessary . We already know who these people are. I mean lets talk about six months, eight months it gets really old, especially with the senate and the congress after this. I mean the press has to go on it because it is ratings and it is entertaining it is something to follow. But it is a bit too long, a bit too much. Host you said you really know who these people are, would you say that about all of the candidates, who they are, what they follow, whether beliefs are what their believes are, would you know that in detail and would you know where they stand . Caller as a viewer of cspan, i am certainly intelligent enough to figure that out with an month or eight months. It does not take me a year and a half to do research on somebody, so if you have problem with how to divvy up airtime, lets cut it down. We should be focusing on the president and the great job he is doing right now. I am a republican, and you know, i have always been really against him this whole time, but he is pulling through. He is acting president ial. Lets enjoy the last 25 of his term. Host adam, i know you said is his early, but as far as the 2016 field, who has your interest . Caller to tell you the truth pedro, even though donald has been a joke he is not a joke in the business sense, but he is a joke because he shoots his mouth off too much, but he has got a real clear direction for the country, less imports, more exports, bring big business back to this country. Host harold is up next from crownsville, maryland, democrat line. Hi. Caller good morning, and thank you for cspan. I want to make two comments about the Media Coverage were president ial campaign for 2016. It worries me personally that our media is corporateowned and profitdriven, and therefore a lot of times they make a mockery about democracy. Our democracy, i think, we need to pay more attention to and protected. A second point is that our political system is really, if you think about it is very close to legalized bribery. So in my view when you have the money on the media site, you have the money driving political ambitions, we need to protect our democracy. I believe in Common Sense Solutions for the country, and we just need to try to use common sense to work toward raising our children, creating a life for ourselves and our families and generally in most cases, we can Work Together for the benefit of most people in the country and most people in the world. I just wanted to comment on that. Host rona ravitz, North Carolina, that is where jim is campaign roanoke rapids, North Carolina, that is where jim is, campaign 2016 coverage. Go ahead. Caller i want to talk about one guy who is not gotten a lot of coverage, he has gotten some, is ted cruz. Ted cruz has not flipflopped on any issues. He is a hard charger, going against both republican and democrat because he is for the people. He watnts to give the states back a lot of the rights that the federal government has taken from them. I really believe ted cruz, when you see him doing debating, he is not using a teleprompter, he seems to be speaking from the heart. Another as i have these politicians are trying to find money in different areas, we have got a big deficit and everything i really believe that if these politicians would do what the majority of americans want and legalize marijuana for 21 and older, we would have an industry that would really help us economy out. Thank you. Host ted cruz is one i will be appearing on the primetime debate tomorrow with nine others. A highlight in the papers this morning that was jim and North Carolina giving his thoughts on Media Coverage. Paul your next from new york Media Coverage, hi. Caller hi. Pedro, thank you for cspan. My comment is the constant attention to polling turns the Media Coverage into coverage of a horse race. I actually think that what roger ailes has done with the foxnews debate and limiting it to 10 has just made that even worse. Every candidate should be on that stage, certainly for the first debate. It is ridiculous to exclude people who the American People needs to hear from. So i just think that the constant Media Coverage of polling is where i have an issue. Host is there a better way to do it, do you think . Caller well, i think that first of all, one thing that most americans do not recognize is the fact that these polls have such a small sampling number. They asked 1000 people and extrapolate that to their support across the country. It is just kind of ridiculous as far as im concerned. As i said, i think that certainly for this first debate all 17 of those republican candidates should be on stage. And i am a democrat. I want to hear from my ex governor george pataki. Host dont forget that most of those candidates appeared at the Voters First Forum that was on this week, cosponsored by cspan and other media publications. If you want to see that, you can go to our website at cspan. Org and click on the link and then watch it. Again, that was done earlier this week. Here is andrew. Andrew is in ohio, republican line. Hi. Caller hey how you doing . I am a progressive republican, and i will be voting for Hillary Clinton. Enough with the email already. I mean there are a lot of criminals out there doing a lot worse. Host what about Media Coverage of 2016 . What you think of it . Caller i think the Media Coverage is a little shallow. Everybody should be on the stage because we in america, you know, we got we fast food everything. Slow it down, but everybody up and let them say what they have got to say. Host as you can imagine, the reaction of those who were chosen and those who were left out of the primetime debates available on twitter, rick perry sending out a tweet saying i look forward to being on fox news 5 00 p. M. Debate for what will be a series of change of ideas and positive solutions to get america back on track. Lindsey graham calling it the happy hour debate, thursday, 5 00 p. M. He said preparing for the trump the buckle and that over that, said debate. Carly fiorina put out a statement saying i look forward to answering questions on thursday in cleveland. I continue to be encouraged by the support of conservative activists and grassroots of a book is across the country. If you go to the New York Times story, bobby jindal also one of those appearing in the predebate. The story in the New York Times saying that the super pac that is backing governor bobby general of louisiana, who was relegated to the second tier, will be on fox news and iowa during the main event. Host here is that at from the super pac. [video clip] the debate in cleveland is all of a celebrity, but one candidate is moving where it counts, and i what. Bobby jindal. Mr. Jindal if you want to be popular mainstream media, we are done as a country. Governor jindal has the hard truth. Mr. Jindal we are the last hope, the light of freedom in a darker and darker world. Doing more town halls and i wasnt anyone. I think bobby jindal will become a hot guy if he sticks around much longer. Mr. Jindal i am not asked you to join a campaign im asking you to join a cause. I matthew to believe again. I think Governor Jindal is real. I think he answers questions instead of dancing around them. Im glad i can to see bobby jindal today. I think bobby is very intelligent, very intelligent. I believe i found my guy. I am supporting bobby jindal. Bobby jindal believe again is responsible for the content of this advertising. Host Media Coverage of 2016. Andrew, youngstown, ohio. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host i think we are to grab you, andrew, i apologize. Brandon from texas, independent line, go ahead. Caller good morning. I agree with former president carter that we are now an oligarchy, and this Media Coverage is just political theater to make people think were still a vibrant democracy. I do not think trump is going to run as a thirdparty candidate. I think he is playing a role. It will go back to jeb bush and marco rubio. I think that will be the ticket. Host what do you think the role of donald trump is . Caller i think it will lead back to bush, and i think he will be paid handsomely, and maybe casino deals in cuba. I do not know, but it will polish his brand. I think this has all been decided. Host from missouri, bob is next and bob is on our independent line. Hi, bob. Caller hello. I think the Media Coverage of the event onecited. Some candidates are not getting their say. For example, i am actually running for president , my name is bob trollo, in my view is that gay people should be able to have their marijuana farms and their guns. I running my campaign off my youtube channel, and it is called cspan trolling motherfucker. Host in the Washington Post this morning, there is a look at the role New Hampshire is playing in the candidates, and making the case about some republican hopefuls looking beyond New Hampshire. It says that in the past, an increasingly nationalize primary race and a new cluster of early primary contests at least seven Southern States are Holding Together to hold their primaries on march 1, right on the heels of the firstround of february nominating contests in iowa, New Hampshire, south carolina, and nevada. This has come to be called as the sec primary. It is not perfectly match the roster of the famed schools in the famed athletic conference. Louisiana will hold its contest four days later, on march 5, followed by mississippi on march 8, and in florida and north caroline on march 15. Republican line, hi. Caller good morning. I just want to say it is obvious who the real Winning Ticket is going to be it is strong trump and ben carson theater i am a rare type of republican, i am a pro caliphate republican and ben carson. I am a rare type of republican, i am a procaliphate republican. Host 202 7488001 for republicans, 202 7488000 for democrats, and 202 7488002 for independents. If you want to give your thoughts not only on the debate tomorrow but also in the media and how they are covering the campaigns and the candidates those are the numbers to call. Emile, laurel, maryland, your next, good morning. Caller good morning. How are you this morning . Host fine, thank you, go ahead. Caller what i wanted to say as i have lived in this country for 52 years, and i have been watching the system and the country and the people. Tehe media which supposedly should clear specifically very clearly Pay Attention to the issue and truth of the issue. They are being so commercialized that even a nonpartisan station like cspan does not have a chance to explain that to the people. I mean, if i am running for the president , why should i have the chance to present my opinion, my idea, what i want to do . Another thing i wanted to mention this iranian situation is out of whack. How they can do that to the country like iran . America, believe me, the rest of the world, they are smarter than you are. I was in iran last year. I swear to you, i swear on my fathers grave the kid, 12 years old, was telling me when we were talking about the United States and iran relations, he was telling me yes, we know there is a problem with our system with this government that we have, but we do not want to do to make it better through revolution. We want to do it through evolution. Host ok, do not forget the president making a speech at the American University here in washington, d. C. Today on the iran nuclear deal. That takes place at 11 20 this afternoon. You can see it live on cspan. Again, if you want to go to our website for more information cspan. Org is how you do that. Continuing looking at Media Coverage, robert owensboroone thing i noticed this morning is that cspan, who is trying to help get the names out and talk about the issues, i could not help but notice that in two of the pictures that you guys have been showing this morning, it looks like most of the republican candidates are choking on a piece of chicken. I guess my thing is if you were running as a candidate pedro, would you want that particular picture. . Host if you go to the pages of the New York Times, a story looking at jeb bush making statements about planned parenthood, causing some reaction from that. This is michael barbaros story. With the casual aside from jeb bush but it could want him throughout the campaign in which womens votes and issues may prove pivotal. During an interview with religious conservatives mr. Bush said federal government have overfunded Womens Health, i am not sure we need half 1 billion for Womens Health issues. For perspective, the federal government offered spends about 1 trillion or health care amid the storm of democratic mockery, mr. Bush backtracked say you heat mist boat. Misspoke. He occasionally stumbles in interviews, he spent the day struggling to answer whether he would have gone into iraq with hindsight about intelligence failures. Later he said he did not wish to answer the question. He finally said he would not have invaded the country. Some of the analysis on this planned parenthood issue, which caused a reaction in Hillary Clintons campaign with a tweet saying you are unequivocally wrong was her reaction. This prompted a response from jeb bush, saying what is wrong is giving taxpayer dollars for an organization whose practices show no regard for the lives of the unborn. The Jeb Bush Campaign came out with this statement about funding for planned parenthood saying that in regards to Womens Health, funding broadly, i miss spoke, there are countless womens organizations that need to be fully funded. That provide Critical Service to all, but particularly lowincome women who do not have access they need. Joshua up next from North Carolina democrats line. Caller thank you for cspan. Host go ahead. Caller yes, i am interested in Bernie Sanders being president. Host why what you think about the coverage he is getting and why are you interested in him . You are going to have to stop listening to the db and talk on btb and listen on the phone. Caller raising the minimum wage is better because there is greed in big business. In North Carolina, a lot of people believe in state rights but more government regulations would be better at paying off the deficit and doing things for our environment. Host edward, manchester connecticut, democrats line. Good morning. Caller i was wondering why the 2016 has not been covering an old issue from the past campaigns. Why our system is broken and how our political system is fixed. Our vote does not count so why should we bother following in the of these people running for office . Because they have too much power. The system does not work the Voting System does not work anymore because of the way the system was broken. The political system. In order for our votes to count we need to take away the power that our elected officials have on voting on what they think they want us all to pass. The system has been broken by people going to washington and lobbying for things they want, instead of what allamerican voting people want. Those are the things that get put on the floor and when we have a house of representatives that are the only ones allowed to put things on the floor of the house and in the only ones allowed to vote and pass those things, what issues do you think mostly will hit the floor of everybody in americas house . The issues that benefit the few but hurt the many. In order to fix our broken system, and make our votes truly count, we need to be able to take away the representatives right to vote on issues. They are supposed to represent what all of us want. And hit the pavement, find out what we want or what we need and then present it to the American People and put it up for vote, and that the American People vote