Transcripts For CSPAN Campaign 2020 Presidential Candidates Speak At Infrastructure Forum In Las... 20240713

Nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy organization. And it has been our honor for many years to convene and collaborate with leaders in labor, business, and government on this important issue. As we begin, i would like to take a moment to say thank you thank you to the city of las vegas and the great state of nevada for hosting us. [applause] zachary i would like to recognize a few local leaders from the community. Congressman stephen horseford mayor john lee. Nathan robertson. Las vegas city councilman brian. And all the way from los angeles, mayor garcetti. [applause] zachary id very much like to thank our host committee, the organizations who, with us, created the vision for this event, provided resources to make it a reality. Invited the candidates, and have brought hundreds of their members to nevada to be here with us today. You can see their logos on the banner behind me. Those organizations are in no particular order. The International Union of operating engineers, the American Society of civil engineers, the value of water campaign, the American Council of engineering companies, the association of equipment manufacturers, transport Workers Union of america, the American Public transportation association, transportation trades department, aflcio, the american road and transportation builders association, Airport Council International North america, build together, and north americas building trade unions. Thank you. Give them a round of applause. [applause] zachary id like to thank our sponsors whose generositys made this possible. Our sponsor, hntb, and autodesk, parsons, and wspufa. Thank you very much. [applause] zachary id like to share a special things to the wall street journal for being our media partner. And the moderators of todays conversation. And for the immense amounts of work that they have put into preparing for this event. To the press covering this and to the viewers tuning in on cspan and on livestream, thank you for joining us today and for your passion on this issue. And if youre following in the audience or online, please join us on social media at moving americaforward. I would like to thank our candidates for joining us today and treating this issue with the seriousness it deserves. Infrastructure is everything. Its how we experience our daily lives, for better and for worse. The quality of our infrastructure determines the length of our commutes, how much time we spend with our families, if our trucks and trains and planes make it to their destinations on time. Its the quality of water coming out of our taps and the help in our environment. To get our jobs and schools reliably, affordably, and safely. Its a prerequisite for manufacturers, retailers, and farmers, getting their goods to market at home and around the globe. Its the dams and levees designed to protect us from flooding, drought, and uncertainty. And for more than 17 million americans, its our career. Operating our water systems, driving our buses and trains, and designing and building bridges and airports and seaports furthermore resilient and secure future. Yet this foundation of our lives, our communities and our economy is too often failing us. Too many of our policies are outdated, at our investments insufficient, our priorities unclear. And americans are already paying the price in dollars, in missed opportunities, and in lives. American voters are asking for their leaders to act on this issue. Nearly 90 of swing state voters believe that a president and congress should make infrastructure a top priority. That is why we, led by our host community, felt that we could not let this election cycle slip by without inviting the leading candidates for president of the United States, including President Trump, to articulate their vision and plans for building a better america by renewing our infrastructure. Four of those candidates will be joining us on this stage today. Vice president biden, senator klobuchar, mayor buttigieg and tom steyer. Please give them all a round of applause. [applause] zachary now its my honor to kick off our program and introduce our moderators. Please join me in a warm welcome to jerrys died, the former executive editor of wall street journal and jeanne, the executive chief of the wall street journal. Thank you. [applause] jerry thank you. Thank you, zach. Jeanne and i want to extend the wall street journal a thank you. This is an important topic. Infrastructure needs attention in this country and it deserves attention as a campaign issue. Were going to try to give that today. One in every five miles of roadway in this country that qualifies for federal aid is in poor condition. 235,000 bridges need structural repair, rehabilitation, or four in every 10. Heres my favorite one. 47,000 bridges are classified as structurally deficient, if you placed those bridges and to and, they would stretch from chicago to houston. And you know, this is a problem not just for the federal governments. Its a problem for the state governments. Data shows that state spending on infrastructure dropped almost every year between 2009 and 2018. And in fact, 2014 marked the lowest level of state Infrastructure Spending and share of the economy and 35 years. So thats why were here today. Thank you. I will echo zach. Thank you for participating and coming here. Thank you cspan for sharing this with a broader audience. Its a terribly important subject for us to discuss. So, our format today is that we will have 2025 minutes with each candidate. Jerry and i will field a few questions with them. Then we will take questions that have been submitted by members of the coalition that has joined to put on this great event. And also, wall street journal subscribers. So we thank all the people wapo who have participated and we think we have a pretty interesting discussion and questions that we can bring today. So with that, we would like to start with Vice President joe biden. [applause] mr. Biden hello, mr. Mayor. Jerry i guess they like you. [laughter] mr. Biden election . You. no, i said they like [laughter] thought youh, i said theres an election coming. [laughter] mr. Biden you know i like infrastructure. Jerry thank you for joining us. Lets start at the 10,000 foot level, so to speak your it as we were just discussing, americas infrastructure needs work. The road, the bridges, the highways, airports and water systems. With the trillion dollar deficit, its hard to know where to start. But at the same time, every candidate thinks its important that the country move away from the fossil fuel energy and Transportation System to a more green, climatefriendly system. So the question is if you have a set of priorities, where do you start . Do you start with fixing the old infrastructure or moving on to a Climate Friendly Green Infrastructure . Mr. Biden i think its a false choice. I think you do both. I think you start with fixing the broken infrastructure in a modern way. For example, every one of those bridges were talking about you know, were going to spend billions more overtime as these collapse and you see people losing their lives. But also, we can modernize them in a considerable way in terms of making them energyefficient. What i want to for all of the existing highways as we repair, in addition to the new ones, put in literally 500,000 new charging stations in 2020s. And we can do that. When i say that to people, i know this is an infrastructure crowd. You all get it. But ordinary people say, wait a minute, charging stations. You go to the big city with all those scooters . They just plug in. Theres a lot we can do to create good jobs, that are labor jobs paying 50 60 an hour, and still at the same time increase the efficiency of the infrastructure while making it green. I know i only have a little time so i guess i will stop there. Jeanne i guess that leads to the second most important question, how do you pay for it . Taxes, how do you pay for it . Mr. Biden well, were so far behind the eight ball. You may remember we had a thing called the recovery act, 900 billion the president put me in charge of. He would love to go to a state of the union and say, joe will take care of this. Sheriff joe got to spend 90 billion in infrastructure out of that package. And we did a great deal of work. But what we did was we found a number of programs that, in fact for every dollar we spend, we brought four dollars off of the sidelines in private dollars state dollars. I heard you speaking in the beginning, what you have is, republican orot a democrat thing. Republicans used to like infrastructure. They used to actually build it, everything from area canal on. But anyway, what happens is, if you want to grow American Business and enterprise, youve got to have the most modern ports, youve gotta have the most modern airports, you have to be able to get product from your factory to the customer quickly. So theres an overwhelming incentive and theres a desire in the local areas, as well as among businesses, to want to invest. And the way i start off with it is and i come from the corporate state of america, dupont, delaware. It used to be the eighth largest in the world. It no longer is. The point is we reduce the Corporate Tax to 21 . I raise it back to 28 and i think we could get some republicans to support that, as well. That raises 740 billion over 10 years. I have a 1. 3 trillion infrastructure plan that breaks out in a whole bunch of ways. Thats number one. Number two, there are a number of corporations that are not paying any tax at all. So, there should be a minimum 15 . When they report earnings to wall street to keep their stock up, well, whatever that number is, they have to pay 15 of that, no matter what exemptions they have. Now, if they, in fact, are paying a 21 Corporate Tax rate across the board, they dont have to pay that. But a minimum 15 is another 420 billion. Again, one of the things that youre lookingw at me like, how will biden make that happen . Republican voters are going, wait a minute, man, you have this 1. 9 trillion tax cut that didnt help me a hell of a lot if im not the top couple percent. A lot of those folks are middleclass and to observe it about social values. I believe the bandaid has been ripped off and people are ready to do rational things. Jeanne would that include the gas tax . Mr. Biden i dont think we have to. I think we have to put in 50 billion off the bat on the gas tax coming from those additional taxes. But i dont think ive tried this before. Were not going to be able to raise the gas tax. We may be able to index it down the line, but i dont think we can raise the gas tax from what it is now. All you had to do in the first 50 billion to invest in modernizing those highways, not counting building new ones. And one part we havent even talked about at all is, i think the biggest sector, and i dont want to get him in trouble, mayor garcetti can tell you. More energy, time, wages and lost sitting on the l. A. Freeway. If were able to use the technology that is on the cusp of being able to have, first of all, more transit, were in a position where, for example, when i was asked to bailout detroit, i was able to recruit any part of the government. What we found out was, 60 of the people lived in the city and their jobs are out of town but they didnt have automobiles. So we put in light rail. It modernized and made a fundamental change in the Economic Growth in that area. And it didnt add more automobiles to the highways. Number one. Number two, if we take a look at what the president allowed me to do when we did the first part of the recovery act, we came up with im a big rail guy, and a highspeed rail. If we took what we appropriated money for, including from new york, new jersey and the tunnels that hadnt been modernized since 1916, all the way from orlando to tampa, from tallahassee all the way across to mississippi, these are all highspeed rail areas where, you all know, you get people out of the car into a train and into another method if you can guarantee them they can get there in the same amount of time with the same amount of reliability. We can do that. Theres no reason why we shouldnt be able to build what what weve talked about, and it could go 220 miles an hour. We cant do this now, but the three curves from washington to new