Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20141208

7488002. Guantanamo bay prison, what should be done with it . Withary miami herald the story. Sixdeal that dropped detainees in uruguay is seen as the vanguard of future south american settlements in attempts to close guantanamo. Rogers, who is currently the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee was on cnn cost state of the union yesterday. [video clip] them are not from uruguay. There from all over the rest of the world. Some of the services that do these agreements cant do it. We pay money. To these countries who take these prisoners that is not their culture or they are from. The services are supposed to monitor these people. What we have found in the past is that it does not work very well. I do not think that surprises anybody. Maybe we ought to rethink what we are doing here. Some past released prisoners are reengaged in the terrorist fight. Those of us who try to do the review of this were so concerned because they were so interested in getting them out, they forgot due diligence. Mike rogers talking about the detainees transferred from Guantanamo Bay to uruguay and saying, this should not have been done. We turn to all of you, because this is return renewing the fight over gitmo. What should be done . ,epublicans 202 7488001 democrats 202 7488000,. Ndependents 202 7488002 the u. S. Military dropped off six long ago cleared what time all caps is in uruguay on sunday, culminating a complex onagain offagain deal to resettle the men in the nation of hose a multigot jose m ujica. Detainees from syria palestine and tunisia. None have ever been charged with a crime. All are to start new lives in the south american nation with the help of spanish lessons offered to them since march at the u. S. Navy prison in cuba. All six prisoners sent to uruguay got to guantanamo in 2002. What are your thoughts . Darrell in defiance, missouri is our first caller. Caller i think wonton amo should be closed and burned to the ground. Guantanamo should be closed and burned to the ground. How can we torture them and wonder if we release them, they are going to come back and join the fight . If i was tortured and they let me out, i would be on the front line, going after america for this atrocity. It is not only guantanamo, we have black sites all over the world where we take people and torture them. We have known this for a long time. It is terrible what we are doing to these people. We sit up here and act like we are surprised when we let them go and half of them are not charged for anything. It is just crazy. I do not understand this country anymore. I wasas a detainee and released, i would be coming after your asks. Host christine is a republican. Concerned with the fight against isis, threats against the u. S. Military that are very active, wearing uniforms in some states. These people, prisoners that have threatened to harm us would be crossing the border from uruguay, they can go through Central America and up like many people do. We are putting our nation at risk. Thata person that believes there are rights to fair trial. It seems like a dumping the job by the u. S. Government. To the safetyng of our country, our children. There has to be a better solution. It seems almost like it was a rash decision. I would like to know more about our relationship with uruguay and how these things this just seems to be a random decision. Host i can read a little bit from the New York Times. Your thoughts on what should be done with Guantanamo Bay. The white house said yesterday that six detainees from gitmo were, on sunday, transferred to uruguay. You heard mike rogers from the House Intelligence Committee weigh in on this saying they have concerns about this. In light of the fight against isis. And whether or not these folks are being monitored. He Washington Post they say in their piece in an therview in may,mujica said prisoners would be considered governmentd that the did not intend to monitor them. What do you make of all this with that . Republicans , democrats 202 7488000, and independence 202 7488002. This is what Clifford Sloan had to say. Says thisment he transfer is a major milestone in our efforts to close the facility. Something president obama promised to do. Independent. Good morning to you. Jean, you are on the air. Extreme danger to our to continue toty release people that have sworn to the destruction of the United States of america and our greatest friend, israel. Host mike, north carolina, republican. Caller good morning. Host what should be done . Caller i think it should remain open as long as we are at war with jihadist groups. It is a prisoner of war camp. That is something that always gets lost in the discussion. We can debate the details. Both the wars in iraq and afghanistan were approved by the United States congress. The people that are detained at guantanamo are prisoners of war. There are captured either on the battlefield or by other means, but thats what guantanamo is. It is a Standard Operating Procedure in all conflicts, going back as far as i can remember. Ofo not understand the level passion about closing it from the left. It is purely ideological in the way that president obama is going about releasing prisoners is his way of closing it. We are not repopulating it. Morere we not capturing people, bringing them there and interrogating them . In my opinion, if the wars are expanding with isis and isil or whatever we want to call it, guantanamo should be expanded. Host what do you make of the six . Gitmo since 2002 and they have never been charged with a crime. Questionhat is a good but it is a question with a false premise. We do not try prisoners of war. Prisoners of war our soldiers. If they were caught inside the United States doing espionage or Something Like that, those types of combatants can be put on trial. Prisoners of war are not put on trial. They are fighting in a war inst us being directed by either the country they live in but in this case it is not a country it is a terrorist organization. We are in uncharted waters. That question goes to the point of how do you look at this . Do you look at it as a law and order situation or a criminal situation . No. Fighting against the United States and trying to kill american citizens is not like robbing a 711. It is war. You put people in prisoners of war cant. Host scotty in del barton, West Virginia. These are prisoners of war, not common criminals. The government never thought this all the way through when all this come about. Under the geneva convention, we have to take care of these individuals because they are prisoners of war. The thing of it is, with our government, they have to do does go things. The a their have to turn them loose on another country so they can kill them or we got a keep them. If they want to call them criminals, im sure we have maxed Security Prisons we are paying millions of dollars that can take these individuals and put them in a cell. To arement has these people prisoners of war . Host what do you think if they decide to close Guantanamo Bay and bring the prisoners to the United States and incarcerate them here until some sort of trial . That is what the administration has set they would like to do. That was omitted from the Defense Authorization bill which the house approved on thursday. The senate is going to take it up this week for they leave town and close the book on the 113th congress. What do you think of that idea . Caller that would open up a new can of worms for government. They would have to get lawyers and be provided with attorneys and be tried like a civilian instead of a prisoner of war that is protected under geneva convention. Host that was scotty. We are getting your thoughts on what should be done with Guantanamo Bay. After this headline makes the front page. Six detaineess held at guantanamo. It is the front page of the New York Times. Transfer was notable because the deal had been publicly known since it was finalized last spring. In signinghuck hagel off on the arrangement placed in jeopardy. Thisr hagels slow pace year in approving proposed transfers of lowlevel detainees contributed to larger tensions with the white house before his resignation under pressure last month. Since november it has transferred 13 more, that is the pentagon. There are now been 30 transfers under mr. Hagels watch. Only four were transferred under his predecessor who ran the july 2011 to february 2013. Some 69 detainees would remain. They are either facing charges before a military commission or deemed unable to be tried but too dangerous to release. The Obama Administration hopes that if it can shrink the inmate population to two digits, congress will revoke a law that bars the transfer of detainees into the United States. It would be cheaper for taxpayers to house the inmates on domestic soil. The white house argues that closing guantanamo would eliminate a propaganda signal symbol. George in florida, republican. I am a Vietnam Combat that. If these men did not do anything , i would saycally i would not say give them a but not told him for 12 years either. I was going to go to uruguay next year. I do not know if im going to go now. Charles krauthammer this is whl follow. Facebooken looking at , Charles Krauthammer for president. I think what he says is what i follow. Thank you for giving me a chance to talk about the detainees. Host a tweet from senator Dianne Feinstein who is currently the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence committee. She tweeted this out this summer. She said, good reminder in this column that it costs 2. 8 million a year to house each gitmo detainee, yet another reason to close it. You can see the philosophy there. An independent caller. I am really happy that this debate is taking place. Hasink the United States two faces. We cannot be a democratic country and at the same time occupying land in cuba and also having people detained without fair trial. As you mentioned before, these prisoners are being have not been charged with any crime. At the beginning of the second people were turned in. People were turning in their own enemies. Nobody knew. People were just accused by other people looking for money. That is the case of many people who were kill still in guantanamo would not been charged with anything. Guantanamo should definitely be closed. There are many reasons why it is a good thing to stop. Those were concerned, they should realize that uruguay is a country in the southern tip of south america and it will be thousands and thousands of miles travel to get back into the United States. Are ready to rebuild a life. Uruguay would be a great place. They can enjoy the rest of their lives in peace. I do not think they would want to go back and attempt anything if they want to left alone and happy. ,ost one of these prisoners his profile has been raised because of the forcefeeding that has been done. He is one of the prisoners that went on a Hunger Strike. The New York Times Editorial Board weighing in. Years the Detention Center at a time obey at one time obey has imprisoned hundreds of men without any charges or meaningful access to courts. If officials have their way, that blackout will include videotape of forcefeeding inmates who had been on a Hunger Strike for as long as 21 months to protest their endless detention. Lawyers for the Justice Department filed a notice of appeal on a federal court order issued in october requiring the release of 28 tapes recorded by the guards of their handling of one of the striking prisoners. The government defends its secrecy by having it both ways. , officials insist, depict only lawful inhumane behavior by guards. Releasing the tapes would cause international outrage. Endangering american soldiers abroad. Obama, who is spoken to the countrys willingness to act on Human Dignity has it in his power to release the tapes. Be able tohould decide for themselves how to define and protect that dignity. That is one related story to this. The New York Times weighing in on this saying the tapes should be released. Headlineork times amorning saying that longawaited report condemning torture by the Central Intelligence agency has not been made public yet. Team hasesident bushs decided to link arms with former intelligence officials and challenge its conclusions. The report is said to assert the the cia misled mr. Bush extent and results of brutal techniques like waterboarding. Instead, it says bush and his closest advisers decided to stand behind these guys as one official put it. On face then was nation and he was asked about this. [video clip] this had not been my program up to that point. I was free to stop it cold and i spent the summer of 2006 looking at the facts, documents and most importantly, people. I talked to analysts, interrogators. At the end of the summer i recommend it to president bush. Hat we reduced the program that program had been so valuable that we could not stop it altogether, even though now we had more intelligence on al qaeda for the detainees and other sources. Even then, the program had. Roven its worth i could not take it off the table in conscience. Host that is the former cia director, michael hayden. That report, expected to be released tomorrow. We will be watching to see what happens there. Some tweets for you from members of congress about Guantanamo Bay. Kelly ayotte tweeted this. As we look at what is happening around the world, the need for gitmo has become more apparent. Also, the speaker of the house