Good morning, everybody. Id like to welcome you to our event this morning that aims to bring us together for a dialogue on issues. Id like to thank chairman greg walden for being here today particularly after the news we heard this morning. Here at bloomberg government, our tools, news, and analysis is closely aligned with topics the house energy and Commerce Committee has been working on so we look forward to working with him on health care and other topics. With that id like to introduce my colleague, lauren, who leads content at bloomberg government, who will be chatting with chairman walden this morning. Thank you. [applause] thank you, arielle and thank you for everyone joining us. Were beginning the event under a darker circumstance. I want to ask you, chairman walden what do you know so far and whats the status of your colleagues at the moment . Greg thank you and good morning, everyone. Its not the way i want to start a day any day. I hope well have a moment of silence and put in our prayers for the those being tended to in hospitals in the washington, d. C. , including the majority leader who apparently was hit in the hip and two of his security detail as well at baseball practice outside of alexandria. Maybe we could all take a moment of silence and pray for their health and recovery. Thank you. Loren i think it bears noting that there was a security detail there which might have helped the situation out. These are people that follow the leaders of congress everywhere they go and keep them safe. Its a reminder of the bravery of those who protect our leaders. We come here today with a packed congressional agenda. Perhaps no committee has a broader agenda than yours, given its reach into health care, energy, the environment, telecom, and all those. Its hard to pick one to start with, id like to start with the Biggest Issue so far this year, health care. Where do you assess the debate today . We know your Senate Colleagues are working on a bill maybe behind closed doors, circulating language, where do you assess the status of this . Greg in the first few months of the year, when we had this task before us, we got a lot of public suggestions from some of our colleagues across the aisle about what we should or shouldnt do. After we passed the bill and sent it over to the senate thats been kind of radio silence thereafter. They got a tough job. I respect that. I know theyre serious about their work. I know Lamarr Alexander is a terrific legislator. If anyone can help pull this together its him and orrin hatch and the others that are involved. Its hard. Its hard doing major reform of entitlement programs, something involving insurance at any level, especially Health Insurance, its very difficult work. And they have virtually no margin of votes, like we had no margin to work with, theirs is tighter. I want to be respectful of the work theyre engaged in. I would say this, as part of getting them the reconciliation vehicle we always understood there were changes, at least i understood, there would be changes to the bill, hopefully improvements in the bill. You always want your legislation to get better. To that end, we carved out some head room if you will, about 86 billion that would be available to make other changes within the bill that they have access to. You see the data coming out of h. H. S. And its actuarial studies are far more realistic than c. B. O. s and the insurance number. So i im hopeful. I think theyll get Something Back to us and then well have to evaluate it in the context of the of the votes we have and with the support of the president. Loren is this a gill you see is this a bill you see headed to a Conference Committee where you can hash it out . Or do you think if thats what you have to work with greg im not going to preclude any potential future opportunity to continue to improve the legislation. We have to see what they pass. And when they pass it. The key for me is, do we get the key for me is we get a good package together that works for american, deals with budgetary problems, that fixes the individual Insurance Market, thats inarguable that it is collapsing around us. We can argue over the support mechanisms that are there, but in the long run, this individual Insurance Market is becoming horribly expensive and you are seeing fewer and fewer choices for people who are in that market to get access to Health Insurance at all. You run into people who are not receiving subsidies. I talked to a woman the other day, her premiums were 600 a month or thereabouts. Her deductible 16,000. Now she has catastrophic, basically. Thats not really what was intended, im sure, by the last administration. So we have work to do to fix this market. Loren is there a plan b if this reconciliation cant get through the senate . Are you considering the costshare regular ducks issue with insurers having to the c. S. R. Issue, i weighed in early after evaluating it and believe that while it while we won the lawsuit, the way the Obama Administration did it was illegal, the commitment in the contracts were such that we needed to make good on the contracts. And we didnt want to bring too much disruption, any disruption, any unnecessary disruption to the market. My view from the beginning has been that the c. S. R. Should be funded but funded legally and there are ways to do that. I think that would give stability to the market. Loren is that something you see needing to happen sooner rather than late her can it wait for the omnibus or c. R. . Greg lets see what happens in the next month or so. So i think whatever goes forward, our goal should be stability for the market, lower premiums, more access and choice. And i think our legislation when analyzed even as it came out of the house would provide