Fdacurrent ambassador, and commissioner. You can see live coverage on cspan. This week, the Top Republican of the energy and commerce committee, thank you for being here. Rep. Walden thank you. Also with us as a congressional reporter. Go ahead. Thank you for being here today. We know nancy pelosi is plowing ahead with impeachment. It does not look like a single republican will be joining democrats in voting for the articles of impeachment. We do have testimony from a part of these witnesses like colonel vindman, who was on the july phone call, fiona hill, who was in a meeting between Gordon Sondland and ukrainians, who testified they raised concerns about the conduct regarded ukraine. Do you share any of those concerns . Do you think anything you have seen or heard from these fact witnesses is alarming and inappropriate . Rep. Walden i dont think that is the question. The question is does this deserve to have a resident removed. That is the threshold for impeachment. When i read through the transcript, i was not happy about some of it. I would have done it differently. But lets cut to the chase. Nobody said there is a crime. Nobody that does this kind of law at least. I dont think it rises to the level of kicking a president out of office. Nor does it rise to the level of what nancy pelosi herself said earlier this year, which as she would not move forward unless it was overwhelming, compelling, and bipartisan. One of the tragedies of this impeachment process is it is highly partisan. It was not that way under clinton when it came to the rules, nor under nixon, who had certain rights not given today. The president at a certain rights not given today. They set up a partisan process, which i think has done in country a disservice and driven us away from getting the real work done. Rudy giuliani this week travel to ukraine to continue investigating joe biden, the very thing that is being looked at in this impeachment probe. Giuliani is rudy being helpful to the president . Rep. Walden i dont know what Rudy Giuliani is up to. Working ont my time alternative Prescription Drug bill, but of legislation. You had a bill dealing with robo calls. Limited bandwidth of watching what someone else is doing. I focus on the things my constituents want me to do, which is this kind of work that they care about. When you are at home, how often do people even bring up impeachment . What do they want to talk about . Rep. Walden they do want to talk about a robo calls. As soon as you mention it, people go, when are you going to do something about that . 54 billion last year. They are concerned about the cost of medicine. In my district, they are concerned about forest fires. All that devastation. Although, we got a little off this year. Not quite the horrible season. They care about impeachment, but it is the polar sides of the equation. People are either locked in here or mark in there. They think the resident is game ram rotted or want to throw him out. Or is a lot of passion and anger associated with both sides. A big block of america say whatever. We will have an election. Cant you go back and solve these real problems that affect me at my life . You mentioned robo calls. This week, the bill passed. You helped shepherd of the bill. I think only three no abodes. What does that say what happens now with that bill . And what does that say, there is such an overwhelming vote and it looks like this is moving through the process as we are also contending with impeachment, which is Kerry Washington up already . Us arelden some of trying to keep our focus on the job at hand. Certainly on a robo calls. Something i have worked on for a bunk time. I tell the story about getting one from greece and i let it go to voicemail. I do not know anybody in greece. A day later, they left a voicemail, it was the Vice President trying to get a hold of me. Sometimes you should get calls. We want to get where when someone calls, you can adjust it is something legitimate and not someone ripping you off. We had a better these horrible stories about people who got suckered into thinking it is Social Security or some other agency and they give away their life savings and it is awful. These are illegal scammers. Often workingle outside the United States. 50 billion calls in the United States last year alone. Is something we need to address and we can and we are. No abodes. Nly three i am trying to figure out why you would vote no. The senate is at an in agreement. It will be a matter of whether they can get it to the senate. How does this bill address the robo calls . Rep. Walden we empower the federal Communications Commission and department of justice to go after the bad robo callers. Reimprove their ability to do that. We extend the statute of limitations from for years to one. Some of these cases were falling through the racks. Give them more time. We tell the carriers, you are authorized to use your technicians and Call Authentication capabilities to block these calls and do it at no charge to the consumer. Consumer still has the right to say do not block. There will be some who want all the calls. But they cannot used technology. If they do not use the technology to block these calls, the fcc would have the authority to mandate the phone companies do that. We will protect consumers. This will not end them. Bad operators will continue to try to get around this. It is like cybersecurity. We will always be at this. This should have a huge impact and reduce the number of unwanted robo calls. Who are against it . The people scamming, i assume. They do not have much of a lobby. There is not. We want to make sure the provisions we are putting in place