york, you could reduce the travel time. Traveled over 2,100,000 miles on amtrak. Thats the gods truth. Thats what the guys on the rail tell me. If you straighten out those few curves, you could get there in an hour and a half, fundamentally changing every single lane and highway. One lane, 20 million. Do the same thing on railroads and youre talking about 4 million. Jerry let me ask you you mentioned republicans. And there should be bipartisan support in doing the things youre talking about. One of the things republicans say, and donald trump says, mr. Biden not a republican. You can laugh. A lot of you are republicans and and you know hes not the republican party. [laughter] [applause] mr. Biden this aint your fathers republican party. Jerry thats true. One of the things republicans generically say is, one of the things these dont happen is the regulation is slowing them down. They sewed on infrastructure, they make it more expensive. The Trump Administration has tried to do something. Are they right . Mr. Biden theyre right but theyve got the wrong answer. We fundamentally eliminated and streamlined the ability to get through all of the regulatory requirements that were necessary. You see whats happening in the new york airport at laguardia . Absolutely. We can streamline significantly without damaging the environment. Ill give you a concrete example. When the president asked me to deal with anyway, i was asked to put together a cabinet initiative. It was on health care. And i turned to one of the major cabinet holders and i said, when will you have your assistant . Said well have one by the end of the year. I said if you dont have one by march 1, youre fired. He says you cant fire me. Im not being facetious. A lot of it has to do with the knowledge. If not, you have to find a new answer. You have to make the priority to invest in that piece, whatever that piece is. We can significantly streamline regulations without doing everything from the endangered species act, all the way through generating more pollution. And weve done that a number of places. And i would have somebody in the white house at one job. Just one. I mean, this is silly. Doing nothing but streamlining projects, but do it within the context of having people who know what theyre talking about in terms of the environment. Most of it is just bureaucratic delay. Jeanne you mentioned setting priorities. And weve talked about new trains, and new projects that can be willed faster if we streamline regulations. And yet, most jobs in infrastructure are maintenance. And yet what a lot of people talk about are the crumbling infrastructure of america. How do you prioritize that . Do you fix the crumbling part, or do you just build all the shiny new parts . Mr. Biden well, you have to do both. I dont think its either or. For example, if youre talking about our ports, you have to build ports that are ready to handle these ships that are available. But it didnt mean you dont have to go back and restore the docks, at the same time youre increasing the size, scope, and capability that takes them off the docks. You have to go out and dreads. Youd be able to find areas you provide for the spoils. But thats alstom old stuff. But the new stuff is the new kind of cranes. The speed at which it happens. Access from the highway, the interstate highway, to the port. We did that and we do that down in savannah. Were doing it in florida. I dont see them as either or. We have to maintain not only what we bring up to snuff thats out there that hasnt been maintained, but you have new initiatives that are going to be much more capable of sustaining longevity without this kind of intensive maintenance that has been needed in the past. Its called technology. Im not being a wise guy when i say that. I didnt mean that in a disrespectful way. But these new technologies are capable of being able to do so much more. For example, theres no reason why, at our ports, we dont have solar capacity to make sure we save a lot of energy, create a lot new jobs for people out there, just like here in nevada, go out to techno valley. They are building a 600 megawatts capacity out there. We should be investing in how you transfer of that capacity from here to the midwest. We havent invested the time, energy, or money into deciding how you transmit lean energy. Whether its wind or solar. Honest to god, i have not seen that dichotomy. Last example, water. Water is a big problem. Theres a lot of Potable Water thats in big trouble. We have to dig up those old wooden pipes. Thats true. But the new mechanisms were able to put in should be much more resilient. The pipes have been grounded for over 40, 50 years already. You cant say im going to just move without dealing with whats there. Jerry before we move on, we want to ask some questions that were sent to us by readers and members of the coalition. One of this is a subject that has not come up yet, which is airports. Richard here asks here in las vegas, the county department of aviation is developing a second airport to serve growing Southern Nevada. House democrats released an infrastructure framework, which, for the first time in 20 years, and increases the airport, passenger facility charge and remedies the overcrowding and increasing delays on runways. As president , would you sign a bill to increase the passenger facility charge to modernize Airport Infrastructure . Charge passengers. Mr. Biden yes, i would. I think its about 5. 4 now. Yes, i would. The second piece of this is that, one of the things that will happen is let me give an example. On the east coast, every solitary airport from maine to florida that is within 50 miles of the water, has fewer people getting on and off aircraft and amtrak every day. Lets just get something straight. We continue to subsidize the hundreds of millions of dollars in minnesota. Well, maybe you have to help that. But a lot can change, jerry, if we look at the transportation net in a way thats different than before. A way to deal with it is not just to decide we will continue the same pattern of distribution and modernize it and make it in which Regional Airports work. For example, in philadelphia, a big airport. Wilmington, delaware has a large airport that is mostly private. What happens is, that is a that is where air force one lands and takes off. I always thought that was a good omen. All kidding aside, we should be figuring out a way in which we deal with roots. Why do we have the roots we have now in our major airports that are overcrowded . Because, not over my house. I get that. So you will be able to redirect, and its beyond my pay grade to know how to do it, but we should be able to integrate Regional Airports that are already there among the big Regional Airports to deal with the capacity and the overload. But i would sign the bill that raises that tax. Jim from knoxville has a question that has to do with what really becomes the frictions between democrats desire to bring green jobs and green agendas to the table, but still maintain, in many ways, the old infrastructure of fossil fuels. His question is, would you consider National Tolls to reduce congestion and pay for maintenance . Or anything like that to try to get some cars off the road . Fmr. V. P. Biden you have to change the transportation structure, the network, the structure. If you had running through every major city a commuter line that was in the middle of a four lane highway going in and out of the city, you could radically reduce the number of people that are on that highway. You would save billions of dollars in lost wages. You would say billions of gallons of gasoline over time, but this suggests that what we have to do is keep the exact same System Network as we have it. I wish we had a big board up here that we could actually draw on the board the means by which you get from point a to point b. Its got a change and it has to change. When i did the recovery act, we got for example we had great problems in South Carolina and they had problems with the port and maintained the port. It turns out a significant portion of the things that get shipped out of the port get shipped to them from the midwest on railroads, but the Railroad System was backwards and not working well. We took money, we invested in that and the port of baltimore. We kept a lot of factories in ohio opened. We get from the products to the we get the product from the factories to the port by doing some imaginative stuff, taking and reconnecting Railroad Systems that used to exist but have fallen apart. So, i guess what i am saying is, i think we keep thinking this. How do you maintain the old structure . We are ranked 28th or 29th most modern infrastructure in the world, the United States of america . You will open up a new factory. You will open up in hong kong or baltimore . Will you open in San Francisco or another place that invested billions of dollars from getting a factory to ship it out . I think we have to think of it in a different way. It does not mean you ignore the past or walk away from it, but it means that instead of investing billions of dollars in things that no longer are viewed as the best way to get from point a to point b, whether it is you are a product, you can do whether it is you or a product, you can do it. When you rebuild it you can do it so its greener. There is no rationale to build any new infrastructure that is not green. The billion 300 trillion that i call for over 10 years in my infrastructure plan, 100 million goes into modernizing our schools. How many of you live in School Districts were you are worried where you are worried your kid will drink water out of the fountains or has us best pestis asbestos . Or be have taken away tax credit so the wind comes blowing through your windows. You arent using more energy than you need to use. It makes sense. We can save a lot of money. We can create 6 million new union jobs. [applause] fmr. V. P. Biden everything of thing in my administration with infrastructure job will be davisbacon. I really mean it. That generates Economic Growth within community. They invest, they build, this day, they build better homes. They go out and invest more money. We had a big fight in that 90 billion that i was in charge of, making sure we got it out. I insisted every single dollar had to be davisbacon. I think we think too small. We think in terms of when you spend money, you increase salaries, you provide good paying jobs that paid 5060 dollars an hour, plus benefits. That somehow that hurts everybody. The wealthy gets wealthier, the middle classes able to sustain the middle class is able to sustain itself while the poor has a way up. That its what its about. Nobody has never shown me a model to suggest, that when you have hardworking people if all of a sudden every ironworker in america went on strike for every ibw member goes on strike and quits for six months, or every wall street banker quits. [laughter] fmr. V. P. Biden i am not being facetious, think about it, it would come to a screeching halt. Business is trying to takeover apprenticeship programs, not on my watch. [applause] i probably gave you more than you wanted to hear and less than you needed. You got us off to a great start. Your passion for the subject is really appreciated. I cant get those millions of miles on amtrak out of my head. [laughter] fmr. V. P. Biden there was an accident in my family and i started to go home every night thinking i would only stay for six months. But i have made over 250 miles a day. I have made thousands and thousands of roundtrips to go home. That is the only reason it went up. I got criticized for them naming the train station. The train station after me in delaware. I said they should name the whole damn line after you. [laughter] [applause] i think we are ready for round two. Yes . Not quite. The problem with Vice President biden is just bringing him out. Is just bringing him out of his shell, i think. [laughter] makes your job as an interviewer very easy. Again, thank you for being here, thanks to the cspan audience. We will move on to candidate number two. By luck of the draw it is tom steyer. Who i think is here and ready to join us on stage. Yes, mr. Steyer. [applause] thank you for being here. Mr. Steyer my pleasure. We are trying to suss out the balance the candidates try to seek when they look ahead as what their infrastructure priorities and agenda would