lower premiums, according to c. B. O. And others, in the out years but we begin to bend that curve down and actually achieve that and im not quite sure there are any other plans out there to do that. Loren does the 23 million number concern you . Greg sure it does. Its also not, i believe, accurate. C. B. O. Has a difficult job to do. Their analysts put an enormous premium on the effect of the individual mandate. I believe that that view is overrated and dispelled by their own data against reality. In 2016 and 2017 theyre off by a 21 ratio in terms of how many people they said would be signed up versus how many are. Year after year theyre off by about a 21 ratio. I spoke to a group of c. F. O. s the other day and said if your predictions were off by two to one, do you think youd still be working for the ceo . While they get it wrong, while they have a big job to do they consistently get it wrong. We had the ability to enact legislation. If you look at where we are in Medicare Part d its 52 lower than the c. B. O. Said it would be in 2003. We have a dynamic, competitive marketplace with an exchange if you will. Seniors like it, about 5 about 85 approval. Dont have bus trips to canada and mexico much anymore to get drugs. It works. It works. There are ways to design these marks that will work. And you know, it is what it is. Loren what flexibility do you sense on the package of medicaid changes in particular that were in your bill . Greg this is one of the tougher parts. It was hard for us as well. Half the republicans in the house come from states that are expansion states. Like mine. Half are from states that dont come from expansion, didnt do the expansion. So you know thats a natural conflict then. What we tried to do was make sure that the states could cover low income individuals appropriately but not have a blank check either. And thats why with the per capita caps we put in for traditional medicaid if you look at the medicaid c. P. I. Medical and c. P. I. Medical plus one, those are the two categories we did, those numbers generally run above what states are spending today but it puts it on a budget. Now the expansion population is the issue. If that doesnt change the debate were having over medicaid is what percent should states bear in support of low income people who need medical care in their states versus the federal taxpayer. And the expanded populations, you know, obamacare said well pick up 100 , sign up as many as you can, well pay 100 . If somebody gave you a credit card and said go shop wherever you want, buy whatever you want, well pay the whole thing, youre going to make choices about which stores you go to. If you if its your credit card you make a different choice. In a state such as mine, our fmap rates 63 , that means the federal government picks up that much. State picks up 37 . When obamacare phases in, it will be between 90 on the expanded population and 63. What is the right number . Now the head room we gave the senate in some funding allows them to adjust the tax credits and ive always felt they should be adjusted to income. And some other support mechanisms, plus the patient state stability funded 138 billion. Give them a lot of flexibility. So they can adjust the timelines on the expansion if theres a phased down, phase out. They can adjust the ratio. Theyve got a lot of opportunities to figure that out. Theyve got to do it in the context of their politics. We have to do it in the context of our politics. I believe they have a lot of tools in that toolbox to work with. Loren a related program thats not been part of the reconciliation debate but faces a deadline is chip, the childrens Health Insurance program. What principles do you take to that debate . How long an extension are you supportive of . Greg these are all issues were beginning to look at. Before we get to that one, we have the user fee with f. D. A. We had to get done. We voted that out of committee 540. That was on the next deadline. We have a whole bunch of deadlines. You get to be chairman and discover all these deadlines. I have to talk to fred upton. No, these are on my watch. Its always fun to blame fred, you know. [laughter] greg so on so we got medufa going or whatever we called it, the user fee agreements. Were working with the senate to get that done. If we dont get that done in the next few weeks, then perhaps f. D. A. Would have to send out layoff notices. Thats not a layoff notices. Thats not a good thing. Loren do you have time for that . Greg well have floor time when we need it. We have to get that done. Now to the question on schip. Its an incredible Important Program for the states and children in our states. When obamacare was first constructed there was a notion , that schip might not be needed in the future because obamacare would take care of this population. Obviously that hasnt played out. And so were looking were looking now at the reauthorization. How long, how much, where do you fund it and all of that. Im not going to get too far over my ski tips in terms of what were going to do but we recognize its an Important Program and i anticipate reauthorization. Were going to evaluate it as well. Loren the majority leader talked about phase one, phase two, phase three. Phase one being what what are ideas in phase three . Greg the phase three things are much like what we passed or will pass this week on medical malpractice reform. We couldnt do that in the context of reconciliation because the rules that we know will save up yards of 52 billion to federal taxpayers. If we enact what california has. So that you couldnt do in recon due in reconciliation. Were passing that in the house. The Association Health plans. Weve looked at that. Were trying to evaluate how you would do, purchase