could be implemented by the telephone companies, carriers, and use their technology. They want to help. I have met with ceos who say, you give us the authority, we are ready. There have already been agreements among the states attorneys general and fcc to do what some of what is in this bill. We just make sure it is all legal, authorized, and if need be mandated. We build better communication and the cases it will get prosecuted more likely under some of the other changes. Nobody likes robo calls. Nobody likes supplies medical bills. Hearingabout we are that are good negotiations going on, perhaps talk of a deal coming up shortly between the four corners. You are one of those four in the house. How close are you to a deal . Rep. Walden we are very close to it. One out of five consumers, if you show up at an emergency room, even though you think you have coverage, you are paying a fortune. You get a surprise bill. This is not covered. , a woman whonces gave birth to a child who had a complication, she said to us, we went through our insurance carefully, we made sure the doctor was covered, the hospital was, every piece of this. This child has a complication. The doctor says i need to take your child to the intensive care unit. She said, of course. Then she gets a 50,000 bill. The hospital contracted out of their units to a thirdparty provider that was not covered by insurance. How did you know that as a consumer . Instances where emergency room practices are purchased out and the buyer take them out of the Insurance Network and nobody covers them. They raise the cost by 96 . That is not a right. You play by the rules, you ought to get covered. We will take the consumer out of that market. We will protect the consumer. We will make sure providers and hospitals cannot do their jobs too. We will solve it. We have an agreement in principle. We are very close to the final wording. As you know, we need to make sure every word is what we all agreed upon. I think we are really close. No president has leaned forward and more on this issue than donald trump. I was at the white house when he announced an initiative on this. I am confident people sign it. Is at your expectation the supplies medical bills will hitch a ride on the overall government funding package at the end of the year . Rep. Walden i think that is likely. It is harder to move standalone legislation. I leave that to people with a higher pay grade. What is the biggest Sticking Point . Rep. Walden there have been debates about how you compensate the hospital, provider, the will of the insurer . Everything behind the curtain. Our goal is, let us take the consumer out of that so you will not get stuck with one of these surprise bills. Ton, we have been trying figure out what is a fair reimbursement rate for the emergency room or hospital or whoever is involved . How do you manage through that . My own state has a plan, new york has a different plan, states have been doing this. We have been trying to take the best of both cannot you set a right that has been negotiated, you adjust for geography, adjust for complexity. Wethere is still a dispute, have a dispute resolution process in arbitration. Costs trying to not let explode. You can solve this by paying everybody what they wanted. That is not good either. You want to maintain the networks, maintain affordability. We think we found that sweet spot. I want you to tell our viewers what four corners means. People outside of washington. Ap. Walden myself and democrat who chairs the energy and commerce committee, we swapped roles after the election. Our counterparts in the senate on the health committee. Before of us represent the four corners. Two democrats, two republicans. It turns out they republican and democrat are in the minority and chairmanship. We get together and our teams it is bigger than that. We have done work with members. At the end of the day, the four of us get together and negotiate this. If we can come to terms and get input from others, that is a four corners deal. That is a bipartisan deal. For other issues concerning Health Care Like drug prices, we have yet to see any big compromise. I am hearing republicans have legislation coming out next week. I wonder if you can talk about what is in it at what your plans are. Rep. Walden every american wants us to do something on because of drugs to bring them down. Most americans say, do not do it if it is at the expense of new cures. We all have friends and relatives at family members that are hopefully next drug will save the life or reduce the pain and suffering of a family member. We are seeing evolution there because we invested, we have done these things. You have new drugs coming out. Price matters. Our legislation will address both. Billcally, the democrats would be the equivalent of wiping out what we find at the institute of health for three decades. Moneyould take so much out of r d, adventure capitalism, everything that leads to these cures, our position is they would wipe out the equivalent of three decades of what we put in. We do not think that is a good way. We had a bipartisan effort to correct down on behaviors at Drug Companies that kick generate out of the market. , things well identified as bad behaviors by solid Drug Companies that cap competitors out of the market which brings price down. Comessed those unanimously out and democrats. Before they came to the house floor, in another committee, they stuck in poison pills on purpose so republicans would vote no. Policy things they knew we would oppose. That made it partisan. We were working on a Medicare Part d. In 2003 i, ied on was on the committee. It needs modernization. Theere