Dorgan listen live on the free span radio app. Host thank you for being our guest. Mr. Bishop thank you. The two reporters who will be asking questions. D covering Energy Issues and covering congress. And you are up first. Reporter big news is averting a government shutdown. Are you confident that congress will be able to fund the government in the coming days . Mr. Bishop yes. Reporter why are you so confident . Mr. Bishop it is a continuing resolution. I feel very comfortable its going to go along and try to work through some of the issues. I expect they will continue to be some kind of continuing resolution through most of this spring with the possible exception and probable exception of the defense department. If we do it for the defense spending we help our military. And everyone recognizes that. Reporter you are not expecting congress to pass an omnibus spending package . Mr. Bishop i would be happy if they would, because there are a couple of things i would like to put on that package. I can live without it. With the exception, defense of this nation, you have to do something than a continuing resolution. Reporter you said there are a couple of things you would like to get on there. What are those . Mr. Bishop we are dealing with land issues and endangered species issues and i would like to finalize. This would be an ideal time to do it. If it doesnt, ill find another vehicle. Reporter trump op wednesday should an executive order which pleased you quite a bit directing a review of nationalmon youments. The last president s created including those in your own state and you have talked about revoke that monument. And do you think we will see interior secretary zinke recommend to revoke themon youments . Mr. Bishop you have a bunch of really good questions tied up into one. What he gives us with the executive order gives us the funt to do it a right way and allow people who live in that area to actually have their voices heard. That in and of itself is a good first step and there is a review. And my state, grant staircase and affects ike what the president can or cannot do will come from a review from the Justice Department and what will take place from the ag department. s going to be a multi administration, multi bureaucracy effort tying together to do a really good cumulative report that maybe there are some areas where we have private lands and state lands and that should not have been the designation. Maybe there are areas in nevada that have circumstances that go beyond the boundary of the monument itself and problems that should be looked at well. And maybe it should have been used for water. Reporter you mentioned the act and there has been introduce bills looking to revamp the act. What is the appetite to get it done and what particular things need to be changed about the law . Mr. Bishop it will depend upon the results of this review. The act, which has never been changed or modernized was passed in an era when there was 46 ates, no park service, nor b. M. M. It was in a different era. What has to happen is to make sure that more people have the ability to have their voices heard so maps of these areas are done before my declaration is done. So the management tech neeks are decided before the monument is announced and know you are doing it right the first time. Than going back to fix all the problems. Part of the problems with the president , he president obama did not want to have to go through the nepa process. Which mandates there are public hearings and that kind of public input. Everybody else had to do nepa. Thesemon youments cant be in coordination with the other agencies. What i have said in the past is really true. You have to do the negotiation. The work on these things are done in the dark. You cant find out what is going to be done ahead of time. That is a horrible way of doing business. And if we could modernize the act to allow a president to go through a streamline process and gets the input from those other agencies, we would have a much better process. That is a minimum what we need to do. Reporter to go back to government spending, your committee has jurisdiction over puerto rico and funding after medicaid to puerto rico has been ne of the major sticking points. The president amounting to a bailout, do you agree with that . How do you think it should be addressed . Its going to be one of those areas that are only goes through my committee. I only have some say whats going on there. We have established the board to review what is going on and want to make sure they are the ones who understand the significance of this issue and should have a great deal of say. Having said that, medicaid is slightly different but sad that we are in this situation with puerto rico. I wish the former administration had tried to dealt with this before and not walked away from it and exacerbated by the obamacare act. It will take negotiations and health and Human Services has a response to that and position on that that has to be viewed from our committee as well as the president. People are going to get together. And there has got to be a good solution and i think we can find one. Reporter the Congressional Task force in a recent report that are puerto rico could run out of funds to cover medicaid funds. Should this be addressed in the larger spending package . Mr. Bishop it needs to be addressed, yeah. Reporter thousands of protestors flocked d. C. Streets on the issue of Climate Change. What role do you think the federal government should monitoring and mitigating the impacts of Climate Change . Mr. Bishop there are a whole bunch of areas. And the federal government could take a good lesson from what states are doing. In my state. Makes it basically a big bowl, in the winter when its cold and snow on the ground. I