on those issues. Of course, there are too many people to have jobs and do not have time to vote, but if you randomly select an independent democrat and republican voting citizen, put them through the same process as our jurors do for the justice system, i say if that is good enough for the justice system, it is good enough for the political system. Host that is edward in connecticut. The front page of the New York Times looks at a possible run by joe biden. The headline biden friends worried run could bruise legacy. It could endanger the legacy by injuring mrs. Clintons candidacy and causing his party to lose control of the white house. What a concern appears widespread, few seems eager to tell him about fear of hurting his feelings and seeming to be presumptuous about a decision that is all too personal. People deeply care about him and admire him, said one person who is personally close to mr. Biden and has worked closely with them, speaking on the condition of anonymity, because he did not want to jeopardize his relationship with the Vice President. North carolina, what you think about campaign 2016 by the media . Caller they are giving donald trump too much attention and i do not hear him saying anything that makes any sense. They are too busy defending their selves against donald trump. Nobody is telling me what they are going to do for the country where is the jobs, nobody, it is a big joke. Host why do you think donald trump gets the attention . Caller because of the all you all the newspeople. They are he is doing the republican this service, messing this service out, i am finding this hilarious, laughing about it, because they do not have anybody i think can stand a chance with Hillary Clinton. Host kentucky, robert, republican line. Caller good morning. I wanted to say about the coverage of the media lets takes beast cspan you showed a couple pictures of a possible republican candidates, and a lot of them look like they are choking on a piece of chicken. Host you made your point on that, what is your ultimate point . Jimmy from greensboro, North Carolina, independent line. Caller i think the Media Coverage is pretty good. It is ironic that we are talking about the 2016 election in 2015 but that goes to the whole social media thing, the 24 hour news cycle. That is where we are today in culture and society. Overall, the Media Coverage is pretty good. Host why do you say it is pretty good, what makes you come to that conclusion . Host the fact you have so many choices to look at. Cnn, you guys, msnbc cbs, you name it and you have so many choices. Channels you can look at and get information although it is very early and you are not going to get quite all the information you need at this point. That is my point about it is ironic we are in 2015 talking about 2016. That is just where we are today. Host what do you think about the number of people involved particularly on the republican side . Caller i think that is wonderful. I think that is great that there are so many people that are interested in the future of our country the future of society the future of culture. That is one of the things we may have been lacking the last couple of cycles, is vision. President obama has his vision, and each one before him had a vision, but now we have a multitude of choices to look at on their vision. I think that is great wonderful. Host for the first debate that takes place tomorrow, 10 republican candidates will appear in primetime with the remaining at an early afternoon debate. Donald trump leading the pack pull wide, followed by jeb bush, scott walker, mike huckabee, marco, chris christie, and john kasich. The remaining of those appearing at an earlier debate 4 00 in the afternoon. Jane from harrisburg pennsylvania, republican line. Caller thank you for cspan. The first thing i would like to ask is if cspan could have a program to explain to the American People how it works starting with the Electoral College. As far as the media goes, i am dying for the days of the edward r. Murrow and walter kwok right where you had to verify facts before you could put them on the air. Walter cronkites because where you had to verify facts before you could put them on the air. I would appreciate a show on that. As far as the news media, a two second clip does not tell me anything, a seven second answer does not tell me anything. We have minds and the ability to check records, i would not have ever hired anyone where i did not check the resume and a result of what they were claiming they could do. It is we the people, if we buy victims for boats boats, we get what we get. Host because humans in the Electoral College, what you want to learn about it . Caller i do not need to learn about it, i need you to explain it to people, i am caught just when people tell me they cannot vote, they cannot register, you go out there and talk to them about it and the first thing you will explain the system and you say the Electoral College, they look at you like you lost her mind. I have some of the i worked with for years, that did not understand white news media was declaring a president after 2. 5 hours. I tried to explain it to them and they looked at me like i lost my mind. They said, they wanted to know if the Electoral College is ask our president , what happens if there is a popular vote . That is what i need to you do explain to people, and explain that just because you do have the house and the senate, the laws you want past will not get past. Host wayne from, North Carolina. Caller i am going to watch this clown carnival of debate tomorrow night and thursday. Just for recreation. My feelings is, i hope biden does not jump in because i do not think he is ready. Hillary is our best bet, fox media has tried to throw everything at heard that is dirty, all the way to the sewer but they cant find anything to stick. That is my opinion. Host alabama, jane, good morning. Caller i have heard several newscasters say they work for a particular candidate because he or she was interesting to cover. And they were serious. I think that is terrible that they would put that as an actual reason to encourage someone to be in. Host that is the last call we will take on media cameras on campaign 2016. We move onto congress, the activity level of capitol hill on debating and passing legislation. A new index from the Washington Times shows an increase in legislative activities. Stephen from that publication joins us and the president unveils a plan to reduce Greenhouse Gases and we will hear from two guests about the plan. Washington journal continues after this. When the senate takes its august break we will feature booktv program weeknights on prime time on cspan2 beginning at 8 00 eastern, and it the beginning of the summer, look for to special programs. On saturday, september 5, we are live from our Nations Capital for the National Book as double followed on sunday with our live indepth program with former second lady and senior fellow at the American Enterprise into do, lynn cheney. Booktv on cspan2. Television for serious readers. Theodore roosevelt becomes president after the assassination of william mckinley, and to accommodate her family, first Lady Edith Roosevelt renovates the second floor of the executive mansion thus the creation of a west wing to house the staff offices. By adding a social secretary to the payroll, she creates the office of the first lady and changes the name from executive mansion to the white house. Edith roosevelt, this sunday night and it 00 eastern on cspans original series, first ladies, influence and image examining the public and private lives of the women who built the position of first lady and their influence on the presidency. From Martha Washington to michelle obama, sundays at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan3. Washington journal continues. Host i first guess is the politics editor from the Washington Times. When it comes to looking at congress, why that title. Caller i am considering taking it, i started it in early 2010 when congress 2011 when congress was hitting the desk death of legislative futility, nothing was getting past, there was gridlock. I came up with a system of measuring how much action is going on in congress. Given where things were and the status i thought i would college the best quality legislative futility index. Things seem to beginning better and if that trend continues i will have to rename it. We are still sticking with legislative futility because things are not back to where they were before. Host you chart bills signed into laws and floor votes cast paint a picture of where we are. Guest a number of different measures, bills are passed by each chamber, number of bills signed into law by the president , because sometimes the house will pass a bill and the senate will ignore it and the other way around. Those are two separate measures i go with the amount of time floor time how much Time Congress is in session versus away. I go with number of pages added to the congressional record. The compilation of everything that happens on both floors. It includes reports of bills that come out of committee. The way of measuring other activity. And in the floor votes. Youve usually measured them, congress are two sessions, first and second session, and the second session is always more productive because you do not start from scratch. When you begin a new congress, you start back at zero for the bill number and everything has to go back through committee. This is the best first year of a Congress Since the first year of president obamaS Administration. There are a lot of reasons. Overall, you have a third more bills being enacted into law and about substantially more floor votes than any of the previous two first sessions of congress. It is a market difference and you can see it in the floor pace on the senate and house floor and on the attitude of members of congress. They are getting involved in legislation to a way they were not in the past, talking about amendments and whatnot, offering proposals, tried to strike bipartisan deals, completely different and what we have seen. The ones i mentioned in the article, there are two we have not seen as in years possibly decades. That is to bipartisan deals the came out of the house that drove the agenda, a house one was on medicare, the socalled doc fix. It was known as the boehnerposey deal because john boehner and nancy pelosi where the Drivers Behind this deal which created the doc fix it has been an issue for years, a Payment System for doctors who treat medicare patients. It bedeviled congress for years, every year they pass a patch with said they would take care of this year, but to fix the whole, it would have taken hundreds of billions of dollars and they never have hundreds of billions of dollars to spend on it, so they always put it off, this year john boehner and nancy pelosi came up with a way to pay for part of it and a deal for future potential changes to medicare, they agreed on it and it passed the house overwhelmingly and a drop it on the senate and said, we struck the deal, take it or leave it and the senate was forced to take it or leave it. I cannot think of the last time there was a bipartisan deal out of the house that was dropped on the senate in a take it or leave it manner and the senate was forced to take it. The senate usually dries the conversation, the house is driving the conversation. If you had asked me at the beginning of the year, did i think weekly we will be talking about a john boehner and nancy posey compromise on an entitlement, i did not think so, and they did it. The big implication, the minority the democrats seeing the republicans are in the majority and butted heads with majority with the republicans over the last few years, in issues where they think they can find cooperation there is an incentive to get things done, to legislate, democrats are looking at the Political Landscape it is unclear when they will be able to retake the majority in the house because of the way districts look. If they want to have a role in legislation, it will have to be through bipartisan compromise because they do not control the chamber, and that is part of the reason you are seeing what other for instance the snooping freedom act that i did or any process of undoing the nsa phone program. That was a bipartisan compromise that came out of the house, in this case out of senior members of the Judiciary Committee democrats and republicans, also a take it or leave it proposition, they passed it overwhelmingly and they went to the senate, and said you guys cannot come up with anything else, you tried and you do not have bipartisan agreement, you have to take our built. And Mitch Mcconnell, was forced to take it. That is stunning. Host the productivity of congress, the futility index is our topic. If you want to talk about congress and their productivity and what theyre doing legislatively 2027488001 for republicans. 2027488000 for democrats. 2027488002 for independents. As far as the productivity, how much is attributed to what the leadership is doing or the participation level of the body . You have republicans and Tea Party Conservatives who go against the establishment sometimes on certain issues. Guest that was part of the problem in the previous few years, lets take the house, in the house, you had 230 republicans of which anywhere from 100 to 170 might have taken the tea party position, and the Republican Leaders had to deal with that. John boehner had to thread the needle, he needed to keep his conservatives in line and have them on the bill, or get democrats to vote with him. You saw a number of instances where he had to turn to democrats, he would keep 50 republicans and turned to nancy pelosi and ask her to deliver democratic votes that the Tea Party Republicans did not want to do, part of the gridlock. Maybe even more important than this was the fact that the senate was democratic and the house was republican. Striking bipartisan deals you saw a number of these bills that were passed by one chamber usually the house, hast by one chamber and died in the other chamber. With both chambers controlled by republican that dynamic has changed. The less friction there is the more likely you are to get legislative activity. I guess the other big thing exactly what you were talking about, the dynamic between the leaders and the rank and file, the senate controls a lot of this with the filibuster and the fact that now this is not always been the case it takes 60 votes if you do not have a real life filibuster, either a talk on the floor or disclosure petition, a lot of this to save time, leaders will agree to a 60 vote threshold for the amendments come even note it will not make everybody go through the two days at all filing of these petitions, do a filibuster, and the filibuster they agreed they have to do 60 votes, everything major in congress will take 60 votes in the senate, we will go ahead and do that. Given those powers in the senate for any single senator to force the issue, a couple of things have changed. Republicans committed to allowing more amendments. All of last year, there were a total of 15 votes floor votes on amendments in the senate, we are past 164 this year. A huge deal. A lot of the rankandfile senators are having a say in the legislation, they have a chance, and you can write a good proposal and get 60 votes you get your way. You get your piece of that bill. A huge change because it gets by the rankandfile. The other thing that Democrats Senate democrats will argue and rightly so they have not block as many bills at the outset as republicans blocked at the outset in the