doing great until Speakers Office dropped hr3, their drug bill, and all those negotiations stopped and it became partisan. Our proposal, which we will unveil on monday, is bipartisan work or bipartisan ideas. Much like the effort on opioids. Different pieces of legislation, all bipartisan, everybody had their opportunity to participate, we melded it into one bill. That became hr six. It became law. We dealt with opioids. We are trying to pull together what we see as bipartisan issues, including stopping bad behaviors. For the first time in a Medicare Part d, there would be a lifetime cap at 3100. That is the most you would pay. We were to smooth out the payment. In january and get your drugs and they may cost 3100, you do not have to write a check that day. You can pay a monthly fee for that. Then you are cap. Insulin, 50 a month would be the cap. Down things to bring prices elsewhere and get better agreements overseas so we stop subsidizing our foreign friends. We want to those cures in our country and we want prices to come down. We think we can get both. What is it about the democratic legislation that would limit research and development . Rep. Walden a couple of things. By thes an analysis Congressional Budget Office which is independent that says, because of their plan, if it takes upward of a trillion dollars out of the health care 15 a drugscould see never come out of the pipeline. I dont know if one of those would have cured alzheimers or parkinsons or arthritis in my they do not know is up to 15 drugs. The council of economic advisers said industrywide it could be upwards of 100 new drugs what it never come through the pipeline because you have this reduction in r d. We know in countries that they want to model against, you see a reduction in investment of 10 through 15 when you have these price controls. I wanted to get drugs down. We did it in Medicare Part d effectively in 2000 three by comparing competitive forces. The food and drug administration, i let that effort, we modernized drugs. They moved more generics to market than any year in history. Over 1100 when the fiscal year ended. We believe in competition, we believe in cures. They are going a different path. The Congressional Research office one us that hr3, the democrats plan, likely violates the fit admin meant and a commitment on takings and unfair fines. If they could take up to 95 of the revenue of a companys drug if they refuse to what the government told him the price should be. At the beginning of the year, Prescription Drug and infrastructure were the two areas people thought we could see bipartisan agreement and real movement. We have not seen that. Where did perception drug prices, where did it go off the rails . Rep. Walden it went off the rails not long after our Community Committee pass these first bills to reform the bad behaviors. They went up the rules committee and they tacked on these provisions that we had been against, everybody knew it. That made it a partisan vote. Then we continued on negotiating the medicare cap and all of a sudden, it went into radio silence. That is when the Speakers Office dropped this bill, hr3, and set it this will be our alternative and it has been partisan ever since. In the senate, senator whiting has been working with senator grassley audit legislation. Our bill will take 90 of that bill and include that. I think you can find three quarters bipartisanship and the problems in the Speakers Office in this issue, it should not become a high cost of drugs, the desire for cures should never be a partisan issue. Are there other parts of Health Care Republicans want to look at other than Prescription Drug costs . People talk about the high cost of medical care. Are there other areas where there is possible bipartisanship . Rep. Walden there can be, there should be. ,f i stayed on as chairmans the high cost of health care would be my top priority. It remains mine. We are doing work in this area. Supplies billing is a piece of that. You need more transparency. President trump was right about trying to demand more transparency in the cause of health care. Consumers have more at stake today financially fan probably any other time. They have insurance, he just has a 10,000 deductible. They have a right to know what that procedure costs so they can shop for the best price and best quality. Right now, you are in the dark. You have no idea what anything costs. It is almost impossible to figure it out. You think about what you can do online in our age to shop for low cost rental cars, hotels, anything. Look at amazon and anything you shop for your you can shop for price quality. Show me where you can do that for health care. Does it seem the next phase of Health Care Reform will not be an omnibus or big bill, it will be piecemeal . Rep. Walden i think it should be. These need to be well thought through, individual policy changes. Otherwise, you get bad policy with good policy, it gets all mucked up. You do individual things. We did this back to the opioids work in the last congress. We had 60 individual policies that we worked through individually. We put them together in the end, but almost every bill we put in their pass unanimously on the house floor. It was close to that. At ay to take them one time. Functionally, to get them through the process, we group them up afterwards. It is important to look at each issue individually. Sometimes you touch other things. This is a complicated industry. We want to get it right. We want to make sure we are putting the patient first. Bill the process from there. Build the process from there. I am a consumer of health care. I want to know what the price is good i