Transcripts For CSPAN Politics Public Policy Today 20130923

December 16. Harry reid has said the senate will attempt to remove any cuts to the health law friday cr. The house will have a brief form forma session. Republicans are also tying a oneyear increase to the debt limit expected to be reached by october and november with a one year delay of the healthcare law. This life at 2 00 p. M. Eastern. The Senate Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing on Human Trafficking within the u. S. Life cover because at 2 30 p. M. Eastern. For more detail on the weekend had come up we spoke this morning with a congressional reporter. Host here is a headline, the clock is ticking with obama care. This week onplace capitol hill to discuss more about it. In the National Journal congressional correspondent. Thank you for giving up with us this morning. Talk about the potential timeline. Showing our readers a story from last week. Inside the plan to avoid a Government Shutdown. What is the timeframe . Guest with the filing as early as today, a motion to begin to proceed. This could stretch out the route the week with a couple of procedural vote and perhaps in the senate a final vote on how sedwill handle the house pas a bill that includes the defunding of obama care along with a continued funding of government. Is it looking like it is going to go right up to that ending deadline again . Guest it does. The house does not get back to washington or underway until thursday morning. Wednesday. Ive they probably will not receive anything back until this weekend. Fordeadline is next tuesday when the funding runs out. Operations arel on front unless there is a new spending bill passed. Host visiting when talking about some kind of compromise . This is not leaving a lot of room for negotiation. Guest it is not. If it speaker bain are in a tough position if you were to senateill back by the monday or sunday. He will have to decide how to proceed. A bill is brought back to the house that does not include obama care funding he will have relycide whether or not to on democratic votes to help him get it passed. Or he would have to decide on some other procedure or letting the Government Shutdown and blaming it on the democrats. Compromises, House Republicans life thursday or maybe friday morning may vote on another track, a debt ceiling bill that would allow government to continue borrowing beyond what is anticipated to be in exhaustion of the current summit in october. They would add to that bill other provisions. It may not be a compromise. It will be another way for House Republicans to save face only thought this is an obama care battle. We are continuing our fight. Host what is the timeframe, midoctober . Exactly. About october 18, midoctober. The treasury anticipates the current ceiling will be hit. Congress and the white house. Ill have to decide the Republican Congress members say they have to have a say on that and plan to and will force a vote on whether that can be raised or delayed for a year. Billy house is the National Journal congressional correspondent. On twitter. Ow him thanks for getting up with us this morning. Guest i appreciate it. The house returns for legislative work wednesday afternoon. You can see the senate today starting with general speeches at 2 00 p. M. On cspan2. And michellema obama are heading to new york city for the opening of the United Nations general assembly. The president will attend a bilateral meeting with the president of nigeria. 945 a. M. Eastern president obama will address the yuan in a speech where he is expected to talk about the use of chemical and Nuclear Weapons as well as the middle east peace process. Check our website for coverage on the u. N. That is that www. Cspan. Org. It in aident yesterday Memorial Service honoring the 12 victims of last weeks shooting at the Washington Navy yard. Tragic such traffic incident should not reflect a new normal and americans should demand common sense solutions. Lets look at his remarks. Secretary hagel, secretary mabus, admirals greenert and hilarides, mayor gray, leaders from across this city and our armed forces, to all the outstanding first responders, and, most of all, the families whose hearts have been broken we cannot begin to comprehend your loss. We know that no words we offer today are equal to the magnitude, to the depths of that loss. But we come together as a grateful nation to honor your loved ones, to grieve with you, and to offer, as best we can, some solace and comfort. On the night that we lost Martin Luther king jr. To a gunmans bullet, Robert Kennedy stood before a stunned and angry crowd in indianapolis and he broke the terrible news. And in the anguish of that moment, he turned to the words of an ancient greek poet, aeschylus, even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of god. Pain which cannot forget drop by drop upon the heart. The tragedy and the pain that brings us here today is extraordinary. It is unique. The lives that were taken from us were unique. The memories their loved ones carry are unique, and they will carry them and endure long after the news cameras are gone. But part of what wears on as well is the sense that this has happened before. Part of what wears on us, what troubles us so deeply as we gather here today, is how this senseless violence that took place in the navy yard echoes other recent tragedies. As president , i have now grieved with five American Communities ripped apart by mass violence. Fort hood. Tucson. Aurora. Sandy hook. And now, the Washington Navy yard. And these Mass Shootings occur against a backdrop of daily tragedies, as an epidemic of gun violence tears apart communities across america from the streets of chicago to neighborhoods not far from here. And so, once again, we remember our fellow americans who were just going about their day doing their jobs, doing what they loved in this case, the unheralded work that keeps our country strong and our navy the finest fleet in the world. These patriots doing their work that they were so proud of, and who have now been taken away from us by unspeakable violence. Once more we come together to mourn the lives of beauty and to comfort the wonderful families who cherished them. Once more we pay tribute to all who rushed towards the danger, who risked their lives so others might live, and who are in our prayers today, including officer scott williams. Once more our hearts are broken. Once more we ask why. Once more we seek strength and wisdom through gods grace. You and your families, this navy family, are still in the early hour of your grief. And im here today to say that there is nothing routine about this tragedy. There is nothing routine about your loss. Your loved ones will not be forgotten. They will endure in the hearts of the American People and in the hearts of the navy that they helped to keep strong, and the hearts of their coworkers and their friends and their neighbors. I want them to know how she lived, Jessica Gaarde said of her mother kathy. She is not a number, or some statistic. None of these 12 fellow americans are statistics. Today, i want every american to see how these men and women lived. You may have never met them, but you know them. Theyre your neighbors like arthur daniels, out there on the weekend, polishing his white crown victoria, and kenneth proctor, with his beloved yellow mustang, who, if you asked, would fix your car, too. She was the friendly face at the store. Sylvia frasier, with her unforgettable gold hair, who took a second job at walmart because, she said, she just loved working with people. She was the diehard fan you sat next to at the game. Kathy gaarde loved her hockey and her caps, a season Ticket Holder for 25 years. They were the volunteers who made your community better. Frank kohler, giving dictionaries to every third grader in his county, marty bodrog, leading the childrens bible study at church. They lived the American Dream like kisan pandit, who left everything he knew in india for this land of opportunity, and raised a wonderful family and dedicated himself to the United States navy. They were proud veterans like gerald read, who wore the army uniform for more than 25 years, and michael arnold, who became one of the navys leading architects, of whom a colleague said, nobody knew those ships like him. They were dedicated fathers like mike ridgell, coaching his daughters softball teams, joining facebook just to keep up with his girls, one of whom said, he was always the cool dad. They were loving mothers like mary francis knight, devoted to her daughters, and who had just recently watched with joy as her older daughter got married. They were doting grandparents like john johnson, always smiling, giving bear hugs to his 10 grandchildren, and who would have welcomed his 11th grandchild this fall. These are not statistics. They are the lives that have been taken from us. This is how far a single act of violence can ripple. A husband has lost his wife. Wives have lost their husbands. Sons and daughters have lost their moms and their dads. Little children have lost their grandparents. Hundreds in our communities have lost a neighbor, and thousands here have lost a friend. As has been mentioned, for one family, the daniels family, old wounds are ripped open again. Priscilla has lost arthur, her husband of 30 years. Only a few years ago, as mayor gray indicated, another shooting took the life of their son, just 14 years old. I cant believe this is happening again, priscilla says. So these families have endured a shattering tragedy. It ought to be a shock to us all as a nation and as a people. It ought to obsess us. It ought to lead to some sort of transformation. Thats what happened in other countries when they experienced similar tragedies. In the united kingdom, in australia, when just a single mass shooting occurred in those countries, they understood that there was nothing ordinary about this kind of carnage. They endured great heartbreak, but they also mobilized and they changed, and Mass Shootings became a great rarity. And yet, here in the United States, after the roundofclock coverage on cable news, after the heartbreaking interviews with families, after all the speeches and all the punditry and all the commentary, nothing happens. Alongside