saying, president obama continues to release terrorists from gitmo even though some have reportedly join isil. Pat roberts, who just won reelection tweeting this out. I have promised to keep gitmo terrorists out of kansas. The fight continues are you not on my watch. Talking about language that has been omitted from the Defense Authorization bill that would allow gitmo detainees to come to the United States. On house approved it thursday, the senate is expected to do so this week before they leave town for the holiday recess. They will not be returning until january when republicans will be gaveling in. Tommy in louisiana, democratic caller. Caller good morning. I would like to say, we should put a chip in them, follow them and if they go back to war, kill them. We cannot keep spending this money on these people. That is my comment. One more about privatizing the prisons. People better stop it. When you privatize the prisons in america, you have to keep it full. K k you. Host alan in tallahassee, florida. Caller hello. Host good morning to you. Caller good morning. I want to say that this administration is more on the side of the terrorist and they are this country. When people realize that and start taking Political Action to control the Obama Administration and the socialist democrats that are helping him make this country more communist and socialist, the better off we will be. I think obama and his crowd are on their side and not ours. Host patrick in ohio. What do you think . , a couplerst of all callers back, he talked about detainees in gitmo who are radicalized jihadists for the most part. They are prisoners not criminals. The reason to have gitmo, when you have prisoners who are a threat to america and to our hold and being able to control these individuals but soil is aoff american wise decision. Furthermore, youve got to look back he few callers sees people he wants these people wanting a peaceful life. We understand the mindset of these individuals. Beneficial. En i do not think the dollar signs that Dianne Feinstein was mentioning make sense. If so, it is complete bureaucracy run wild. You have to keep a place like gitmo as long as we are involved in a war on terror. Have to keep a place like gitmo fightingeep the people at bay. Us to find up we can through intelligence matters. Prisoner, you cannot allow a prisoner to starve themselves to death. That would be a violation. Host i think it is the way they go about it, patrick. Caller yeah. Host on the cost, the miami herald has gitmo by the numbers on their website. They say the house cost to , 800,000. Etainee based on the Defense Department figures put the cost at 2. 7 million per prisoner. The total number of resident at guantanamo on june 23 of this estimates was 5778. Staff, a total of 200 sit 2268. Imposedrison cap information blackout. Of the total, 300 of them are civilians and the majority of troops are from the u. S. Army. Nati prison hospital staff numbers, around 137. Navy prison hospital staff. Umbers, around 137 the white house announcing that six detainees have been. Ransferred to uruguay gary, democratic caller you are next. Caller hello. Forcefeeding is torture. That is why it is a human rights violation. As far as keeping prisoners after world war ii, german prisoners were kept in at least one place in wisconsin. They were arguably more dangerous than these terrorists. Terrorists, all those labels to describe a gang not beneficial. We should not give them the titles givet those to that group. Host ok. Are 1. 2 billion arabs in the world. 20,000 murderers running around together is a gang not an army. Host gordon in woodbridge, virginia. Republican. Caller i think we should keep it open to offset the cost down there we need to gather up people we have outsourced to other countries and bring them back. That will reduce the amount of cost because the cost estimate is based on each one. You reduce the numbers, the cost goes up. You increase the numbers and the cost goes down. Spreadtter way to radical muslims than to outsource these prisoners to countries like in south america and other countries. . Ost the New York Times reports that republicans are against the idea. The argue that housing wartime increase theld risk of terrorist attacks in the United States. Each of the detainees had been recommended for release if the receiving country could meet security conditions, but they remained at guantanamo because they come from home countries with troubled security conditions. Earlier this year, uruguays president offered to take them in and the deal was ready to go in march. Waited until july to notify congress. Month, uruguays president preferred to avoid the media spectacle of their arrival in the middle of an Election Campaign to choose his successor. It goes on to say that motivations for previous countries to resettle detainees have range from humanitarian impulses to desire to trade favors with the United States. Mr. Mujica seems to of made his offer as a matter of personal principle. Decision by chuck hagel to slow the process down, it says that his reluctance to approve these agreements contributed to a deterioration in his relations with the white house. Securityr. Obamas advisor, susan rice, sent a memo pressuring him to pick up the pace. That is a big responsibility, he said. Im takingoing is, my time. I o that to the American People to ensure that any decision i make is responsible. Randy in chicago heights, illinois. Caller good morning. I would like to say that i think Guantanamo Bay should stay open. The American People government is doing the correct thing. We put them in prison, take care of them, feed them. We do what we are supposed to do under the geneva convention. That is how it is always supposed to be done. With our prisoners, i do not see them following the geneva convention. Look is what is been happening with the president s prisoners there capturing. They are supposed to take them, hold them and feed them. They are not doing that. They are beheading the people of. Merica i believe that our government, the president should say to these terrorists, you have to follow the geneva convention. Host this is from the Washington Post. The gop pushes to hold this report on cia techniques. It could be released as early as tomorrow. It is expected this week. Toldkerry reportedly Dianne Feinstein to consider the timing before she releases this. It goes on to say that Senate Democrats have days to release their investigation before the 100 13th Congress Adjourns and republicans take over the majority. If the administration rejects, said the senate should be willing to act unilaterally to release the report. Chuck hagel is making his last trip to afghanistan. The wall street journal this morning has a picture of him meeting the new president of afghanistan. That leader is seeking to slow u. S. Drawdown. He is going to be pushing the administration to take a slower pace at reducing troops in afghanistan. He pentagon, expected to push ricky, what do you think about Guantanamo Bay . This decision to release the prisoners is indicative of president obamas decision to reduce the power of the country. Host did you vote for him . Caller i did not. It is unbelievable that a decision can be made and you have to look at that in the context of president obamas other decisions. Thatng these immigrants in are going to destroy the country economically. He is a very intelligent person. Ourfrightened of him being president. It is unfortunate, he is very bright. I do not think this is everything anything he has done. It is well calculated. You have to look at this decision to understand why he is doing it and most importantly, the effect it has on aspects of the country. Host a few more tweets. This is from jim rand, a democrat from virginia. Moran, a democrat from virginia. Transfer the news of two of the 86 detainees from gitmo. Saxby chambliss tweeted, with recidivism rate at 28 , no dt day no detainee should be transferred unless where confident he will be monitored. We are getting your thoughts on Guantanamo Bay and what should be done with it. Scott in new york, an independent. Notice our human race is coming together in america. One inhad three humans, ferguson, one in cleveland, one in new york that all got killed by our Police Departments here. The humans had no rights then but we have people in guantanamo who are terrorists and they have more rights than human beings in america. We need to take some of these rogue cops in our country, looking like alternate fighters and choking people to death and send them to guantanamo and within a couple months we will have nobody else down there. Let them kill everybody because they have more rights than human americans in this country. When Law Enforcement can kill americans and not terrorists. Host wally, an independent. Caller good morning. Can you give me one second . Autumnal obey should be closed. Half the people in their Guantanamo Bay should be closed. Half the people in there have been found not guilty. Host i do not know that off the top my head but i will look at the numbers. Caller second of all, you have a lot of people calling in and they do not know anything. I think they are just going off their hate of the president or other certain things. Guantanamo, a lot of people should not be in there. Secondly, if you look at what is going on in this country as far as immigrants being shipped out. President obama has shipped more illegal aliens than any other president. I do not agree with a lot of things he does because he is ,ore conservative than democrat but you have so many people who hate him for whatever reason. I think it is because of his race. They look past a lot of things. If he was not black, they would love this guy. Host before we go down that road. The miami herald says the current detainee senses, 136 from 18 countries. Captives now designated as forever prisoners without charge or trial, the number is at 36. Captives approved for transfer or repatriation to their homeland, some with conditions,ll but one since january 2010 if not earlier. That number is at 67. We are getting your thoughts on guantanamo prison. The white house yesterday transferred six detainees to uruguay. They landed yesterday. Republicans, not agreeing with the move. We are getting your thoughts on this. First, other headlines. The Washington Times this morning. Washington blocks the retirement of drones. Congress blocks the retirement of drones. ,elow that is another headline bush era appointee makes stall amnesty. President challenging obamas deportation amnesty have won their first round in court. Reviewappointee issued a to the department of Home Security last year Homeland Security last year. The first round of this legal case being brought up by Texas Attorney general, greg abbott, has landed on the desk of a judge that was appointed by bush. Other headlines. The Washington Post. A new push follows the gop victory. This is coming from the legislative exchange council. They have been meeting behind closed doors. Lobbies and legislators introduced model considered model bills to be introduced across the country designed to give states more power to block or delay new Obama Administration environmental standards. Front page of the wall street journal. Tumbling oil prices is spurring bets on global growth. That is the headline. The Financial Times is saying ce isthe dollars resurgen a threat to improving markets. Emerging markets. This story in the Financial Times International Section that because of the dropping oil prices there is now a call for urgency in climate talks. Climate talks taking place in lima. All the countries gathering there to come up with language area now that there is this drop in prices, advocates for this saying there should be an urgency to come to some sort of deal. Mark, an independent. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Im curious that no one is talking about this report on the Saudi Arabian government being complicit in 9 11. Former senator graham of florida has a lawsuit that saudis have requested not to be able to disclose information. It is so disgraceful. I would like to share more education on what was just released and why this is not in the mainstream media. Host i think we saw that story in the paper a couple weeks back. We go to a democratic caller in shreveport, louisiana. Caller i am a veteran. I did vote for obama. O not understand why we what gives us the right to prison eyes a lot of people. We want to be so selfrighteous. What gives us the right to play god about another persons life . Think they are wasting money down there because somebody wants it done. Nobody called my house and asked me if i agreed with it. Thank you for your time. Host tammy in savannah, georgia. An independent. What do you make of Guantanamo Bay prison . Caller you said it cost 2. 8 million for one prisoner . Host a year. Caller it cost me 30,000 a raise for family members. Ive gas lights insurance Everything Else to pay. The military has to be paid no matter what it is doing down there. It was here in america or anywhere else. What are they doing, feeding them gold . The i think it is infrastructure that goes into it, the amount of staff they have down there. The Obama Administration puts the cost at 800,000 a year per prisoner. It was the Senate Democrats who looked into it and said the cost is more like 2. 