grew up in that. Ear is far better when i was growing up and they understand the uniqueness of their particular area. And the best thing we could do is turn to the states because every area has challenges that the states know how to address that are usually inhibitted and urt. It doesnt necessarily work that way. So if the federal government wants to help in this issue, we have to turn to the people who understand and are the experts and those are people on the ground that understand the variances. Even for example, eep made a ruling on air quality standards in my area in which they claimed that the area patterns were the exact same air patterns in salt lake and the north and south and the bottom line, it is not. The eep understood and the state knew how to mitigate it but they were jofrlede by the Environmental Protection agency. They had the power to do it. Its not good science. We have to rely more on local governments and states to make sure we are using it properly to affect and understand the variances. Reporter i was wondering if you could, on that same thing talk about funding. Trump has proposed cuts across the board for agencies and a lot of those agencies deal with environmental issues. Do you think the Climate Change aspects of these agencies should be targeted in particular . Mr. Bishop what you do with funding is the variance where you put your priorities. If we are doing more collaborative work, you can change where the priorities are. And the areas in which i have some kind of purview, one of the problems, they put out more emphasis in funding levels at the top of administrative charts here in washington and in the regional areas at the expense of people who are on the ground. If you were to change that prioritization and put more money into those who are on the ground doing the work, we would better come up with a project and save money. Reporter this past week, republican lawmakers are making changes to the health care bill. How are you feeling with a potential vote . Leaders say they are getting close to enough votes to pass it . Mr. Bishop this is not my specialty area here in congress, deep down inside, i want to solve the problem with health care not just to make sure people have the coverage and it is affordable and program that is on the pathway to selfdestruction, but because the issues i care about are on the back burner until we get health care done. I would like it to be moving on so i can talk about my land and forest issues that are equally important. Reporter leadership pulled the bill in march and you couldnt move forward on health care. Members of the Republican Caucus till frustrated . Mr. Bishop frustrated in my sense of the word because we have not moved on because there are so many issues i would have liked toville addressed. And the first vote that did not take place was as much a procedural one as much a substance one. The reform and changes were not in that first vote. From had to be two other steps. The frustration is in the fact that we would like to move on to other issues at the same time, but it is better as i think the speaker has said, starting to take a little time and do it the right way. And its going to take some more conversation. We are on a path that is going to be the right way. Host health care was one of those votes that President Trump hoped to accomplish in the first 100 days. We are talking about the 100 day mark. How is he doing . Mr. Bishop its a difficult climate. He has a lot of things to do and many of these executive orders are trying to go back and review what has been done in the past especially in the last two years that are regulatory enforcement that we think inhibit the ability of the economy to grow and inhibit the ability of the american people. Very few president s had to go through, but its appropriate he has been doing that. Im pleasantly surprised and pleased with where we are at this stage of the game. There are some people that would like to put arbitrary time limits on things, but its not necessarily the best thing to do for the country and we are going on a positive course. Reporter you mentioned how trump wants to help Economic Development and one of the ways he talked about is helping the coal industry and increasing fuel development on public lands and he had the executive order having interior secretary zinke revoke the coal leasing ban and today, he issued an executive order directing zimpingey to look at offshore drilling leasing. Is there demand given the coal industry is struggling, is there demand for public lands and for offshore as well . Mr. Bishop demand for what . Obviously. The United States has become a leader in Energy Production. In the last few years. But that has all happened on state and private lands. And become a leader in Energy Production to the point that we are not only independent and we can help our allies in a foreign policy, has to be development that takes place on federal lands and offshore. And fortunately both of those are in the purview of my committee. Development of those areas needs to take place if we are going to reach the goal that will america should have where we can be independent and be a source of assistance. Thats the assistance. There is an opportunity to do it. Which is why im recognizing that we shouldnt be taking any source of energy off the table and should be encouraging all of them and renewables and fossil fuels to the extent. Host conservation groups are raising alarm to native species in these lands. Do you think independence and conservation are species can coexist . Mr. Bishop a lot of those groups dont live in the west but in the east. Once you get to where i live, my county is bigger than the state of connecticut. Once you get into those areas, there is a whole bunch of land