the anguish of these american families, alongside the accumulated outrage so many of us feel, sometimes i fear theres a creeping resignation that these tragedies are just somehow the way it is, that this is somehow the new normal. We cant accept this. As americans bound in grief and love, we must insist here today there is nothing normal about innocent men and women being gunned down where they work. There is nothing normal about our children being gunned down in their classrooms. There is nothing normal about children dying in our streets from stray bullets. No other advanced nation endures this kind of violence none. Here in america, the murder rate is three times what it is in other developed nations. The murder rate with guns is ten times what it is in other developed nations. And there is nothing inevitable about it. It comes about because of decisions we make or fail to make. And it falls upon us to make it different. Sometimes it takes an unexpected voice to break through, to help remind us what we know to be true. And we heard one of those voices last week. Dr. Janis orlowskis team at Medstar Washington Hospital Center treated the wounded. And in the midst of one of her briefings, she spoke with heartbreaking honesty as somebody who sees, daily and nightly, the awful carnage of so much violence. We are a great country, she said, but theres something wrong. All these shootings, all these victims, she said, . This is not america. It is a challenge to all of us, she said, and . We have to Work Together to get rid of this. . And thats the wisdom we should be taking away from this tragedy and so many others not accepting these shootings as inevitable, but asking what can we do to prevent them from happening again and again and again. Ive said before, we cannot stop every act of senseless violence. We cannot know every evil that lurks in troubled minds. But if we can prevent even one tragedy like this, save even one life, spare other families what these families are going through, surely weve got an obligation to try. Its true that each of the tragedies ive mentioned is different. And in this case, its clear we need to do a better job of securing our military facilities and deciding who gets access to them. And as commander in chief, i have ordered a review of procedures up and down the chain, and i know that secretary hagel is moving aggressively on that. As a society, it . S clear weve got to do a better job of ensuring that those who need Mental Health care actually get it, and that in those efforts we dont stigmatize those who need help. Those things are clear, and weve got to move to address them. But we americans are not an inherently more violent people than folks in other countries. Were not inherently more prone to Mental Health problems. The main difference that sets our nation apart, what makes us so susceptible to so many Mass Shootings, is that we don . T do we dont take the basic, common sense actions to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people. Whats different in america is its easy to get your hands on gun and a lot of us know this. But the politics are difficult, as we saw again this spring. And thats sometimes where the resignation comes from the sense that our politics are frozen and that nothing will change. Well, i cannot accept that. I do not accept that we cannot find a commonsense way to preserve our traditions, including our basic Second Amendment freedoms and the rights of lawabiding gun owners, while at the same time reducing the gun violence that unleashes so much mayhem on a regular basis. And it may not happen tomorrow and it may not happen next week, it may not happen next month but it will happen. Because its the change that we need, and its a change overwhelmingly supported by the majority of americans. By now, though, it should be clear that the change we need will not come from washington, even when Tragedy Strikes washington. Change will come the only way it ever has come, and thats from the American People. So the question now is not whether, as americans, we care in moments of tragedy. Clearly, we care. Our hearts are broken again. And we care so deeply about these families. But the question is, do we care enough . Do we care enough to keep standing up for the country that we know is possible, even if its hard, and even if its politically uncomfortable . Do we care enough to sustain the passion and the pressure to make our communities safer and our country safer . Do we care enough to do everything we can to spare other families the pain that is felt here today . Our tears are not enough. Our words and our prayers are not enough. If we really want to honor these 12 men and women, if we really want to be a country where we can go to work, and go to school, and walk our streets free from senseless violence, without so many lives being stolen by a bullet from a gun, then were going to have to change. Were going to have to change. On monday morning, these 12 men and women woke up like they did every day. They left home and they headed off to work. Gerald reads wife cathy said, see you tonight for dinner. And john johnson looked at his wife judy and said what he always said whenever they parted, goodbye beautiful. I love you so much. In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of god. What Robert Kennedy understood, what dr. King understood, what all our great leaders have always understood, is that wisdom does not come from tragedy alone or from some sense of resignation in the fallibility of man. Wisdom comes through the recognition that tragedies such as this are not inevitable, and that we possess the ability to act and to change, and to spare others the pain that drops upon our hearts. So in our grief, let us seek that grace. Let us find that wisdom. And in doing so, let us truly honor these 12 american patriots. May god hold close the souls taken from us and grant them eternal peace. May he comfort and watch over these families. And may god grant us the strength and the wisdom to keep safe our United States of america. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] the president yesterday, he and first Lady Michelle and obama will be heading to new york city for the United Nations general assembly. He will attend a bilateral meeting with the residents of the federal republic of nigeria before he takes part in a Civil Society roundtable. Tomorrow the president will address the human in a speech in which he is expected to talk about the rain in syria and the use of chemical weapons iran and syria and the use of chemical weapons. Check out our website at www. C span. Org for more information. Law enforcement officials are testifying about efforts to reduce Human Trafficking within u. S. Orders borders. It nearly 20,000 pupils are u. S. Ford to the prostitution or domestic servitude. That will be live at 2 30 p. M. Eastern. It is back to work for congress this week as a look to find ways to avoid a Government Shutdown. They debate a house approved though that would extend federal funding through december 16 which strips all moneys for the Nations Health care law. Kerry read has already said the senate would attempt to remove any cuts to the here you read has tardy said the senate would attempt to remove any cuts. Return wednesday afternoon for legislative work as they await Senate Action. House republicans are also preparing a bill that ties an increase in the debt lives in limit with a oneyear delay in the Health Care Law. The house live right here on cspan when members return for that pro forma session. A discussion now on how the implementation of the Health Care Law is impacting employees from todays washington journal. Host we turned to the topic of the Affordable Care act. Today we are joined by jay hancock, a Senior Correspondent with Kaiser Health news about how the laws affect temporary employees. With the opening of the health and exchanges, we of rdc some Companies Make changes to their Employee Health plans. What do they need to be watching for as this moves forward . They should watch for it changes in the companysponsored plans. Open enrollment starts october 1 for the Public Health exchanges which are a key aspect of obama care. Is theneous to this traditional open enrollment season for employmentbased benefits for the next year. It takes place in the all. Company thator a has Health Insurance you probably gotten packets from your Hr Department showing all of the moving parts. This year more than ever you need to dig into the details and look for changes in terms of differing from what it was before. Deductibles are going up. Employees that might have been used to a 500 deductible, those to a thousand dollars or 2000. If you anticipate going to the doctor next year, maybe the option that you were signed up before is not the right option, so look at the details. Host we are splitting up the phone lines differently this morning. Those who are fulltime employees, they can call 202 five 20 two5853 88 zero, parttime and temporary employees can call 2025853881, and employers can call 202585 3882. Jay hancock, talk about part time employees and what they should be looking out for. Guest parttime employees have always been on the bubble, on the edge of coverage and have typically not had robust offerings from employers. Having any kind of Health Coverage for parttime is more the exception than the rule. Because of this they are more among the groups being affected by the Affordable Care act more so than fulltime employees. This requires coverage from employers of more than 30 hours per week. What is going on is employers are looking at their workforces and trying to figure out what the costs are going to be and in some cases are reportedly cutting back hours. Other employers are shifting around how they cover the part timers. Host what are some examples you have seen . Guest trader joes a few weeks ago, a boutique grocery chain, shifting their parttime employees into what are called private health exchanges. They are providing a stipend to employees, but instead of getting coverage to the company the employees are going to go into private exchanges that we should point out, this is not obamacare. One misunderstanding out there about some of this shifting that companies are doing, the public exchanges eligible