8 million a year. We are talking about Guantanamo Bay prison and what should be done with it. You have seen, the United States as transferred six of these detainees to uruguay. The uruguay government telling the Washington Post in may that they will not be monitoring the considered refugees. The white house saying this is a major milestone in closing down gitmo. If they can get the numbers to a reasonable low number of those still there, they are hoping congress will agree to allowing the remaining detainees to come back to the United States. That permission was omitted from the Defense Authorization bill, which the house approved on thursday and the senate is going to take up this week. As washington debates, what do you think . The phone lines are open. Republicans 202 7488001, democrats 202 7488000, and ts 202 7488002. You can also send us an email. Headlineoday has this that new york congressman peter king is sizing up a possible gop run. He is been to New Hampshire and it is because he does not want rand paul or ted cruz the likes of rand paul or ted cruz to run for president. The secretary of state john kerry, optimistic that a deal with a ron will happen. Iran will happen. Reportinggton post that president obama has designated december 26 a federal holiday. President obama decided to give federal employees a holiday present early. He issued an order friday giving them the day after christmas off. That is in the papers this morning. Your thoughts on Guantanamo Bay. We will go to dan in georgetown, massachusetts. An independent. Good morning. Good morning, thanks for having me on. I wanted to say, it is really sad listening to these phone calls coming in of American People. How scattered we are with this. I have to commend the job of our government in the media for causing such confusion about what is going on. I have only heard the facts a couple of times from a couple of your callers. The facts are, a lot of these people were rounded up right after 9 11 and paid bounties. People turned people in for whatever reason in other countries, they received bounties. They got the numbers up in guantanamo and then our press hold us how we had all these killers in guantanamo and how we are saving america. We are so misinformed. We are ready to be steamrolled over, which feels like it is about to happen. I think we need to stick to the facts. Why these people were put in their. There. Facts too find our the things are that are fed to us are mostly propaganda. Host jason, democratic caller. Caller i believe that guantanamo should be closed. It should never have been used for what they are doing down there. I also believe that bush, cheney, rumsfeld and the rest of them should be made to stand answer to what they have done. They should be charged and prison and. Ed. Host democratic caller, minerva, ohio. The hill newspaper reporting that president obama will be speaking out against racism. Here is a quote. President obama will do an interview with be et and that is expected to air this evening. Is theby jeff johnson president s First Network discussion outlining a discussion his strategy to investigate the incident and the ways the country can unify during this time. The royals are in the United States. Prince william in new york along with kate. The white house tweeting out that the president will be meeting with Prince William at the white house. That is taking place today. Joseph, democratic caller. Caller good morning. Are some american citizens who are deemed to bank dangerous to be released also in our own jails. Who are deemed to bank dangerous to be released in our jails. There are some individuals that we maintain in prisons for the rest of their lives. Host john, greensboro north carolina. Good morning john. Caller good morning. , is that ang at tv huge prison down there . Look that up by the numbers, but what is your point . Caller if it is already there and you have a prison, you have to either tear it down and do Something Else with it or turn it into, what, a motel . Have that is we sitting there that is not making money is no good to us. You have to figure out a way that you could turn it into some kind of capitalist venture. To go andr people party and have fun, whatever. Ost about guantanamo defense one has a story that half the prisoners at gitmo have been cleared for release. This was published in june of this year. The uproar over president obamas exchange of Army Secretary Sergeant Bowe here arefor five the facts about the status of 1880s. This is from the past summer. 78ministries and has cleared of the 149 prisoners for transfer. Under the law, the administration can continue releasing those who have been cleared to their home countries, or to other host nations if releasing them to their own country could be dangerous and result in persecution. Obama has released 89 prisoners during his tenure. Page told you, the front of papers this morning that president obama has transferred six prisoners. The authorization bill does not include language that would allow detainees to be on u. S. Soil. That Defense Authorization bill was passed by the house on thursday. The senate is going to take it up this week. This authorization violates the 2010 pledge that says that lawmakers would have enough time to read legislation and that it would go through the Committee Process before it was brought to the floor. Breitbart saying this legislation violates that pledge. But your from judy, democratic caller lets hear from judy, democratic caller. Caller i think we need to close the prison. We need to move the people to the United States and let the other ones who are been cleared to be freed should be freed. There is no reason to keep someone in prison without being charged for something. I also think bergdahl should be released. There should be another exchange. He served his country as best he could. There are too many people who are not making the sacrifices yet they decide they want bergdahl to stay a prisoner of war. It makes no sense to me. Host we will leave it there. Coming up next, we will talk about the week ahead in congress. Suspect the funding bill deadline they have. James hoeker will be here. The 2014 Kennedy Center honorees met at the white house. Honorees included tom hanks, patricia mcbride, al green, king sting, and lily tomlin. Talking about the importance of art and the role it plays. [video clip] wrote,ident kennedy once the life of the arts is very close to the center of a nations purpose. Of a a test to the quality nations civilization. Thanks tom i think tom hanks was will agree that president kennedy was envisioning joe versus the ball came no when he was writing that. [laughter] big was on last night. [applause] things balance out. [laughter] it is clear that the group on stage with me understands what president kennedy understood. That art is a reflection of us nation. Ple and as a it binds us together. Songs, and dance, and film ress our triumphs faults and faults. Our strength and tenderness in ways that words cannot do. We honor those with dedicated their lives to this endeavor. Those who have tapped into something previously unspoken or unsung. Those with shown us not simply who they are, at who we all are. Those who are able to tap in to those things that we have in common, not just those things that push us apart. Host if you missed the honorees and that ceremony, you can watch the whole thing on our website. We want to welcome back Emily Etheridge to talk about lawmakers returning this week. Big funding deadline thursday to keep the government running. What is it looking like right now . Guest we expect that the house appropriators will file sometime before midnight their big attempt at an on the bus spending package. It is a product of all the work theyve done all year and a lot of lastminute weekend work by staff and lawmakers. We expect them to file that before midnight, trying to get a vote and clear through the senate by thursday. Host lets remind people. When you say 12 spending bills, it is for, what . Guest the department of that culture has its own spending bill, labor, financial services, they all have separate spending bills and different committees have worked on throughout the year. This package would wrap them all into one bill to fund all the different agencies. To beties that need funded at the higher level will be included. All these changes in policy would be included in this big package to fund the entire government. Host we talking about discretionary spending, not mandatory. On that, does it include money for the department of Homeland Security . A lot of the House Republicans want to defund the house of department of National Security. They are saying fund homeland orurity through february march. It is in response to president obamas actions on immigration. Host is that how it is going to work . Guest we think they are going to give them a shortterm spending part in all the rest of the government will be funded through september 30. Host are all up organs on board . Are all republicans on board . Guest not necessarily. There are some republicans, appropriators, who say the appropriations bill is not the right place to have this fight. Lets find a different way to respond to governmentkeep the funding a separate issue. Host if the speaker of the house decides to bring up an omnibus bill, all 12 spending bills to the floor, how many votes would get . Guest we have seen him reach out to democrats a little bit over the past week. He thinks he might not have enough votes to pass this bill spending spending bill. They might be able to push him over the edge. It would be very close to that 218 to pass a bill. He could assemble a coalition with a few democrats. It would not be much more than that to 18 to get him over the edge. If he separates out the Homeland Security department and only funds it for two months, thats enough enough republicans for that . Would democrats approve that . Host democrats would not get on board with that. There might be a few because Everything Else in the package they like. That is what he is hoping. He hopes to take that tactic to short Homeland Security and get some republicans. Frome hearing conservatives that that wont be enough. A lot of conservatives in the senate who have been going over to the house and talking to the conservatives and saying this is not good enough for us. They are pressuring House Republicans to get as good a bill as you can so we have an easier time in the senate. They would not support it. Coalition is that saying to Mitch Mcconnell . Guest he is sending the message that we dont want a government such down desk shutdown. Shutdown. Lets not have a crisis like we have had in the past area it does not. Do us any good. Lets stay on board here. Lets get this done next year. We have the power next year. Host we are talking to Emily Ethridge of rollcall. This is the wall street journal this morning. About ted article cruz. How hard is he willing to push. . What are you hearing about what he might do . Guest we have seen him try to model things up in the past. He did a very long overnight speech last year before the shutdown. We are hearing that he might try to force the hand where he has not confirming any nonessential nominees until he changes on immigration. He wants to call a separate vote to block funding for implementing these executive actions. There is some dispute over where that can be done. He might try to build a coalition of the senate and not vote for a spending bill the house passes. That could it lead to another showdown on a thursday night and funding runs admitted night. He wants to pressure the leaders into a green with something. Agreement with something. Nobody wants this, especially in the leadership. They absolutely do not want that. It depends on how many people ted cruz will get people to rally behind him. Saying thatdes are he does not want a Government Shutdown a. Week . Thursdayis is the deadline. They want to leave town. When will this hit the floor in the senate . That ithe earliest would hit the floor in the senate is thursday, the very last day. It does not give the senate much time to amend it. Time toe very little debate it. We would see the bill sometime today. It will come to the house floor on wednesday. The house passes it on wednesday and it goes to the senate on thursday. They have to vote to pass it by midnight. If they dont, they will have to scramble. They will have to pass something to keep the government funded for just a few more days and by themselves more time. More time is not going to resolve these issues. That strategy is something people are looking forward to. Host this is the last week in washington for this congress. They return in january and the republicans will take over boast both chambers. We are getting your thoughts on the funding deadline. We are talking with Emily Ethridge. The phone lines are open. Start dialing in. Besides having to deal with this funding legislation, what else does Congress Need to do before they leave. The senate will take up an appropriations bill. There are several public land measures. It includes some things and angered conservatives. It passed by a solid majority and will probably pass the senate. We have several nominations coming up and there are some concerns over extending the terrorism insurance. We need a bill to do that. There are some lastminute agenda items that need to be ticked off. Host that Risk Insurance legislation, we will talk about that in the last hour. We have a question on twitter. Guest the republicans really feel, they have been telling their members this, they got a huge drop in approval after the shutdown. The