be. You become president , we have water problems, road problems, we have all sorts of airport problems, and problems with everything buried under the ground for the last 50 years. And everything that goes across water. You have limited funds, how do you balance it . What are your priorities . Where did you put limited resources that you have into your project . Mr. Steyer let me say this. There are different ways to do infrastructure. One of the ways is to raise tax money and spend it. I think that is an important way to do it. And we are going to talk about that. On the first day of my presidency i would declare a Climate Emergency and start changing the rules under which private corporations are allowed to generate energy, about the kinds of cars they are allowed to produce, and the kinds of building efficiency rules they have to operate under. Those are also Infrastructure Projects, they just all come they just dont come under the budget of the United States government. On day one i would declare a Climate Emergency and we would order those rules and we would prioritize them based on the impact it would have on dealing with our Climate Crisis. So those are not ones that would hit the budget of the United States or take congressional approval in order to have it happen. But starting on day one and we would move the country forward in terms of billions of dollars through the private sector, to ensure if we start moving on our Climate Crisis and we start telling the world that this is our top priority and we will get it done. [applause] steyer would you move federal money away from traditional Infrastructure Projects roads, to green energy. Do you think that federal government should subsidize the production of electric cars to move the country towards the green environment you want to see . Mr. Steyer everything we will do we will view from the standpoint of climate. We have an infrastructure backlog, including roads and bridges, that is really cutting into our efficiency as a country and making Rural America be at a big disadvantage. We have a housing problem in a sense that we have 7 million Affordable Housing units. Affordablen too few housing units. That has to be solved from the standpoint of the federal government, and from the standpoint of climate. That when we build 7 million new units, they will have to be done in a Climate Smart way. To answer your question, there is no way to distinguish between the needs of the people and the needs of the climate, because we have to deal with the needs of the people real time but in a smart way. On the electric vehicles front, would you use Government Resources to further it by subsidizing things . Subsidizing the process or their purchase . Mr. Steyer over time, the cost of electric vehicles is coming down. It has to reach a point where it is comparable to cars. The question will be, how long did it take for that to happen, and what do we have to do to make a price competitive for American Consumers . I believe that the ingenuity of americans will get up to electric cars that are cheaper than internal combustion cars and will be safe when you take everything into account. I think we will have to push for that to happen faster. If we have to subsidize things to get the good answer, the way we will be spending money on this is most likely to help cut families with cash for clunkers. It is more likely the government buys back polluting vehicles so people can buy cleaner vehicles. Without loss then it is that we will actually subsidize production. As much as you have made climate the top priority, the big projects that have been proposed in the past face great opposition from locals. We have the wind farm off cape cod, 16 years in the making, still not done. Eminent domain is enormously unpopular. How do you manage that tension . Should the federal government have more say in landuse issues . How would you balance the desires of a local community to remain unchanged and a priority of the federal government to change the country . Mr. Steyer to the extent that we have a crisis, then the federal government will have to exercise its authority. When you look at the public when you look at eminent see howthe examples i to do with pipelines. The Eminent Domain has been, how will we build the Keystone Pipeline across farmland in nebraska . Or what will we do with the Dakota Access pipeline . What were talking about, to a very large sense in terms of clean energy, is concentrated Economic Activities in close built places. Public transportation, building upgrades. It is actually the kind of you are right about the offshore windmills that people have fought from the standpoint of views from their houses. But what we have really seen is, clean energy is not something that has had a huge push back in terms of Eminent Domain. I dont expect that it will. But we are talking about is rebuilding america anymore in a more concentrated fashion, pushing things together and trying to make sure we have as much clean transportation and Public Transportation and concentrated housing as possible. The real big numbers have to do with building upgrades, roads and buildings. Clean transportation and housing. A lot of the federal Government Spending on infrastructure is financed through the gas tax, which replenishes the highway fund. It has been stagnant for a quarter of a century, the level. People argue for raising the gas tax for two reasons. One is, it pays for the infrastructure, and some would argue it discourages continued use of fossil fuels. With those things in mind, would you raise the federal gas tax . Mr. Steyer i think what we have seen in california is that it is a super politically sanctity sense it a super politically sensitive thing. We will definitely have to raise taxes. The question is, will it be on consumers or businesses. If you look at my plan, i have a plan to roll back the giveaways to corporations and rich people. I tell people i have a plan to treat Investment Income on the same people that i treat and on the same schedule for people that i treat earned income. If you do that you get trillions of dollars. My goal in this is not to do a regressive consumer tax, exact opposite. We have a regressive tax system right now. My goal was to have a much more progressive tax to undo the tax giveaways of the last 40 years and to actually tax wealth in a different way, because we concentrated wealth and an unacceptable fashion in our society. [applause] mr. Steyer my goal in this is to raise wages, have more money come in and a much more progressive fashion, and rebuild america in a way that Everybody Knows we have to do it. We can easily afford to do it, we just have to get over the idea that rich people dont pay taxes anymore. Testing the limits of your green agenda, would you consider imposing renewable fuel standards on commercial airplanes . And would you right now, the pentagon is really the only agency that is doing big r d, because the needs they have there are all of their planes. Would you invest more money into the Pentagon Program in order to get to a point where you could impose such a standard . Mr. Steyer that is a great question, i will tell you why. Thank you. Mr. Steyer in most areas of energy we can see technologies that are either already cheaper than fossil fuel technologies, or you can look at where they will be cheaper. You can look at solar and wind and say it is cheaper than fossil fuel energy. You can look at electric cars and say, realistically, these can be cheaper, it will not penalize consumers. The place where it is not true, which is why i am complimenting you on the question, is on airplanes. We have not seen any kind of technological breakthrough that will really change this. The question is, how are we actually going to deal with a large source of greenhouse gases, which is air traffic, in a way that we dont destroy it, but also charge People Fairly and push towards green. The easiest thing to say here, what you brought up, is that we will spend a bunch of money on research and development to come up with a substitute for gasoline. That is easy to say the pentagon is doing it and we should push hard on biofuels. The real question will be, if that does not work or we cannot see it work fast enough, how do we respond to that . Is it by charging people for a cost of their pollution and putting a tax on gasoline, or what do we do . I think that is probably the easiest, simplest thing to do. To charge people for the pollution they are creating, but it would be better if we spent a bunch of money on coming up with alternatives so we dont have to cut down on the actual activity. The transition to electric vehicles that you talk about requires a National Network of recharging stations. Is the construction of such a network the job of a government or the job of a private sector . Mr. Steyer the question will be how it gets charged for. The truth is, gas stations are quite lucrative businesses were people basically charge and make money for every gallon of gasoline, then sell you a bunch of sandwiches and cocacola. The question will be, did that kind of activity work . Once you have electric vehicles, how long does it take to actually charge your vehicle, and how do people and of doing it. To the extent it is like gasoline set gasoline stations that it will be charged. If we end up with a different form of charging, leg at home, then the government will end up having to spend money. If the government invests in creating this charging system, then, to protect that infrastructure, do you not have cyber worries . What would you have to do to make sure someone did not hack that system and bring the country to a screeching halt . Mr. Steyer to be fair, that exists right now. Having a series of electric charging stations makes us vulnerable to someone hacking the electric system so you can no longer charger vehicle, that is true of it right now. I think it was in ohio and a tree fell against an electrical line and it wiped out three states of electricity for a couple of days. I think as we get more technologically advanced, we get more dependent on the technology and the ability to hack it. No question about it. Some people think that forests and thats all habitats should be considered infrastructure, they are just Green Infrastructure. California classifies watersheds as infrastructure. Would you spend traditional infrastructure dollars on Green New Deal projects that are on Green Infrastructure . Mr. Steyer i dont think there is any question that that is infrastructure. If you look around this country, wetlands and watershed and parks are infrastructure that is necessary for a healthy country. If you look at what it takes to have clean water and to have safe coastal areas, we are going to have to protect those. You can call it whatever you want, but its an investment in a functioning and safe america. I think we have obviously failed on infrastructure as a country. We have not spent the money to keep up our roads and bridges or to move into the new things we need to do. And we are hundreds of billions of dollars behind in roads and bridges. Our estimate is for 50, but my point is this, the good news is we need to do it smarter, we have to do it on an accelerated basis. It is going to be the biggest building project in American History which means we will create millions and millions of good paying union jobs. And so, as opposed to feeling like oh, isnt it too bad that we are behind . Actually, now we can do it smarter than ever. Now we can build the kind of country we want to have and use it to our estimate is the highest percentage of union participation in the labor force since 1945. Wouldnt that be awesome . [applause] jeanne so we are going to switch now to some questions that were submitted by members of the various coalitions that put this great event together. And wall street journal readers. This question comes from john here in las vegas. And he points out that 40 million americans including 2 million here in Southern Nevada rely upon the Colorado River, lake mead, and other reservoirs for their daily water supply. What would you direct to your secretary of interior to do to address this presented by the threats presented by drought and Climate Change in the Colorado River basin and across the western u. S. . Mr. Steyer water in the western United States, you dont get any more emotional than water fights. And the Colorado River is the center of those fights. Part of this is going to be an extreme need on our part to collect water more carefully, use water more carefully, and reuse water more efficiently. And we can see that actually, this is very possible. We have very primitive Water Supplies in a lot of ways. And in fact, what we are seeing in places that are very short of water, including los angeles, is our ability to capture rainwater is much higher than we understand, and our ability to reuse water at new Water Treatment facilities is much better than we understand. Whereas the Climate Crisis absolutely is putting a huge amount of pressure on water and drought, and specifically on the Colorado River, what we also know is our capabilities and technology on water are far better than people understand. And we are actually going to be able to solve this problem. Its true. We should understand, americans are smart. We are going to be able to adapt to this and i can see it when i travel around the southwest of the United States where people think los angeles could be water independent. That is an amazing fact. That is where we are. Our question comes from new orleans. An interesting question that ties together several things we have been talking about. 