it is easier to recognize there is Economic Development in those areas that can produce a george bush standard of living and fund our Education Systems and have opportunity for recreation and dont have to be in conflict. There is enough room for all of those. Even in the Public Lands Initiative that i proposed, for every one acre of Economic Development and recreation, we were proposing 4 acres of conservation and trust me there was plenty of land to accommodate those efforts and make sure they were all successful. Host what is the prospect for your proposal in this congress . Mr. Bishop stop things in their heels. We have to sort it out. But there was too much we left and walk away from it. There is a whole lot of good stuff in there and im going to bring it back again. Host seven minutes left. Reporter speaking of your home state of utah, senior senator of your state said he hasnt decided to run for reelection. If he does decide to retire, would you consider running for senate . Mr. Bishop i cant tell you that. Im sworn to secrecy. The chances of me running for the senate is pretty minimal. I enjoy the house and i like the house. I cant say the same thing about the senate. Im a creature of the house and i find it very productive over here. Host were you surprised by your colleagues announcement, congressman chaffetz, not running for reelection. Mr. Bishop i was surprised. He had talked to me about it earlier. I didnt expect him to pull the trigger but he wants to spend more time with his family and two kids in college and one in law school and wants to be in a position to spend time and take care of them financially. I can respect him for what hes doing. And as to how it realliance, thats in the Third District and m in the first. Reporter the cost of forest fires are getting higher and higher and picking up a huge rtion of Agency Budgets to prevent future forest fires and treat it like as an emergency. Do you think the chances are high. What are the chances of legislation happening there. Mr. Bishop how long do i have . Another half hour to go through this . Reporter with permission to interrupt. Mr. Bishop this is one of those back burner issues that i want to bring to the forefront, we have to deal with our Forest Management system. Wildfires are affecting everybody, republicans and democrats and get hit up by the fact that there are wildfires. It is not just a matter of suppression but how we manage the forest to make sure we dont have as many wildfires in the first place. We passed a bill on forest resiliencey last year but we were close in the Energy Negotiations and close to having something finalized. This is essential. But we actually do something to protect and improve the quality of our forest which by its nature diminish the amount of wildfires we have and come up with alternative Funding Source to make sure we can handle the wildfires. But they have to go together. Having a source of funding for the wildfires as well as wildfire management and get rid of frivolous litigation, all those three things has to be done. And even senators who have never talked about this before, they are realizing, this is something we have to do for the future of the west and future of the nation. I expect it to happen. And sooner i can get involved in that, the happier i will be. Reporter g. O. P. Leadership laid out an aggressive 200 days time line what they want to accomplish, health care, tax reform. Was it a mistake by saying we want to move on these issues first . Mr. Bishop it wasnt a mistake. And all these issues have been to be done. I did a sill bus for our state legislature as well. All of these have to be addressed and laying out what you want to do in the very beginning and take those up, because if you dont get those out of the way, the ability of moving some of the other stuff is significant and important, but maybe not as controversial as those. They will bog down those things. It is an old expression. But if you do first things first, second things can be added. Second things first, you dont accomplish first or second things. Prioritizing three big issues that need to be out of the way before we can move on is a wise way to go into a legislative session. That was basically good planning and now we need to execute it and it will eventually happen. Reporter you have a twitter account thats never actually been used. The president s use of twitter, does that have you rethinking taking to twitter . Mr. Bishop i am proud of the i have never tweeted a a character. I hated it when students would write cuz instead of because. I am not a big fan of emojis about it. Reporter youre talking on cspan which is the place for long form. Inal question. There there could be a challenge in getting people to give up their organization, do you support reorganization plans and is there anything youd like to see happen . Mr. Bishop i dont know the specifics and whether i like it or not depends on the specific. Any time you do a reorganization, thats a positive because at a minimum youre reevaluating what the riorities are. When ive been on transition teams this is one thing weve done. And speaker ryan talked about taking rules and regulations to thee executive branch legislative branch because then the peoples voices can be heard. The executive branch is not as in tune to the people. Members of congress run every two years and are forced by the system to be engaged with people. So having the legislature taking a bigger role empowers people. Those kinds of thinking and reforms should be done on a regular basis and i ahmad all of them. Reporter how worried about north korea are you right now . Mr. Bishop very. Everyone should be. Diplomacy should be the most important force but for diplomacy to be effective you have to have an adequately