want quality. I want to know if there is a problem. I want competition. If you have competition, you have innovation and price choice. Where you do not have competition is where you have these harder problems to solve. Going forward as a country, there is something we have to figure out. Medicine,to precision with this revolution in understanding the human genome in the body, we will get down to where there is a solution that only works for you. How do we pay for that . I do not think we know how to do that yet. It is something we need to put our heads into. It is not about republicans and democrats. We need a policy that says, how do we pay for that . Company who is in the final stages, they think they may have a cure for pancreatic. That will be expensive. There are hundreds of millions of dollars invested in research and development. They are getting close. We know sickle cell, they think they have a cure for that. With in a kids i was byelchair, usually you died 12. Skeletal muscular atrophy. It means you walk up and die. She has been on this drug for two weeks and i said how is it doing . She went like this. Mean echoat does that she says, i have not been able to move my neck in 10 years. It is an expensive drug but we will save a life. How do we pay . We need to have more cost transparency. The president is in on that. Powerful forces are suing to prevent that. On the other side of the break weighs in, we need to come together and figure out how we pay for these . Maybe over time. There are good ideas out there. A few more questions. Chairman for the seen republicans, we have 21 republicans this cycle announced retirement what running for other office. You are one of those 21, which supplies a part of us. Hadart because you still two more years as the Top Republican on energy and commerce. If you had taken back the majority, you would be chairman again. People, a lot of other that is that you did not believe you are what take back the majority in 2020. Rep. Walden that is not to divide analysis. I tried to say that in my statement. Elected infather got 1970. I was in middle school. I have been involved in campaigns one way or another ever since. I love public service. I love bringing people together and solving problems. I did not want to be one of those guys that carry out of here. I wanted to leave on my own terms. I have great support in my district. I dont think i have had an opponent that got more than 39 . I love the people of my district. My wife has been supportive. We talk about it. After 30 years of being in Public Office and running for election, i am ready to do something else. Usually, nobody who has a patent power gives it up voluntarily. I was ready. Is ok. There are great people coming. You spent a lot of time reading about these issues, studying health care. How much time do you spend will you miss it . Are you thinking about staying in the Health Care Field . Amateurden i am a radio operator. My wife and i own a radio station. I love that sector too. Then we have energy. Be thebeen one that will biggest withdrawal moment is the intensity of the issues. You work with a Terrific Team of staff people that are so smart. To get back to your underlying question, i believe there is a path back for republicans to take the majority in the house. It is dangerous and it is without precedent in many respects. Help, but myo not district will likely send a republican. Some of the others are even more republican, some may be less. Some we have redistricting issues like north carolina. 31 districts i think is the number that also voted for donald trump and elected a democrat. In the last election, i believe the data show that there are 7 billion donald trump voters that did not turn out and we lost the boat the house by 150,000 votes. I guarantee those donald trump voters are turning out to time. The probing controversy in house is a decision by the chairman of the Intelligence Committee to use metadata from subpoenaing phone records from Rudy Giuliani and associates. He used the data obtained from the banking member of the committee, devin nunez, as well as the journalist. There is a lot of talk coming up about this right now. I want your opinion about the situation. Rep. Walden i am troubled by it. I am not fully briefed on it. I, as a chairman of a committee, i had subpoena authority, i did not have to consult beyond much of my democrat colleague. I could go do that or adam schiff can do that, forget which party, if we start where are the limitations . I am a citizen with rights and privileges. I was a surprise to the phone companies turned over that data. Why are you surprised . Rep. Walden it raises a host of are ours about what rights and limitations . They did not notify the people from who they are turning over data. Are you criminally investigating devin nunez . What other metadata does the chairman sit on that he has acquired . How did they get to those phone numbers . That . Is it beyond do they get your emails too . Apparently they can do that. Committeeng to have chairs stooping around reporters emails and phone calls and who you talk to and not . And releasing it . Should congress address this . Rep. Walden i think so. I want to sneak in one more issue. Climate change. We want to know if you think it is a mistake of republicans, more republicans were all are not talking about this issue. Rep. Walden at the beginning of this congress, i sat down with republicans on the committee and we had a discussion about Climate Change and there was not a science denier among us. Ofaid i am getting tired democrats saying what i am for or against. Piece whereopinion we set Climate Change is real and