15 years ago, Hurricane Katrina slammed into my city of new orleans, 80 of the city was underwater, 1800 lives were lost. We know extreme weather events will happen more and more an older coastal cities like ours are vulnerable. How will your plan help coastal cities improve their resilience to Climate Change . And i would add as a footnote, are you prepared to tell people who live in the heartland of the country that they will have to help pay for Climate Change remediation on the coast . Mr. Steyer so, everyone in america is subject to climate, including people in middle america. In fact, the best money we can spend is what im talking about which is pushing not to have horrible climate outcome. The reason i declare a state of emergency on day one is so we dont get to the point where we have to spend unlimited amounts of money to protect people on the coast. Because when you really look about, what it would take to protect the coast of the United States or the interior of the United States in the worst climate outcomes, that is more money than anyone can imagine. Let me give you an example. Im from california and i was talking to somebody in san diego two months ago who is an environmentalist. I said, what are you guys doing . They said, we are talking about managed retreat. I said, what is managed retreat . He said, moving san diego. Moving san diego, that doesnt make any sense. How do you move a city . How do you move one Office Building . They are like, we are thinking maybe we will have to move to the interior. That is more money than anyone can spend. Anyone in the interior of the United States, anyone on the coast of the United States. Theres a reason i am declaring a Climate Emergency. Managed retreat is not really an option in this world. That i want to make sure that we act aggressively to stop this because you know the old american saying, an ounce of prevention is worth one pound of cure . In this case, i think an ounce of prevention is worth about 100 pounds of cure. If we get to the point where we have managed retreat in miami and san diego, we have spent a 20 billion fixing up new orleans. It is a fraction the size of miami and it is a fraction the size of san diego. So if we get into that world, there is a reason i want to spend 2 trillion in federal Infrastructure Spending in a Climate Smart way. Because that is a great investment in this country. That is a great investment in a safe america. And a prosperous future. That is great money for this country to spend, so we dont have to start moving Office Buildings from san diego to new mexico. Jeanne many of the Coalition Members and our readers talk about water, Drinking Water. It is a top priority for the mayors. How do you prevent another flint . Because they are coming. We all know that those pipes have come to the end of their lives. Mr. Steyer yes. Theres a reason im spending 2 trillion causing municipalities in states to spend trillions more. It is not just that we have old pipes. Flint was not a story about old pipes just so you understand. Flint was a story about a state governor and a state administration switching a virtually allblack city from Safe Drinking Water on to the flint river. [applause] mr. Steyer and lets be clear, they switched the city at one gm plant under the flint river and the gm called up and said the water is corroding our machinery. And they took the plant off the flint river but left the kids of flint, michigan on the flint river. So we are going to have to spend a ton of money fixing up those pipes, thats true. But you have got to see that when you go around the United States and see who lives in flint, michigan, and who lives in denmark, South Carolina, and who lives in the san joaquin valley, you get sick from drinking the water. We are poisoning black and brown communities at a completely different level than everybody else. [applause] mr. Steyer when i talk about climate, i start with Environmental Justice and i always have. Because i know if we are going to fix the climate problem, we start with the water problem in the air problem. If we fix their problem and water problem, the climate problem will be just fine. Im really, just so you know, im an environment of justice Environmental Justice person. To me, climate is about protecting the people of the United States and i start with the people being poisoned the most which is black and brown communities. [applause] jerry i think we have time for one more question. This takes us to a place we have not been yet. Tom from st. Petersburg, florida asks, what is your vision to build a rapid rail system in the u. S. . The u. S. Is behind the rest of the developed world in this regard. It provides environmental benefits as well as faster and safer travel. How and where would you implement such a program . Mr. Steyer it is difficult politically. We need more Public Transportation and we need cleaner Public Transportation. It is a huge issue. [applause] mr. Steyer one of the things i worked on that im very proud about is measure m in los angeles. Measure m was the blinding insight in los angeles that they needed a subway system. So that is going to create the original idea passed in 2016, the original idea think about the l. A. Traffic, what you are trying to get away from, and think about the cost of all that traffic. But then also know that it was originally supposed to provide 500,000 good jobs. And it doesnt have the word union in them but they are overwhelmingly union jobs. The most recent estimate i have heard is 778,000 jobs. We are going to have to build more Public Transportation, the kind of things like highspeed rail is a really good idea. We cannot to go and spend the rest of our lives depending on singlefamily cars. And so we can that is part of rebuilding this country. It will have more concentrated housing and more Public Transportation. And highspeed public rail is a great way for us to go. And we are going to have to move to things like that. We are going to have a more interesting life, but we are going to have to be open to changing some things from the way they have been. Jerry tom steyer, thank you for joining us. I look forward to that interesting life. [laughter] jerry you have been nice to share your vision with us. Thank you. Mr. Steyer thank you so much for having me. [applause] jerry i think next up on the list, i think we are about ready one of the Amazing Things about this topic is it is sprawling. Transportation systems, there are so many aspects to it. It is unbelievable. We will keep rolling down the path with our next candidate, senator Amy Klobuchar of minnesota. [applause] sen. Klobuchar what a great group. Jerry they are warmed up for you. Sen. Klobuchar ok, good. I think you mentioned the operating engineers and the trans core union but we did not mention though carpenters that are here, which is actually they have a major Training Facility that i got to visit near vegas. And there is going to be a lot of openings for carpenters in the future. I want to thank them as well. Jerry good for you. Infrastructure is the topic. We were talking about what a sprawling topic it is. Lets start at the 10,000 foot level which we have tried with all the candidates. Talk a little bit about priorities and principles. Infrastructure is a lot of things, it means fixing roads, bridges, filling potholes, making better airports. But it also means what a lot of democrats think it should mean anyway, which is shifting the country to a more green Climate Friendly Transportation System and infrastructure. You have limited resources, 1 trillion deficit right now. As president , what is your higher priority, fixing the old or moving to a Green Infrastructure system . Sen. Klobuchar you have to do both. My over 1 trillion plan, i was the first candidate in the race to come out with a major infrastructure plan. A lot of that was actually because of my own experience. I will start out with that. I can see everyone im shorter than some of the other candidates. Mayor bloomberg and the president were going at it on twitter about the president who said the mayor was 54 and the mayor said that is not true, im five foot eight. Im the only candidate who was 54. I want that out there now. Jerry and willing to admit it. Sen. Klobuchar there we are. The infrastructure issue and the reason i lead with that in the president ial campaign and the reason that i led the Senate Infrastructure bill for the democrats in 2011 is this, i actually live eight blocks from where that bridge fell down on the middle of a beautiful summer day, the 35 w bridge in minneapolis. That was not just a bridge. It was an eight lane highway. As i said that day, a bridge does not just fall down in the middle of america. But it did. When it falls down, we have got to fix it and we have to step back and look at what is going on with infrastructure in this country. That took me to that place that the other piece of the story that has been always with me is what happened with our community when that happened . The whole world was watching, what did they see . They saw an offduty firefighter who tethered herself to the side of the river and drove in and out of that Mississippi River and that murky water among those 55 cars and trucks looking for survivors. They saw a tasty truck driver who had literally one second to decide what to do. Iss going down the bridge collapsing, he can save his life by running to the back of the school bus or he can veer off to almost certain death. He veers off, saves the kids, but burns to death in that cab. Then there is the school bus that plummets 30 feet down, there is a guy named hernandez, a School Counselor who was on the bus, and he literally in the second the doors opened up in the back, he has one second to decide what hes going to do. He could have gotten off himself but instead he gets all 30 kids off that bus to safety. That is our country. [applause] sen. Klobuchar when we think about infrastructure and i know we are going deep in the policy details here, we have to also remember that our public works our public good is a part of who we are as a nation, and looking out for each other. That is one of the major jobs of government. The major job is keeping our citizens safe. And it is also shared prosperity. I think infrastructure is a great way to get there. In answer to the question, i think you have got to both fix existing problems like roads and bridges, the major part of my plan, but then make sure we are meeting what i call the remember when they had the Rural Electrification of our time . That is rural broadband. Right now, we can get Rural Service for not just cell service, but also highspeed internet on iceland witches on iceland with all of its volcanoes more easily than in northern nevada. That does not make sense. There is a lot of that has to be there is a lot of work that has to be done there. Are schools, and then green our schools and then green , infrastructure. When i look at this rail, i heard my friend tom steyer and some of the things he was talking about, all good. But when we rebuild existing infrastructure, we have to make that climate resilient. When we build new