across state lines and create a national marketplace. Theres one thing after another here that youll see us take up and move forward as time sort of permits given these other mandatory things we have to go address on the health side. So well be working on these. Remember those we knew would require 60 votes in the senate. Some of these we passed to the senate before and its, you know, its kind of that Jimmy Buffett song if the phone doesnt ring it must be me. You dont hear much back. Theyve got a tougher hill to climb. Loren when it comes to your home state senator ron wyden, hes worked with republicans before on health care, do you and he have agreements on some issue you want to pursue for health care . Greg we have a good relationship. We held up the aisle the other night flying back to oregon talking about a host of issues. Not a lot of health care, more on Natural Resources and other things. He lives and breathes health care and finance. He had a medicare reform proposal with speaker ryan several years ago. So there may be opportunities Going Forward. But lets face it. On obamacare, the Affordable Care act, its a partisan issue from the getgo. It was when it got created. Any changes to it are perceived that way. I never anticipated democrats being able to come forward and do much in this environment in a bipartisan way. Its just too much of a base political issue. And so we knew wed have to carry the water. But i think on other Health Reforms there are opportunities. And certainly when it comes to spending in our states, efficiency in our states, were back, there was a story today in oregon about a new Software Program theyve been working on thats now multiples of what they anticipated, not to cover oregon, a debacle that covered that cost 300 million and never worked, now theyre doing a new i. T. System. For gosh sakes. If youre spending 400 million or 500 million just on the software is that really how does that happen . Loren lets do the environment lets shift to the environment and energy issues. You announced a subcommittee markup for tomorrow. Three bills. One deals with Yucca Mountain which has been stalled but id say one of the biggest blockers of that may have left the Congress Last year. Greg were going to rename it, too. Loren what are you going to call it . Greg somebody suggested the mer geordie leaders name the former majority leaders name. On yucca were looking at interim and permanent storage, obviously got to get that right. But the key here is for rate payers, taxpayers, for the industry, we need to get a solution. Nobody has led stronger and better and more eagerly than john shimkus in this matter. As chairman of the environment subcommittee when i made him chairman i said there are two things i really want you to focus on, one is the longterm solution for nuclear waste, yucca, with an interim component to make that all work. And two is r. S. F. R. F. S. Reform, which is like, thanks a lot. Yucca is at the top, secretary perry was out in november, was out to nevada, looked at yucca. He and i discussed that. We want to move forward, we will move forward. I recognize it wont be easy. I know the challenges ahead or it would have been done a long time ago. This is high on my list to try and give it our best shot at. So were working on that. Brownfield legislation, this is a very, very Important Program for the country. You want to create jobs and clean up environmental waste and mess, this is the program to do it. We have great partnerships and stories with states. Its one of these, ill get the multiple wrong so somebody will fact check me so i wont even use it. Its like whatever we put in, theres multiples of economic return on the other side. Because you clean up these places and then theyre developed. And whether its oregon has some Great Stories about that, west virginia, all over the country. And we really need to evaluate as a country how much we invest here because the rate were going, its like 1,000 years to ever get it all done. So we were looking at the appropriate authorizations and funding levels. But mechanically the program is really solid. It needs to be reauthorized and updated, modernized. Youll see us in the committee, by the way, one of the charges from the speaker and the Steering Committee was to every committee, look at the programs of your jurisdiction that have not been reauthorized in modern times and reauthorize them. And if you dont have time to do it, maybe we need to look at other committees taking that jurisdiction. Whoa, wait a minute, no, no, no. Well get to it. So some of these like safe drinking water, brownfield, these are 10, 20, 30yearold programs that havent been authorized since then. A lot has been changed. Thats why i asked joe barton to work with secretary perry on a 21st century 21st Century Energy department. It was created in an era of scarcity. I think youll see a lot of work on a bipartisan basis. Loren what do we take from that about how to restructure the department . I think we need to delve in and see what works and what doesnt. Thats why joe is going to head this up , in partnership with upton and shimkus. Youve got two different subcommittees with jurisdiction. Weve got the nuclear piece to the department of energy. Our jurisdiction is fairly broad and deep. We dont have the codes to the missiles but we do have a lot of the rest of it. Thats important to look at. And the lab. Ive done some oversight work years ago on some of the issues at the labs on security, on, you know, a bunch of things. Is that will be so that will be part of it. And what is its appropriate role . Some of energy has bled off into e. P. A. Where it belongs back in energy. We have both agencies. I think im right in this, e. P. A. Was never constituted its just a collection of programs put under a, you know, under a name. The whole department itself hasnt been really reviewed. Cant do it all at once. These are the debates we should have as the authorizing committees so appropriators arent called upon to do both jobs. Loren when it comes to the e. P. A. The administration wanted a 2. 