previous couple of congresses. It is partly leadership decisions and partly the make and file having a say. It is i do not want to oversell this it is a significant but not monumental change. For congress to get to healthy it will take a lot more. Host first call from washington d. C. , caleb. Caller i almost had a car accident when i heard you limiting the slow pace. That is crazy slow pace compared to what, the last few years . It is certainly not slow historically. We have had a rash of new laws added to the book. Why would you think that is a good thing most of the time when new laws are passed they hurt individual liberty . That fails to account i know youre talking that fails to take into account the rate at which new regulations are added to the books. That has been increasing. We have had more rules on the book under the bush and Obama Administrations. Then every other administration combined. Host we will let our guest answer. Guest when i do the index, one of the things i do hear from readers a lot, we do not Want Congress doing anything, in particular conservative readers who say, it is better when congress does not do anything. When they do something, as the caller said, they are taking away liberty getting raising our taxes, we prefer they not do anything. The legislative futility index makes no judgment on the types of laws that are passed. Im trying to figure out a way to measure the significant laws versus the less significant laws , i have not figured out a way to do that. Hopefully that will come in the future. From the conservative standpoint, the argument i hear what oppose the caller, with so much of caller government is on autopilot at this point spending is on autopilot, with the entitlement programs as they are, if Congress Wants to reign that in, they will have to pass legislation. There are reasons why conservatives would want a more active congress in order to will back some of what they see as overreach. The caller talked about regulation, that is true, not something that comes out of congress, out of the executive branch. If you want to roll back those regulations, that often takes legislation in congress. Legislative action does not necessarily mean new laws that are going in your pocket books. Sometimes it means trying to undo regulations folks do not like. It is a complex measure the first thing the caller mentioned was the pace. The numbers are what the numbers are, these records are from the library of congress who publishes them every month at the beginning of the congressional record and we compile them. They go back to 1947 and the numbers are what the numbers are, absolutely it is a slower pace than it was in the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s, but up from where it has been in the last few years. Host if you go to cspan. Org, our congress page, we keep our own tracking of debating and the procedures that go on on a bar graph form that you can look at, the house and senate, at look at actors and how much debate versus vote. That is at cspan. Org. Carol from new mexico, hello good morning, go ahead. Caller good morning. I am wondering about the metrics this gentleman is using. Do you have a different way to count silly votes that repealing of obamacare or amendments that they tack on and pass in the house because they will pass any republican bill or amendment in the house, but ones that have no chance of ever going anywhere, either in the senate or being signed by the president . You have a way to separate the goofy ones from the real ones . Guest it is a good question a part of the issue is i do not want to make judgment calls about what a silly amendment would be versus an important amendment in that respect. I will say, given that the record stretch back to 19. 7, you have 1947, you have both chambers in charge, all sorts of combinations, republicans in control of the senate and democrats in control of the house, vice versa. The last few years, republicans control the house and democrats control the senate, and times when the same party has controlled both chambers and vice versa. What is a silly a minute for one party is not for the other party. What is a silly amendment for one party is not for the other party. What im trying to do in the future is making a call for the renaming of a post office, which takes legislation, and i guess i would say a more significant bill, such as passage of the Affordable Care act, or passage of the usa freedom act, something that is big legislation that will rewrite a major part of u. S. Code or solve a big issue. That is absolutely something i would like to get. The only thing i can and i have happy for folks i love folks tweaking and poking at the metrics i use, because i am trying to improve them myself. The one thing i would say that i would go back on, because the number stretch back so far, the bipartisanship of that. Every party, when they are in the majority in the house, does what the caller is talking about. The measure of legislative action and futility, at least is constant, at least the metrics are constant. Host bert from columbus, georgia. Caller you have to remember, it is Election Year, and they do not want to pass any boats votes that will make their constituency mad, so they are trying to get votes. Therefore, they run their mouse and be politicians for a wild, try to be statesman. I do not see a statesman up there. Because they all are doing things for the best interest of them getting reelected. They do not care about the American People, they do not care about what people think outside the beltway. They care about going back home and listening to the people that vote for them and trying to do something that those people want them to do, or tell them they will try to do something they want done and go back to congress and make more money pass more laws to make more money, and therefore, and then you have obama passing all these executive orders and try to be the congress and he is passing all these executive orders to benefit his party, and benefit him. And the muslim majority minority he represents, so therefore, it is stupid to think they will do anything. They have done this for ever ever since i have been in politics, since i was 10 years old, i have watched this go about, the same story over and over and over, nothing gets done in Election Years. Host ok, thanks. Guest a number of things to quibble with, the chief one, we are not in an Election Year, if you look at last year, which was an Election Year, you did see some of what the caller was talking about, with congress not taking votes on some of these thorny issues, that was one of the criticisms republicans lobbed at democrats about the way they ran the senate, was the then majority leader harry reid had tight control on amendments and republicans believed he was not allowing a lot of amendment votes, particularly because he did not want his own numbers to base tough votes over these things back a comeback to bite them in the election. Republicans say that one of the reasons they think they gain so many seats in last years election was because they promise more open process and this is the corollary to what the caller is talking about democrats did not get a chance to show independence from president obama last year, because they did not have a lot of amendment votes where they could show a difference with the president or with other democrats. A lot of them when into the election with 95, 96 , 90 party unity scores with hurt them with a lot of voters. There are a lot of reasons i will say this the system in congress only works if we as voters know where our folks stand. One of the most important ways we know where they stand is to take those amendments. That is one reason where i am happy to see all the extra amendments coming through the senate and the actual votes that we are able to see. Host these charts go from january 3 to june 30 finding 27 bills. Talking about the productivity of congress, something our guest charge for the Washington Times. Mark from sanford, maine morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. His point about his host you are on, go ahead. Caller his point about Congress Working together now boehner and policy pelosi is good. We are occurs to see that. You believe that they are working for their constituents these congressmen and senators or does special interest have a lot to play in that . And how can we rein them in . Should they make their own amendment saying, we have to compromise. Have a rule in place where, if we come to a head, we have to be forced to compromise, or the bill dies . So is not a waste of time. Guest the voters hold the ultimate rain, which is reelection. How we rein them in, we have them vote we had the boat. Vote. I think the john boehner and nancy posey compromise, that work that has bedeviled Congress Since i started covering it 15 years ago, that was so they came up with a solution that got broad support from both parties was significant. Going forward, were likely to see a couple of other instances of that, not only we are likely to see other instances of bipartisan cooperation coming out of the house in particular. One of the things your viewers are familiar with lately is the transportation bill, the highway bill, and right now, the Top Democrats and republicans are working on a way to come up with funding everybody agrees we want to build more roads and paid for more highway building and transit. The key problem has been where do you get the money. Anytime with tight budgets where do you get the budgets . We may end up with a bipartisan compromise out of the house and the senate reach one using small funds, the house is looking for a big deal. The other thing, you might see bipartisan compromise, you have already seen it, the bill itself as bipartisan compromise in both changers, is criminal justice reform. Both chambers, is criminal justice reform. John boehner says he wants to see that reform bill on the house floor by the end of this year. That was a major step. We could see another huge bipartisan compromise. If we get either of those or both of those, this will be an important congress. Host for those with the, there are others, like the iran nuclear deal, a story today that senator boxer, tim kaine, and bill nelson showing support what does this signal to you about this deal, especially about people getting along to get things done. Guest you are going to see majoritys of both chambers vote against a comment this is where president obama, because of the way the review act was written congress will pass resolutions of disapproval, overturning this. The president will him will certainly veto this and it will come back to congress, all he needs is a one third vote in either chamber to sustain his position. This is less about the bipartisanship than the president needing to keep enough of his own party on board with him. I doubt you will much republican support for his deal. What he will need is to do exactly what you were talking about, convincing democrats, the three you mention are important one of them, tim kaine, was intimately involved in writing the whole process that allows congress to review the iran sanctions. For him to come out in support is important. There has been the ranking democrat on the house intelligence committee, either over the weekend or earlier this week, also came out in support of it, also very significant. At the same time we saw two other important House Democrats the Ranking Member on the House Appropriations committee, nita lowey, and a member of the House Democratic leadership, congressman steve israel, say they cannot support it. All of these are influential names and likely to have influence with the rest of their colleagues. The president has not won this debate yet. With the addition of those three senators and other house members he is getting close. Host the resolution disapproval you saw, one announcement, the House Foreign Affairs committee tell us what this means. Guest the review act, the process is set up that Congress Gets 60 days to review the deal the president submits. There is debate about whether the president has submitted the whole deal. There are side deals republicans say they want to see before they vote. Illustration says those are not our deals, we submitted what we had to submit. We are in the 60 day time. Congress has a choice they could introduce and tried to pass a resolution of approval, saying president obama, we think you did a great job and that is the policy we want, we give you a yes. They could take no action in which case after a certain time, the deal would go into place and the u. S. Actions would lift automatically. Or, as is about to happen, they can try to pass resolutions of disapproval, i know active negative saying, mr. Obama, we disagree with what you did, we think its bad policy and we will try and overturn it. We always expected them to take the resolution of disapproval option unless the president had done something dramatic a dramatic turnaround from early negotiations. He did not. Republicans in congress and the number of democrats are following through with exactly what they told him they would do, trying to overturn it. Host florida, good morning. Caller good morning and thank you for taking my call. I have a comment, in looking at the congress which has been labeled the most least Productive Congress in recent history, or in history. I think the American People are frustrated, that it appears elected officials in congress appear to be perpetually campaigning all the time. They are not focused on getting work done. But to show boat and create sound pieces campaign ads, for example, ted cruz on the floor of the senate, not too long ago, with his filibuster. It seems like they are not interested in getting work done. On the Affordable Care act, the repeal and replace but never have they been held accountable for what they would replace it with. More recently, the Iranian Nuclear deal. With regard to that, they were already on the news giving statements about how they were going to vote against this deal and it is a terrible deal. However, as the president had asked, what do they suggest, what is the alternative and they cannot come up with anything. My question is to your guests who has been doing the research do you have an opinion as to why this particular congress has been so obstructionist to the point of closing down the government, and second, is there any data to show in the history of our union, we have had a congress that has been so obstructionist . Thank you. Guest we did hit the debts of productivity over the previous two congresses, they were far and away the least Productive Congresses we have had. The records go back to 1947. A stunning lack of productivity. This congress, the one that just began, we just got to the seventh month three first six months, is better than the previous two congresses. It is important most of your viewers know that the congresses are twoyear congresses. We are in the 114th congress. Tying it together with the past couple of congresses, it is not the same congress, it is by definition, the house is a different body and there are different sets of senators who have been sworn in. It is not the same congress this congress is slightly more productive any previous two. The broader point the caller makes, is questioning the value of the votes and the actions on capitol hill here it goes back to what we were talking about earlier. What they do when they take votes, even if people think theyre ridiculous votes, voters get to see where they stand. Republicans, their standpoint on why they have taken some of the both on obamacare, is