infrastructure, that always has to be on our minds as well. It has got to be a combination of things. I think it is very important for any candidate in this race, if you are going to Start Talking about infrastructure, when we have a president that made a bunch of promises, i still remember that night on Election Night watching his speech. I bet many of you do too. Remember one of the things he promised . Infrastructure. That was one of the top three things. While congress has kept the funding going in so many areas, we have not seen the big Infrastructure Investment that he promised. Not one that keeps our country competitive, not only in light of Climate Change, but also competitive with the rest of the world when it comes to being this great nation that is supposed to make stuff and invent things and export to the world. You need transportation to get your products to market. Jeanne senator, that raises the second question that we have been trying to put to everyone. You mentioned your 1 trillion plan. The question is where does the money come from . We all know the Highway Trust Fund is being depleted and the gas tax, no one wants to raise it. How do you raise that 1 trillion to pay for everything that you would like to do . Sen. Klobuchar ok, so, once again, the reason we did not get a good infrastructure package is that the president , despite these promises, would not work to pay for it and get it done. He basically blew up a meeting with congressional leadership instead of facing the issue that you have to find a way to pay for it. He did the tax bill, the trump tax bill, and it would have been the perfect opportunity to combine that tax bill with some tax reductions, like bringing the corporate rate down some. But he went so far and basically sucked all the money out of the system that you could have used for infrastructure. And then after he signed it, he went down to maralago and said to all of his friends, you just got a lot richer. Were any of you in that room . I just wanted to make sure, i didnt want to embarrass anyone. [laughter] sen. Klobuchar this is how i would pay for it. I would take those trump tax cuts where the Corporate Tax rate went down from the mid 30s to 21 . Every point it went down was 100 billion. You could still have reduced it and use a bunch of money for transportation. I would take the first four points of it and get 400 billion out of that. Then i would take the International Tax rate, if you put it back to where it was under obama, that is 150 billion you get out of that. Now we are up to 550 billion. For the rest of it, i would do infrastructure financing authority. That is a bipartisan proposal that has long been floating around congress. In the u. S. Senate, it is a proposal between senator warner and senator blunt and it has a lot of potential to pass. We also want to make sure that it goes to get projects and that that it goes to good projects and that we distribute the money fairly across the United States. That would create a lot of a backbone for the backbone of our infrastructure. In addition to that, i would do the buy america bonds which again, in the senate, as well as in the house, in the senate, it is a bipartisan proposal between senator wyden as well as senator hoven. Why do i mention these names . Hoven is a republican from north dakota. I think having a president that knows who people are and has the experience to try to get that done is going to matter when we put together this package. And the difference between a plan and a pipe dream is not a plan, there is a way to put a way to pay for it and a way to get it done. [applause] jerry let me take you back to the internet, the broadband question. There is tension here between gigabytes and roads. Because there is limited resources. Does the government pay for that buildout . . Im from kansas, you are from minnesota, and gets to places who dont get it otherwise. Is that the governments responsibility or should that be the responsibility of the big carriers . If it is the government that does it, who owns it . Does the government owns it or does it turn into those companies . Sen. Klobuchar it is a combination responsibility. In another life, i did telecom law. Private sector for years i represented mci when they were trying to bust into the local and longdistance markets and create more competition which helped to bring those rates down. That experience helps me to get this. I also serve on the commerce committee. I plan is to get this done by 2022. There is every reason to think we can do that, connect every area of the country, not to dial up slow speed, but actual highspeed internet. The way you pay for it is the combination of things. Part of the infrastructure plan i just mentioned, but two, some of the money can come from the universal service fund which is traditionally used for underserved areas. Whether it be impoverished areas, rural areas, and you want to pay for local service. Some of that money can go to broadband as well. One of the problems that i have identified spending a lot of time in rural areas and meeting with people in small Telephone Companies is sometimes that money is going to carriers that are not using it. Particularly some of the bigger carriers or midsize ones that are not using it to build out. You have this crazy patchwork situation where one town in one area will have highspeed internet, and the other wand. I remember being in a tribal area in minnesota where one of the houses had decided to pay for highspeed internet, which was very expensive because they did not have it on the reservation. And all of these kids every day would go to the guys yard to do their homework. Or the doctor who would who could get internet in the hospital, but he cant get it at home and you have emergency calls. He would have to, if he wanted to bring up an xray or look at other things, he had to go to the mcdonalds parking lot or the farmer, and farming has become increasingly hightech with the machinery and the like, who wants to contact customers has to go to drive miles to go to a target. That is what is happening. I think the answer is a combination of things like Everything Else if you are realistic. It is getting the direct funding through this infrastructure package. The funding for internet goes through the usda, as well as the commerce department. The usda handles smaller things. There are local government owned situations in the rural areas. One of them, the Blandin Foundation in minnesota has spent a lot of time working on this. I dont think it is onesizefitsall. The key is to make sure the money is not going to phone companies that are not using it. A senator and i, the republican from south dakota, had done work on this to try to get people with standalone internet Cell Phone Service to get Better Internet service. A bunch of things we could do. You have to have a president step back, look at these programs, and figure out that it is literally mapping exactly so that we have accurate data about where it is and where it isnt. And then we get the resources to where they are supposed to go. Jeanne to follow on this topic, is that the Big Companies that have seen the government coming, so they have gone into many states and passed laws that says the government cant come in and create a public owned broadband system. What do you do about those laws that would stand in the way of trying to get into some of these communities . Sen. Klobuchar there are always ways. First of all, you can create incentives, if that is the way we are going, that those states will not get certain resources if they have put those in place. The second thing is to do preemption, with some kind of Major National drive for broadband. I think it just depends, when the mapping is done and we get all the data, how we want the money to be spent and where we wanted to go. And where we want it to go. A bunch of money is going where it should end and there is not enough funding. It puts our country at such a disadvantage. I see it because in minnesota, we can see canada from our porch. For years, we saw how the resorts in canada had Better Service so they were able to get customers and they were able to get people that could get those customers that we cant get in our state. We have made major improvements in northern minnesota on that front. Im sure you see the same thing in parts of nevada. Jerry so you are president , you get to do what you want. Do you want to build a highspeed rail network in this country . By the way, if you do, that is more popular in Populated Areas on the east coast where we live now than in the midwest and rural areas where you when i come from. Sen. Klobuchar you have not gone on that empire builder. Pretty popular. Jerry i have not. Sen. Klobuchar it is a rail it may not be highspeed, thank you one person, but that is from chicago and it is across the west. A lot of interest in train travel in the middle of the country as well and going to glacier and going to our national parks. It is a really popular thing. But on the highspeed, yes, that is going to be more of a need for major cities. I will say, lets say even where i just was, for some reason, in new hampshire, the manchester area has the highest density of an area that does not have any Commuter Rail at all. It is a combination of some of these shorter Commuter Rails which really are not as expensive as well as these highspeed rails. Because when you are on those highspeed rails which im sure a number of you have tried out in other countries, whether it is in europe or in japan or the like, you are able to see how efficient that is. Im a big believer in rail. I love it because it is one way my husband and i can travel where we dont have an argument about directions. [laughter] sen. Klobuchar i also like it because it is better for the environment and it is a good way to get around and of course, as the operating engineers and so many people out there now, creates good paying union jobs. [applause] jeanne as im sure you know, we solicited questions from members of the coalition and wall street journal readers. We are going to turn to those questions right now. So, camille asks, what would you do to speed up the process to get some of these new projects going . Are there regulations as the Trump Administration has asserted, that can be changed . Are there any you would set aside in the interest of saving money and speeding up the process . Sen. Klobuchar i am one that is always open to looking at rules and regulations to see if you can make them work better. However, im not going to mess around with safety or the environment or things like that. I think you have to look at each rule and say are there things that we can do to make it work a little bit better . But i will tell you, my background, my grandpa was an underground minder who worked 1500 feet underground and back then, the mines were unsafe. Sirens would go off and everyone would run to the mines. My grandma, all of the spouses and families, never knowing which miner had been killed or maimed. It was unions that made a difference. Because the safety rules were put in place. So that is something that is near and dear to my heart. [applause] sen. Klobuchar and then in terms of approvals and the like, you can always step back and look at things. One of the things that i would like to see, for instance, is a twoyear budgeting cycle. I think that would help us when we put money out there, that we would have another year to look back to see how it was spent, to make sure it does get spent instead of sitting there. I think there are things you can do that would speed things up. Like we did with some of the work we did with the stimulus bill. A lot of that money did get out there. And make sure the money is getting out for the projects to be built, in addition to looking at a red tape and if there is anything we can do to speed things up. I did want to mention one thing that is really important to me, and that is prevailing wages. When i actually was in local office, i had a fulltime lawyer that worked on prevailing wage for our biggest county which was over one million people, and that person helped other smaller counties to work on prevailing wage. I think if you are going to build whatever it is, whether it is a bridge or whether it is a highway or whether it israel, that you want to make sure that the wages are fair for our workers. The whole idea here is