only thing that saved them was the failure of the obamacare website. Off them the spotlight and hurt the president and the democrats. Cant risk that again. We cant just assume that Something Else will go wrong to turn the publics attention away from us. They showed the numbers. To rebound in popularity. There was a long rebuilding process. It happened right before the midterm elections. They might be able to make that happen again. Reallyublican leaders dont want to becoming into the majority in a Congress Looking like a group that cant keep the government open. Host we will go to the phone lines in georgia. I have been calling in to cspan for 30 years. We have got to cut spending. We are sending it to great guys up from georgia. We have got to cut spending and am withd and the republicans. You are going to love david purdue. Host can i ask you, you watch this closely. What to the republicans do . Go for a Government Shutdown . Caller they need to go with ted cruz. Ted cruz, i would go with him and he will get the guys from georgia. I think he is the next president. He is by far the best. Host whats the solution . How do they get out of this deadline . They vote to cut spending and the government shut down is not going to hurt that much. Hey one massive elections in this year. Im not worried about a Government Shutdown. Obama will back down. The key is ted cruz. He is the best that has ever been in washington. How did ted cruz get so much sway with the Republican Caucus . We hear some great things, that he has a lot of sway over house conservatives. The democrats like to refer to him as speaker cruz. He has not trying to usurp anybody. There are a lot of people that hislikeminded and support ideas. He does have a lot of support. He can put pressure on the actual leadership in this way. He can cross the aisle and go over to the house. Host how often does he have these meetings . Guest every week when they are in session. He will come to press conferences on the house side. , not tojust talk strategize or make a plan, just to share ideas and see what is going on. Some other senators do the same thing. Senator sessions from alabama has been coming over. They vote all is one. As one. Said to holdz has up the judicial nominees over the executive action. What does leadership say . Guest that is one the powers of the senate has. If they vote to confirm the nominees, they have not responded and said thats a great idea. Have been passing a bevy of nominations over the past few weeks. Its a typical year and wrap up. All the controversial ones are not happening. Some of the big positions next attorney general, will wait until the 114th congress. They are not taking any controversial fights right now. It is a mute point. Host texas, you are on the air. Republicans, if they caught the tiger and now they dont know what to do with it. There is not a real decision on one way to attack this problem, how to go after the immigration actions that they oppose and keep the government open. There are different strategies. Even when they put it out, we still here conservatives are upset with things. They dont have one big unified strategy. Difficultyut the with legislating and what will be the big challenge for republicans next year. They have been in the minority in the senate for years. They will have a republican majority in both houses. What can they get on with a democrat in the white house . Its much easier to stop things from getting past. Ed. Pass caller i have dealt with congress over the past 50 years. I am 87. We have watched and Imperial Congress take over the operation rather than unelected congress. This is a chance for unelected congress to take over. We are only talking about the discretionary spending. The entitlements are still going on, regardless of what happens. They can pass a bill that says everybody can operate at 40 of what they had before. I would like to know what your s opinion of making such a bill. There would be a huge outcry across the board. N with seacrest ration sequestration, there was a huge outcry. Some my things were suffering. Another problem with that sort of thing is its not a targeted cut. Youre not getting rid of the things that arent as efficient as they should be are outdated and need to be reformed. Are cutting good programs and bad programs at the same level. We need to go back to the appropriations process that they are trying to do with the omnibus bill. They need to look at what needs to be funded more or less. The agencies and departments say these continuing resolutions really hurt them. Everything gets funded at the same level for longer. You dont have a way to make needed changes. Host the Homeland Security Department Says if you give us a shortterm for just our agency, what could be at risk . We heard from jeh johnson last week. Guest we would not be able to respond to the new threats as we know them now. We had an issue with the Child Migrants the summer. You would not be able to have more judges respond to that. Changeld not be able to the programs that you need that responded to what is happening now. It gives you outdated funding for your programs. That would be a problem. It would help kurt hurt a response for people that need help. Joe is watching us. He is a republican. Caller good morning. That you were on this morning. I really need few to check on something i read a friday. The president of this country did not sign any executive order concerning immigration. Filtered outeing that that was all just a scam. Can you check on that . Do you know anything about it . Guest that is new information to me. They seem to think that its real. Orneeds to be responded to ample mended if you are on the democratic side. It has caused a lot of waves. It has shaped the tenor of this debate. Texas, rob is an independent. Caller there are Simple Solutions for the republicans. File Environmental Impact lawsuits. File Racial Discrimination lawsuits because the numbers are so overwhelmingly despond and. He is discriminated against asians and blacks. They could shut this down if the republicans would ever learned to use the courts the way the dems do. They could care this problem fast and gain some time until they control the senate. Host what about the prospects of a lawsuit . Guest they have filed a lawsuit over the health care law. There is talk about adding the immigration to that. A healthd just combine care lawsuit in an immigration lawsuit allinone. It has been a little bit successful with the health care law. Cases are coming up to the Supreme Court. It keeps it in the news. It reminds people of the opposition to it. It has worked for them in the past as a tactic. I would not be surprised to see them do it again. Host what is the price tag of this socalled omnibus bill . Tag . Is a total price guest we are hearing about 1. 1 trillion. It gets split up among the agencies. That would be the final price tag. Host will it in crude include earmarks . Guest no. There will be some directed spending. Oldschool air marks, they are not be in there. Host are you expecting some surprises us to mark . Lookinge are already for policy writers. Rider onht be a abortion laws. There might be one about the legalization of marijuana in washington dc. There can be regulations about the epa, the irs, the dodd frank law. We are expected to see some of those pop up. We will be scouring the bill. Host how many pages to expected to be . Guest it will be thousands of pages. On summaries and fact sheets that the committees send out. Then you go to the text and double check everything. It takes a long time. That is why we wont see a vote until wednesday. Everybody needs time to look through it and see whats really in it. Complicated language. Its not clear and easy to read. Ande are a lot of numbers math involved. Have a question on twitter. Guest a lot of republicans have been pushing for that. They may meet democrats in order to pass this bill. Thatage like that, prevents democrats from supporting the bill. If the whole thing doesnt pass, we are stuck with only a few days. Host are you expecting some late nights . Tonight, tomorrow night, wednesday. Maybe thursday night. Well be watching. Check is in indianapolis chuck is in indianapolis. It interesting that when the shutdown talk is brought up, its always in terms of republicans shutting down the government. Its actually obama who would be shutting down the government by a veto. Congress assumes that must present obama with a spending bill that he likes. Doing ifress is really they send up and omnibus bill or aobama might not like piece of spending that he doesnt like his present him with a choice to either sign or veto the bill and then obama has to decide if its worth shutting whatevergovernment or consequence would follow. House has given a veto threat for the spending bill we are talking about. They say that they have to see the text first. If it doesnt fund homeland they would veto it. Homeland security, they would be to it. Still control the senate. You have to have a bill that passes the senate. Republicans get the blame, they say obama should get the blame. Congress rights the bill. It has to get through both chambers. The focus is on them and not the president. Host could the seven it senate bring up their own bill . Guest its a revenue bill, so it has to come up through the congress house. The senate can say what they would like to see in it. They did a lot of work on these bills over the years. They have been in negotiations. They have had a say in it, the house has to pass the bill first before it can go to the senate. Democrats have been working with hal rogers from kentucky. They have a deal. One of the operating off of . It goes back to this deal that was brokered by paul ryan and patty murray. They figured out a deal. You figure if the details, these are the marks were going to hit. The appropriators get together and gave those numbers to their committees. They are close on the numbers. That is what is so interesting. The house and senate are not that far apart on the numbers. They need to negotiate things that are much less than you would expect. Host mike is in a pennsylvania. Caller thank you for cspan. Wanted to make the aboutation and comment what is a majority and super majority. A super majority is defined as two thirds of the vote. What that means is if you get , theyre only two times when the congress have had a super majority. 1933, what did the common men get . Social security. In 1955, what did the common men get . Medicare. In a 1 e interested sales tax on all financial transactions. At 1000 trillion financialing through instruments, 1 would give us 10 trillion per year. Address our revenue shortfalls. Our future. Ave host that was mike in pennsylvania. Robert is in nashville, tennessee. Caller hi. I want it to ask emily a question. I dont want to make this the same. Emily is part the press. The press is more complicit in problems than the allocations are. The republicans have control of the house and senate. If they want to disagree with , why dont they pop their whip. Constitutional ability to bring obama up on impeachment and get it over with instead of law hearing it to death. Lawyering it to death. They are both complicit in it. The media is the real problem. They wont pop the question. I would like to hear your response. Guest the republicans dont have control yet. They have decided as a party not to go for impeachment. Speaker boehner pursued this lawsuit instead. You heard some members float the idea. That really is not the way to go. Way to get the right obama. Its not the most effective tool. Then what . We dont have the super majority in either chamber to do something. President clinton stayed in office. Policies,o stop his they have chosen different strategies rather than impeachment. Host the tea Party Lawmakers agree with that western mark . Guest they are going to have more power in the legislature. They think they can do a lot more that way. Nobody is pushing for impeachment in congress right now. Nobody is frustrated about not pursuing an appeasement resolution. Host harry is a republican it. You are on the air. Caller thank you for taking my call. One of the things i am disturbed of is nobody cares about the growth of bureaucracies. It seems the only way these liberals know how to run the country is to expand the government. They need to reduce the bureaucracy and rebuild private sector jobs. We will be a third world country soon. We will be like greece or italy. What are republicans saying . Guest they are making the case that making this appropriations is the best way to cut government spending. You can target the inefficient programs. You can cut back on things that should not be funded anymore. This is the best way to make an effective government. They want to make the case that dont just give everybody a universal lower spending limit. Lets go after things that we dont like. The best way to do that is regular order. Writes its own appropriations bill. They vote on it. Then they meet and they discuss it. They bring up a final version. It is a lengthy process that is supposed happen. We have not seen this happen in almost a decade. That is what they are planning on here. Host hello, jason. Caller i was interested to hear about the laws of congress. The rules of congress are where they need a lot of work. The majority or super majority, it islook at the budget a good idea to have a budget. You might get locked into these little small battles. If the rules committee could rewrite something