for tax what is going on with employer sponsored insurance is they are changing the structure of how employees shop for Health Insurance. Typically you would be in an open enrollment season as an employer and you might be offered a few different plans with different amounts coming out of your paycheck depending on what the plan was. It mightve been hmo, ppo, blue cross. You will see the same kinds of choices, but the platform is going to be an exchange run by an outside Human Resources benefits company and it will kind of look like the Obamacare Exchanges that are supposed to open next week. Statistics on Companies Offering Health Benefits to their employees, small firms, those with 32 199 workers, 57 offering 57 offering it. Larger firms with over 200 employees, 99 offer Health Benefits. We already have questions coming in for you. This is an email from biloxi, mississippi, on the subject of parttime employees. Guest the changes that employers are shifting even more workers to parttime. In the job figures this year that come out at the beginning of every month, the Labor Department measures employment growth and a lot of those jobs that have been created are part time jobs. Critics of the health law are saying that it is hindering the creation of fulltime jobs and point to these parttime statistics that show a large amount of parttime jobs as the evidence of that. It is unclear as to whether this is cause and effect. There are certainly a lot of parttime jobs being created right now. Host how much of this is to blame for the changes of the Affordable Care act, and how much of this is businesses using it as an opportune time to make changes . Guest it is hard to piece that out. The United Parcel service, ups, big brown last month, they told employees that it was going to be removing spouses of ups employees who had access based on working spouses who had access to coverage at their other employers. They will not be eligible to be on the ups plan next year. This attracted a lot of attention, because they kind of went out of their way to blame the Affordable Care act. There was a lot of discussion about how much to blame it really was. Aca does have an effect on Large Employers, like ups. There are some taxes involved that they say are raising their costs. There is a limit on outof pocket spending for employees that goes into effect for Large Employers in 2015 that they say are raising their costs. It is what is called the cadillac tax on high benefit plans. Ups said that this was partly caused by the Affordable Care act but also said that it was caused by their continuing rising costs for medical care in general. This has been an issue for employers for 25 years now. A lot of people say that these are just the latest tactics to try to deal with law with rising costs, to try to get this under control and it is not hugely related to the Affordable Care act. Here is how it came out on the front page of the wednesday issue of the wall street journal, last week. Host we want to hear what is happening with you at your company. We have lined the setup for fulltime, parttime, and temporary employees. Timothy is up first. You are on with jay hancock caller of Kaiser Health news. Kaiser health news. Caller i work for a Large Employer and i think i have what is called the cadillac land. My question is, will i have to pay taxes on the amount of my plan for whatever it would be worth . Guest the simple answer is no, the employer is liable for the tax on the cadillac plan. We should point out that it does not kick in until 2018 and there is some debate as to what degree it will apply to generous employerbased plans. The thresholds are fairly high, fairly much higher than the value of plans now. Some of the predictions that people made about how affected the plans would the were predicated on Health Care Costs rising at the traditional historical rate. They have actually slowed down an appreciable amount and there is some doubt about how soon it will hit the cadillac tax threshold. In any event, the employee is not liable. Host this question come through twitter what was the news about walgreens last week . Guest they are shifting their active, fulltime employees to the private exchanges that we discussed earlier. Let me try to make a point here. We should not exaggerate how big of a change this is. Walgreens is still contributing enormous amounts of money to its employees Health Coverage. We do not know if it is declining or how much it is declining, but there are still employers on certain Health Coverage is at walgreens, the drugstore chain. What is changing is how employees are choosing the coverage, which is going to a private online marketplace rketace, but in many ways is also very different. The obamacare marketplace is financed by your money, you, the consumer, with very generous tax subsidies. The private marketplaces are financed to a very large degree by the employers that have always offered companybased Health Coverage. That is going to be going on. What is changing here is how you choose the coverage, not large changes in who pays for it. We are talking about changes for employees under the Affordable Care act. We want to hear your stories. How is this affecting you . Al is next from ohio. Good morning. Caller good morning, cspan. Good morning, jay. I have a quick statement. I wish that mr. Obama was upfront and told us that it would be attacks a tax on the American People instead of the mandate. The question is, december 1 is when we have to sign up . The health care does not start until 2014. My employer says i have to get signed up, so there are three months there that i will not have health care. I am not sure what to do. Should i wait for three months and hope i do not get hurt . All right . Thank you. Guest let me ask you a question, stay on a second. You have coverage with your employer now . Why is it ending . Caller the first it will end. Guest that is kind of weird. Caller home depot, you have heard of them. Guest what are they doing echo caller you do not doing . Caller you do not get Health Insurance or you quit. Guest parttimers . Caller yes. Guest cliff that is what is happening, you do have the option to go out and buy a shortterm policy. Depending on what kind of policy you have, you may be covered under the cobra provision, where you can extend your coverage that you have now. I would go find a registered Insurance Agent and talk to them about your options and see what your options are. That would be my recommendation. Host richard is on next for our line with all others. Caller hello, there. Really enjoying your program. I appreciate you. [heavy breathing] host go ahead with your comment. Caller i really appreciate your program. I am a Senior Citizen with a degree in statistics. Looking at the Obama Health Care being misused, not being properly coded, the majority of the American People are being told that 16 of those want singlepayer. They are really not against health care change, which is being used by the republicans and those people, businesses and news people who are being paid by the corporations that believe in Republican Health care, republican people. The Supreme Court has said that we are a government for the corporations. Guest you make a point that has often been made that is kind of a double standard, a disconnect in the polls. Numerous pollsters have shown that if you call it a obamacare and say that this is the Affordable Care act, are you for it or against it, the majority of americans are not for it, but if you break it down and you talk about the individual parts of the law, if you say ok, argue in favor of Insurance Companies not being able to deny you if you have a preexisting condition . Argue in favor of putting a cap on the outofpocket costs that consumers have to pay . In favor of keeping Adult Children on their Insurance Plan for their parents . People are in favor of that. There is a bit of a debate out there over what the American People actually want, but it is clear that as they understand it, the Affordable Care act is not hugely popular. Host this would be a good time to note that Kaiser Health news has been helping us to break down this law for many weeks now, a nonprofit editorial News Business that is separate from the Kaiser Family foundation. They are not affiliated with kaiser permanente. They cover the health laws of hospitals, doctors, and insurance. Jay hancock, your specialty echo your specialty echo guest the news and business your specialty . Guest while we are doing some housekeeping, let me correct something i said earlier. We were talking about trader joes and the parttime workers. I said they were shifting to the private exchanges, i believe i was wrong about that. The trader joes folks are being sent into the public Obamacare Exchanges with, i believe, a 500 stipend from the company. In fact a lot of them will probably wind up being better off, because once they go into the public exchanges they will be eligible for fairly generous subsidies, tax credits that they would not have if they stayed on another plan. Guest a question from ricky host a question from ricky from email guest a great question, which people are only now starting to figure out. There were twl big aspects of obamacare that they had an option on. One was whether to expand the Medicaid Program for the poor, the other was whether or not to run their own online marketplace , these online exchanges we have been talking about. Again, a big aspect of the Affordable Care act will Begin Next Week when you can go online and shop for this subsidized coverage that we have been talking about, if you are under certain income levels. So, a little more than half of the state is changing week to week, a little more than half the states have decided to expand their Medicaid Program. So, this will ensure coverage for folks who make if you are an individual, a low about 15,000 per year. For the states who are planning to expand and participate, this is from the wall street journal, a map that shows which states are planning to participate and which are planning to not expand. The gold color here are the states planning to participate and the red are states planning not to expand. The gray in their are those who are uncertain. Go ahead. Guest they are still on the fence. Pennsylvania