6 billion cut using the annualized level which would be a significant reduction, similar reduction in the head count at the e. P. A. What visions did that take to the e. P. A. , how comfortable are you with the request theyve made . Heres how i approach it. I think you have to look at whats the core mission of they have e. P. A. I reference things like brown fields. And those things. That you have this enormous backlog yet we know its essential to the environment and to the economy of community after community after community to get those cleaned up and put back into product i use. Back into productive use. So part of what were trying to do, whether its our review of the e. P. And e. P. A. And the proposed budget or other agencies is say whats your core mission. I was in business for 21 years. I remember during one of the economic downturns which you always go through, we had to make some tough budgetary choices. When it was all over it was a better organization. When things kind of nobody holds you accountable or you dont hold yourself accountable, you kind of let things spread and grow and all. When things are tighter you go, is that part of my core mission over here . I just add that person or that thing and start doing it because i could . I think i bring that principle to this debate. What is the most what are the most important things we can do . Safe drinking water, clearly a key issue. Brown fields cleanup, yes, super fund, yes, hanniford, yes. Nuclear waste storage, yes. Those are things that i think we should look at taxpayer investment and then build the organization from there. Ive never been a fan of saying we are going to cut x dollars now figure out what programs. Id rather say, what are your Core Missions and build it up from there. I think you get better policy. That the deep cut will resonate with the republican conference . Greg part of the issue ive had and others in the conference have had is an e. P. A. That lost track of its core mission. And government into all kinds of things that perhaps exceeded the law. Certainly congressional intent. And caused consternation in many quarters in rural america. Again if you get back to the core mission and find the things that matter most, get them out of politics, we get things done. Loren the president withdrew us from the Paris Agreement a few weeks ago. Some states said theyll try to comply. Is there a role for congress to give direction or greg the reason our Carbon Emissions are below 1996 levels is because innovation in the energy sector. And what we look at is, yes lets reduce emissions. Thats fine. I think most americans, i drive a hybrid on both coasts. I think im the only one in the delegation that does, i proudly say. [laughter] greg now i have a chevy dually diesel quad cab that my camper is on so i do have an offset to previous my prius. Its hard to pull the camper with the prius. It didnt sit very well on it , but my point is, when you look at back to the department of energy, back to carbon reductions what has been that , big change to the detriment of coal, its been natural gas. How do you get natural gas . Modern, innovative technique in fracking, getting the gas out of the ground. Thats resulted in lower emissions in our power sector. Its disruptive, yes, but thats part of whats done it. So i think our job is to look at how do we improve siting, how do we expedite siting for pipelines, power lines, broadband, how do we incent innovation, conservation, we held an internet of things display, ill call it, yesterday in the rayburn foyer with all these companies that came to show us their new things. You know, i went online the other day anded ored a wifi and ordered a wifi thermostat. Thatll hook up. So i can turn my airconditioning down here when im not here or whatever and have more control over it. Youll all be hacking into my airconditioning now. [laughter] greg my son wont leave it set so low when im gone. But the long and short of it, this innovation matters. We can do a lot to help the environment but by incenting innovation in america, not with tax incentive, but as we look at driveless cars and all these things, how do we get innovation and how do we make that happen here . Thats been my focus. We can argue about paris, voluntary ray greement, could voluntary agreement, could have put it up as a treey and put it to a vote in the senate but i dont think that would have passed. You have to kind of get beyond the politics of it and say what is it were trying to accomplish. If cities want to play, fine, let them play. If counties want to play, fine, i dont care. Go to it. None of that matters if we dont have the ability to get the power grid in position to take the solar and wind energy and manage it. If we dont have a hydrosystem that doesnt work right. Then i think my view has been, put consumers first. When we go down the paths what does that cost them . What choices do they have . So were looking at all of those issues. Loren you mentioned the cars you drive. I saw a Youtube Video of you checking out and riding in an automated, driveless car. What was that experience like . I think you were in the passenger side, right, of that car . Greg guaranteed. Loren not the back seat. Greg its a great car, saudi 7. Great car, ally seven. Audi 7. One of the states mandates they have a separate set of pedals on the passenger side so the first thing the driver says, dont touch those. And