in order to try to let all the voters know where their lawmakers stand on the Affordable Care act whether they support or oppose it and whether they support or supposed individual parts of it the individual mandate the contraceptive mandate, the business mandate the medical device tax. I hope budget moving parts and there have been those on each of those. Even though those votes are likely to fail, they take them back to voters and say here is where i stand, here is where my opponent stand and we get to make a decision. I am thrilled with more legislative action and more votes, even though they are on things folks do not want to seek votes on. Host tom in clinton, maryland, go ahead. Caller can you hear me ok . Host go ahead. Caller this would be a great time to put a 5 tax on a gallon of gas so we can fix our highways. Highways throughout the nation are in terrible shape. I think republicans have the purse. They should be doing something in that regard. As far as iran is concerned, the nuclear deal, are you willing to send your child to fight a war . When we can handle this diplomatically for a time . We have a strong army, and air force that could handle iran if we had to. Why put ourselves in that position . Guest on the gas tax that was the position of Many Democrats nancy pelosi, that wouldve been her preferred position, a user fee on people who drive cars in order to pay for more roads. Republicans have almost almost all republicans have ruled that out. That is why we are looking for other funding to pay for the roadbuilding program. There are a number of folks in congress who believe that that gas tax would be the way to go, this is what we are talking about with bipartisanship and the need to come to an agreement, when you have one party who has ruled that out, you have to go to the other option. Even of democrats will continue talking about a gas tax increase once it is clear that will not happen, Congress Needs to move to position b. The solution the House Republicans and democrats are looking at is a repatriation act, a onetime tax on income Corporate Income earned overseas that would be repeat treated or brought back repatriated or brought back to the u. S. And then the tax would fund the highway bill. And would fund there is supposed to be enough left over to fund other Things Congress would want to do. As money has been out there for a while. There is debate that has been floating for years and they are getting somewhat close to a deal. Host margaret, wyoming independent line. Caller good morning. I have a question would the guests be able to tell me a bit more about s. N. A. P the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program and the congressional activity that took place in that program . Thank you. Guest i am not familiar with the status of s. N. As. P. One of the things we are coming up for the time for the spending bills to be passed. All the things i said about the productivity of congress could be bent by this appropriation process. Host what will happen . Guest i will give you the problem and the likely scenario. The problem is republicans for the first time in Years Congress for the first time in years, reached a budget out of both chambers, the house and senate, it had been 2009 since we last had a unified congressional budget. The public and in control wrote the budget and wrote the spending levels such that defense got a boost over what the sequester would be using what i would call a budget gimmick. The domestic programs did not get a boost in spending, democrats said i cannot live with that. If you will boost spending, you need to boost all spending domestic and defense. They have insisted on that. There have been a couple of snafus in the house, including the Confederate Flag and National Parks which the real the House Appropriations process. The house has passed about the senate has not passed any spending bills, they try to pass a defense bill that the senators filibustered that because of the dispute about raising defense spending and not other spending. They are going to come back in september with a lot of other things on their plate, including the iran sanctions that the callers have been talking about. The deadline for passing funding to keep the government funded through fiscal year 2016 is september 30, almost inconceivable Congress Gets and possible Congress Gets all 12 pills done. They are likely to bills done. They will likely get a continuing resolution to keep the government funded. Some of these issues like planned parenthood and president obamas executive action on immigration, anger enough republicans where they will say we will continue funding most of the government, but we do not want to continue funding the executive action on immigration or continue funding planned parenthood out of federal taxpayer funds. You will end up with a situation where it depends on how many republicans insist any it depends for john boehner and Mitch Mcconnell, how many conservative republicans to the right say we cannot vote for anything if john boehner and Mitch Mcconnell can create a coalition in the center without them they will probably do that, if they cannot, you are left with a real stalemate. We are hearing the shutdown word already being tossed around, mainly by democrats to are saying we are headed there, republicans a we are not headed there. How we get to a point where there is not a shutdown is not clear. Host pensacola, florida, derek is next. Caller good morning. I wanted to make a few points why doesnt the American News he did tell the people that this is not an american obama deal, this is a multination deal. And why do not they tell the American People iran is fighting along with us in iraq . And why do we care so much about what israel thinks when it is not in our interest . Guest there are a number of members of congress who are making those points, and those are part of the reason why they support the deal, in addition to the fact they think the sixth the inspection regime that will be created to verify whether iran is following through is strong enough. There are a number of lawmakers on the other side who do not think the inspectors are sufficient. It will be editing vote. Interesting vote. I think the product the president into getting the support he needs. Host the house is out, the senate is dishing up talking about Cyber Security finishing up talking about Cyber Security. Guest the breach with the office of Security Management and with the irs and the private reaches over the last few years have brought attention to this. This has been around forever. It has popped up on the senate floor and they could not get agreement on it. They finally have a bipartisan agreement out of the committee. Now they are stuck in standard senate they are stuck in disagreement over having amendments to allow and how to go about this. If they did not have a vacation at the end of this five weeks ought five weeks off at the end of this week, it might be easier to get something done, because Mitch Mcconnell said, we will spend two or three weeks on this bill, everybody will have a chance to get her say, he can i do that, because everybodys eager to get out. Host back to the shutdown scenario. When i get back from break, how many legislative days do they have to resolve this issue . Guest not a lot, i do not know the specific number. They come back the week after labor day. September 30 is the deadline. You have certain holidays built into the schedule for the jewish religious calendar antipope and the pope coming to observe congress. And you Iran Nuclear Sanctions which will absorb a lot of time. Mitch mcconnell said he want the debate to happen with senator sitting at their desk on the senate floor. I have been covering congress for 15 years and have never seen anything like that where they all sit there throughout an actual debate. Your viewers are familiar with the scene of the senate where they are in a quorum and nobody is on the floor. You might see something stunning with all of them on the floor with one debates and his or her colleagues are listening. That will take up time. If i had to guess, you probably have three or four, maybe 5, 6 days of actual time you could devote to this. You are probably never going to see it reach the floor until there is a continuing resolution. Host new york, hello, good morning. Caller good morning. How are you guys doing . Pedro, i want to bring up something to stephen about this Republican Party and how much they are not getting done in congress today. Right from obamas first inauguration Mitch Mcconnell and his eight men out came up with this idea of obstructing everything president obama wanted to do. To go further, they are coming up with grover norquist, how come these people are allowed to do such things . They took an oath to the American People. You talk about obstruction these people are causing division in this congress. Guest i know a lot people having have different opinions about over norquist Grover Norquists no new taxes pledge. The pledge aside, we as voters should want our lawmakers to tell us what they are going to do, and then we get to judge them on how well they live up to that. The pledge is a way to do that, a pledge that they will not raise taxes during their time in office, and if they break that we get to judge them for breaking that. As they face voters, they can use that pledge, and say here is what i will do as a member of congress, you can bank on it because i signed my name to a document. You may disagree with the specifics of one pledge or another, or one statement or another am i think telling voters what you will do is a good thing. Host plano texas pat hello. Caller i am a longtime follower of cspan and i would like to address the whole issue of obstructionism. I have watched both parties do it, nancy pelosi under bush bragged about it. The shoe is on the other foot. Obamacare went through with no markups, amendments, went through recreation it is not shocking if you leave one party out, they will attack it. I used to watch hearings all the time on cspan, conference committees between the house and the senate. We do not see those things anymore. I wish that what cspan would do i do not think Many Americans are aware of the process. We have so dramatically deviated from the process that i grew up with. We throw these names back and forth. I wish cspan would teach people in an objective way not a spin on the tv or on the cable. Somehow, we need to get back to that. Thank you. Guest it is a really good point. I do not have to numbers in front of me but that is another measure i use, the number of conference committees because it is legislative help. There were sessions where we had cereal bills come out of conference or most of the year. We are to have several that have gone to conference so far in this congress in six months of this session, so there is more help. They are an important measure of legislative help and that is covered in this. I have actually been wanting to say this on cspan for a long time. Cspan is invaluable. I have been covering congress 15 years. I cannot do my job to way i do it without cspan, and your viewers get a really good view, the best view that is out there of what goes on in congress. You see what our day, reporters day is like, you get to reach your conclusions away we reach our own conclusions. It is the greatest resource from Committee Hearings and the markup the caller was talking about, to four conference floor action to the data you guys have online, it is spectacular. Your viewers are so lucky. Host from pennsylvania, one more called. Caller good morning. Hello . Host go ahead. Caller i have a question about the Nuclear Option at the senate usedmocrats were in office. I wonder if you can explain that to me because it is my understanding that they got around a lot of these closure votes and all that by using that and why dont the republicans go ahead and do a thing about it. Thank you. Guest the Nuclear Option has two parts to it. Apart we call the Nuclear Option and that is the way the rules are changed and the democrats is a tactic that only required a majority vote in order to change the rules as opposed to going to the rules committee which required a two thirds vote on the floor to change the role, so that was the Nuclear Option part. The actual change was to reduce the threshold for overcoming a filibuster on nominations other than Supreme Court nominations. A very particular class of folks but it now requires only majority votes to overcome a filibuster on most nominations. The republicans actually have left that in place so if a republican president were to come in the future and you would see democratic opposition and republicans still control the senate, they could get this through the same way they did for president obamas nominee. Host how often do you track this . When do you release the information . Guest usually at the sixmonth mark and that the earmark. Yeah, im going to take think whether i do change the name from the productivity index. We will see. Host do you suspect your numbers will change because it is an Election Year . Guest they will change for a different reason. The second session of the congress, because you have so many hills that are active and live from the second session, it is not Like Congress is starting over. You will see a lot of action, it just might not be you might not tackle as many big issues which is why i would find a way to distinguish from major legislation. Stephen joining us to talk about host coming up, to guess to join us to talk about Climate Change. Joining us, myron bell of the Enterprise Institute and Jeremy Symons of the Environmental Defense fund. We will have that discussion went washington journal continues. Cspan radio takes you to the movies. Here for Supreme Court cases that played a part in popular movies. From this summers woman in gold we recommend opening the can and extracting one little warm with a pair tweezers and quickly closing it shut again. To the 1996 of the the people versus larry flynt. Is jerry can sue when there has been no libel purely on the grounds of emotional distress, then look at other public figures and imagine suits against people like Terry Trudeau and got Johnny Carson for what he says on the tonight show tonight. From all the president s men. Do know him . These were assigned to us. These two over assigned to the case. [indiscernible] thats right. Do you know the name of the council . And the 2011 drama, the loving story about the landmark civil rights case invalidating the rights the loss on interracial marriage. We are hearing the major civil rights case. That is the right of richard loving to wake up in the morning or to go to sleep at night knowing that the sheriff will not be knocking on their door or shining a light in their face in the privacy of their bedroom. For Supreme Court cases that have played parts of popular movies. Saturdays in august at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan radio. This into cspan radio at 90. 