to allow people to share in their prosperity of our Transportation System. [applause] jerry let me take you to another infrastructure topic that we have not talked about, airports. Michael from raleigh, North Carolina asks this, u. S. Airports have not seen investments from federal funding or user fees go up in 20 years. At my airport in North Carolina, due to a slowmoving federal process, they airport is maintaining a runway one slab at a time. As president , would you support adjusting the user fee paid by passengers to allow for long Term Investments . Adjusting is a nice term for raising. Sen. Klobuchar a very nice word. I would certainly be open to that and it has not been raised for a long time. We would want to do it in a way that is fair. But i hate the thought that our airports are lagging behind. I think you see here, i was just on your train, it was very good and works well. It went between the terminals. I have a hub in minnesota, so im well acquainted with the issues there. It has been a very successful hub, actually. Some of the issues they are of course for us, which im sure you have had in nevada is some of the tsa issues and not having enough workers there. At some point, it was so bad that i had to get the tsa to get a dog team from maui, the board the poor dogs had to go from hawaii to minnesota in the middle of the winter, to speed up our lines. Because we were having so much trouble. I think it is a combination of upgrading our infrastructure. That is one way to do it. The other is direct investment. As ive proposed in this infrastructure package, and just making it a big priority. You also have small and midsize airports that dont need all the deluxe things you might use like trams and some of the bigger ones. But i think we also want to make sure, and those are the rural airport issues, that we keep those going as well. To be able to have a rail Transportation System. I have worked on the Ranking Member of the antitrust committee in the senate, i know that sounds really exciting, but it actually there is a lot of issues with Airline Mergers and the like to make sure that we keep our small and mediumsized cities airports going. Because otherwise, their rates can go way up, skyhigh, if we dont have competition. It can be a real problem. There are issues related to airports and are airport system independent of the facility upgrades. I do think that we need to continue to upgrade our airports if we are going to be able to compete. Jeanne senator, just to touch quickly on one more issue that is very important to this audience. Kevin of milwaukee asks whether, as president , do you think the federal government can provide cities more help to address clean water issues, drink and water, and in particularly in disadvantaged areas . Sen. Klobuchar yes. Having been to flint and seeing that after all of this time they are still using bottled water in a number of the homes and a number of facilities in flint. I met with the mayor there and everyone has bottled water. That is so sad and by the way, that is just one example. These examples are all over the country. One of the interesting things about water projects is that they are not always the bright shiny objects for the political ribboncutting that you have with highway overpasses or with a brandnew Commuter Rail system. But they are just as important. Investing in Water Infrastructure, and by the way, in states like nevada, if you look at the water shortage, yes, it is about Water Infrastructure and the pipes and the upgrades. Especially in light of Climate Change. But it is also about looking at incentives for conservation, for water, as well as, by the way, water storage. So that we make sure the water we do get that we are keeping stored, the surface water and the like, so that we can use that. I think water in general is going to be a very hot topic and has not been addressed on the federal level as much as it should be. And it is something that me, from the land of 10,000 lakes, would be more than happy to make one of my priorities. [applause] jerry senator klobuchar, i know you have to use that infrastructure system. Roads, bridges, airports. But thank you for taking time to talk about it with us and good luck. Sen. Klobuchar thank you. Thank you jeanne, thank you, jerry. Thank you everybody. [applause] jerry i think before we move on to our final candidate, zack from united for infrastructure will join us for a couple more minutes. Zach thank you, it has been a great conversation talking about issues at the federal level. I just want to acknowledge all the work that is happening at the local level that mayors and City Councils and governors and county officials have been doing to make progress on this issue. I know it is something you guys have questions on. Took on in your research. What would you want to ask about how the federal government can work with state and local governments to make progress . Jeanne one of the most interesting things come ou that one of the experts were talking about is how local governments need so much extra help. And the money flows through the state and is parceled out, raising the question of whether more direct loans to cities and counties might be possible. Because people go on this great, federally owned highway, and then they take a really terrific ramp, and then they end up in the pothole. And those are the roads most americans are driving to the grocery store, to school. I mean, that is their primary experience with the u. S. Infrastructure system, and i thought that was a really insightful thought. Jerry and i would also add, we have a mayor coming up to talk about this, or former mayor. But one of the other things that becomes clear when you talk to people about this is one of the issues mayors have to deal with is, to the one senator klobuchar was saying, was not the glamorous one but water and sewer. That sort of falls to mayors to deal with. And it is expensive, it is not popular, it is not fun. And the federal government probably is not providing as much help as it should and everybody goes back to flint. But it is not only flint, there are other places where you have similar problems. And so i think if the question is, what do mayors worry about . One of the things that struck me as we went through our research is that mayors worry about water and mayors worry about sewer because nobody else does. [applause] zach i know i am turning tables but asquestion aspect, members of the press, what is it you look for in an infrastructure story to help communicate an incredibly complex issue that is esoteric for so Many Americans and communicated to a broad audience, especially a readership like the wall street journal who works on these fundamental Economic Issues all the time, but it may not be for specifically infrastructure . How do you think about communicating on infrastructure . Jerry one of the reasons i rattled off some of those fun facts in the beginning is i think you have to convince people of the magnitude of the issue. Everybody knows about the bridge down the street that has been closed for repairs all summer. It really annoys them. But i think the way, if you are a National News organization, like the wall street journal, the way you deal with this is you turn it into not a local or a narrow or isolated problem but a National Issue. That is what we are talking about here. I think that is the first step in explaining the process to readers. And we talked about this earlier, the other thing is to try to convey somehow the difficulty washington has. And we are both from washington obviously so the difficulty , washington has in figuring out how to come to terms with this. Everyone says they want to do infrastructure. It is one of the very few lines that President Trump state of the Union Address last month that got bipartisan applause. He said we should do an infrastructure bill. One of the few times of the night when both sides, republicans and democrats, stood up and applauded. People have been talking about it, President Trump, speaker pelosi, leader schumer have been talking about this since literally the transition to the Trump Administration. Nothing happened. The other thing we have to come to terms with is why . Why didnt something happen when everyone says it needs to . Jeanne and there could still be a piece of legislation that comes through. But it is mostly going to be a highway bill, it is not the big infrastructure package that all of the leaders in washington say is needed for the country. And when you talk about writing about it, the one thing that always strikes me is an infrastructure story is one of the easiest to turn into a people story. Done in flint, and they wanted to know who was responsible, because as much as it was a minority community, it could have been anybodys kid. I mean, they made a mistake, yes, and it was more of a financial problem than a pipe problem. But we have had pipe problems elsewhere. And these pipes are all aging. And so i think they are the kind of stories that you can draw readers in in a sense that they can think huh, that could be me. Jerry zach, i think we appreciate your questioning us. It is very nice of you to do that. But i think that more important than us, there is one more president ial candidate waiting. So anyway, thanks for coming out again. Zach thanks again, jerry. [applause] jerry and speaking of mayors, we actually happen to have a former mayor right there. It is Pete Buttigieg of south bend, indiana. [applause] mr. Buttigieg good afternoon. Thanks for the opportunity to be with you. I will be brief in introducing our infrastructure vision. Im looking forward to sitting and having a conversation together. I want to acknowledge and thank first everyone who was so committed to making sure we take real steps when it comes to infrastructure because this is a mayors native language. Im so excited to finally be with a group of people who care about wastewater as much as i do. [applause and cheers] mr. Buttigieg there we go, see . Look it is not always sexy. , but it is so important. The infrastructure that is aboveground, the infrastructure that is underground, and the Digital Infrastructure that will help decide whether the future works for america or not. The governing image of my campaign is the image of what it is going to be like the first time the sun comes up and donald trump is no longer in the white house. [applause] mr. Buttigieg i look forward to it too. But our political objective obviously among everybody in my Party Running for president is to bring that day about. When that day comes, then comes the hard part. The sun will be coming up over an environment where our country is facing challenges, some of which were barely understood a few years ago. And doing it in an environment characterized by political polarization, the likes of which we have not seen in modern times. And yet one of the things the American People agree on is the need for a major investment in the future of our infrastructure. It is the one area where i will admit, i think the president had a lot of us fooled. Because it sounded like a good idea when he said he was going to do real infrastructure. It was popular in both parties, it was going to help the economy, and then they come out with the vaunted plan, and it turned out the plan was for us, state and local officials, to do most of the work and come up with most of the money which is how it already works. We have an opportunity to do Something Different and take infrastructure week back from being a punchline and make sure it is the template for a better future. In order to meet our climate goals, in order to meet our economic goals, we have to do this. We have got to come together to make sure it actually happens. I have proposed a plan that will do that across every level of the infrastructure that we need. And do it with an eye toward equity too because we know the racial and economic inequality we experience in this country plays out through the inferior infrastructure that so Many Americans are expected to put up with. And we dont have to do that anymore. If we are willing to come together, make the investment, change the way that politics twists our infrastructure priorities and deliver on something that the American People already want, already expect and already insist we do something about. Im looking forward to our conversation and thanks so much for