bob latta said when he rode in it, i wish i had that when i was teaching my kids how to drive. All parents probably wish they had that second set of pedals. So it was great. I mean, it had the ability to switch lanes on its own and signal. Had the ability, we went up 395, get over eight Miles Per Hour anyway so it doesnt matter. No, we did. We were going freeway speed. Theyre still working on it. It is fascinating, the engineer in the front seat came out of the autopilot airplane autopilot engineering world. So if you can make a plane land and take off and do everything else, you can probably make a car do it to a certain extent. We traded in my wifes old dodge van last year and got a Subaru Outback what gone and she said, outback wagon and she said, i dont need all the bells and whistles. The only three models in our area has all the bells and whistles. So we have the version with the Collision Avoidance software in it. We were on a road trip two weekends ago and a couple of things. One, it will keep you in the lane if theres good paint on either side. So this is an issue. Should there be standards . What should that look like . Paint doesnt matter if theres four inches of snow so thats a whole other so there are limitations. But it would keep you from drifting over. Steering wheel, it would pull you back if you had it turned on. With the Cruise Control i could pick one to four car lengths, i think, to stay behind a vehicle. So i could set it at whatever speed, of course i only set it at the legal speed limit. [laughter] greg so it would keep me three car lengths, what i had it set on, behind the car in front of me. As we approached my hometown, highway 35 comes to a stop. I thought, i wonder how this will work. I let it bring me to a complete stop behind the car in front of me. And it did. Now i thought wait a minute, when that car pulls away from the stop sign, this is a furway this is a fourway stop, what happens . Probably not going to work well. So i hit the brake because it did want to launch me, once that car took off, not knowing the others are coming across could be a little problem. But it worked. So you think about 85 or so of accidents in america occur because of some sort of driver distraction. You lose 30,000 or 40,000 people a year. 4. 6 million are injured. Youre going to stop all of that, youll have some interaction with the Autonomous Vehicles or Collision Avoidance systems, but if you can cut half of that therell be a generation that says, what a bunch of barbarians, you drove yourself, how did you text and do that . That was the problem, wasnt it. This is Amazing Technology out there. Theres a whole set of step, what are they . One to five or something. Layers where you have no Steering Wheel which is odd but in between that theres a lot we can do along the way. So youll see a package of bills come out. Theyll be draft. Theyll need work. But because this stuff does get complicated, i met with some insurers yesterday, they were like who is responsible . Who is responsible if something happens in the driverless vehicle because you didnt download the Software Patch . And something didnt work right . Is that you . Is it the car . Is it the manufacturer . There are going to be a bunch of those issues that have to be whose data . Whose data in the car . Who does that belong to . After market. You get all those things. Loren as part of the infrastructure debate we may see later this year or early next year, what are things you want to see happen, whether its technology in rural america, infrastructure that can take a ride on this package . Grip weve put a lot of time greg we have put a lot of time into hearings on infrastructure. And it is siting of pipelines, siting of power line, siting of broadband and how do we get it out there and what things impede that . I think the president s radio address the other morning where he talked about, we built grand cooley bridge in three or four years, the Golden Gate Bridge in three or four years. You cant even hire the law firm to begin the nepa work in three years now. I had a little Tiny Community in my district which will be the epicenter of the eclipse on august 21, mitchell, oregon, population about 50, out, if you want to be in the middle of nowhere, you go to mitchell, oregon. No cell service for 50 miles in either direction until i raised this issue after a conference after id been out there because theyre going to have tens of thousands of people there, and the ambulance driver said theres no cell service. Theres going to be a heart attack or overdose or something. Its like a grateful dead band of travelers, i think, that follow these solar eclipses. Its amazing. Off topic. Theyre expecting millions of people in oregon. I dont know if thats going to happen or not but i know the last hotel room in bend, oregon, was going for 800 a night. Thats a little higher than normal. So back on that the little town of mitchell spent several years trying to get four power poles sited on bureau of Land Management ground so they could get three phase power into town just to do the environmental study so they could poke four power holes into the ground. This is the kind of nonsense that goes on. That drives up the cost. Delays, you know, everything else. So were looking at whats the appropriate role . How do you maintain public input but not have that process be the determinant of the project because delay can destroy. So president referenced this, we believe in it, and whether its pipelines or power lines. I mean in the town of primeville, oregon, where there are data hubs for facebook, apple, rackspace and maybe somebody else, they had some additional folks wanting to locate there who needed 300 or 400 or 500 mega watts of power which they thought