1 fm in the washington, d. C. Area, online at www. Cspan. Org or download our cspan radio app. Washington journal continues. Host here to join us about the president S Administration plan for Climate Change are two guests. of myron bell of the Competitive Institute and joined by Jeremy Symons of the Environmental Defense fund, the assistant Vice President for climate affairs. Thank you for joining us. We saw the specifics come out from the president on what he wanted to cs bars the clean air and power, mr. Jeremy symons what do you see as the end result if he gets his way . Guest we are going to seat less pollution, a stronger economy and better help benefits, particularly for the most formidable populations that suffer from asthma or other pollution problems because the Clean Power Plan is the first ever on National Standards on Carbon Pollution that puts limits on the smokestack emissions coming from power plants. That is a big deal because power plants are the biggest source of pollution. Host mr. Jeremy symons mr. Myron bell, where do see the end of this . Guest i see a continued economic stagnation as Energy Prices go up, electric rates go up, particularly in the heartland states that have the lowest priced electricity and that is where our Manufacturing Base has been concentrated. We are going to have people who cannot afford their elected hills at the bottom of the economic ladder and we are going to have people being put out of work as manufactures have to move out of the country to find lowercost production areas. Host just offering you some specifics with the plan, it would produce covered by dioxide by 32 by the at 2030. It would add up to 30 more Renewable Energy by 2030 and compliance by the states said to begin in 2022. As far as that 30 reduction the both of you, is that a realistic goal to reduce emissions by 30 , mr. Symon . Guest thats actually quite modest. We have reduced Carbon Pollution by 15 in the last 10 years, so reduced pollution in 10 years and now we have a plan that looks for another 17 reduction over the next 15 years. It is a continuation of the trend. The important thing is that admissions go down instead of up and that happens through clean energy. The Clean Energy Revolution is here. What i think will happen is we will see these targets achieved much faster than is called for in the plan now that the direction is set and it is clear that Carbon Pollution is no longer rewarded in the marketplace. Rather, we are getting to clean. Host what about mr. Bells point about the industries that it will hit the most particularly the caoloal industry . Guest it is attacked by industry as it will be a huge burden on consumers and the end of industry. The reality is that this bipartisan piece of legislation has worked extremely well and benefits exceed the cost king that sibley by looking at all pollutants by a factor of 10. We have reduced other pollutants like sulfur and ozone in the economy and we can do that again here. Companies that fund competitive Enterprise Institutes continue to make the claims because they are afraid of embracing the future of cleaner Energy System but for consumers it will be a good deal. The cost of solar has come down by 80 since 2008. The cost of coal, according to the Energy Information administration, the cost is going to go up, 40 between now and 2030. That has nothing to do with the Clean Power Plan, it is fossil fuels becoming more expensive and clean energy cheaper. Host mr. Bell . Guest we are already trying these policies in some states, particularly new england, new york and california. What we see our economies that are dead in the water. People who cannot afford their electric bills and have to choose between heating and eating. We have already seen the future and we have seen how it works. If you want to look at the parts of the country that are comparatively economically prospering, that is where you see coal powered, natural gas powered, and people do not have to pay so much for their energy bill. All of these plans, jeremy and all the environmental groups and the Obama Administration talk of very good game but thats a quick these policies have been implemented. Lets look at california. It is an economic basket case. The energy costs are not the only reason, there are other crazy policies a pursue out there, the poorest it with all those natural advantages it has to be in the mess it is in with a bankrupt government and 1000 a month elected those in many places, we have seen the future and would we know it does not work. Guest that is just not true. California is the seven biggest economy in the world. They are going strong and they will be in a position to win the race among this state of trying to get the Clean Energy Future first because if we prove energy efficiency, that will create up to 800,000 jobs. If we create Clean Energy Clean energy is creating a job every 10 minutes in this country. It is not just california and new york. You look at this plan and it targets one of the key features of this plan is that if thats every state picked the way that is best for that state to meet these pollution reduction targets and you look at states like south dakota, nevada who have had Strong Alliance on clean energy, they are already on target to exceed these targets in a significant way, so it is just a false argument because when you look at california in particular they have an omission Trading Program that has created incredibly cheap and inexpensive ways for companies to innovate and that is what programs like this can do. When we align the markets, when we set the goals, American Ingenuity can get it done and i believe in that future and i know your companies do not believe in that picture, but i think the public are the ones that hang in the balance and theyre the ones that stand to benefit from this ruling. Guest i dont represent companies. [indiscernible] i would like to see you get closer to the budget, ours is six money dollars a year and i think yours is 100 million a year. I would like to see a lot more coming from all of those companies, but unfortunately many of the Coal Companies are going bankrupt. Host you said you dont present the companies guest you said you dont represent the companies but you want more money from the companys . Guest i would like more funding to weed out the nonsense. Guest there is a problem here between reality and governmental dreams. Government can plan all kinds of things, but lets see how they actually work out. New york and new england are about double the national average. Those areas used to have a lot of manufacturing. All of that manufacturing has either gone to china, mexico or heartland states like indiana and ohio, kentucky and tennessee that rely on inexpensive electricity. If we want to have a future where people have to spend more and more money for energy and jeremy says that all of these alternatives are becoming cheaper and cheaper well, if that is true, then why is the wind industry swarming on capitol hill to renew their tax subsidy . Why is the Solar Industry determined that they have to have their tax subsidy . It is because those powers are not competitive and one of the reasons is is because the wind does not blow all the time and the sun does not shine all the time. For example, texas has a lot of windmills but in texas in the summer, when everybody has their airconditioning on, those windmills are blowing about 2 3 of the time. In the other seasons they are 30 of the time perhaps, but when they really need the power in texas, they have 2 of their entire mix coming from windmills. This is not the future. Windmills are very old technology. We need to get off these deadend technologies and on to letting the free market innovate and produce Real Solutions for our problems. Host they will continue as we talk about this plan released by the administration earlier this week. If you want to ask questions you can do so on the line. Republicans 202 7848001. Democrats 202 7848000. Independent 202 7488002. We will take a call from across in washington, d. C. Go ahead. Caller good morning. I am a System Engineer and im pretty familiar with a lot of these things. In news reading, and people like the heartland which are funded by Coal Industries and the oil and Gas Industries have fought every inch of the way. Theyre responsible for delaying any kind of action on global warm just came out, he just cannot he just came not as said by 2050, and he has been proven right all along, he said by 2050, we are looking at five foot sea level rising. That means a major portion of florida is gone. If we are looking at 1015 c rises with 70 have been 75 feet, we are looking at a major economic, environmental disaster where you have audience of people and another couple billions people dislocated and starving. This is no longer a game for corporate guys and corporate speech guys and they skies to get on the air. These are crimes against humanity. To i very much. Host mr. Bell, do you want to start . Guest well, im not a fan of dr. Hansen, his longtime at nasa for space studies, he said about 15 years ago that he was asked what manhattan would look like in 10 years and he said, well, looking out his window at columbia university, well, a lot of this will be underwater. That is just one of many predictions he has made that has turned out to be completely ridiculous and untrue. The rate of Sea Level Rise is at about close to one foot per century. In the 19th and 20th centuries it was about 78 inches per century, so that is the level of c rise we are talking about. You can get anything you want from one of dr. Hansens computer models, but if you actually look at the data, you will see that Sea Level Rise is a problem but not the crisis. It is not the end of the world. Host mr. Symons . Guest , change fundamentally comes down to a question of are we going to leave for our kids and future generations a less polluted planet . A better planet . A planet that does not have the kind of impacts that the casllerller was talking about . There is one thing that is concerned about climate, we do not know when these nonlinear effects of Climate Change will strike. We know that we are fundamentally disrupting our climate system and that it is not going to be a smooth, gradual change of inches. We are looking at what is happening in the ice caps in greenland and antarctic and other places, and we are starting to see very large disruptions. At some point, the pollution the Carbon Pollution we are putting in the air from smokestacks, that last for 100 years or more. A century or more. It is and not most irreversible change within our lifetimes and the lives of our kids to do something about that. When you say, i guess the caller was right, we dont know how long it will be, but if it happens if we do not act, there will not be a chance to go back and change it. We have one planet, we can acknowledgment was a risk by dumping so much pollution into the atmosphere, that stoops small steps like boosting clean energy that helps Public Health and economy to deal with Climate Change. Host from pennsylvania, mark, good morning. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Mr. Bell i agree with mr. Bell. About the windmills and stuff. I wanted to ask you a question, this he know about the wobble of the earth, the rotation of the sun that we reset we major reset its clock in 2012 and this affected everything as far as i weather goes and as time goes on the taps will the capsule rebuild themselves and it is natures way of resetting the clock, in other words does he know anything about that . Guest thank you. There are a lot of fear is and there has been a lot of research and things like the orbital wobble of the earth the wobble on its axis, axel merk cycles, sunspot activity and so on. I think over a long period of time these big astronomical things sunspots and earths orbit play a role. I would say in terms of the data that we have, we see National Cycles over a 100 year period and roughly 1000 year period. We are in an interglacial period in between ice ages, 92 100 thousand years, we are late into the interglacial cycle and that has allowed human beings to floors and civilizations developed since the last ice age. Just looking at the data from where we are now, i think the key thing is that president obama and the Environmental Movement have been talking about all the terrible effects of mobile warming that we are already seeing. In fact, Global Temperatures the average temperature for about the last 18 years has been flat according to the surface data, satellite data and balloon data, they all agree. The models say we should have seen a lot of warming but what they are now claiming is that affects of Global Warming perceive the cost. We have not had Global Warming for 18 years but we are seeing these terrible effects. That is not my view of Health Science works but perhaps these people are in a postmodern scientific world where the affect proceeds the cause. Host mr. Symons . Guest you keep making up facts by confusing the science by trying to protect the companies that did the most pollution. The reality is that nasa is backed by millions of measurements and no and the National Academy of science organizations have begun a very careful look at the natural sisals natural cycles. To have compared them to the fingerprint, the fast rate at which we pump Carbon Pollution into the atmosphere. When you look at that, it is unequivocal that the pollution we are putting in the atmosphere is the driving factor of Climate Change and it is flat wrong to save the planet is not warming. Last year was the warmest on record. 14 of the last 15 have been the warmest on record. Look at the people dealing with the dropped right now as a harbinger of the water problems that Climate Change brings. We are not just talking about hot temperatures. We are talking about the fundamental disruption of the rain patterns across this country and the world that brings drought or we are water scarce and then dumps the water that is there that creates huge floods, largely through the midwest and we are looking at Sea Level Rise and the effects of that and the inundation starting to take place in cities like miami and charleston. This is not just a future threat. It is here and now and it is wrong to say we did not have the human fingerprint. Co2 and atmosphere levels are the highest they have been in 800,000 years or more. This is the here and it is now. Host mike from new york. Democrat line. Caller my on . Host yes, go ahead. Caller the problem is a lot deeper than this. Obama came here too late. You should have done this when he first came president. In 1981, if reagan had gutted everything, we should have started them. We should have sad public transportation, too many people drive their cars to work. Now the gas they do waste and we are using like [indiscernible] we have to cut that. We have to learn how to turn off our lights and we will have to start using garbage for fuel and solar power and then start it might be too late and too little. Host mr. Symon to his point about being too late and we have certain practices and we are creatures of habit when it comes to transportation and otherwise that we cannot make a significant change anyway . Guest i think the question we have to ask ourselves is whenever doing now on our watch . It is not too late because as i said, we do not know on the estimates of the Climate Change impacts that we are looking at. They tend to be conservative estimates and we do not know exactly what these trigger points are, where we go from the impacts we are seeing too much more severe ones and it is prudent for us to do everything we can to make that transition to low pollution, clean energy and do it as soon as we can, so we need to get going. I do not inc. This is about fundamentally less choices. I think this is an opportunity to embrace more choices. We need more choices on how we use energy. We need more Clean Energy Options. Some people have that in the states where they are and some people do not. Some states are putting barriers up or have barriers to have companies to be able to put free solar panels on your roof and get a lower utility rate then the current utility is offering your. We need to break down these