eight years not guess about who would be in power, they could write rules that everybody would agree are common sense. To the floort bill two months before they need to. Why cant they do that . Guest they absolutely could. There rules committees do meet and write the rules for the next congress. You might only have the majority for two years. It could switch. Then somebody else comes in and writes the rules. They have the power to change things. Set their own rules within their party for how things should happen and be run. They can set their own goals that way. It will be interesting to see what they choose to do next year. Host have we heard what they are planning to do or changes they might make . Changed somereid of the requirements needed to confirm a nominee that is not a Supreme Court nominee. They called that the nuclear option. Some democrats were upset and many republicans were. Mitch mcconnell is going to have to decide whether to keep that rules change or to go back to the way things were before harry reid changed it. We have not heard from him on where he wants to go with that. Wont be as important as when you have a republican president and a republican senate. Oconnell will still be voting on confirming president obamas nominees. To make that choice and we dont know which way he will go. He may go back to requiring 60 votes on a nomination. Joan is in rockville, maryland. Caller good morning. The 18 trillion debt is disturbing me. I have discovered that if the ofernment goes bankrupt, all the savings that each individual american has toward their retirement goes to zero. We cant allow it. What is wrong with the government shut down . What is so terrible about it . Social security is going to go to people regardless. Whats wrong with the government shut down . People, you of dont stop everything in its tracks. They are still doing essential things in a short shut down. Ass not even as effective making things change. We came back from that and just continued to have the government spend the way it did. It did not change much. It didnt cause people to attack fixing the debt or changing our entitlement programs or looking at making some hard decisions. Effective asot as you might think. It does shut down some important things if it goes on for long time. The parks were closed. You could stop some highway and transportation things. The faa was having robbins with problemswould be with how flights would be managed. Viewersts remind our what lawmakers face this thursday. Midnight, the current spending bill expires. The government would run out of money. We want to see what lawmakers do to keep the government open and fund the government through the rest of fiscal 2015. One is all wrapped up in egg bill. Host thank you for your time this morning. Next we will talk with James Hoecker about vulnerability in the energy grid. Later, we will talk with the nd about money after a terrorist attack. Well be right back with that after this break. Tonight on the communicators, a computer virus used to sabotage Irans Nuclear enrichment program. It was designed to destroy something. In the past we sought malware that stole credit card numbers. We had never seen anything that was designed to physically and jumped from the Digital World and get into the physical world. That, it was sophisticated. It did this remarkable trick. It made the operators at the plant think that the operations were perfectly normal. Normal activity on the computers to the monitoring machines when the sabotage was going on. Tonight on the communicators on cspan2. Host we are back with James Hoecker. We are going to talk about the power grid. I want to show viewers a headline that many of them saw last week. What happened to detroit . Guest my understanding is they connector nd are interconnect or fail. It took done a great deal of the city. It took down firehouses and police stations. Apparently, it has been a chronically underinvested in detroit. This is the result. . Ost how old is it how does it compare to other grids in the United States . We are talking about the distribution level. It was owned by a municipal utility. As a branch of the municipal government, detroit has had significant financial difficulties. It hasnt replaced a good deal of its distribution facilities. We have cities like san antonio or San Francisco that have spent a great deal of money on distributional. Beir systems of proven to very reliable. Can benot to say that we altogether comfortable that the grid atthe transmission a higher voltage level doesnt have challenges. The age of them is one thing. Transmission facilities and distribution facilities are frequently 50 or 60 or even 70 years old. Their lives should be 40 to 50 years. This is the difficulty that ensues. Host why is this a headline on the front page of the newspaper with the sub headline that this is a sparking concern . Guest it is a concern. Infrastructure in this country is a concern generally. System is critical to the economy. Whether we are talking about local distribution or the highvoltage multistate transmission network, when they fail or when they are interrupted by whether or other events weather or other events, the price to pay can be in normans. Whether outages cost the united weather outages cost United States great deal of money. Host who is responsible for the grid . Guest if you think about the grid as all the Energy Delivery distribution and customers, a lot of the facilities are subject to state regulation at the distribution level and federal regulation at the ferc. A number of environmental agencies, the grid is partly owned by the federal government ,n parts of the country reliability is controlled or overseen by the National Liability corporation. This is the north american reliability corporation. We are highly connected with canada and mexico. They only look after a standardsetting on the power level. That is also highvoltage transmission. The question im sure that comes to peoples minds is everyone is in charge. Consequently, no one is in charge. Its a difficult challenge. There are a lot of people working on it. We are spending an enormous amount of money. At the distribution level alone, utilities spend 20 billion a year on distribution. We have a challenge to invest as much as 300 million 300 billion in the system over the next 20 or 25 years. Frankly, we are attracting private capital to that effort. Has beenenge so far bigger than our resources. Host the American Society of Civil Engineers give grades to the infrastructure. They have given it repeatedly infrastructure a d . Guest that is not very comforting, is it . They have given most infrastructure a similar grade. And bridgess roads or waterways or Water Treatment Transmission System is improving. Challenges. The we have to make sure that we ourselves content with the system as it exists. We will have more detroits or more of these big regional outages like we had in 2003 in the northeast. Host we are talking about the energy grid. We have a graphic that was put together. It begins with the generation of electricity. It is transmitted and distributed. It goes to homes and businesses and other facilities. He enduse powers machinery it allows your home to prepare food. The vulnerability of it is our topic. We are talking to a former regulator. Beverly is in columbia, missouri. Would go inongress and pass a big transportation bill, wouldnt that help a lot with our electric, water, sewer . Wouldnt that put millions of class people to work . Guest thats a great question. Is privatelysystem owned. It is owned by private utilities. Therefore, it relies on infusions of private capital. Are federal administrations that are federally financed. The administration has spent a great deal of money on research and development and the stimulus was devoted to improving the technology of the grid. sngresse responsibility has more to do with the Regulatory Environment for investment in the electricity system. Finance highways through a trust fund and tax revenue. A great deal of the electric system just needs to be regulated more rationally. That would help immeasurably and eliminate business uncertainty. It would drive more private capital. As i was telling greta, there are tremendous numbers of diversity of agencies involved at the state and federal level. Regulate manage and the electric system. Its a system that has grown over the last half century or more. That dontn in ways make a reasonable sense anymore. Oft the American Society Civil Engineers has put together a report on electricity infrastructure. Failure to act is what they have called it. They estimated that the investment gap willl be 673 billion. Guest that is a good news bad news situation. 2005, we980 chronically underinvested in the highvoltage system. We did not put investment in it. As a result, we have reliability problems. A lot of other things were happening to stress the system even more during that time. Since then, we have invested 10 billionween and 15 billion. That does not help detroits situation. That is another need for capital. It does mean that the industry recognizes the problem. We are trying to address it. This is a monster problem. About 300 billion in needs just in the Transmission System. 1. 5 trillion that needs to be invested in the electric system and generally. That means modernizing it, not just replacing the wires and the substations and some of the transformers area and we need to infuse it with advanced communication technologies. That will give us a very flexible and resilient and reliable system. Report, they this rise and gdp will fall by 496 billion and the economy 529,000 fewerith jobs than it would otherwise have by the year 2020. Is the government investing this . Said, the government is not the main investor. Lot in various a aspects of developing advanced technologies whether it is storage or other kinds of Renewable Energy. The Nuclear Industry relies heavily on government assurances. Can we planstion is and construct and pay for, which is a big issue, this much infrastructure in time to prevent us from having Major Economic dislocation . Host more numbers for you as we continue this discussion, a failure to meet the gap will in 2012. Illion it will cost businesses 10 billion in 2012. This is obviously an earlier report. In texas is an independent. What do you make of this . What is your question . I work in the Power Industry as a boilermaker. Toot of our jobs that we go. Ur outages are outages some of these units are 50 years old. They have added things to reduce the mercury and arsenic and contamination in the atmosphere. The last job i worked was in wyoming. Up 50it wasnt but megawatt unit. Its like a muffler on a car. The catalytic converter was bigger than the powerhouse. Technology that the epa is 70s is from back in the when they just put out anything. You didnt have any of the technology that you have now to catch these pollutants and reduce them. Dependables are more and less damaging than a nuclear. Efficient, that then you have the radioactive waste that you have to contend with two or 300 years from now. Investinge any whatsoever and to the Power Industry as far as rebuilding these plants and making new plants and getting rid of these old ones. They are shutting down these old ones through epa regulations. They are not building any new ones. That raises a lot of questions. Mentioned isas you subject to a great many more environmental regulations, particularly in the clean air area. Powerst recent clean ruled that the epa put forth to regulate co2, all of these exact the cost. They have the biggest impact on fossil generation, coal in particular. We have relied for generations on coal to provide electricity. Its very reliable. On the other hand, it has environmental consequences at the epa has difficulty with. To ensurenge now is that as we transition to a better coal plant or better Renewable Energy or more natural , we dont push this transition so quickly that we undermine the reliability of the system. That is a major concern in congress. I think its something that the epa has been sensitized to. The industry is investing in generation. There are a lot of new forms of generation. They are going to be frequently located in places where there is not adequate transmission to get those facilities to get that output to customers. Solar. True of wind and that tends to be in the middle of the country where there are great resources but not a lot of customers. We need to move that power and have a more flexible, more extensive and technologically distribution system. We have studied this. Transmissions much as experts say we will need over the next 20 years, we would be two 200,000,000 fulltime equivalent jobs annually during that. Time. Host we have this graphic that was put together. We are talking about wind, solar, power plants, hydroelectric dams. The transmission and distribution of it, you are talking about infrastructure that means substations and interconnections. Hi, bob. Caller thanks for taking my call. I remember back in the days of enron, i dont want to see the point where youpoin have a company that buys and sells energy. That part should be regulated. That was a shining example of why you should not do that out in california. Some of the rates of power when up by 400 . It was completely unreliable. They were selling electricity to the highest that her. Highestnk that bidder. I dont think that its the way to go. I think they should dial back on some of that. They should get people