is moving to expanding medicaid. South dakota is talking about it, but they do not know where they are. The other aspect, the online exchanges, states were presented with three options, they could set up the exchange and run it entirely themselves, about 16 states and the District Of Columbia are doing that. They are generally liberal states with a high degree of interest in implementing the aca. Places like maryland, connecticut, vermont, california. Host we have a map of that as well that we are showing our viewers. The yellow is doing the federally run exchange, those are the state run exchanges on this map. The green states are doing the joint and federal exchanges. Guest there is a partnership. A lot of states are default into the department of health and Human Services in washington to run their exchanges, which what that means is the feds are going to run the backbone, sort of the infrastructure of the online marketplace and the consumers will see little, if any difference. They will go to healthcare. Gov to access their insurance choices in their state rather than the url for the state exchange. But the idea is the same. You will go on in your state and if you lack insurance now as a Family Member lacks insurance, you will go on these exchanges and punch in your income, your employment status, whether or not you want to keep your doctor , the computer will show you your options and what the cost to you would be after the subsidies. You plug in your income and the computer figures out the subsidies you are eligible for and you will be able to see then that cost of these plans. You will be able to then see then that plans of these costs. Host this question comes to us our private exchanges comparable to private to a Obamacare Exchanges . Guest i do not see them stifling the success of obamacare. I see private exchanges as operating in parallel. It really is too early to say what sort of features and benefits they will have. They are brandnew. It is kind of breathtaking how quickly this subject of private exchange has come out of nowhere. There are Large Employer groups and benefits groups that sort of track what employers are doing in Offering Health benefits. A year or twl ago they were not even asking questions about this and now Companies Like jan hewitt are setting up these exchanges, offering them to employers, and a good analogy that i like to use for the private exchanges is that the private exchange is to Traditional Health care as the 401 k plan is to traditional pension. In one case the employer is responsibly covering the coverage. We will be doing more of a decisionmaking process in the hands of you, the employee, in terms of the costsharing as well. Host a comment from barbara this morning no employer has ever hired fulltime employees that they do not need. Employers decide what coverage to offer with no input from the employees. We need to take the employer and Insurance Companies out of the matter. It is time for singlepayer Health Coverage for all. Guest there is that sentiment out there. Most other developed, rich nations like the United States have substantially different systems than we do. Switzerland, the netherlands, it is sort of similar to obamacare, but there are still important differences. The argument for singlepayer is look, lets expand singlepayer for everyone and we will get rid of a lot of administrative costs represented by the Insurance Companies. The fact is that singlepayer is not going to happen in this country any time soon. If obamacare succeeds, we may never see singlepayer. If the Affordable Care act is somehow repealed or does not succeed, singlepayer may be back on the table again, which is what many cited as an interest that the Insurance Companies should have in ensuring that it is a success. About how it is affecting them. We want to hear your stories this morning. Setup for fulltime employees. You are on with jay hancock. Caller hi, thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to say i hope you do not cut me off, but i just wanted to say that republicans have spent billions of dollars since the passage of obamacare to misinform the American People. And when you hear propaganda 24 7, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, on what used to be considered the liberal media bias guest can you give us an example of the propaganda . Caller yes, i can. The fact that there are death panels, that is one. The fact that people who are working fulltime or working parttime, their coverage is going to go up. It is going to be higher. They will not be up to see their same doctors anymore. Guest you are talking about arguments, publicity, assertions made against the Affordable Care act. Caller yes, sir. Guest you like the law and you are unhappy about the attacks being made on it. Caller it is not just about being unhappy. It is about the fact that the American People have been propagandized and they do not know what to think or believe. And because you hear a lie over and over i do not care if it is obamacare or anything else, the budget, the deficit. When you hear this stuff over and over and over again, you began to believe it. The fact is you begin to vote against your own best interests. Guest there is certainly a lot of discussion around the Affordable Care act, and you are going to hear a lot more evident it this week and next because october 1 is the date that these online exchanges are supposed to open up. You are absolutely correct, there are assertions being made, not only by people who oppose the Affordable Care act, against the Affordable Care act, but there is some confusing information on the other side as well. We are trying to do our best at Kaiser Health news to cut through it. If i can do a little plug here, i would recommend our coverage host lets go to oklahoma city, oklahoma on our line for part time and temporary employees. Caller my understanding is there is a mandatory list of required coverages that the Insurance Companies must offer, and if you have a religious objection, objection to any of these items and you are forced onto the exchange or you choose to go on to the Affordable Health care exchanges, what are you supposed to do . For example, prescription medicine is not an option for some. Why do you need prescription medicine if you go to your backyard and get what you need . Or you do not want artificial Birth Control or sterilization, you are not going to do it anyway are these things necessary to have on your plan . And if you choose not to have them on your plan for religious reasons, what happens to you . Guest you sort of are talking about two different issues here. One is Preventative Services that are required to be on the plans. The idea was that at the very bottom, Insurance Companies should cover basic care to keep we will leave this segment to give you live coverage of the house with members gaveling in this morning for a brief pro forma session but no legislativebusiness will be conducted today. United states house of representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u. S. House of representatives. ] the speaker pro tempore the house will be in order. The chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. He clerk the speakers rooms washington, d. C. , september 23, 2013, i apoint the honchable frank r. Wolf to act as speaker pro tempore on this day, signed john a boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. The speaker pro tempore the prayer will be offered by father conroy. Chaplain conroy let us pray, god of the universe, we give you thanks for giving us another day. As the house is silent this day, give those who deliberate these days the wisdom to lay aside what might divide us as a people to forge a secure future for our country. We pray for all people who have special needs. May your presence be known to those who are sick, that they might feel the power of your healing spirit. Be with those who suffer persecution in so many places of our world and place our troops who are engaged in the easing of those suffering. Y those who struggle to make ends meet be foremost in the minds of our nations leaders, inspire the men and women who serve in this house to be their best selves and be an inspiration to the nation and to the world. May all that is done this day be for your greater honor and glory, amen. The speaker pro tempore the chair has examined the journal of the last days proceedings and announces to the house its approval thereof. Pursuant to clause 1, rule 1. The jourm is approved. The chair will lead the house in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible with liberty and without r all. Objection, when the house adjourns today it will meet on wednesday, september 25, 2013 for morning hour debate and 2 00 p. M. For legislative business. Without objection, the house stands adjourned until noon on wednesday, sept wrapping up this brief pro forma session in the house this morning members return for legislative art thursday as they read awaits Senate Action on the house bill extending federal funding to the government passed the september 30 deadline. They will really move money from the healthcare law. Senate plans to remove the language and return the bill to the house for consideration. You can see the house live wednesday on cspan and the senate today with general speeches beginning at 2 p. M. Eastern on cspan two. The Senate Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing today on reducing Human Trafficking within the u. S. Live coverage here on cspan gets underway at 2 30 p. M. Eastern. Later this week, the House Budget Committee will hold a hearing on the Congressional Budget Offices longterm budget outlook. That will be live on thursday on cspan3 at 10 a. M. Eastern. Are in prospect garden in princeton, new jersey that ellen wilson designed. House,e was in the white she brings the white house garden or backyard to this garden at Prospect House and says lets recreate the rose section of this garden at the white house. This becomes the famous rose garden at the white house. Live tragically does not to see it completed. She is dying in the summer of 1914 and is wheeled out into the space outside in her wheelchair and watches as the gardener works but she does not live to see the completion of this vision she had four