we contribute. Lets talk about how we deal with it. That is where you have seen a big change for republicans is we are saying, lets talk about innovation and conservation and adaptation and those things. The democrats are locked into what . Taxation. They want a carbon tax. Cap and trade schemes. Even washington twice defeated at the ballot about a cap penetrated system. They are locked in there. The reduction in carbon have occurred, we are back to 1990 levels. We may see another reduction. Why . Because we have innovation and the natural gas world and they developed fracking and we did Energy Switching from coal to natural gas. The is a bout of reductions. Nuclear plays a key role. We did several things. We try to move forward with nuclear technology. We have not had a revolution and a long time. There are interesting ideas coming forward. Nuclear holds a huge key. We streamline hydro relicensing and licensing. In my part of the world, hydroelectric power is huge and reduces emissions. There are all kinds of ideas to do smallscale hydro and existing dams or irrigation lines. We know there is an opportunity to do carbon sequestering. Taxhe tax credit in the bill we passed as republicans that says you get this much if you put it in the ground and get more oil and gas, but you get a bigger tax credit if you put carbon in the ground and keep it there. We are looking at innovation in this space. We are having an innovation showcase with these companies coming in. Some are forestry rapport. You want to talk about emissions . Air quality . Better management federal force. We have new technology on how to use award. Are looking at nuclear, for ,treet, Carbon Sequestration battery development. Some of the works our National Labs are doing. America should lean on innovation, not punish our economy. A 7 of those countries are not close to reaching their goals. They have rights when they raise energy prices. They had to move out of chile over energy issues. There is more going on over there. But they did have to move it. I dont think you have to punish consumers. Youll have to stagnate on americas economy when you can invest in innovation. We need more time with you. Thank you very much. Rep. Walden you are welcome. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] lets begin with scott. Was talkingman about legislation that is moving on capitol hill. The prospects for this supplies medical bill, can you talk about that and what you are hearing . I thought it was interesting to hear him say on the record that they are close to a four corner deal. As we move towards the end of the year, as democrats are focusing on impeachment and funding the government, keeping the government open by december 20, when they are expected to head out, that funding bill is the last train leaving the station before christmas. They may load at up with must pass bills there it is interesting to hear him say supplies medical bills, which all americans are interested in, is something that could hitch a ride on that government funding bill. It does not sound like Prescription Drugs will get bipartisan support. I do not think so. As he mentioned, democrats are moving in one direction. It sounds like walden and others will be unveiling their own plan, a response to nancy pelosi and the democrats Prescription Drug bill. The president had been engaged on this issue in the past but has backed away and it looks like we are moving in a partisan direction on Prescription Drugs. You had a question at the end about metadata being captured from a member of congress and a reporters conversation. Tell us the fact that on this and what you heard from the congressman. The background is it is unusual for the two parties to go after each other through the Ethics Committee or some other means to embarrass each other or make allegations against each other. They tend to have this detente where they treat each other professionally, leave each others they do not attack each other like this. And at this reported this week, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee put out a report on the impeachment investigation, it included some of the metadata man indicteding a for funneling money into campaigns. That data included calls to the Ranking Member on the Intelligence Committee, the Top Republican, devon nunez. They obtained that metadata and put it in the report for everyone to see. It included subpoena calls from Rudy Giuliani, the president s lawyer. They have denning yes as well as the reporter taking calls from these individuals. Publicly put out there. Republicans are saying they believe adam schiff has thousands of pages of the he has collected through this method. This is concerning to mr. Weldon. Susan walden and other republicans. Data was collected from at t. They did not get it from the individuals. One of them may have turned over record. Amt at t turn over record. Walden said that is unusual. There is not a clear rule about whether the Telecommunications Company have to turn over this data. There is debate over that. You have Congress Angry about it. Republicans asking about it. The majority leader and minority whip got into a debate on the house floor. Steve scalise is accusing the democrats of sliding on republicans. That is a spying on republicans. That is a big accusation. It started something where you might see the partisanship elevated. A story to watch. Thank you both. Scott thank you. As House Democrats and nancy pelosi begin drafting articles house meetsnt, the for a hearing on evidence, like monday at 9 a. M. Eastern. With findings. Watch on cspan, cspan. Org, or the free radio app. 2020 republican president ial candidate joe