who understand what is going on to what thishappening caller before me mentioned. I dont want to see another and run. I think we need regulations in place. We need to keep it from being sold to the highest bidder. It got to be a circus. Little biased as a recovering regulator. I agree with you completely. This is a system that will forever be regulated because it is so important to the public interest. These are essential facilities that we cannot do without. The state level, they recognize that. They are determined to have electricity available very reliably at the lowest reasonable cost while still inducing investment. Part of that means that we would need to have a competitive electricity market. When those started to emerge in california, they were not necessarily well designed a. Enron and some other traders in electricity took advantage of that. Prices did spike. It was terrible. Think its federal policy to deregulate electricity. That is not the same as promoting competitive markets. That will ultimately have a lot of efficiency and benefits. The what authority does federal Regulatory Commission have . Over they have authority resale. That constitutes 15 or 20 of the total electric system. Overalso have authority electric transmission because it tens to be interstate in nature. The bulk of the regulation in the industry is at the state level. Are the things we talked about initially. Distribution, prices to generation, what kinds of fuels are used and so forth, that is heavily state regulated. Unfortunately, states dont always see rings the same way. We have multiple regulatory regimes with different kinds of criteria and uncertainty for companies, particularly for companies that are operating on a multistate or even interregional basis. Host is any of the power grid managed by offshore resources . Guest managed by offshore entities or host he says offshore resources, but yeah, offshore entities. Guest all the electric system is owned or managed by domestic resources. The of those Companies May affiliates or subsidiaries of. Oreign entities but we have had foreign companies, mostly european, invest in u. S. Electricity system, and that has worked out very well. They become regulated just like any other entity. Vulnerable torid a terrorist attack . , we had one example of that in california a couple years ago. That is something of a mystery yet to be solved. It had all the marks of a terrorist attack. A lot of highpower weapons were used. They took down a major substation in silicon valley. It did bring on the california. Ystem sufficiently redundant reliability was not seriously affected. Our system it is spread all. Ver a lot of it is in places where there are not a lot of people to Pay Attention to who is out there. Frankly, it is vulnerable, at least in theory. If this is an example of things to come i would be very apprehensive. We have not seen a lot of this kind of behavior. Host cost analysis of what sort of economic damage that could do if the terrorist organization were able to attack a major substation and have success bringing down the electrical system . Guest well, lets put it this way. We have a lot of outages in the country. Probably tens of thousands of them at the local level every year. They are not longduration. They are usually created by weather problems. Economic damage can be fairly limited. But once in a while something will happen to strategic facilities. Outageor example, the that cascaded from Northern Ohio into canada and the u. S. Northeast in 2003. The Economic Loss from that incident, which lasted a day, half, was 10 billion. That was not terrorism, obviously. But the electric system is sufficiently central and important to the economy that there is inevitably going to be an economic cost. And that cost, depending on how big the problem is, could be substantial. But like i said, most of the weatherrelated outages in the resulted inally 500 billion in Economic Loss of economic output host a year . Guest every year. Host on our line for republicans, ryan, you are next in arlington, virginia. I am calling today because im president lockable aspects of the president s power and it power plant that shutting down our power plants across the country, it may repeat some of the rock outs blackouts we saw in the northeast in 2003. The second thing i would like for the destitute bring up again is what the guest to bring up again is what the cost will be for the average consumer is when the Clean Power Plan comes through excuse me host ryan, we will take that question could cost to the consumer. Guest the epa as model the cost and theirmer assumption is that there will be a cost but it will be relatively small. I dont know precisely what that would be. It depends on a lot of variables, of course. In terms of how much private investment is induced to come in and provide natural gasfired generation, Renewable Energy generation, Energy Efficiency measures, all those things tend to mitigate the cost of electricity. Ly be are will certain cost to the collective environmental regulations. Lets not put this all on epa. There are lots of environmental regulations. A lot of them with other federal agencies, but including state Environmental Protection ies, on protecting species, the list is endless. And those have a routine cost as well. All i would say that in the interest of protecting the environment, we need to move forward but we need to move forward in a measured, reasonable way that is not analyze that does not penalize the average consumer unduly, even though they may be receiving some considerable health benefits. Host lets go to kingston, new york. Independent caller. Caller yes, good morning. Thank you for cspan. I wanted to touch base on the Clean Power Plants. I am calling about the fact that solar energy can build a cleaner, more efficient , and gy writ technology grid, and i believe that the Clean Power Plant that the president has pushed into effect with the pa will bring forward a revolution for our American Dream and make it a. Ore powerful, cleaner planet with ferc doing their work, we have the opportunity to create jobs for a lot of people in local communities, and i am glad you are doing the work that you do. Well, i appreciate that. The Clean Power Plan has very noble and reasonable objectives, no question about it. We need to be more energy efficient. We need to have more Renewable Energy in the energy mix. We need to take advantage of this very important and abundant domestic Natural Gas Resource that we suddenly have. Future isk that the pretty bright for the grid for the industry as a whole, and therefore for american consumers. But as they say, the devil is in the details. And how we get there and exactly how long we take and what measures we institute is critically important. Be i think we have a lot to optimistic about, but we need to be very careful. This is a very critical industry with very slim reserve margins. We are going through a transition that is going to be a little touch and go for a while. Our guest served on the federal energy Regulatory Commission from 1997 to 2001, talking about the vulnerability of u. S. Power grid this morning. The Energy Department on their website, energy. Gov, said that they are going through a major evolution, pointing to microgrids and smart meters. All of these technologies will be tremendously important in making the system more reliable, more resilient. The ability to cover after a major problem or outage. Storage of electricity is generated and consumed simultaneously. We dont have a great way to set it aside and bank it for future use. Storage is something of a game changer. There is battery storage, there is compressed air storage. A lot of this technology is an Experimental Development stage. A lotgrids, there are of pilot projects, and it all augers very well for the future of the grid. But like anything else, it costs a lot of money to develop these, and then were talking about deployment. In the meantime, we cant just take a vacation from using. Lectricity we have to begin to integrate technologies into the system in efficient and not terribly costly to the consumer. Host on our line for democrats, barbara watching us in pencil many. Pennsylvania. Caller im worried about the terrorism thing. I wonder why this is not on the National Security and Homeland Security level on the best people we have our could to work on it and that the satellite system has any bearing on any of this could if i would strike i would hit the grid because he would drive us of the law, we would be in real trouble, i do not see the anybody is doing a whole lot to provide protection the area. Host all right. James hoecker. Guest i think the concerns are warranted but there was a lot going on in this area. A bigger threat than civilly blowing up transmission cap upn simply burl lowing transmission towers is cyberattacks. Animatedbecoming more by Digital Technologies and the internet. The attack through cyber means. S a major concern i think the department of Homeland Security is working on this. The National Institute of ferc,rds and technology, the north American Electrical liability corporation, there are a lot of entities on their cash a lot of entity a lot of entities out there. Countering terrorism is not some you want to do on the front page f the Washington Post. It is hopefully something being focused on in a concerted way by people with those kinds of responsibilities. Callersshare the concern that it would be nice if we knew once in a while what exactly what kinds of resources are being devoted to stopping these sorts of behaviors. Int it seems that there has concern among those who have been part of ferc, specifically the former commissioner, that there is not enough focus on this, and pointing back to the california incident where the major substation was guest right, right. Former chairman and willing half has focused on is like a laser, and i think that is helped that has helped get the attention of a lot of people in the security community, but i believe based on what i have known and my conversations with on that there is a lot going in terms of trying to ensure that these things dont happen. But frankly, theres an awful lot of many aspects of the electric grid that you point out are out in the open. There are places where there is not a lot of protection or surveillance. That makes them seem vulnerable. Host on twitter, the electromagnetic pulse and what i could do he says induce by detonation of nuclear weapons, but could that shutdown . Guest that her son storms that or son storms, all kinds of things that cannot. That could happen. The industry is focused on it. Is ai said, a lot of this sign that by anticipating the worst, we are beginning to prepare for these eventualities. I am glad that the industry shares the kind of concerns that the caller at. Host liberty, texas, republican. Thanks for hanging on the line. Caller i agree with the gentleman from texas who pretty much it said that if you want to newove or do anything in the country, you will be penciled in with the fine print and the regulation. We are not having a solutiondriven economy. Young adult my opinion, that we have a fearbased economy. Just said,the tweet if everybody is scared they should be looking to the sun. We are just one massive and away from being sent back to saying yabba dabba do like fred. Texans are glad the calling it because they are lucky down there. They are able to build wind transmission in texas and move that through transmission lines, and to build facilities and infrastructure in a way that reinforces the very energetic. Conomy down there that electricity is useful in the resurgence of oil and Gas Development in west texas. You never know what happens positively when you invest in , it enables you to do a whole lot of things, some of them you cant even anticipate. Infrastructure, like the investments in texas, are in many ways the most important thing you never think about. I think that we need to make sure we dont end up living like lintstone, and we can do that by strengthening the networks we already have. Host al is next, cambridge, ohio, independent. Caller hi, greta and james. Glad to be able to get through to you. I have a question and i wanted to make a comment first. Sorry i missed the show from the very beginning. I am looking at my guilt by now rightsee might bill now and i see a spot for energy and Transmission Services and i was always told that that pays for the upkeep of the grid. Second point is how do we that weprotectionism are giving to these old coalfired utilities . I. E. , in ohio here we have outlawed any new wind installations. Solar is basically illegal in. Rizona and florida we have this protectionism t is going on statebystate to protect these old energy grids. Address a little bit you didnt mention it, but the distributed energy systems. Host yeah, we got it, al. Guest the history of this industry is integrated local monopolies, and utilities in this country are very largely granted, local monopolies and they are regulated as a result by the states. The resources the cost of the resources are recovered on your bill. Over time. Investments arent necessarily recovered in the same timely way. A lot of people have to take risks to build those new resources. I dont know whether in the case of ohio that old plants are being protected, but certainly plan is going to put some of those at risk if they cant be made more efficient and less polluting. The callers disparaten with the nature of