roses blooming at the white house. And seconde first wife of president Woodrow Wilson tonight live at 9 00 eastern on cspan and cspan three and on cspan radio and www. Cspan. Org. Of the discussion on congressional negotiations on the federal budget from this mornings washington journal. With congress set for a budget showdown this weekend, a looming battle over raising the federal debt limit, we are joined by the president of the committee for a responsible federal budget. You look at this immediate budget situation and the potential shut down that could be taking place, how do you see this playing out over the next eight days . Is a precursor to a crazy fall. We have been through this before and why are we doing this . Why are we budgeting in a way where we jump from one crisis to the next, never fixing our budget, but always jeopardizing the economy by going to the last minute, the 11th hour, on all sorts of different deadlines and still not getting the work done. I think what we will see this week is the house has passed its first ever continuing resolution which means if the way we will fund the government temporarily. There is no budget in place but that will go through the middle of december while the house and senate have to work out various differences to put a longerterm budget in place and that will get kicked over to the senate. The senate will likely not pass what the house passes because the house has attached the requirement that you defund obamacare which has become a priority of theirs. The senate will send Something Back probably midweek and we will see how this lays out. We dont know where the votes are to pass something to temporarily fund the government. That means there are a different scenarios. The government could shut down at the end of september. Thats when the fiscal year ends for the government. Senate, the house and republicans and democrats could cobble together a top line number for how much they could fund the government for the next probably three months but that is up in the air. Then, the real discussions begin about how you will let the debt ceiling and what kind of budget will be put in place permanently. It will be a mess. This is not how you should budget for the largest economy in the world. This is not how you should run a country. It is really disgraceful. Every citizen should be frustrated we are doing this again and set of putting in place a longterm plan to get this country act on track in terms of its budget and economy. This is not a federal or government group. Nonpartisane a group. We dont have a political agenda. It has been around for decades. The board of directors are people who have served in government as the heads of the Treasury Department and the budget committees and the , theal reserve board Congressional Budget Office so they have been in government and experienced how hard it is to do the right thing when you try to put a budget in place. They care a lot about fiscal responsibility and have joined together to work with members of congress to try to be more fiscally responsible. It is a Public Organization and has a number of different projects. We work closely with members of both sides of the aisle. There is a possibility for a Government Shutdown with Congress Moving toward the possibility. Theral members made it on sunday shows yesterday including House Minority leader nancy pelosi and here is what she had to say. [video clip] lets be really clear about this republicans put legislation on the floor that was intended to shut down government. For them, thats a victory because they are anti government. They want to defund obamacare . No, they want to shut down the government. Putting the d funding of obamacare on the bill is to shut down the government. They know it will not pass. Is ahey might say this disaster because this is hurting businesses. It is causing businesses to go from full time jobs to parttime jobs so they get out from under healthcare. It is an excuse, not a reason. For the 42nd time this week, the voted to defund Affordable Care act. Host we are with maya mcg uibnease guest i think it is true that theching and d funding Affordable Care act to the resolution is not going to work. There are not enough votes to pass it so it is not trying to come to a resolution or compromise about how we will fund the government. It is clear that both sides have different visions about the government they want. We are supposed to have a normal budget process where you work through those differences. The house passes a budget and the Senate Passes a budget and they come together and hammer out the differences and you have a budget put in place in advance of when the fiscal year ends. That is what they are supposed to do and that is not what has happened. The Senate Passed a budget, the house passed a budget, and then they did not go to conference. Primarily House Republicans that did not want to put a conference together to work out the differences so that process has stalled. What i think is troubling is that we are at the last minute where we should be hammering out the differences and everybody is entitled to their different vision. At this moment, we are now up against a deadline of how to pay for the government. We should be well past these discussions. I think attaching things that are not going to pass which is more of a symbolic or political vote, the moment to do that was earlier in the process, where are our political leaders . We are hurtling toward a crisis that we know about where government shuts down. Make it much worse, potentially a default is staring us in the face. Where are the political leaders . They are taking potshots at each other instead of calling for discussions to figure out how to fund the government and pay our ills by raising the debt ceiling and how we will make the changes that will put this Government Back on track. Our fiscal problems right now are looming out there with no plan and praise no plan in place to improve them. Host one conservative republican from arizona was on one of the sunday shows yesterday and here is his take. [video clip] we dont want to shut down the government. We want to shut down obamacare. The American People have made their voices clear. Most of the polls i have seen over the last few weeks have said clearly there is a majority of americans that dont want obamacare. The president has postponed 41 out of 82 of the provisions. He has given exemptions to big business, congress. Why doesnt he give the same exemptions to the hardworking people . They will strip out this thing to not defund obamacare in this bill and weight till the last minute, they will send it back over to the house and then youre going to have to vote on whether we just shut down the government. I would hope that senator reid would take the voice of the American People seriously and they was seriously with theannot come up defunding of obamacare, come up with another proposal. Vote onre asking is a the floor. This is what the American People want and they have made their voice loud and clear and we are trying to enact the will of the people. Congress taking the voice of the American People seriously . Guest the Affordable Care act is not particularly popular and there are concerns about how we can implement it. Seenouse republicans have is that a lot of people are very concerned about this bill. Is reallyis, it complicated, even the people of put it together. They knowledge is complicated and makes big changes and it takes Public Education about what will work. Whether know right now the Affordable Care act is going to be successful as it was supposed to the. Supposed to be. We have seen some good steps forward but we have not it has not been in place enough to know what it will be. And people start to talk about phasing it in, it is not very popular with the American Public. On the one hand, people would say holding the government hostage by attaching this is counterproductive, the people who are attaching this to the continuing resolution are hearing in their districts that they dont want to have this bill go forward. We are in an Important National discussion taking place at the wrong time. We should not be figuring this out when we have to figure out how to fund the government. We should be getting government funding in place even temporarily and then have a bigger discussion about what part of our government should stay on track and what areas need to be reformed. In many ways, the president ial election was a referendum on this health care bill. It was a big topic of discussion so the president win solidified that this is likely to stay. Ont would give us more time which parts are working and which parts are not. Host if you want to contact ya mcguineas howard is up first for mountain center, california, on a republican line. Are you there . From main to michael this morning. You are on. Caller yes, good morning, how are you today . I think it is very responsible thisr government to do all baby talk type stuff. Congressmenected that should be acting like adults instead of i did not get my toy today so i am not going to play with everybody else. They are being paid to do a job and they need to be doing it. Host that leads us into a tweet there is a push out there for not paying members of congress. We dont have a position on that. Though him budget no pay act was a helpful idea which turned into legislation which pushed the senate to put in place a budget for the senate had not had a budget for a number of years. When i talked about how the process should work, the how should pass a budget, the senate should pass a buzz at, a budget, they should reconcile. This time they did so we got further. They still did not reconcile the differences. The no budget no pay act requires that each body pass a budget but it did not require that there be a budget in place. Should we be taking that are there and say of congress cannot pass an actual budget, they dont get paid . Thoset the biggest fan of kind of tactics to get people to do with they need to do. Country, i agree with the caller i feel like we are watching a bunch of children who cannot ever. Who cannot govern. Not one of us has a job when we have a difference of opinion with one of our colleagues or coworkers we threaten to shut down the business. Likewise, we