funded military to back it up. Our allies know that our enemies know that we should realize that as we go forward with our poll shires. Host thank you for being our guest on newsmakers. I wonder if you were surprised by what representative bishop send out about the budget. Thats not the message were hearing from leadership they passed a oneweek continuing resolution but leadership announced they do want to move on the broader spending practice next week. I havent heard many other members say that that theyre expecting a c. R. Until the pring. Nate i hands is a hot button issue, how do you see this playing out with the task zinke has been tacked to do. I think he has a tough job ahead of him. He has talked about how hes keeping an open mind and you know wants to hear the people and to westerners that means not just listen bug doing something based on what they say. But he has the challenge that you have to be able to support what youre going to recommend to the president , you have to be able to back it up and there are some pretty sensitive areas and he act knowledged that, in tribal lands. Burial areas and things that have been pushed in the past. He has to reconcile the demands of politicians with those of ocals. The chairman refers to the it as the Antiquities Act. How much do his s reflect broader concerns in kuok and how likely is it to get changed . Bridget as the congressman mentioned, they are focused on health care, tax reform, they have a will the to do before addressing other issues as well. Ester and the challenge of the Antiquities Act, when you talk about messing with the Antiquities Act you talk about parks, National Monuments, places people visit all the time. Like it or not a lot of lawmakers have constituents that enjoy going to those parks. Its a touchy subject. I think it difficult to get something through the senate in that case. Susan as we get through, you asked a lot about puerto rico and the larger context of health care reform. What is the issue and why should eople around the country care . Bridget puerto rico is an interesting issue. The congressional report i issued pointed out that needs a broader congressional fix. It deals with thousand the with how the government reimburses medicaid costs. About half of the puerto rico population is on medicaid, and remember, there also dealing with the zika virus. They have high costs there. The rate at which the government reimburses those lines is much lower than the rate at which they reimburse other states. The report pointed out that maybe that should be shifted, that maybe those reimbursements should be based on income level and that that needs a broader fix, so right now, puerto rico is facing a cliff with old run where theyll run out of money. Congress is trying to provide funds in the next week or so to fix that. Susan the decision will have an effect on medicaid recipients or is solely directed toward puerto rico . Bridget it is solely directed to puerto rico. The hom knee bus negotiations are. Susan we have a big budget that a week ahead. I think it will be a battle. What are your expectations for how this will play out in congress . How testy will people be on capitol hill . Esther i think it will be difficult, as it always is. Theres always people who want to add things to the bill. Its called the Christmas Tree effect, it was a gets so big they have to start over again. Thats going to be a challenge as well. Bridget there are some sticking points. Democrats are focused on poison pill riders. There are different specific issues democrats won out, so we will see, although leadership has been expressing optimism. Susan do you expect a Health Care Vote . Bridget its a very good question, and im not sure if leadership knows, although they have been sounding optimistic that they are close. They need about 20 more votes so we have to see if they can change some minds. Susan we thank both of you for being our guest today on newsmakers. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Isit ncicap. Org] the house returns for votes in about 20 minutes. Members already voice voted a couple of bills today. Cspans capitol hill producer tweeting that the house passed a bill sponsored by cookman bobby scott to create an africanamerican History Commission to mark the 400th anniversary in 2019 of africans 1619 arrival in the u. S. Colonies. Our live house coverage of those votes coming up at 6 30 p. M. Eastern here on cspan. Cspans quat washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up tuesday morning, Georgia Republican congressman Drew Ferguson talks about this weeks expected vote on the 1. 1 trillion spending bill. Then new York Democratic congressman joe crowley on the future of health care. And a look at President Trumps executive order to review National Monuments with popular ience staff writer Kendra Pierre louis. Watch washington journal every weekday morning at 7 00 a. M. Eastern. Join the discussion. Busy week ahead on capitol hill. On wednesday the house will take up a 1 trillion spending bill to keep the government open through september 30. The New York Times politics tweet, the new congressional spending deal would spare planned parenthoods funding. Nbc news capitol hill producer alex moe saying Vice President mike pence has arrived on capitol hill for meetings on health care and other topics. And nbc news also tweeting Leann Caldwell sending the tweet that the house could be voting on Health Care Repeal on wednesday. Outgoing House Oversight chair Jason Chaffetz will be back, after surgery, to give them one critical vote. The house returning in about 20 minutes or so for votes at 6 30. While we wait for that, a look at the efforts to roll back Climate Change regulations from todays washington journal. Sl strategist at the dcbased vi