barriers and make sure that we have cars and fuel sources and transportation and for our homes and in our businesses. That really unleash Clean Energy Options and the way to do that is to set the goal to clean. The way to do that is to put standards on pollution and that companies innovate. That is what we did with sulfur dioxide and other clean their problems. If we can set the goal companies can get this done and lead the world. While we may not be going as fast as we should, and i agree with the collar on that, we need to go faster, the reality is we are leading the world at this point and we are demonstrating that we can get this done. That makes sense because our businesses are leaders across the world. If we can do it here, we can get it done locally and we are seeing countries respond to the president s leadership and that includes china. For the first time, they have agreed to cap omissions. Do not give up hope, we can get it done. This means more choices, not fewer choices. Host mr. Bell . Guest i do not share your callers view of the future. I think the Environmental Movement has been proclaiming doom right around the corner since it was founded in the late 1960s. It is how they find the Environmental Movement, it is how they attract Political Support by saying we have this crisis. We have had one crisis after another. Any of them were real problems but not crises. Human beings can deal with things because we are innovative. The reason that the United States is more innovative than most countries or really any country in the history of the world is because we have the most freedom. We have free markets. What we have now is the federal government and in particular thiS Administration that wants to control everything. We are driving innovation out of the u. S. Economy and that is why we are economically stagnant. I do not think it is too late to save the u. S. Economy but i think we will have to get going at it or we are going to be in the same position as some of the southern European Countries that have huge debt, have no business startups because they are smothered by regulations. These socalled Clean Power Plants are designed to limit innovation and to suffocate innovation in the u. S. Economy so i think it is not too late to save the u. S. Economy but we need to get going. Host from new york. Here is bob. Go ahead. Caller thank you for cspan. Myron, you are not entitled to your own facts, you are entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts. I cannot believe i am looking at an elderly man like yourself you look sophisticated but you talk childish. You are talking old frederick gloom and doom. I am a democrat. Im not in environmentalist, but the science is speaking and you are in denial. But you know better. You are getting paid for your lips and your mouth. Host do you have a specific question . Caller look at germany, germany is a landlocked country which is now approaching one third of its energy use from wind and solar. And look at the rest of the world. My question is, how can this man try and disconnect the reality of wind and solar . Look at germany, look at what is going on in germany. They have 35 , ahead of estimates, they were supposed to be a 25 , the total Countries Energy is coming from wind and solar. This man is telling you it is no good. Host bob, thank you. Guest i try to look at the facts, not at the dreams and the marbling. The entire Global Warming model is based on models not data. I encourage you as a person appears about reality and the facts, to look at the day debt and not at what the computer models say which diverge wildly from the actual temperature data. Or the impacts, the heat wave data, the ipc see report the most recent one, the chapter on Severe Weather events says that there is no trend, no longterm trend in Severe Weather events either in intensity or frequency. As for germany, i just happen to be that a few weeks ago and i talked to a lot of people about what is going on in germany and they are all shaking their heads because the electric rates are going through the roof and manufacturers arent leaving as fast as they can to go to Eastern Europe which is based on coalfired power. Germany can do all at once to create this energy wonderland, but it is actually harming the german people and the german economy, those are the facts. Host mr. Symon . Guest i appreciate lobs call. Just picking up on germany, last week, germany set a record in one day, they got 74 of their electric power from Renewable Energy. It just demonstrates that we are not really up against technological problem. We are up against old institutions. There is no freedom, as you like to talk about, and old electric utility monopoly models backed by old regulations. We need to catch up and get out of the rut we have big and been in and make sure that the path is free for innovation in front of us. In terms of facts and the facts you keep making up regarding that there is no Climate Change impact, i invite people to go to Environmental Defenses website at adf. Org and get the facts and what is happening to our climate system and the impacts out there. Host Washington Post recently talked about the 14 states that produce coal. They say generates about 50 of electricity. Assuming that goes down because of regulations what does it take for clean energy to make up for the demands . Guest michael bloomberg, the former mayor of new york, yesterday talked about what has happened with cold. As he rightly points out, coal is no longer at 50 . It has been declining more at 40 now. Clean energy has become more competitive and in greater numbers and more and more people are choosing distribution clean energy when they can and where they had that option available. Those options are out there and think improvements in energy efficiency. Coal is losing the competitive battle. Coal has very limited and there is only so much Innovation One can do in polling coal out of the ground and trying to load it on train cars and get it to power plants around the country. Whereas clean energy, you look at the progress that has been made the smartphone today has so much more Computing Power than the big mainframes from just 1520 years ago at a fraction of the cost. That is what Global Energy and there is no limit, particularly in america, there is no limit to how much power we can get from the sun and wind if we can get the technologies out there to do it. Cost of wind power has come down by more than half, the cost of solar power has come down by more than 38 . The big prize in our future on electricity is still trying to figure out how to get more efficient products in the marketplace, so that our bills go down and the demand goes down overall. That potential is still largely untapped. There was no Technology Frontier we are up against and we are setting our sights on the right goals. Host charts cap about the rise in natural gas, is natural gas a natural replacement for coal as coal goes down . Guest the United States has the Worlds Largest reserves of coal. It turns out because of a technological revolution in the oil and gas industry called the hydraulic action revolution, the shale revolution, that we now have huge reserves of natural gas. Groups like the Environmental Defense fund have been trying to wage war a national gas as well as coal. We see this reflected in the president s plan because the first proposal last year was to say that the force states to move from coal to natural gas and the new plan says we are going to force states to move from coal to wind and solar. If wind and solar are really as competitive as it is always claimed by the wind and Solar Industries and their supporters in the Environmental Movement, we should see this happening without a huge federal tax subsidy. Wind industry whenever the tax subsidy expires and it is currently expired, the Republican Congress is busy, the senate is busy at least trying to a new it right now, but whenever it expires, wind will construction ceases. The solar credit has a longer term, so we have not seen that upanddown, but the fact is, the wind and Solar Industries depend on state mandates that require a certain amount of Renewable Energy and the federal subsidy. If we got rid of those, we would still find that, yes, wind and solar would become cheaper, particularly solar, but there are still more expensive than coal and natural gas. Yes, we are looking we have the Worlds Largest reserves of coal but we also have no huge reserves of natural gas. We also now have huge reserves of natural gas. That is going to be the future because the technological revolution has not been in wind mills, a dead and technology, it has been in the oil and gas industry. Small companies becoming Large Companies by innovating and finding a huge new resources know what that could be tapped. Guest can i clarify the position . We want to reduce pollution, that is what we are about we want the market to compete to reduce that pollution. Pollution is not free. When you keep talking about the freedom of markets, the markets are wrong right now. The markets have not incorporated the fact that Carbon Pollution is causing the damage. We want to make should that businesses are making choices based on the total impact of the choices they make. Given that, given the power of markets, we can get the kind of results on carbon and Carbon Pollution that we got on sulfur oxide and so to and to deal with and so2 and other trading mechanisms. Natural gas should compete with clean energy. There is nothing in the clean power point that forces in the state to do anything in terms of picking the winners and losers that is not what we are about. It says pollution needs to come down. The companies and the states can figure out one issue of that in there. Natural gas does pollute less than coal in terms of urban pollution when it is burned Carbon Pollution when it is burned but it emits more from clean energy. There is one piece unaccounted for that needs to be dealt with and that is the methane emissions from the oil and Gas Production transportation sector. That limits an important greenhouse that admits a potent greenhouse gas, so we need to plug the leaks which are getting wasting an actual bible resource and natural gas throughout the system and stop that pollutant. That will save money and it is good stewardship. Lets do that. Lets make sure we get the markets bright and that technologies company. Host Jeremy Symons joining us and myron bell. Jim, you are up next. Caller good morning. I have a couple comments i would like to make an questions to ask. Number 1 Gina Mccarthy herself admitted on her questioning the other day that if we do all of this, we will not respect the temperature of the Global Warming temperature anymore then possibly one 100 of a degree by 2030. That is all pain and no gain. I think it is kind of ridiculous to condition the economies in this country that we need to show the rest of the world how to do it. I think they laugh at this around the rest of the world. China has made an empty promise to do a little bit by 2030. They are not bound by anything neither is india. Youve got all of those dirty charcoal burning countries that use that as a fuel. I do not think that you will ever get third world countries to come around to this and they cannot even afford to burn coal energy plants. It is just kind of a, what i would say, it is insanity. We are trying to remake the world in our image and likeness and we have been doing it over and over and over again. People just do not go along with us. Host ok, we will let our guest respond. Mr. Symon . Guest i dont think anybody will be laughing at the benefits of the Clean Power Plan in the United States or around the world. 90,000 asthma attacks every year, that is nothing to laugh at. The climate and Carbon Pollution reductions from the Clean Power Plan we are talking about over 800 million tons of production by 2030. That is equivalent to about 160 missions commissions from 160 million cars. The overall benefits from this when it is monetized, which is completely missing from the marketplace right now over 50 billion. These benefits are important. They are real. I think we can do more. I think once you get on this path, we will find that we can do more faster, but it is a great start. Guest i appreciate what youre caller said. He noted that Gina Mccarthy admitted that under the epas own modeling that this plan to reduce emissions from power plants will have no affect on the Global Climate and in a measurable effect that it will be so small. Jeremy let the cat out of the bag. He said we need to do more. This is only the first step, so when people say, we can afford this, it is not that bad ok we will have to sacrifice or pay a little more for electricity. They ought to understand that this is only step one. As we go a long, each step will be more and more expensive. The Obama Administration and Environmental Movement have the plans and this is only a small piece of it. Guest it is a false choice to say that not acting will protect electric bills. The price of coal is going up and up. Guest you are just mixing these things up. Guest they said it will go up 40 and i have to say that the Clean Power Plan, the analysis that has come out said said consumers seven dollars a month on their electricity bills by 2030. When you look at comparison of the futures of energy, there is no way that increasing dependence on fossil fuel will save us money compared to the Clean Energy Technologies and efficient technologies when the cost keeps coming down. Guest it is a nice story. Host from arkansas, charles up next. Caller good morning. Jeremy, the gentleman from ohio had called and was correct. Believe me. You said china was following your footsteps. China is still opening one coal plant per week. India is doing their damnest to catch up with them. You are spending our money for no reason. I remembered the ice age that you folks had coming in the 70s in the 1970s. I want to tell you you blew out of that in every paper and everything. It is on. You were wrong on that. I remember your stale dart around the tennessee dam that you cost the dam at 10 of money 800 of money. The apple people up in washington that you put out of business because your fax were wrong. Jeremy, i think you better start reading. He will explain to you what hansen has done with his hockey stick the years. You have a good day, but im getting tired of listening to you people that have no economy sense in your head. Host mr. Symon . Guest i have to say that i was not part of those fights but i will try you some of the fights i am glad that i was a part of. Making america a stronger bite reducing their pollution that was darkening our skies, that is a Success Story and that is the clean air act. The ohio river catching fire, that was a symbol the dismal state of our waterways but the clean water act has been successful. I think we can apply the same principles here. It is not about sacrificing here in the United States for the sake of overseas, far from it. We need an american plan that works for us, and that means Something Like the Clean Power Plan because the Clean Power Plan delivers on the Clean Energy Promise of our future. That will also have the benefits of showing leadership countries around the world. We have a long way to go. No one is saying we do not have a long way to go in terms of the global progress that we need but there is also no question that other countries are stepping up to do their fair share now that there is leadership on the table. Host with that in mind, the you and secretary was at the white house the u. N. Secretary was at the white house