regulation around the country, that there are lots of anderent regulatory regimes they dont add up to a very smooth system is an appropriate concern. The ferc is trying to focus at ,east at the wholesale level trying to focus states on regional markets and Regional Planning and allocation of these costs of new facilities on a regional basis, and even in in a regional basis enter regional basis. Having bigger markets with more flexibility and access to markets will encourage the kind of Renewable Energy we are talking about. Host lets get in four masked phone call for you, democratic caller. Caller thank you, greta. R, the revolution was fostered with the production of coal pit you want to see what happens to an area that is solely dependent on the production of coal, come to southern West Virginia. Our streams you cant eat fish from any of these streams. They have destroyed approximately 2 million acres of pristine mountains that contain beautiful hardwoods. Nd we also have power plants we have a power plant rat next. Oor in West Virginia it is a cold burner coal burner. It has been online since 1967. We are downwind from all of that. Not only do we suffer from the effects of coal, now we dont have any jobs because the coal is gone and West Virginias electric bills have increased over 60 in the last three years even though the cost of coal has dropped over 100 . Less than three years ago, call was selling on the open market for approximately 70 to 110 a ton and now it is somewhere from 40 to 60 a time. Host ok, we believe that there, running out of time. Guest West Virginia is caught in a real squeeze, both in terms of their livelihood and their basic resource, which is cool. ,evelopment of Renewable Energy wind in particular, in West Virginia is not large enough to compensate for that. There beortant that some other Economic Development options. If coal continues to suffer, we all find a way to burn coal more cleanly, and weve been working at that for a long time when i say we, i mean the u. S. Department of energy and others who have been working on to try to improve coals performance. But if that doesnt happen sufficiently, the market for fossil fuels, particular coal in particular, will continue to decline. That puts West Virginia and kentucky and even some of the great plains states like wyoming and montana in a very difficult position. A lot of people in congress will be taking thinking over how to deal with that. Host appreciate the conversation this morning. Guest my pleasure. Host coming up next, we will turn our attention to emergency eight two insurance comedies after a terror attack as part of series. R money that after a news update from cspan radio. The United States and nato ceremonially ended the combat , 13ion in afghanistan today years after the september 11 terror attacks. The Security Force does remain in the country, however, and in an interview this weekend with cnn, secretary of defense chuck hagel says he does not see afghanistans Security Force buckling like in iraq. He added, if they want us there, they want us to help assist, divide, and train good how we left iraq was totally different. The Iraqi Government did not want us there and the iraqi people do not want us there. Abc news reports that embassies around the world are bracing for a potentially explosive report detailing what the cia did two terror suspects in the wake of the september 11 attacks, and the fears that it could threaten american life. It is described as shocking in its description of secret interrogations. The department of justice announces new limits on racial profiling. That began in 2009. Attorney general eric holder has been working the last few weeks to have the policy finalize before he leaves office. S religion and national origin, the new rules will ban profiling based on Sexual Identity and orientation. Those are some of the latest headlines on cspan radio. Tonight on the communicators, the worlds First Digital weapon, stox uxnet, used to sabotage their Irans Nuclear program. It was a virus designed to physically destroy something good in the past malware stole credit card numbers and things like that but we have never seen something designed to physically essentially the out of the Digital World into the physical realm and have kinetic activity. Other than that, it was really sophisticated. It is designed to increase and slow the speed of centrifuges. It also did this remarkable trick, which was to make the operators of the plant think that the operations were perfectly normal. If recorded activity on the Computers First and played it back to the monitoring machines uxnet was doing the sabotage. Tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan2. Washington journal continues. Host we continue our your money series and todays focus is emergency aid to Insurance Companies after a terrorist attack. Joining us for the conversation is henry willis, grant director of Homeland Security and defense at their center there. Lets begin by explaining what the terrorism Risk Insurance program is. Guest yes, definitely, greta. Thank you for having me on this morning. The start of this goes back to september 11, 2001 actually, september 10, 2001. At that time the companies did not pay anything for terrorism insurance. They included terrorism as part of the coverage. 12, theeptember industry realize there was a new risk that was not very well understood and insurers decided they would exclude terrorism from coverage. That created a real problem for those who depend on having insurance airlines, commercial property owners. They were not able to purchase insurance. That is why congress stepped in to pass this act provided a backstop for Insurance Companies, should another catastrophic terrorism event happened. Revised the definition of a certified active terrorism. Why was that important, mr. Willis . Guest the original definition had a few components to it. Ae is that it had to be violent act, originally by a nonu. S. Person or organization. The other aspect is that the purpose of the act is to coerce citizens or the u. S. Government policy to the changing definition was whether or not it had to be by a nonu. S. Person. As weve seen in the decades september 11, there could be many terrorist attacks carried out by u. S. Citizens or u. S. Person. The definition trickling that requirement that it has to be an act by a nonus took away that requirement that it has to be by a nonus person. Host as viewers can, it is about to expire. It requires clear and conspicuous notice to policyholders of the existence of the 100 billion cap. Explain that. Guest there is a few limits built into how this act works. One is that they any given millionas to exceed 5 in losses before it can be declared a terrorist attack. The second limit is that the cost to industry over the course of a year has to pay off damages has to bece policies 100 million. After that, the federal government will start paying some portion of losses to help Insurance Companies to further di ents and policies payments on their policies. If payments by Insurance Companies do not exceed 27. 5 billion across all companies, then eventually those companies have to pay back the government for any money that was paid out. The final limit is 100 billion. Exceed 100ses billion, it is not clear what will happen the secretary of the treasury supposed to release guidance but there is no guarantee that the payments will be made to the companies. Be good that threshold could that special be under threat in a terrorist attack . Guest we used to modeling to understand the effects of hurricanes and other disasters and were trying to use the same modeling techniques to understand how bad the terrorist attack could be. In some of the worst Case Scenarios it could exceed that. Host finally, this law fixes deductible at 20 and the federal share of compensation and 85 of insured losses that exceed the inevitable. That means taxpayers are on the hook, correct . Guest sort of. Those parts of the law were put in place to ensure that the companies that write policies are on the hook for some of the payments associated with the policy. Just like with health. You have a deductible and the copayment. But really what happens, particularly for events that have total industry losses over the course of the year for less than 27. 5 billion, it allows the companies to differ those payments. To Underthe Company current law pay 133 of what is paid up by the current government. As we said, this is about to expire. There are house and senate proposals. The Senate Passed a sevenyear extension and the House Financial Services committee passed a fiveyear extension and 500 million threshold. How many times has this program been used since the 2001 terrorist attacks . Since 2001 the program has been in place and has been reauthorized a couple of times. There is never been in a tax of five no payments never been an attack certified no payments have been made since the act has been in place. The costs over the last decade or more have been just the Administration Costs of the program, which the last three years has been about 2 million a year. Host 2 million a year, that is what you disgusting right now the federal government . Costs toministrative clarify what the policies and regulations will be. Host how does it work if there is an attack . Guest if an attack happens, the secretary of the treasury has to determine whether the attack meet some of the requirements i mentioned a few minutes ago that it meets the definition of a terrorist attack, whether the losses meet the thresholds i mentioned. Whether across industry they exceed 100 million. Deductiblest, the for the Insurance Companies come governmentnd the will make payments to the Insurance Companies to cover up a portion of the damages of the insurance policies, up to the point that those total payouts reach 27. 5 billion. Insurance covers will have to pay the government back. 27the full damages exceeds . 5 billion, they may have to pay out there is some discretion given to the secretary of the treasury as to whether he will require the payouts. If a Nuclear Attack or bad , if the lossesck were to exceed 100 billion, then the law doesnt certify what will happen. In some sense it will be left to the government to decide what to do. Host part of our your money series. The phone lines are open. Host henry willis is our guest, rands director for the Homeland Security and defense center. Who benefits from the Insurance Program . , there is aesting lot of different groups who would benefit one group that benefits is those who buy insurance. Right after the september 11 attacks, a lot of companies let the market flood the market. Fled the market. Place this plan and it could be thought that the rest of us benefit as well. We look at this and try to understand the costs of the benefit in this regulation and when disasters happen and there is uninsured losses, government often pays. The bigger those uninsured losses are, the more the government pays. It sets up the rules and helps government avoid payments that would be maynard webb. That will be made otherwise. To expire,is were what will Insurance Companies do . Guest that is a difficult question to answer. We can look at a couple of things. We can look at after september 11 and Many Companies chose to exit the market and there was no insurance. Since then there is been another murder there has been a number of surveys issued and most of them senate Many Companies would exit the market if there was the shifty terrorism insurance act and didnt exist. 