dont say we are not going to talk about it. I go back to the point of where are our political leaders . How can we have congress run around like a bunch of children not getting anything done and the leaders of the senate and the house and the president are not saying enough is enough. Let sit down and figure out these differences. It has become so divided and so polarized. I share the callers frustration with congress as does the American Public. If you look at their popularity level, very low. I dont know who thinks they are doing a good job. Host does your committee put orth they Budget Proposal each year . Guest we dont. I am not going to say whether you should do this on taxes or this on Social Security or medicare erie it we put forth a lot of options. We spend a lot of time talking about tax reform. In the senate and the house, they are working hard on trying to come up with a plan to reform our tax code. Our tax code is a disaster. It is incredibly complicated and there is tax rates of over 1 trillion per year in lost revenue that often times dont , more money from the tax breaks goes to the well off are at is a backwards tax system. They talk about how to reform the tax code. We will say here is a bunch of tax breaks you could get rid of. A lot of them are things that are quite popular but if you were to get rid of these tax breaks, you could ring tax rates down and use some of the money to close the deficit. We will go into detail about things like that and talk about fixing Social Security. Even on our website, we have a simulator where you can look at how you can fix Social Security. It is headed on a course where it will run out of money before the next generation can collect. Tois important we start think as a country about how to make those changes. We put forth options there is no one right or wrong answers but we have to start dealing with these issues. We have to fix Social Security, reform the tax code, keep our Health Care Costs under control. All of those changes would help their interest costs under control and we will have interest is one of the Fastest Growing parts of the budget3. It is a terrible way to manage our budget. No one does that at home and we should not be doing that as a country. What we are seeing in congress is juvenile. I think from our political leaders, we should expect more and i share the callers frustration because these are real issues that affect american families. It affects our job security and wages and what we can expect for our children and enough is enough. We should have them work it out together and compromise. Host you bring up the tax breaks that the committee for responsible federal budget has been highlighting and you can see those on your website. It is called the tax break down. Thats the series highlighting those tax breaks. Next from canon, georgia, independent line. Caller good morning. Theyld like to say that are keeping House Speaker john rainer hostage by threatening him not to keep his job. It is sickening what they do in the country now. They need to get up there and do something right for the people. I think the Republican Party has more sense of what they are acting like now. I think it is more like communism when they try to get out and do things. I want the republicans and the democrats to listen. If you let them get by with this, it will be medicare, medicaid, Social Security, anything and corporate welfare. The farm bill is welfare and i believe in helping people but you cannot have them do what they are doing now. Guest a lot of important comments and there. The Republican Party really is having its own internal divide that is spilling over and affecting the whole process. I dont think that is so surprising. Kind of hard to think that republicans or democrats will walk in lockstep. At this point, the Republican Party is going through an extreme in the house. The most them toward an and dangerous part of it is that the ,actics that are being used holding up funding the government or worse, i cannot stress this enough a Government Shutdown is dangerous and expensive and will hurt people. Talking about a default on the country is unprecedented. We have never even thought through what this can mean in this country. Host give us a time frame as to when that could happen. Guest we are going to hit the debt ceiling in the middle of october. We will run out of money to pay our bills because we will not have the official permission to borrow any more money. Sometime between midoctober and the end of october. At that point, if we were to stop paying our bills, that would be a government default. It is unprecedented to imagine that Something Like that would happen in the United States. We have seen that in other countries around the world like developing nations that are not on their own currency but that is different. This would be selfimposed, selfimposed default, which thed send ripples through Global Economic system. The fact that we are doing that because small groups are saying we might not be willing to pass the debt ceiling increase is dangerous. I will say that when we come up against the debt ceiling in the middle of october, it is a speed hump that reminds us that we are borrowing too much. That is absolutely true. We are are winning more than 2 billion per day at our at that levels that are the highest they have been since postworld war ii while the deficit has come down some recently. Thats only because it was so high before. Where are debt level is unsustainable. When we come up with the debt ceiling, shouldnt we think about ways to change our budget situation and make changes to how much we borrow . Absolutely, those changes need to be made. We should not say we will default if we do not make those changes in the way that i want. The Republican Party has internal tension to work out. Its not as though democrats are at the table acting responsibly. They are continuing to pull back from talking about how much we need to deal with some of the tougher issues in this country like controlling healthcare costs, securing retirement for an aging population, and dealing with the biggest programs driving the debt in this country. Both parties are having a tough time talking about these things because nobody wants to talk of nobody wants to talk about the real choices. We have to raise taxes, cut spending, reform our entitlement spending. Those are the truths that the politicians dont like to talk about. You have to look at all of those solutions and we need everybody to think about doing that. Host and terms of what is driving this debate, here is an email biggest problem is the longterm problem. If you look at the charts about where the debt is headed over the long term, it is a march upwards to dangerous levels. Host this is the Congressional Budget Offices report from last week talking about the federal debt held by the public as a percentage of gdp. About mid 70 plus range but expected to surpass 100 of late 2030s. Guest it is a steady and dramatic march upward. It is already having some negative effects on the economy because we know changes have to be made but we dont know what they will be so people cannot plan for their own retirement or the cost of education or how much they should be saving for their future. The lack of stability is already harming the economic recovery. Verynk it will be difficult to have a sustained economic recovery until we get this debt situation under control. Todoes not mean you have start reducing the deficit aggressively today. It means you have to put in place a mediumterm plan where it will be on track so the deficit will start to get under control and the debt will not go up as quickly. The calls are thats the caller also talked about the sequester. Getave been trying to control of our fiscal situation in this country. Understand how bad it is but in the wrong ways. We have been focusing on discretionary spending. That is not the real product problem. The growth comes from Health Care Costs aging population and borrowing. Those are the big drivers of the debt. We are focusing on parts of the defense, there is plenty of room for savings in defense but domestic discretionary is part of the budget where there is room for some savings. We start squeezing out critical investments because we are unwilling to look at the real parts of the budget where the problems are. As part of the budget discussion, we need to fund the government, we need to figure out how to replace part of the sequester cuts with smarter savings. Right now, we have savings that are going after the wrong part of the budget. Switch them out for savings that go after the heart of the budget that makes the deficit go up and we need to put together a larger overall package that is not growing and is on a more sustainable path where the economy is growing faster than the debt. Can we get it so the debt is not growing faster than the economy . Will be backhouse for legislative work wednesday as they await Senate Action on that house bill extending federal funding for the government passed the september 30 deadline. The bill would remove money for the Nations Health care law. The senate plans to remove that language and send the bill back to the house for consideration. You can watch the house live wednesday on cspan and the senate for general speeches beginning this afternoon on c span two at 2 p. M. Eastern. To get a look ahead at the congressional time and for the week, we spoke with a capitol Hill Reporter earlier today. Host here is a headline from the front page of usa today to discuss more about it and the timeframe for votes, i want to thanks forly house, getting up with us this morning. Talk about the timeline for this potential shut down and some of the votes that are going on this week. National journal story from last week. What is the timeframe . Guest the initial procedural votes could begin as early as wednesday morning. With the filing of closure is earlier he as today, a motion to proceed this could stretch out throughout the week with a couple of procedural votes and perhaps in the senate, a final handle how it will the house bill includes the d funding of obamacare along with a continued funding of thisment passed past month expiration. Host is it looking like it will go up to that funding deadline . Seem that way. The house itself is not get back to washington or formally get underway until thursday morning. House members arrive wednesday. They probably will not receive anything back from the senate on till this weekend. Tuesday for is next when funding runs out. The essential government nonessentialhe Government Operations are no longer funded unless there is a temporary spending bill passed. Host is anybody talking in terms of coming up with a compromise . The house is getting the bill back from the senate over the weekend and they tuesday deadline but it does not leave room for negotiation. Guest it doesnt and it puts Speaker John Boehner in a tough asition if he were to get bill backed by the Senate Monday or sunday. He will have to decide how to proceed. As part of that, if the bill is brought back to the house, it does not include obamacare funding, he will have to decide whether to rely on democratic votes to help him get it passed if he loses enough conservative votes or he would have to decide another procedure or decide to let the government shut down and blame it on democrats. As for compromise, House Republicans by thursday or maybe friday morning may vote on anothertrack a debt ceiling bill that would allow government to continue borrowing beyond what is anticipated to be an exhaustion of the current limit in october. They would add to that bill a delay of obamacare along with other provisions. That may not be a compromise but it might be another way for House Republicans to save face and say we fought this battle on the spending bill on obamacare but we are continuing our fight with the debt ceiling. Host what is the timeframe on the debt ceiling, midoctober . Exactly, about october 18. Treasury says they anticipate the current 16. 6 trillion ceiling will be hit. Congress and the white house will have to decide the white house disputes and a decision has to be made Republican Congress members say they have to have a say on that and plan onand will force a vote whether that can even be raised or delayed for a year or in is thely House National correspondent. Thanks for getting up this morning. Reminder that the Senate Homeland Security Committee today will hold a hearing on reducing Human Trafficking within the u. S. We will have live coverage on c span beginning at 2 30 p. M. Eastern. Later this week, the House Budget Committee holds a meeting on the longterm budget outlook. Well get testimony from the Congressional Budget Office director live thursday on c span3 starting at 10 a. M. Eastern. Prospect darden in princeton, new jersey that ell en wilson originally designed. When she gets to the white house, she brings the white house gardener back to this garden at Prospect House and says lets recreate the rows section of this garden at the white house. This becomes the famous rose garden at the white house. Ellen tragically does not live to see the rose garden completed. She is dying in the summer of 1914 and wheeled out into the space outside in her wheelchair and watches as the gardener works but she does not live to see the completion of this vision she had four roses blooming at the white house. Meet the first and second wife of president Woodrow Wilson eastern one at 9 00 cspan and cspan three and on cspan radio and www. Cspan. Org. Service but when you look at the cable industry in general, the cable industry has done a tremendous job of deploying broadband all over urban areas, small markets, rural areas where our members live and work. It really has made a difference. As we look ahead, we see that our members businesses and their future as a broadband business when you look at the services they provide. Today, we provide voice, video, Internet Services as well. More broadband is really the key. And most of our members areas, they say that the speed and capacity and demand for broadband in their markets is doubling every two years. Of the American Cable Association on issues facing independent Cable Operators tonight on the communicators at 8 00 eastern on cspan two. Gina mccarthytor on friday unveiled new standard saying that limiting Carbon Pollution at future power plants and said the proposed rules are flexible and achievable and distinctions would be made based on the type of plant. It was hosted by the National Press club, this is about one hour. Good morning and welcome to the National Press club. Y name is angela keane the worlds leading professional organization for journalists, committed to our professions future through our programming with events such as this while fostering a free press worldwide. For more information, please visit our website. You can donate to programs offered to the public through our institute. On behalf of our members worldwide, i would like to welcome our speaker and those of you in our audience today. Her head table includes guest of our speakers and working journalists who are club members. If you hear applause in the audience, i would note that members of the general public are also attending. It is not necessarily evidence of a lack of journalistic objectivity. To welcome ourke cspan and public radio audiences. You can follow the action today on twitter. After our tests speech concludes, we will have a question and answer period and i will ask as many question as time permits. Lets introduce our head table. Stand briefly as your name is announced. Mark dregem, reporter for bloomberg news, bill, Margaret Wimmer of the American Lung association, mike sorham, kenneth mccarey, husband of our speaker. Gerald, project manager for financial and state news, kucrow who organize todays breakfast. Cox. Rend mitch hes from reuters. Ko cliar picard cambridge. Keith. B [applause] barely two months ago, after 136 days of delay and wrangling with Senate Critics as well as answering more than 100 thousand questions, our guest was confirmed as the 13th administrator of the Environmental Protection agency. Alreadycarthy was familiar with the agency. She had served since 2009 as the assistant administrator for air and radiation. Despite a background that included leading efforts on forronmental issues republican governors in massachusetts and connecticut, she could only muster six republican votes in the senate for her confirmation. That may not be surprising given that she is the point person to carry out president obamas pledge to respond to the threat of Climate Change knowing that failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Too many senators, that was the president s latest articulation of the socalled war on coal and economy of states that depend on its production and used to generate 40 of the nations electricity. On june 25, president obama doubled down, directing the epa to issue by today regulations to address the emission of Greenhouse Gases from new coakl and natural gasfired pyre plans. Power plants. This was on display wednesday when our speaker appear before a group of and hostile lawmakers on the house energy and commerce committee. She assured members of the panel that coal would continue to play an Important Role in generating electricity for years to come. It may be less about the details of the new epa proposal than the fact that coal generation is being displaced by natural gas which is being produced at a record rate because of technology. She kayaks and follows her red sox and has spoken about the thrill of getting to yell play bvall at fenway park rate give a warm National Press club welcome to Environmental Protection agency administrator, gina mccarthy. [applause] well thank you, angela. Through theg wait confirmation prices but, boy, was it worth it to get to be in this position and work for and on behalf of the American Public and the great people at epa. It is a Wonderful Agency and i am really out to be where i am today. Ialso want to tell you that thought six republican votes was pretty good. [laughter] maybe thats just me. I worked hard for those six of those. Rod, thank you for the work you did putting this together and thank you, head table, for being assembled. Good morning, it is great to be here and i appreciate you coming as well. Less than three months ago, president obama stood outside in sweltering heat to unveil a new National Plan to confront the growing threat of Climate Change. Opinion, one in my of the most important speeches of his presidency. I will admit that i am a little biased. In those 45 minutes, the president laid out not only a vision but a plan for protecting our kids and their families from pollution and fighting the threat of Climate Change. He called on agencies across the federal government including the epa to take action to cut Carbon Pollution, to protect our country from the impacts of an already changing climate and to lead the world in this effort. He asked us one very important question that we all need to ask ourselves do we have the courage to act before it is too late . How we answer that question will have a profound impact on the world that we leave behind for our children. The president called on the epa to take action and we have responded. Frankly, why wouldnt we . Our job is to protect Public Health and to protect the environment. Agency solelyy focused on delivering clean air, clean water, and a safe and healthy environment to american families. For more than 40 years, it epa has done its job well with honor and with great distinction. Epa has than 40 years, worked tirelessly, handinhand, reaching out, understanding and developing the best science available and being transparent and our decisionmaking. We have done our job by working with everyone from states to businesses tongos and anyone in the between to make sure we progress in a way that is sensible and that addresses issues reasonably and sensibly across all regions of this country. The overwhelming judgment of science tells us that Climate Change is real, that human act titties are feeling that change human activities are fueling to avoid the most devastating consequences of that change great we know this is not just about melting glaciers. Climate change caused by Carbon Pollution is one of the most significant Public Health threats of our time. That is why epa has been called to action thats what todays action that thats why todays action is so important and why we really need to talk about it, not just this morning, but when you go home in your own communities. It is a subject that deserves to be brought up and to be thought of as seriously as we can in our everyday lives. Let me explain why it is so important and why it is so important to the epa and Public Health. Climate change is really about water. Its about clean, reliable, sources of drinking water. Water andt aging Wastewater Treatment facilities that end up over stressed and flooded during all these extreme weather events. Its about mudslides. Its about storm surges from pounding rains and its about sewers that back up and overflow. Its about inadequate storm Water Systems that let pollution attack sensitive ecosystems like our wetlands and estuaries that threaten our fish and their wildlife. Its about all these impacts adding up, spoiling the beauty and vitality of some of this countrys most iconic water bodies, that threaten our comfort, safety and livability of our communities. Climate change is also about heat waves and trout. Droughts drive up food prices and threaten our food supply as well as our manufacturing operations that rely on water every single day to run their businesses. Climate change is about wildfires like recent ones in the southwest, fires that in 2012 alone scorched more than 9 million acres across eight states. That is an area more than 2. 