having us together. [applause] jeanne thank you so much. We do want to ask every one of the candidates, you have a limited amount of money in the federal government. You become president , and you more than any of the other candidates that we have talked to have dealt with the part of the crumbling infrastructure that people talk about. And yet there are a lot of proposals for fancy new things. So where do you see the balance, like how much of the money would the government really need to focus on fixing things first before creating a new highspeed rail . Mr. Buttigieg yeah, i think this is really important because some of the as a political figure, you have the incentive to create the exciting new thing. We have to get back to basics. Mine is the only infrastructure plan that works to make sure that federal funding that goes to states for fixing roads actually fixes what weve got in addition to adding new and exciting things. We cannot continue to add new pieces out there if we are not willing to look after what we have already got. We are seeing right now a built physical plan that is not being maintained which is part of how we got the crisis of environmental and Racial Justice that is flint. We have got to deal with the unsexy things first. Now the good news is, it is possible to do that and to add to things like rail. I believe we should be increasing im not asking for japanese level standard of train travel. I would settle for an italian level of train travel. It would still be a hell of a lot better than what we have now and an important part of how we meet our climate goals. It is easier to decarbonized decarbonize medium range travel over rail then it is in a lot of other areas from personally owned vehicles to air travel. All of this has to be part of a smart mix to get us toward the goals we have toward 2050. Jerry i think in your plan, you said you would inject 165 billion dollars into the Highway Trust Fund. That trust fund is financed through the federal gas tax. Where would you get the 165 billion . Would you do that by raising the gas tax . And by the way, in a sort of a more radical thought perhaps, with Interest Rates as low as they are now, is this the sort of thing that the government should not worry about paying for because you can borrow the money for next to nothing and that is where we should go in terms of dealing with the kind of money we are talking about for infrastructure . Mr. Buttigieg i dont think we should be fundamentalist about the uses of debt finance for infrastructure because in a low Interest Rate environment, there can be a lot a virtue to Infrastructure Investments that unlike what we were told about tax cuts for the wealthiest, actually have been demonstrated to pay for themselves. That being said, i think the time has come for my party to assert its ownership of fiscal responsibility. Because the other party that has talked about it all the time has reached new heights of walking away from it with this president putting a 1 trillion deficit before the American People without even bothering to explain how there might be a way to deal with it. I believe in having pay force for all the things my campaign puts forward. And we can do it. Im not even talking about going back to eisenhower level taxation. Im talking about rolling back the trump Corporate Tax cut. Im talking about closing loopholes and make it possible for companies that earn billions of dollars in profits to pay less than i did on my mayor salary last year in federal income taxes, specifically zero. And when it comes to the gas tax, the reality is we are going , to have to graduate from the gas tax because we are going to have to graduate from gas. We know that it is not a viable longterm funding mechanism for our highways. We have got some time to make that transition. I think they can bring parties to the table and identify alternatives. I think something that links to vehicle miles traveled is attractive only if we can answer some of the big brother dimensions of what it means to actually assess vehicle miles traveled. We should be serious about it. Jerry do you think those can be addressed . Mr. Buttigieg i think it can be. We are already in a society where we have got way too much of our personal data being tracked. We ought to be smart about it. I do think we can come together and find a solution. Jeanne you have also mentioned Climate Action bounds. Action bonds. Tell us what are those bonds and what do they build . Mr. Buttigieg the idea is to create a Financing Mechanism again for investments that we know, at least in an environment where you have Carbon Pricing and the true cost of carbon reflected in our economy, will in fact have a meaningful return. There are so many worthy climate projects that dont happen because of a lack of financing. It is one thing to get an Energy Savings contract to solarize a Small Business or home, it is another for a Community Like mine for example to be able to lay out the kind of car charging infrastructure we would want to in order to move into the electric vehicle future. That are so many things that are being put together at the local and community level. In climate, i know we think about this as a National Issue and a global issue, and of course it is. But so many of the innovations are actually happening at the local level. Would i convene make sure we so not only join the Paris Agreement on day one, but i would convene a pittsburgh summit of local and regional actors because the answers dont all have to come from washington. Maybe again this is the mayors eye view. I dont think the answers dont answers have to all come from washington but it is more of the financing should. Jerry let me take you back to the land of the mayors and the less sexy water and sewer issues that got you a big cheer over here. Mr. Buttigieg when we got a wastewater section over here. Thats awesome. [applause] the wastewater vote is not always vocal so im enjoying this a lot. Jerry im pretty sure you locked it up today. [laughter] jerry but i think as mayor of south bend, you took advantage of a Trump Administration program to ease some of the environmental requirements of the Obama Administration when it came to dealing with wastewater and sewage that flows into rivers. So the question is, did the Trump Administration have it right on that subject . And the Obama Administration go too far . Mr. Buttigieg so heres the problem with the Trump Administrations rollbacks. They are actually about lowering the standard of water quality. There was a problem in the old regulatory framework. The problem was this, it held cities accountable, and still does in many ways, not for the environmental result you get on the backend, but for how much money you put in on the front end. So whether you pour in a lot of money and it does not quite work or whether you pour in a lot of money and actually get the job done, it almost the framework , cant really tell the difference. What we did is we used technology to create a system that would at a dramatically , lower cost, still be able to lead to less pollution going into the river. And we do need to flexibility to do that, but it is not about walking away from our commitment to environment quality. It is about being outcome focused instead of input oriented. Jerry bu as a general proposition, do you think the federal government gives mayors too little flexibility on some of these matters . Mr. Buttigieg i think what has happened in practice is it is varied by the regions. I found i could get the administration to listen, but sometimes those forms of innovation and flexibility were not always making their way through the regional offices. It is one of the reasons i think we need to set up our federal administration to listen to the voices of mayors who are actually solving these problems better than it currently does. Needless to say bringing that , perspective in the white house, we will. Jeanne lets reverse that perspective for just a second. If the federal government, in your administration, were to have the Green New Deal as a high priority, then should the federal government have more say in questions of landuse . And i raised this before, we have the cape cod windfarm that is over 16 years in the making and it is not there. And planners say to be really efficient, you need to put these new green sources of energy close to where people are because you need to transmit it to them. So you are getting into the heart of some local areas and cities. Should the federal government, should there be a different role for the federal government other than maybe Eminent Domain, but you know some other change in , that conversation and that balance of power . Mr. Buttigieg i think a lot of those issues start to sort themselves out in the market if we have carbon prices. Which is why i think we need to make that move. In other words, instead of trying to engineer every piece of it from a washington perspective, lets make sure the market signals are actually in keeping with the advantages in a world that prices carbon appropriately. To things like wind power. And yes, the federal government should be encouraging greater use of Renewable Energy and Greater Development of innovative techniques. But i think a lot of the federal role is actually further upstream, it is on the research side. Remember think of it this way, only private industry could invent Something Like the iphone. Right . But only federal research could invent Something Like the internet. And what we need to do is be putting more in the basic research on energy storage, Carbon Storage and Renewable Energy generation that market actors can take and run with. Jerry so you come from a river city. River cities are worried about the effects of Climate Change, you have talked about this. Coastal cities are worried about the effects of Climate Change. Should part of an infrastructure plan, part of your plan, be to spend tax dollars to help river cities and coastal cities deal with the effects of Climate Change . And if so, are you prepared to tell people who dont live in those areas that they are going to have to buck it up and spend their money to fix those problems . Mr. Buttigieg we do have to commit federal dollars to this, i believe. And we can create a lot of jobs when we do. But it is why we need to invest in funding to enhance the resiliency of river and coastal communities. We are going to need a c level defense fund. And we are going to need to invest in regional resilience hubs that can deal with the local impacts of climate, whether it is river flooding in a city like mine, or wildfire risk in parts of the west. Look it is going to be different , everywhere you go. When i was on the mayors water council, i felt like there were three kinds of mayors talking about water. There were western mayors who did not have any water, there were coastal mayors who had too much water, and then there were midwestern mayors like me with water in all the wrong places. The solutions are going to be different. And thats ok. But we need more federal funding. Yes, that is something that has to have federal leadership. You cant expect the locals to be able to handle all of this on their own. Jeanne can i back up to your point about using the federal government for research and development . The pentagon right now is doing the most work in trying to create a renewable fuel source that could be used in airplanes. Would you be looking to set standards of renewable fuel standards for airplanes at some point, and would you invest deeper in that research . Mr. Buttigieg yeah, we are going to have to in order to meet our goals. The ipcc is telling us that 2030 is the deadline to make a lot of changes. I think the real deadline is a political one of 2020. If we dont have a president who believes in Climate Science by 2020, 2021, we are not going to make it. If you look to 2050, when we have got to be Carbon Neutral to stay ahead of the worst impacts, that means we have to go from light transportation, through heavy transportation and air travel, into heavy industry by 2050. And to make it on that curve. The military should be leading the way. Part of the problem with climate is a lot of the very parts of our society that could be on the leading edge are not really being viewed as part of the solution. The military is an example. Farming is a huge example. The potential for Carbon Capture in soil