85 ence suggests around and reduction in the amount available for insurance. When i definitely sure what that given the we are not totally sure that given the real situation, the Companies Like whats in the survey or not. Host what type of company is buying this insurance . Guest what you would expect most commercial real estate, malls, highrise, office buildings, airlines, any company facilities, a of lot of infrastructure, a lot of people that they need to cover will beoperty buying terrorism insurance. Host football stadiums, baseball stadiums . Guest all of those. Host jeff, republican caller. You are on the air. Caller good morning. I guess this is a terrorism insurance policy that is premuch backed by government dollars. Does it cover business losses . Kind of explain how the policy works. Guest not really an insurance policy so much as it is a backup type it backstop on private insurance policies that are written. Should they exceed what we might be able to forget . This provides a backstop on those insurance policies to keep Insurance Companies from going out of business if they end up paying losses that are bigger than they couldve anticipated. Host willy in toledo, ohio, democratic caller. Caller good morning. Oh, i have a comment. I would like to know why the government has to help the Insurance Company pay for terrorists insurance if business or industry take out insurance. When the government like medicaid and medicare, the Insurance Companies dont like medication that the doctor has prescribed for you, they wont pay for it. Their life is up for grabs. Host henry willis . Guest that is one question people keep asking about the terrorism insurance act. In the case of health care, like we questionnaire brought up, can get a sense of how many people get sick and how often they get sick and what that will cost us. Terrorism is somewhat different because the risks we saw in the past, we fortunately have not seen much of. Two, something you could happen in the future. Theoesnt allow us to know actual risk we are trying to ensure. Host henry willis taking your questions and comments about terrorism Risk Insurance. The phone lines are open so start filing in dialing in. Hi, karen. Caller good morning. I have a question. This Insurance Coverage, does it include Business Enterprises across, say, over in iraq or afghanistan . Guest this is a policy that only covers losses should they to a in the United States or. Airline, wherever it is, to private companies associated with some of the state Department Missions overseas. It doesnt cover businesses internationally unless they are associated with those particular aspects. How much do Insurance Companies charge for terrorism insurance and how is calculated . Guest ideally you want to base it on how much risk you are trying to cover. Tot Like Companies try understand the risk by goes into earthquakes and hurricanes, they use models. But we dont know essentially what the likelihood of a terrorist attack is happening. Difficult to understand the risk. These models are used to understand what sense of the prices and what the price should be put the flipside is if they are required to offer terrorists insurance and there is an opportunity to see the market will bear for this insurance. Host so we dont know how much theyre charging . Guest it is difficult to tease out exactly what the price is paid for terrorism insurance because it is often handled with other Insurance Products bundled with other Insurance Products. But the most important thing they can do this nature they are not overexposed to terrorism in one particular area, such as this. An attack cap and senate attack happens that exceeds the amount of losses they have ay insurance p companies. Host here are tweets for you. What are the common exceptions and exclusions in these policies . Guest one of the Big Questions race is whether radiological attacks should or should not be included. Currently there are treated any differently. That is probably the most significant one. Another one is whether cyberattacks are included in this is a new threat that has emerged during the time the program has been in existence. Typenswer depends on what of Insurance Coverage is used to cover a cyber attack. If the attack damages property it would beeople, covered. If it is Company Liability for example, when target or home depot or one of the other companies that lost data, are sued for being negligent and having protected data properly, that would be under Liability Insurance policies. Host so these Health Incentive proposals to extend the terrorism and Risk Insurance Program Committee do they address some the exclusions you are talking about . Guest one of the ones that has been talked about in one of the bills is whether or not to view nuclear and biological and radiological attacks differently. One of the common points is to particularly offer coverage to both attacks because they especially not well understood. Ourjodi on twitter Oil Companies buying this insurance . Guest if we look across industry there is a 65 uptick in companies by insurance and that is consistent across industries. Caller edward in michigan, republican. Caller was that the initiative costs or just the cost from the program itself . Guest that is a program that can have host why does it cost 2 million a year . Guest in terms of Government Programs it is a big number in magnitude but it is a pretty small cost. That would be largely personnel s, having office space and having systems in place to collect data on what policies are being held. Host mike, democratic caller bank. Good morning. Do the Insurance Companies reserve against losses when they sell these policies . They sound like moneymakers, all premium and no loss. Requirement for Insurance Companies to hold a certain amount of capital of the right policies rating agencies like standards and poor will evaluate whether or not the Insurance Company can be solvent based on how much capital they have in place and how much how many policies that have coverage for. Host mark, you are next in wisconsin, on the air with henry director fors their Homeland Security and defense center. Caller mr. Willis, since aircraft around the world is private from private companies have been used to ferry troops all around the world, arent they subject to a disagrees,yone who or is at war with this country . And why isnt this addressed in the senate or the congress . It seems to me that none of this activity is any different from a real war, and why should we it seems to me that everything is skewed to protect corporations, and the rules of war are being changed unilaterally. Oop, sorry about that, caller, i thought you are finished. Henry willis. Guest one of the interesting things the caller brought up is how you ensure access for from acts of terrorism. Is the reason we need government backstop insurance because the risk of terrorism in the United States depends a bit on it can be influenced by the acts of government a country takes overseas. A look at other u. S. Interest around the world. What we take in the middle east places goodr other lead a terrorist group to be interested in attacking us in the u. S. Host is there insurance for war . Guest usually, war is excluded. Host henry willis, so breakdown ,he two different proposals house and senate, to extend the Risk Insurance program. What do you see in each of these . Guest they both are recognizing that there is some need for a federal role, but they are varying in a few aspects. First is how long should the extension be . As we learn more about terrorism, the needs of this law change. There is a need for it to be reconsidered as to whether or not we need to the law or the law should be like every few years, but if you make that window to short, it doesnt if you do this every year it does not allow industry to plan. If you make it too long, you have not given yourself enough flexibility to adapt. They differ in how many is one wanted seven and one wanted fewer than that. Another is the retention threshold. It makes sense with just inflation for it to raise song. The question is to what. Last one is how much of the industry be in the hook. There are premiueing collected. Questions are being raised about what the minimum threshold happeningments start for that to be 500 million another cents and 200 million. Others have said 200 million. The last point is what the shouldble and copays be. Host 10 minutes left with henry willis. Is terrorism risk program about to expire, and so members of congress are debating if to extend it, how to extend it, different proposals out there, as you see on your screen, to do so. Phone lines are open. We will take your questions and comments. On twitter emergency 82 Insurance Companies is another fundednumerous taxpayer corporate welfare programs loved by conservatives. Who is pushing for extension of tria . Guest one group that is pushing for extension is those who need and want to buy insurance. There is concern that insurance would not be as widely available. Place,ve insurance in they know that if a catastrophe were to happen, the disasters that happen to them would be compensated they can get those payments quickly. How are theter, lcu anddocumente ca usinglated, private or Government Experts . Guest based on actual payments made by companies to policyholders, insurance committees to policyholders. Post should be pretty precisely known based on what amount of money the policyholders actually receive. Host talk about when the legislature for the program came about and what was the debate lifke. Came in 2002 when this about there was a critical policy needed to be addressed, that the Insurance Companies that flood the market and the Real Estate Companies and the airlines and others who wanted to have coverage did not have access. Host if this were not to be renewed, you talk a little bit ies,t the compan Insurance Companies could leave the market. There is also the insurance one of thece reasons they say is that expiration can be costly for the Workers Compensation market, dismiss and state business and state. What do they mean by that . Guest Workers Compensation is a special case in this law. Casualty insurance is Workers Compensation. One of the reasons Workers Compensation is different is that it is managed differently in each state. People are required to have Workers Compensation coverage, often by state law, it means t this law was available wasnt available to provide backstop, people would still need to buy it and go to the market for the last resort and that could concentrate the risk that taxpayers have to cover, because the markets of the last resort are often provided by state government. Insurance is regulated on a state level. Is that the case with terrorism insurance . The terrorism Risk Insurance act were not in existence, the requirements for state to provide a backstop would be greater, particularly for Workers Compensation, in some states. Host steve in illinois, democratic caller. Caller how you doing . Just a little curious, what is really in this for our people . Nt, or our it seems once again we are dealing with tremendous large corporations with tremendous amount of money covering other entities with tremendous amounts of money, and once again the taxpayer may be called on to cover their butt. Just doesnt seem quite right once again. I see three potential benefits. They all depend on what would happen if the law wasnt there. If you assume that insurers would leave the market, it provides the whole country with three benefits. One is that there is more insurance available, and having more insurance available and people able to buy what they want makes the economy more efficient. We get the benefit through Economic Development. Two, should an attack happen, the recovery would be quicker and we would have more resilient communities because Companies Know that the payments would be coming. Third is what happened in terms of federal payments for disasters if the law wasnt there. When we look across other disastrous result of the uninsured losses went up and the federal government paid out more. Assuming what would happen in the market with or without insurance, insurance would be available. We estimated that for tax up to 50 billion, having consequences of 250 billion, the government pays out less with the act in place and if that were to expire. Gary, independent. Hi, gary. Caller i was wondering, is in our insurance our military . Guest that is a really excellent point. Some say the best way to counterterrorism is to fight terrorism at its source. But we do know that the terrorist attacks have been, and insurance is a way that our economy can try to manage those risks and be able to carry on in the event that terrorism still happens. Host two other countries have a do otherprogram . Countries have this type of program . Guest most countries with mature Insurance Markets have some type of role in providing terrorism insurance. The studies look at how other European Countries have managed this. It ranges from Something Like what we have to know private role and complete government provision of insurance. Host john in florida, democratic caller bank. Caller yes, good morning. My question is that insurance is into everything in our daily life, and if they are into everything, they must be making enough money to cover their own business. A lot of the big corporations are selfinsured. This is some interesting points here, because we do ensure lots of things and insurance plays a Critical Role in the economy and for many , we know enough about the risk that it should be able to function entirely on its own. Theanies are laying out policies that will cover losses should have some sense of how much they can be expected to pay. Ut over the next year as a midget earlier, terrorism is a little different. As i mentioned earlier, terrorism is a little different. We dont really know what the risk of a Nuclear Attack is or a chemical weapons attack is. There is the possibility that if we didnt have cameras Risk Insurance act to just allow Companies Just to defer payments, should a catastrophic attack happen, you would have covered is going bankrupt Companies Going back up. Host kevin willis, we want to thank you for your time this morning and the conversation. Guest thank you. Host that does it for todays washington journal. We will be back tomorrow morning at 7 00 a. M. Eastern time. Enjoy your monday and the rest of your week. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] there are protests underway this morning in washington, d. C. Call hess of roll tweeted out this picture. Protests are also happening on capitol hill and outside the federal courthouse, protesting the deaths of unarmed black man. Congress is back in session for what is expected to be the last week of work in the lameduck session. To addresspected Water Resources in california in response to the drought there. The senate will be working on nominations. You can see the senate live on cspan2 today starting at 2 00 p. M. Eastern and we will be legislative work will get underway at 2 00. Several major hearings planned for this week. Tomorrow, congressman Jonathan Gruber and medicaid administrator testified through the House Oversight committee about the health care law, with many looking at whether Administration Officials held details for the passage of the law. He will be talking about combating isis, and with a new authorization for congress and the use of military