speaking to president obama and we want to show you what he had to say and get your thoughts on it. This is a surely important and visionary leadership. The u. S. Can and be able to change the world in addressing the climate settlement. We are the first generation, as president obama rightly said yesterday, to put an end to world poverty and we are the last generation to address Climate Change phenomenon. I think this Clean Power Plan powers economies and generates a job. Also, it generates huge dividends here at home in the u. S. Economy and i am sure that this will impact of the countries. Host making the case that possibly what we do here will have other countries play along, china, india, some of the other countries mentioned. Guest i think it makes a difference in a number of ways. First, a lot of the pollution on this that is currently in the atmosphere from past practices we have a strong share of that. We have the leadership role to go ahead and produced that commission. People will take note, but i think the most important thing is that around the world, the United States is recognized as innovative leader. In our ability to tackle big problems and in the private sector. That is something that with new technology and cheaper technology, they can export around the world. People are watching closely to see what we do and they are responding. The deal with china was a breakthrough. For 20 years, groups like enterprises have been trying to undermine global cooperation, global agreements on Climate Change in order to create the argument that other countries are not acting. Well, that era is over. Every country is now stepping up saying they have to do more. Host mr. Bell . Guest i was interested by those remarks because i remember back the last time we were told that this was our last chance to save the world in u 2009 in copenhagen at the. N. Climate conference. That conference collapsed, so i guess we should of said i guess we dont have a chance to save the world but i guess we will do it again this year in pairs with many of the same actors. In 2009, it is worth remembering that the secretary of state Hillary Clinton flew in and saved the conference from total collapse by promising that the developed countries led by the United States starting in 2020 after president obamas nothing to worry about would start supplying 100 billion a year to poor countries. The president has asked for 3 billion over four years to get this going before 2020. The u. S. Contribution will be maybe 20 billion to 30 billion a year. That is what secretary Hillary Clinton committed the United States to and president obama said yes. The congress has said no to the first 500 million so far. There is an amendment in the hospital that has no money can be given to the Green Climate fund. I think this will be an interesting debate between those who think we can get the support of the developing countries by these massive wealth transfers and those who oppose that and think that is not the way to help developing countries. The way to open their markets and have investment in their countries, not to have wealth transfers, so thisll be an interesting debate over the next few years. Host from virginia, stewart. Good morning. Caller good morning. I believe the last gentlemen i agree with him. I would like to expand. I believe if you are to transition to this, during the transition period manufacturing would be at a standstill or a lot lower. With regards to military and national security, if we got into a very serious shooting war and we had to really gear up would these new policies be as efficient . And what would the tanks run on . Electricity . How would we find jets . Because you are not going after cold youre going after oil you are going after it all. Lets be honest. Last point is this are you going to hurt middle and lower income people . They would pay the price. Also, you know what, sir, i have not heard you say anything. What about the nuclear plan . Guest thank you for your comments. Of course, nuclear is kind of the unspoken part of our energy. We currently get about 7 of energy from nuclear. Our naval ships and submarines, many run on Nuclear Reactors, so i think the question about nuclear that i have is the same i have about every technology what is the cost . United states has not built a new Nuclear Reactor for so long because of the political opposition and the economic that we do not really know how much it will cost to Start Building a new generation of Nuclear Reactors. To a currently under construction and lets see how that goes and lets see what the future of nuclear is. Host mr. Syomn . Guest finishing up on nuclear we do know the cost. All Energy Sources should compete and nuclear is low carbon, but economics is not the question mark anymore because theyre building those two and they are sticking large bill increases to ratepayers because the cost is starting to overrun. I think nuclear is going to be an economic question gets back to the first point. Manufacturing and the pace. Clean power plan is a modest plan, 15 reduction from commissions in the last 10 years and there has been all kinds of flexibility built into make sure that the transition does not happen. In fact, the plan does not take effect for seven years. There are seven years for industry to anticipate these rules going into effect and make sure they are on the right trajectory. When it does take effect, we are talking about another 17 reduction in the next 15 years. They consistent with the pace we have seen especially when the Technology Options are more and more. You brought up the military and i think the military is an important point of transitioning to clean energy because i mentioned the Important Role of the private sector but the Defense Sector has been probably at the leading edge of the transition to clean energy, and they have done that because they see the dependency on fossil fuels as being a huge security threats. The amount of lives that have been lost in protecting oil convoys, so they had been working quite extensively on fuel efficiency, on energy efficiency, and alternative Energy Sources and helping to lead that paradigm just as the military is leading on thinking of danger of Climate Change and joint chiefs and others have issued reports easily talking about how Climate Change is no longer just a future security threat, a threat multiplier today that is affecting our deployment and actions. Host andrew is from san diego. Good morning, andrew. Caller good morning. I would like to comment on the idea that Companies Move to china because of high electricity rates. The company that moves to china moves because they there were so many ways that they could exploit many facets of the chinese economy and the economy in china is one of the most regulated economies, if not the most regulated economy in the world, and right now, look at the beijing olympics. Their air was so bad that we were worried our athletes would be died while running a 10k. Secondly solar. In california, on my street with 15 houses out of 18 have solar on the roof. Guess what yesterday electricity utilities went to try and find to find a way to charge a small 280 installation fee and other fees that they are attaching because they are afraid that people will become independent. If teslas battery comes in, i will be able to generate electricity all day long and the battery 430 500 will allow me the battery for 3500 will allow me to use all the electricity i went without the rates by corporations want me to pay. Yesterday, it was reported that the department of defense is doing huge studies on what to do when the water rises and the largest defense accumulation of basis will be in jeopardy and have no place to put all the ships and everything because the people will be flooded, so i am hoping that the gentleman in washington is thinking of putting his house on stilts because he is going to need it. And then maybe he can put solar on the roof and he can also survived the influx of fodder. Host ok, to live very much. Guest i am glad to see you up so early in san diego. I love san diego. I used to live there. You have a lot of sunshine and i am not surprised people have solar panels because they probably make good sense that, particularly considering you are being subsidized by the federal taxpayers and by other ratepayers who do not have solar panels. It is a good deal for you and im glad youve got that. We all do not have the amount of sunshine you have. Moreover, i would point out in your state, california used to have a vibrant manufacturing and Light Industry sector. California had an iron mine, steel mill automobile assembly, airplane manufacturing armaments are manufacturing, all of that is gone. Why . Because of the policies of your state to environmental and other regulations. One of the big factors was raising energy cost. California still buys close to 2 million cars a year. They used to assemble about 1. 5 million cars a year in california. You have no outsourced all that makes up for a few thousand teslas to places like kentucky, tennessee, indiana who still have Affordable Energy and do not have the regulatory structure you have in california. You have outsourced your Energy Intensive goods. What happens when there is no place to outsourced because everybody has californias policies . How are you going to afford to buy two in carson california . The answer is, you are not. Guest well, thank goodness we actually have sunshine in more places than san diego because your pessimism sometimes, in terms of what we can do on technology in the future, is daunting. Let me ask you something we might agree on and i do not know the answer but andrew mentions that the utilities want to put on prices to help block the inflation of solar, can we agree that putting up new price structures and tariffs to make it harder for families and Small Businesses to put solar on the rooftops is a bad idea . Guest yes, we can agree on that as far as we can also agree on getting rid of the subsidies for people who put on solar panels and that will be paid for by people who do not have solar panels. If we can get rid of all of that yes, we agree. If youve still insist that we need mandates and the federal tax subsidies that goes into installing solar panels and building windmills, then i am afraid we have a disagreement. Guest lets take the point of agreement as a small way forward. [laughter] i do think that across party lines, across ideologies, people in this country expect the freedom of choice when it comes to energy and utilities and legislators that are trying to stand in the way to protect businesses are going to be swimming upstream and it is time for them to get in line with creating that opportunity. Guest unless they want inexpensive power, then they will not have that choice under the obama Administration Plan because the parts of the country that still enjoy elected grades when the longer have those rates. Guest that is just not true. The Clean Power Plan has state by state targets that entirely recognize and start with every state from where they are now, so that no state is unfairly disadvantaged. They had the option of figuring out the best path to get there. It will be an affordable plan. Host as we go on, this debate will go on, but we are out of time. Jeremy Symons Department of defense fund and myron bell thank you for coming by. Coming up, open funds for the last half hour. If you want to give us a call, 202 7848001 for republicans. 202 7848000 for democrats. And for independents, 202 7488002. We will take the open phones with washington journal continues. Sunday night on cue and day former emergency manager of detroit, kevin or, talks about detroits Financial Issues and his job overseeing the largest musical bankruptcy in u. S. History. If detroit had taken that 1. 5 billion when the stock market went down into the 60 700s and had invested in an index fund, the stock market is now trading almost three times what it was. They would have tripled their money and paid the pensions in full and gotten back into the business of declaring the 13th check. If there had been sober management going forward, if you have strong leadership and focused leadership, you can resolve these problems. Sunday night on cspans q and a. Theodore roosevelt becomes president after the assassination of william mckinley. To accommodate her family, first Lady Edith Roosevelt renovates the entire second floor of the executive mansion. Thus the creation of a west wing to house the staff offices. By adding a social secretary to the payroll she creates the office of the first lady and changes the name from executive mansion to the white house. Edith roosevelt this sunday night at 8 00 eastern on cspans original series first ladies, influence and image. Examining the lives of first ladies and their influence on the presidency from marcia washington Martha Washington to michelle obama. Washington journal continues. Host if you want to participate in open phones, hold off from calling us if you called in the last 30 days. Here are the numbers. 202 7488001 republicans. 202 7488000 democrats. 202 7488002 independents. The Washington Post has a story about how five u. S. Rebels were apparently abducted in syria. It appears that five syrian fighters allied with the United States have been taken prisoner by another armed group. They appear to have been of ducted after they set out from their compound. The first cohort of syrians to graduate from the Training Program which aims to build up a forestce to fight isis. Trainees pledge to fight only the Islamic State and not the syrian government. Give us a call on open phones. 202 7488001 republicans. 202 7488000 democrats. 