they have but they dont have, itll be three to five years before they can get that built up. If youre a manufacturing looking to locate there youre gone. Youre not going to wait three to five years. We have a grid capacity issue. Security issue. Thats part of infrastructure as well. Youll see us do more work on that front. Loren i think thats enough questions from me. Well open it up to the audience now. This gentleman up front. Greg better wait to get the mike. Otherwise well both get fired. My name is ardell, im with the federal Affairs Office in d. C. From chicago. My question is we live in a hyperpartisan political environment and going back to the health care issue, has there ever been a thought of working in a bipartisan way to improve the a. C. A. Instead of making such a partisan issue with the ahca . Which depending on where you stand theres going to be different views but why not come together and find something that benefits all americans instead of saying this is only going to benefit this section of americans and this is only going to benefit this section . Greg i respect your question and there have been multiple successful bipartisan efforts to reform the a. C. A. Signed into law by president obama. Repeals, changes, over the years. We generally have that hung around our neck, voting to repeal obamacare 63 times. That was sort of the nonsense of the political speech because a lot of those ended up in law. Because there were problems with obamacare this that needed to be fixed. There are some issues i would tell you that are just core differences between the parties and philosophy. You cannot bridge by saying cant we all work together. I think there are parts of this we are we have worked together on. But i i just never expected democrats to be able to vote for anything that looked like, that would be characterized as Obamacare Repeal and replace. If you look at our legislation, i think you could argue that were not repealing exchanges. Were not going back to the prepreobamacare days in terms of what insurers could do, didnt lift lifetime caps, theres a lot of core elements of Health Care Reform that were done then that frankly some of us supported then that didnt have a voice or opportunity to offer even one amendment on the house floor. So its unfortunate that it got to that point. In the every late 1980s, early 1990s, i was on the committee, majority leader, created a select committee to write and implement the Oregon Health plan, rewrite and implement the Oregon Health plan in 1991. It was all bipartisan. Ive done a lot of Health Care Reform work over the year the state legislature and here, thats bipartisan is my preference. This tool first of all being on reconciliation makes it partisan. But i hope youll see us Going Forward on issues much like we just did with reauthorizing the user fee agreements, 540. The 21st century cures legislation on health care with m. I. H. And all passed enormous bipartisan numbers. Our work on opioids, enormously important. Mental health reform. First time weve reformed Mental Health care laws in america since john kennedy signed the last bill into law before he was assassinated. Thats a long time. So theres a lot well do on health care outside of quoteunquote the a. C. A. Or obamacare. When youre wrestling with medicaid, the states, an exchange thats fail, people went to their sidelines. Id like to have a bipartisan most of our work is good morning, chairman. Im a Health Care Business analyst for a private cane in private company in virginia. My question was, what Health Care Policy is being established to include all social groups, specifically the Lgbt Community . When filing a medical claim a person cant have a prostate or mammogram on a claim. Greg can you say that again . What Health Care Policy is being established to include all social groups such as the Lgbt Community. When filing a medical claim a person cant have a mammogram or a prostate on a claim due to medical unlikely edits which will cancel that claim. Greg medical unlikely edits . I do not know what that means. Its an edit that takes into account a gender of a person so if im a woman so i cant have a prostate or mammogram so my claim will be canceled. Greg cant have a mammogram as a woman. So if i was a transgender woman and had prostate and breast, my claim would be denied. What Health Care Policy is being established to take this issue into concern. Greg thats a good question. This is new to me. All right. In the sense of our debate on health care refrm its not been brought to my attention before. Im happy to take a look at it. You learn things, as Society Changes and evolves. Happy to take a look at it. Also in addition to that question, as far as technological policy, what is being established to take into account technological waste such as cell phones. Greg yeah, so, a couple of things. On medical devices, on medical data, theres both enormous innovative opportunity on health care as well as risk. And the risk presents itself most recently in the ransomware wanna cry that shut down the British Health care system for longer period of time than anyone would want. We dont want it here. Weve had briefings on that. So this gets to, there was one, i believe there was one hole in the Microsoft Software that if you patched it you were good. Apparently they hadnt patched in some of these areas. And then you learn that in the medical world a lot of medical device systems operate on old software that isnt even modernized and updated. So old operating systems that none of us want to admit we were ever using. And theyre the base system. Whats happened now is that those systems are getting integrated through Wifi Networks into billing systems and then all of that opens up exposure. And