5 times the great state of connecticut. That property damage, the lives lost, the forests destroyed, the air pollution caused by these fires. It destroyed landscapes, it put communities and lives at risk. Climate change is also about this bread of disease. Warmer temperatures contribute to the rise of Small Creatures like mosquitoes and ticks. Their bites may not seem deadly but they spread diseases like west nile virus and lyme disease. Farther and wider as the Climate Changes. Climate changey, is about clean and healthy air for all of us to breathe. It is about health. Carbon pollution in hotter weather can lead to longer allergy seasons, increased heat related deaths, and direct threats to those who suffer from chronic lung and heart diseases. We all know that rising temperatures and increased smog. Let me drill down on this one issue just a bit. Epa has been studying and regulating pollution that leads to ground level ozone or what we call smog for decades. We know this issue. One thing we know for sure is that when the weather gets hotter, smog gets worse, and people of all ages suffer. My guess is that many of you know someone who is affected by smog. Smog makes it harder to breathe and to many of us have Health Challenges that smog and make worse. Ae daniel dolanlaughlin, retired railroad executive from wheaton, illinois who suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or copd. Illnesslifethreatening that affects lungs and the respiratory system. It is exactly the kind of condition that can be made worse by smog. Luckily, he received a Lung Transplant and his health has after hesignificantly was on deaths door. Last year, when he felt a little better, he made the trip to epa to tell us his story. He did that because he wanted to make one specific ask of our agency. Onasked us to take action Climate Change because daniel understood how much Climate Change leads to increased air pollution which could make respiratory illnesses like the one he had been suffering from so much worse. Unfortunately, daniels story is all too familiar. Its not just adults or the elderly who suffer from air pollution. In fact, its about our children. Especially children in lower incomes in an urban community. If your child is not need to use an inhaler, then you are one lucky parent. Today in theldren United States live with asthma everyday. I said that correctly its one in 10. When it comes to health concerns, dont your children always come to mind first . At the end of the day, that is what this issue, Climate Change, is all about. Epa cares about Climate Change and why we know we must take action now. From lowy people income Environmental Justice communities all across the nation are concerned about Climate Change. Those communities are often and so often most at risk when disaster strikes. Thats why groups m likeoms rising are speaking out against the Climate Change and pollution to protect their children from those dangers. Thats why faith groups of all denominations are encouraging action. We must meet our moral obligation for the next generation and the stewards of our precious natural resources. Thatthose resources provide the foundation for our health, our wellbeing and, yes, for our economy. The president s Climate Action plan calls on federal agencies to take steady, sensible, and pragmatic steps to cut the harmful Carbon Pollution that fuels our changing climate and impactsfor unavoidable based on the Climate Change that is already happening and is inevitable. He also called on us to provide continued International Leadership and engage those issues more effectively so that the United States could leverage our actions internationally so we could address a Global Challenge in a global way. He also told us we need to continue to provide affordable and Reliable Energy for all. That is why we are here today. We are here to announce that epa is taking one of those important steps with a proposal to limit Carbon Pollution from new power plants. Power plants are the single largest source of Carbon Pollution. I with natural gas and coal fires, can minimize their Carbon Emissions by taking advantage of available modern technology tummy tuck. These technologies offer a Clear Pathway forward today and in the longterm. But they get to the details to the proposal. These proposed standards are the first uniform national limits on Carbon Pollution from new power plants. They do not apply to existing power plants. It might be well if i repeated that one more time so that everybody gets it. These proposed standards are the first uniform national limits on Carbon Pollution from new plants. They do not apply to existing power plants. Todays proposal sets separate national limits for new natural gas power plants and new coal power plants. Natural gas plants would need to meet a limit of 1000 pounds of co2 per megawatt hour while new smaller natural gas plants would need to meet a limit of 1100 pounds of co2 per megawatt hour. New coal plants would need to meet a limit of 1100 pounds of co2 per megawatt hour. Coal plants could choose to have additional flexibility if they want to average their admissions over multiple years by meeting a somewhat tighter limit. Remember that we proposed standards for new power plants last year and you may be saying why are they starting all over again. Let me explain we received extensive Public Comments on our last proposal. Over 2 million comments, to be exact. Considerable new data that came in through that comment period. We understood more about what technologies were available. We understood how effective those technologies could be and we took a look at the recent trends in the power sector and we did what democracy demands we paid attention. We read those comments. We thought about them. We decided we needed to update the proposal. Thats what todays proposal reflects. That thery confident Carbon Pollution standards we are proposing today for lance are both flexible and achievable. They pave a path forward for the next generation of power plants in this country. The standards are flexible. They set different standards for different types of power plants. That is what the data helped us understand. These standards are achievable because they will secure a major Public Health and Environmental Protections but they reflect the demonstrate of performance of a variety of clean homegrown technologies, technologies that are already entering the market and being constructed in plants today. The standard set the stage for continued public and private investment in technologies that are so important. Are technologies like Carbon Capture and sequestration. With these investments, technologies will eventually meet your mature and become as common for as scrubbers have become for wellcontrolled existing plants today. If there is one thing i have learned over the course of my work in implementing the clean air act, it is that power plants have really long lifespans. Mine even. Nger than sometimes 60 years or more. Sometimes sevenday. Decisions making about how to build new plants today which is one reason we need to act today. For is what makes standards new power plants so very important and why this proposal takes full advantage of all the cuttingedge technologies that increase efficiency and reduce waste. That translates into lower Carbon Emissions and more efficient, effective clean energy. Epa is expecting we will get lots of comments on this proposal. We will do what we did before and we will give each and every comment a thorough consideration. With all this talk of cutting Carbon Pollution from lance, you are probably asking yourself, what is epa doing pollution from power plants, you are probably asking yourself what is the epa doing . Addressing existing power plants is an important piece of the present Climate Action plan. We are committed to act on reducing Carbon Emissions from existing plants as well. However, those proposed standards are on a longer time frame. To release a proposal for Public Comment in june of next year, june, 2014. We have started the process already in order to meet that timeline. The process we have started is one that involves engagement with states, local governments, ororganizations, and businesses and others who want to weigh in. We plan to be an very close consultation with the states. We have to ensure that any guidance the epa puts out in june of 2014 can translate into flexibilities sufficient to account for the differences among our states and among the regions. Course thatlow the president obama charted in his speech in june. We want to get and we will get to a point where we are welding partnerships with states, local communities, and local leaders so that we understand the options available and the options that must be available to make an existing standard and effective carbon reduction strategy. Learn a lot from ongoing efforts to reduce Carbon Pollution. Those efforts have moved us toward a cleaner a