is enormous. And Industrial Workers are another example. You know we are estimating , between my infrastructure plan and my climate plan, we are going to create 8 million new jobs. When you hear green jobs, you picture very exotic things. Somebody finetuning a solar panel or rappelling down a windmill. Whatever that is. Some of that is out there and that is great. A lot of these green jobs are very easy to understand today. I am talking about union glazers and electrical workers and carpenters who are going to be needed for the retrofits we have to do. Across society whether we are talking about the military, or whether we are talking about labor, or whether we are talking about farming, we have to make this into a National Mobilization where everyone understands how they have been recruited to be part of the solution. If we get it right, we are creating opportunity along the way too. Jerry mayor buttigieg we , solicited questions from wall street journal readers but also from members of the united for Infrastructure Coalition. For the last few minutes, we want to turn to some of those. Mike asks the following, what priority would you assign and what actions would you finally take to fix the antiquated northeast corridor rail corridor or condition under the hudson river that millions of americans use every year . Mr. Buttigieg yeah, i mean, we have got to decide whether we think it is ok for the greatest country in the world to have inferior transportation when it comes to rail. It just doesnt make sense. And i dont know why americans should be tolerating inferior service relative to fellow members of industrialized economies. And so whether we are talking about the northeast corridor and the work that needs to happen there, or whether we are looking at the Bigger Picture nationally, we are going to need investment. We are also going to need federal leadership to make sure the parties are talking to each other. If you have ever tried to get your calls returned by freight rail, you know how many steps are going to be needed to get different parties to talk to each other. It is the same thing in my part of the country where we are linking thankfully a dedicated rail, but working to link south bend and chicago more quickly. These things dont happen without federal leadership. It is why we need to make sure that we are bringing the parties to the table but also why we need to double bill grants. Which is going right into our economy, and ensure federal funding is backing those federal expectations. Jeanne john of las vegas raises a question here that is important to everyone in this audience, and that is the dependence on the Colorado River and lake mead and other reservoirs for daily Water Supplies for 40 million americans including 2 million who are here. So he asks, how would you direct your secretary of the interior to address the stress in the presented by drought and Climate Change in the Colorado River basin . Mr. Buttigieg there is not going to be any easy solutions here, but this is another example of not only do we need to engage the stakeholders, and the framework that was designed nearly a century ago, based on the realities then. We also need to be doing research on the kinds of conservation that can be done on everything from the management of cities to agriculture. Its part of why i would propose we create an arpa i. So we have got arpa e, after the darpa that would be for infrastructure, creating solutions for better use of Water Resources to what i think ought to be a Manhattan Project way to pave roads that last longer than 12 years or so. Every mayor who has gotten thousands of calls about potholes views this with a certain emotional passion. We havent changed the technology weve used for paving in a fundamental way in a few years. Hundred these are the things we can lead the way even as were doing the sort of intergovernmental and political work to make sure theres an equitable distribution of resources. The last thing i would mention when it comes to water, is we have got to do a much better job of engaging tribal stakeholders. Prior consent needs to be taken seriously and needs to be enshrined in federal policies. [applause] jerry by the way, just as we go along here, i wanted to ask, do you think federal funds ought to be used to build a recharging station for electric vehicles . Or is that a private sector priority . Mr. Buttigieg i think that we should be open to publicprivate models that might help accelerate with what can be done with limited federal funds but i do view this as , potentially a form of critical infrastructure. Beforeore we go too far making irreversible investments of capital in that infrastructure, lets make sure it takes into account the development of technology. What i mean by this is, i remember a lot of buildings in the late 1990s, that were huge investments were made that the whole thing, top to bottom, was wired with ethernet cable. They put the finishing touch on the building two years before wifi was a thing, right . And so, lets make sure were tuning what were going to do with charging capacity to what is going to change in terms of the Storage Capacity on board of vehicles. This is why we need to make sure were doing this in an integrated way. Thats why we need policy leadership instead of different different stakeholders to instead of expecting go on and solve it on their own. Jeanne mary marco, im sorry. Sorry, marco, of utah. Says mayor pete, you recently released an infrastructure plan calls for creation for 50 billion or so, 500 billion or so Drinking Water matching fund. Explain how that will help lowincome communities and americans as a whole. Mr. Buttigieg yes, so this is especially important for low income immunities because of things like the lessons of flint. Look to me, this is a question of freedom. Because part of your freedom depends on this act, that changes are, even in this room full of people who like to geek out on infrastructure, virtually none of us got up in the morning wondering how and whether we could get a glass of clean, Safe Drinking Water. Its just there. And the moment you cant take it for granted is the moment you lose a degree of freedom because you got to worry about that, as what happens in communities that are almost always low income communities and almost always communities of color. This is about justice. By making more dollars available to conduct the kinds of upgrades on everything from lead Service Pipes to overall deteriorating infrastructure at a municipal level, we cannot expect low income communities to foot the bill themselves. Remember, the water bill is just about the least progressive way of getting revenue for anything because its the last thing the poorest person will stop paying, even after cable and even after electricity. And i have seen this, governing a city where the poverty rate was not that far from 30 . We set up 311. It was my big campaign system. We are going to create a 311 system. It was a nobrainer if your city doesnt have one. Its going to bring all your City Services together. I was wondering what with the top call be . Created a way to gather the data, everything somebody is coming about, from a dead possum in the alley to wondering what day their trash pickup is. And by far the biggest thing people were calling about was they were afraid their water was going to get shut off because they were always this close. So when we talk about upgrading Water Infrastructure, we are talking about something that we ill disproportionately benefit the most vulnerable americans. That is all the more reason we need to act and get it done. [applause] jerry in that vein, some people think Affordable Housing should be infrastructure. Would you spend infrastructure funds on Affordable Housing . Mr. Buttigieg in terms of our plans, we fund it in a separate plan, but they are undeniably integrated. The way we did not just the fact that we need to build my plan calls for about 2 million more Affordable Housing units to be built, and commits 700 billion to make sure we excuse me, 430 billion to make sure we have several million more families into Affordable Housing including those 2 million units. Also, the way theyre built. How is it laid out . Are we encouraging cities to build in sustainable models . Are we giving communities the tools to do that . And when more housing is built, are we making sure were taking steps so that families arent liable to be gentrified right back out of them when they become more viable on the valuable on the market . Thats going to take intention and our housing vision. We are releasing more this weekend on our housing plans, knowing that the crisis is also an opportunity through the injection of federal funds to get some economies of scale to pioneer new technologies and means for sustainability. Jerry time for one last question. Jeanne all right. Paul johnson from orlando asks he says, some states and localities have in fact been proactively investing in infrastructure, schools, roads, parks, through local funding measures, fuel tax, sales tax raising their own revenue. , how would you address the issue of fairness in federal funding between states and cities which have worked to improve their areas and their infrastructure against those who just seek federal funding for it . Mr. Buttigieg i view this as a both and. That is why the matching model is so important, making sure that federal dollars are matched by some local resource to determine what could be done by local or state authorities acting on their own. We should be encouraging communities, as many have, to take the courageous step of voting the tax themselves to create something newer and better. But that should be over the floor. And the floor, federally established should be that no , american should live without access to the basics of transportation and water and safety that is at stake in all of the infrastructure choices that we make. By the way, the other reason why i think there is a lot of value to greater federal involvement, even when it is a match to local work, is it creates the opportunity to raise standards of labor being involved. Among the many, many reasons it is disturbing to me that this administration has claimed to be a friend to working people, is the fact that they are using things like the shell game of state funding passthroughs to get around davisbacon and other basic wage and labor standards that we expect as a country to be of help. The more we have a partnership, the more we can make sure that state and local funds, as they are applied do it in a way , that matches federal expectations that once again, on the labor side, as well as the outcome side, amount to a floor and not a ceiling. Jerry so mayor pete, i will say that when we solicited questions from the united for Infrastructure Coalition we got , more questions about water than anything else, so you are in tune with the organizing committee here. [applause] and we want to thank you for coming by. Mr. Buttigieg thank you. [applause] mr. Buttigieg i love it. [applause] jerry so, that is it for us. I want to say again, thank you all of you for coming, thank you , to the cspan audience for being with us, and i hope we have shed some light and may be excited a few more questions about infrastructure as the Campaign Goes on. Thank you all very much. Jeanne thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] our campaign 2020 coverage continues with Pete Buttigieg speaking to caucusgoers at a town hall in carson city monday 2 00 eastern on cspan. Tuesday, senator Bernie Sanders speaks to supporters at a get out the vote early rally in las vegas. Early voting for the caucus run through february 18 with the caucus on saturday, february 22. Monday night on the communicators, from the state of the net conference, we will discuss technology and the internet with Kathy Mcmorris rodgers, will heard and ellen weintraub. Watch the communicators monday night 8 00 eastern on cspan two. Next, president of candidate Michael Bloomberg speaks at the Virginia Democratic Party dinner in richmond, the largest and raising event of the year. 99 delegates are at stake in virginias primary, part of super tuesday on march 3. Honored guests, democratic president candidate and former mayor of new york city mike bloomberg. [applause] mr. Bloomberg thank you. Thank you. How are we doing . [applause] mr. Bloomberg will await the music