so we were told that there are some medical systems that have upwards of 200 or more openings like the one open thaffings in the microsoft operating system. There could be billions of dollars, tens of years, to replace and modernize and upgrade all of that so on we so on the one side of Data Security and cybersecurity and risk were trying to focus on how do you fix that. And protect patient data. I asked the question, while they somewhere, just where whereo rent somewhere they do ransomware. Weve seen cases where they corrupted the day tafment so what if they come back and change your blood type in the record . Think about the implications of that you begin to have to question all the data and medical records of all the people that you serve, youve got a real problem. So they havent seen that. By the way on these on these Ransomware Attacks they told us it was pretty unsophisticated, kid was able to close it pretty quickly, i forget where he was from, it happened over a weekend here which we were able to get involved. People at the same time on a multihour Conference Call about what they were seeing and how to close this. We had a hearing on this. Last week. On their whole center, command center, they have to deal with cyberattack in the health care space. So youve got that. Meanwhile youve got a great opportunity to do data research, if you will, when we passed the 21st century cures, someone of one of the physicians from oregon, dr. Brian gruker druker who helped develop glevac, a stomach cancer cure, he said theres 600 pedabytes of cancer data out there and if you can harness them you can do analytics and help find the right molecules. It dramatically improves Research OpportunitiesGoing Forward to find cures. And then you have, i would say, sort of the third part of this is, you know, if were actually checking on Blood Pressure because theres a device that will do that easy or monitoring our glucose in realtime we can enhance our own Health Care Without having to go to the doctor or the e. R. So this is an incredible time in which we live where we can improve our own health care, take more responsibility for that, drive down costs through innovation, got to make sure all that opens exposure so we look at it from the broad perspective. Loren the gentleman in the back. We didnt give him a chair, we can give him a question. I just got here too late, crowded group. It should be. To the extent of your committees jurisdiction, thank you for the overview of the health and environmental stuff. Im Mike Mccarthy with the soft ware industry organization. Your committees jurisdiction also includes internet privacy. You may have had a couple of experiences this year. Representative blackburn has an internet privacy piece of legislation thats raised concerns in the Tech Community and others. It goes well beyond what the federal trade commission does to ensure Consumer Privacy and im wondering if you have any reflections on the merits of the bill or its prospects. Greg chair blackburn, as you know, has been shes chair of our subcommittee on technology. Shes very bright, very capable, very committed to the cause of data privacy. Individual control over data. Its kind of unfortunate were in part of the reason were in this position is because the prior f. C. C. Went too far the other way and decided the internet should be treated like old ma bell. And went into title 2 common carrier status which meant that the federal trade commission no longer had jurisdiction over those sorts of issues because they dont have jurisdiction over common carriers. Only the f. C. C. Did. Which meant the f. C. C. Had to come up with their own rule, even though wheeler said think didnt node them, they created them, they were never enforced, we repealed them and we got blamed by different entities, including billboards in districts saying were selling peoples privacy. None of which is accurate. There are other laws that supersede. But it opened the door to this debate now on privacy. Shes a very thoughtful and capable legislator and a determined one. I would advise you to be in regular contact and communication with chairman blackburn. Hello, chair. Im a voter in your district as well as an organizer, weve met before. Greg we have. Climate action. As you know my family has been in district two for four generations. A number of years ago i met with you about Climate Change making life pretty much uninhabitable in my hometown by the time my kids would be my age and i have heard your lines about hybrids and i know about your interest in biomass and innovation but the fact is you had a 5 score from the league of conservation voters last year and you support the use of fossil fuels, including natural gas which has 50 underreported methane leaks which makes it worse than coal. So, im wondering, having a son, our generation is projected to lose 8. 8 trillion from Climate Change within our lifetime and your concerns about the costs of taking action, pretty much pale in comparison in comparison to what youre giving our generation to deal with. How can you look your son in the eyes and tell him youre doing everything you can. Greg pretty easily. Because i believe i am. And i believe america has led in this effort. I believe that allowing china and india to continue to add to their per capita Carbon Emissions between now and 2030 is not right. And i would also say that we weve led in innovation. We can help in this area. We can create jobs here. But im not going to penalize americas economy unfairly while our competitors continue to expand with more carbon. Youll argue its ok for india to do that, because of your view on the paris accord, and you would argue that china should be able to do this because thats the agreement. I dont agree