202 7488002 independents. We will start with michael, a republican. Good morning. Caller good morning. I lived in the desert for about 14 years. For the past six years, it has gotten cooler. It used to be a hundred 13 every dam summer. Mn113 every damn summer. Now it is cooler. Obama is a damn dictator and the democrats go along with him, they are his puppets. Where did this money come from . I mean host what is the cost for electricity in california . Caller its pretty high. Our minimum wages like nine dollars an hour. Gas year is over four dollars a gallon. Host thats michael in california. Allen is from west virginia, a democrat. Caller hello. On this Global Warming thing. I am in my mid70s and i can remember when it was starting off. They were talking then about the melting of the polar ice caps in the north pole and how it would raise the ocean levels. My level of physics is just high school. But it displaces the volume of water. When water freezes it becomes ice which occupies more area so that is why it floats. But then when it comes back at liquid again, the water level stays the same. The sense i get is that its an attempt at that time anyway to use the truth which is that there is more Carbon Dioxide building in the air, to generate some immediate action and get money into things like solyndra. But that doesnt deny the reality. And to get to the truth in some respects i think it can be even worse. With respect to ocean rising you are familiar with blake effect snows probably. Lake effect snows. They take these core samples down through these glaciers and where you have more snows it would seem that you get inland those glaciers would if anything at least for some time be getting deeper. Rather than melting away. Host ok. The president later on this morning will deliver a speech taking a look at the iran nuclear deal. You can see that live on cspan at 11 20 this morning. It takes place at American University in washington, d. C. Here to join us to talk about it is carol lee from the wall street journal. Tell us what we should be expecting from this speech. Guest it will be a rather lengthy speech. The president will use it to lay out in detail his argument in favor of Congress Passing a resolution to accept the deal so it can be implemented. What we have seen so far, the white house released some excerpts of the speech, and the president is going to make a very strong case that it is either this deal or war with iran essentially. Part of his argument is to appeal to democrats by framing this as this iran vote as the most consequential vote they will have taken since the iraq war authorization. So he is going to be quite forceful and detailed. This is one of his favorite platforms for outlining his policy, a big speech like this. And he is going to also use it to defend his foreignpolicy doctrine, meaning that diplomacy first and military action as a last resort. Host have we heard him before make the comparison, either this or war . Guest yes, he has increasingly done that. It really angers opponents of the deal who say that the president is boiling down and simplifying a very complex issue. By putting this as it or war. After the deal was secured on july 14, the white house and the president leaned more heavily into this argument that it is either war or this deal. Part of their case, which is undermined a little bit like some of the folks in the administration who supported the iraq war that the same people who are opposing this iran deal are the same folks who supported the iraq war. Which as you know the president was famously against. And that helped him win the democratic nomination in 2008. John kerry, his secretary of state, and joe biden his Vice President as well as Hillary Clinton who is running to replace him, all supported the iraq war resolution. So there is some irony being pointed out by his critics in this argument. Host this comes on the heels of the president meeting with jewish groups about the deal. Guest the president met with about 20 representatives of proisrael groups and jewishamerican groups. Including some folks from aipac the leading proisrael organization that is opposing this deal. They are spending a lot of money to launch a campaign against the deal. They plan to be out in lawmakerss districts in august during the recess to convince them not to support the deal. The president gathered them in the cabinet room in the white house yesterday and pleaded his case. He also took some questions. One of the things that came up in those discussions was the way the president is framing this argument is that it is either war or this particular deal. Some of the folks in that meeting were upset about that. Host i was going to ask you about the reception overall to what he was saying. Guest i think the president is not expecting to win over critics such as aipac. They feel very strongly about this and they are not out there to change their minds. It is more just to give them the opportunity to hear his case and try to get other groups and proisrael organizations to get behind the president s view as opposed to the view of aipac and Benjamin Netanyahu who is very much opposed to the deal. Host we saw three Democratic Senators come out in support of the deal. What is the strategy for the white house in reaching out to people still on the fence . Guest if you look at the way the strategy has taken shape in the last three weeks, they are really focused on democrats. They think the president is going to have to implement this deal by using his veto authority. Their main focus is getting enough democrats either in the house or senate to support the deal and sustain a president ial veto. Of a resolution to reject the deal. The white house is very confident that they have those votes in the house. The senate is a bigger question mark. Barbara boxer came out in favor of the deal, tim kaine of virginia, l nelson bill nelson of florida. They lost people on the house side. It is very unclear. The white house feels more confident about the house than the senate. Part of that reason is the main senator the white house is looking at is senator chuck schumer. He is in line to be the next democratic leader of the senate and is very important in the jewish community. He has not made up his mind yet. They are really closely watching that. But increasingly just focusing on getting enough house members to sustain a president ial veto. Host carol lee covers the white house for the wall street journal. We are talking about the iran nuclear deal. Thank you. Guest thank you. Host you can see that speech live on cspan this morning. Wayne in west virginia, go ahead. Caller i tried to call earlier when you had the two guests. Nobody mentions that if your viewers would google the Worlds Largest solar farm. It cant even sustain itself. They have to burn natural gas to keep it operational. If you look at the pictures on google, birds fly over and their feathers ignite in midair. They die out there. I would just like to see your viewers google it and look what is happening out there in california. They have to burn natural gas so that tells you something right there. The polar ice caps as far as i know they are still there. They were supposed to be gone over eight years ago. Now they are saying the entire earths surface will be a desert in 50 years. That means humans will not be on the earth. We will suffocate from no oxygen. Host but hear from john in florida. Lets hear from john in florida. Caller you always put a number for illegal aliens that has invaded our country and let them talk to her three times longer than the regular americans. Theyve got no business calling in. We pay a fee on our cable bill every month to put your show on. You should not allow these people to call in our show. They have invaded our country. Ok. Now, donald trump. Im going to put a sign in my front yard to promote him. He is the only one thats got the guts to say that he is going to deport all these illegal aliens the 20 to 40 million of them here. Not 11 million. That has already been proved. Now i hope you dont doublecross us i hope he dont doublecross us. I dont think he will. Hes got a lot of money. He is not going to be able to steal anything from us, he dont need it. You need to stop putting these illegal aliens. On the air. They have taken over the country and we are sick of it. Politicians are scared to say anything about these illegal aliens. Theyre promoting them and giving them our jobs. Grandkids is out of jobs on account of them. Host ok. John from florida. Kathy from wyoming, hello. Caller i just want to make a simple comment. My husband and i are working class citizens and we were offered through our Utility Company to buy renewables and it is wind power. The technology is here. It has not broken our budget because we chose to take the higher premium pay to have wind power as our source of energy and it has not broken our budget and we are doing just fine. We feel good that we are not helping back the polluting companies. We live in a state that is coal and natural gas. And we think both of those industries are devastating to the air, to the water, and they are bad. It is time for them to go away. Renewables are here. There are affordable. Host let me ask you, for what you invested, what are you getting back . Caller i dont know how to answer that. We are living just as though we were on coal, fire, electricity. Host is that strictly wind power . Caller as far as i know, it is 100 wind power. If it was going to be natural gas, we werent going to change anything. But they said it was 100 wind power. So we chose to take that and yes our power bill has gone up some. But it hasnt been considerable. And we feel better that we are doing we are making the right choice. Host do you get some type of government subsidy . Caller no sir. We pay like everybody else pays. Except we are paying slightly higher because we choose to have this as they call it premium Renewable Energy package. As far as i know it is not subsidized. You would have to ask the Utility Company but we are paying a higher dollar. But we are getting wind. And that makes us feel good. Host thank you. Lynn from california. Caller hello. I live in california. It is so ridiculous what you cant do here. I think everybody wants clean air and water. And Silicon Valley is the powerhouse of the country. If you just follow the life of a computer they are built in china, shipped overseas, and then when we are done with them they are shipped back and disassembled and burnt. There is so much double standard. I think that is what the American People are so sick and tired of. I think everybody wants to do their part as far as taking care of the environment. When you have people that have so much money that are above the rules, it is just pretty tiresome. It makes me sick to see the hollywood people really on this bandwagon. Because if you watch them build a movie or shoot a movie, they use more energy than most of us will use in a lifetime. I just dont understand how they think putting all of these rules and regulations on companies is going to change a lot in the environment when you know for a fact the chinese secretary can come over here and say whatever he wants. But when he goes home he is not going to turn down the dollar because it is always about money regardless of what it is. A lot of it is the gentleman that you had on that was for the epa, where does his funding come from . They get these grants to make these laws. They are funded by the government. These people get these money to go and make these laws. Why is it so important that every kindergartner through 12th grade has a computer in their hand which just is going to require more power when it is not really necessary to give a kindergartner a computer when theyir argument is so they can be competitive in the world. I would be much more interested in them having Fine Motor Skill Development with a pencil in their hand and a piece of paper. Host ok. The Congressional Research service here in d. C. Has put out a new report taking a look at mass public shootings. The report found that in the 1970s, mass public shootings killed roughly six people a year and injured two. There was an average of 33 deaths in Mass Shootings from 2010 to 2013. These figures come after a particularly grisly july. Mass killings are defined as events in which at least four victims die within a short. Of t period of time. Douglas in massachusetts, you are next. Caller good morning. Solar Energy Concerns me. I did sales for a solar company. The terms of actual projected Energy Results versus actual results versus projected results is incredible. The projected results are so optimistic. The actual results are just not there. The germans are there wiping their solar panels down every day. If you dont theres no energy. It was developed in 1838. There is no more energy per square inch on a solar pan el. A 10 blockage on a solar pattern reduces its effectiveness by 90 . A bird flying over it diminishes its effectiveness incredibly. They wouldnt exist without subsidies. They dont work. Host chandratrell in florida. You are next. Caller ist said because i have done some research and he is absolutely right. It hasnt really produced anything. There is no legislation. It is all about money and power. And redistribution of wealth. Which is why the United Nations just as long as they are sucking off the american teat everything is fine. But we are the ones paying for it. They just pay the offsets. If you have money you just do what you want to do and it doesnt matter how much you are willing to spend. The rest of us suffer because we have to pick up the other end of the tab. Just follow the money. Thats all its about. Host the front page of the Washington Post takes a look at ceo pay saying that the security and Exchange Commission is expected to finalize on wednesday a longdelayed rule forcing businesses to share their pay ratio. It would cast an unprecedented spotlight on one of corporate americas thorniest debates. Millions of workers will know exactly how much their top bosses payday compares with their own revealing a potentially embarrassing disparity in corporate riches that companies have long fought to keep hidden. Caller im hearing all the people that are i dont understand how the republicans are so invested in subsidizing the Oil Companies and helping them out with tax cuts and stuff like that. And yet they want to be openminded they dont want to be openminded to investing in green energy. I live in south texas and it is very very hot. I have two houses. In one of them i dont have central air. The other day me and my brother were like, i need to light up my house. So i went online and bought like a hydraulic solar panel light. I am a teacher and i teach about clean energy and stuff like that. So why dont i just get a bunch of solar panel light. It takes a lot of investment and research and hard work that has to be put into organizing that kind of research. The sun is free. Its like free energy. I went on youtube and found there are people covering their units with solar panels. And it requires other little parts. But it is an investment. It is going to be a longterm thing. We are not polluting the air. We are being innovators. Republicans are like, we need to lead in military, we need to lead in economics, why not lead in green energy . We have the money. Host ok thanks. James from massachusetts. Republican line. Caller hi. I just wanted to comment on the president is going to talk later on to try to influence democrats to vote for the iran deal. It was mentioned earlier he was going to emphasize the fact that it is this deal or war. I wish somebody would ask the president what he knows that we dont know. Thank you very much. Host from new york, john on the independent line. Caller hi, this is john. Im not a democrat or republican. The technology is going to happen. It always costs more. It is always more convenient. The guy on the left would have been one of those guys for horses and against cars 100 years ago. And that is my point. Forget about the arguments. Its going to happen. They laughed at the rate Wright Brothers and now you can fly around the world in 12 hours. They laughed at space travel and now we have satellites that do everything. It is going to happen. It is not a good it first. It costs more. Im an economist. I know. But it always comes. Host i apologize, your signal is breaking up here. The budget to fight forest fires is in question. In a report to be released today, the agency says that it spent 16 percent of its total budget on preparing for and fighting fires in 1995, it will spend more than half of its budget this year on the same task. That is expected to rise to 67 or more by 2025. The report indicates that the budget is not keeping pace. The agencys expenditures for Fire Suppression is projected to increase. That report is coming from the u. S. Forest service. Dan from ohio. Caller oh great. I just wanted to say that the lady from texas took my thunder. Everybody keeps talking about subsidies. The Oil Companies are still being subsidized. The fact of the matter is that research and development costs. So the government does step in in the beginning when a new company starts up. After that they are on their own. They dont need to be subsidized. The Renewable Energy and green energy needs to be subsidized. Take away the subsidies from the Oil Companies and pharmaceutical companies. Why do they still have it . And they fight against us for wanting it for the new energy. Host that is the last call for our program. A new program