with that. And in part, you know, when you look at what weve done over time, we have given the world amazing environmental tools. We have fought wars and ceyed and saved countries. Thats been part of our emissions, when were building ships and planes an going to war in europe time and again to save free peoples. I am sure that all added carbon as well during that period that now we get penalized for. What im trying to do and i think weve shown we can do is bring down Carbon Emissions and other emissions. Were looking at methane and all these things. But i just disagree. Thank you. My name is peter pitch with intel. You alluded to your committees very important jurisdiction over telecom broadly defined. The new leadership at the f. C. C. Is looking at net neutrality, the additional spectrum for wireless, what do you see as your committees agenda on these issues . How do you approach them . Greg theres a lot we can do in this space. Im not sure theres either a huge appetite nor a big available reservoir of new spectrum to go put on the market. And to put out there. Weve talked about that. What i get is the pressure from the budget folks who say, your committee needs to come up with more spectrum and auction it off so we have a better budge better budget number. Weve been able to do that successfully over the years but there are, i think in terms of finding more spectrum, im sure with David Reynolds who is terrific going to ntia, if anyone can find nor spectrum and manage it better federally, david can. He knows where all of it is hidden and hell do a great job there. But im not sure thats really a piece. Then it is this gets back to citing issues and all of this. As we move into a world of wireless spectrum and all of us being connected with multiple devices and most of us not having land lines and getting broadband out there and all the different ways you can do that, youve got to have the back call, got to get fiber out there. Part of it is how do you get that done efficiently to keep up with expansion in wireless . Youve got all this new technology coming, 5g, lte 5g. Weve got frequencies we thought had low or no value now are the new beach front. Were looking at all of that. You look at pico sites and everything thats coming in that world. And then you look at the whole internet of things and the demand for spectrum will be out there. So were working with the f. C. C. On these matters. I fully expect the f. C. C. Will probably reclassify knowing where the chairman starts from, take it out of title 2. That would open the door for legislation i proposed, never introduced but proposed, that would really give certainty in the market to to the rules of the road on the internet. To ban the bad behaviors and do it statutorily and do it directly and clearly. And then that would if we get out of title 2, that solves your privacy issue, it all goes back to the f. T. C. So that goes away. We go back to reinvestment, you can get things open and operating. I dont know if we need to throw taxpayer dollars at broadband buildout. There are obviously funds that are available. My view has been in a district such as mine that you have areas that are still unserved. If theres a role for a Publicprivate Partnership it is first in the unserved areas of america, so you can bring the incredible power of the internet to a very remote, rural area. We still have areas in the country that youve got dropped call issues on cell service. Weve had legislation on that. You have lack of access to cellular coverage for basic phone service now today. I call it basic. So those are all priorities for us as well. And then you know were going to look at a reauthorization of the ntia, i think we will at some point in the f. C. C. Because these are agencies that havent been. We were going to start with ntia until we got a wink and a nod that they were going to be the chief administrator. Thats not going to work well for him to design his new agency. We put that on hold. But youll see us move forward on that. Loren i know we promised to get you out by about 9 30, were right up against that. I want to thank you for coming, thank our guests. Your colleagues and staff are obviously in our thoughts as the news continues to develop. We thank you for coming and look forward to having you again, hopefully. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] cspans washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Thursday morning, scott perry on the shooting of congressman Steve Scalise and Capitol Police officers. How the congressional baseball game practice. And then jamie raskin on security for members of congress. Make sure to watch washington 7 00 a. M. Live at eastern thursday morning. Join the discussion. Afterward,ht on mike lee talks about forgotten historical figures who fought against Big Government in his book written out of history. Senator lee is interviewed by general neil cal. They come to you gradually. I have asked friends, and other people i knew, who they thought should get more credit than they get. Chief. S an indian he understood the principle of federalism because he had lived different centuries before we were our own country. I was intrigued by the from the outset because it is not a mere most americans know anything about. And yet, he had a profound impact on our system of government because hes the guy who enabled Benjamin Franklin learn about federalism, and he was the conduit through which this information flowed for the rest of the founders. Watch afterward sunday night at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan 2s book tv. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. This morning as the Republican Congressional Baseball Team held a practice in alexandria, virginia, a gunman op