There and i would claim and challenge you that there is no such example that you can give. Thats why i brought up the example in my presentation of lenskis experiments in regard to ecoli and there was some that seem to develop the ability to exist on citrate but as dr. Said from looking at his research, he has found that that information was already there. Its just a gene that switched on and off and so there is no example because you know , information thats there and the Genetic Information of different animals, plants, and so on, is no new function that can be added. Certainly great variation within a kind and thats what we look at. But youd have to show an example of a brand new function that never previously was possible. There is no such example that you can give anywhere in the world. Name one institution, business or organization other than a church, Amusement Park or the Creation Museum that is using any aspect of creationism to produce its product . Any scientist out there, christian or nonchristian, that is involved in inventing things , involved in Scientific Method is using creation. They are because they are borrowing from a christian world view. They use the laws of logic. I keep emphasizing that. I want bill to tell me and a view of the universe as a result of natural processes, explain then where the laws of logic came from. Why should we trust the laws of nature . I mean are they going to be the same tomorrow as they were yesterday . In fact, some of the greatest scientists that ever lived, isaac newton, james clerk maxwell, michael faraday, were creationists. And as one of them said, you know, thinking gods thought after him and thats really modern science really came out of. That thinking, that we can do experiments today and we can do the same tomorrow. We can trust the laws of logic. We can trust the laws of nature. And if we dont teach our children correctly about this, theyre not going to be innovative. And theyre not going to be able to come up with inventions to advance in our culture. And so, i think that the person was trying to get out that see , you know there are lots of , secularists out there doing work and they dont believe in creation and they came up with great inventions. Yeah, but my point is they are borrowing from the christian world view to do so and as you saw from the video clips i gave, people like dr. Faulkner has published in the secular journals. Theres lots of creationists out there who publish. People might know that theyre creationists because the topics do not specifically pertain to creation versus evolution but theres lots of them out there. If you go to our website, theres a whole list there of scientists who are creationists, who are out there doing great work in this world. And helping to advance technology. Theres a reason that i dont accept your ken ham model of creation. It is because it has no predictive quality as you touched on. And something that ive always found troubling, it sounds as next time around, you can it sounds as though you believe your worldview which is literal interpretation of most parts of the bible is correct. What became of all those people who never heard of it . Never heard of you. What became of all those people in asia . What became of all those First Nations people in north america . Were they condemned and doomed . I mean i dont know how much time you spend talking to strangers but theyre not sanguine about that. To have you tell them that they are inherently lost or misguided. Its very troubling. And you say there are no examples in nature, there are countless examples of how the process of science makes predictions. Since evolution teaches that man is evolving and growing smarter over time, how can you explain the numerous evidence of mans high intelligence in the past . Hang on. Theres no evidence that men, humans are getting smarter. No, especially if you ever met my old boss, no, its that what happens in evolution, its a british word that was used in the middle 1800s. Its survival of the fittest and this usage, it doesnt mean the most pushups or the highest scores on a standardized test, it means that those fit in the best. Our intellect such as it is has enabled us to dominate the world i mean, the evidence of humans is everywhere. James cameron just made another trip to the bottom of the ocean, the deepest part of the ocean, the First Time Since 1960 and when they made the first trip they found a beer can. Humans are everywhere and so it is our capacity to reason that has taken us to where we are now. If a germ shows up as it did for example in world war i where more people were killed by the flu than were killed by the combatants in world war i, that is a troubling and remarkable fact. If the right germs show up, well be taken out. Well be eliminated. Being smarter is not a necessary consequence of evolution. So far, it seems to be the way things are going because of the remarkable advantage it gives to us. We can control our environment and even change it as we are doing today, apparently by accident. So everybody just take a little while and grasp this fundamental idea. Its how you fit in with nature around you, so as the world changes, as it did for example for the ancient dinosaurs, they were taken out by a worldwide fireball apparently caused by an impactor. Thats the best theory we have. And we are the result of organisms that lived through that catastrophe. Its not necessarily smarter, its how you fit in with your environment. I remember at university, one of my professors said that he was very excited to give us an evidence for evolution. He said look at this, heres an example. These fish has evolved the ability not to see and he was going to give me an example of a blind cave fish and he said see , in this cave, they are evolving because now the ones that are living in there, their ancestors have eyes but these ones are blind. And i remember telling my professor, wait a minute, now they cant do something that they can do before. They might have an advantage in this sense, in a situation thats dark like that. Those that had eyes got diseases and died out. Those that had mutations and no eyes are the ones that survived. Its not survival of the fittest. Its survival of those who survive. And its survival of those who have the information in the circumstance to survive but its not youre not getting new information, youre not getting new function. Theres no example of that at all so we need to correctly understand these things. We are down to our final question. It is a question for both of you. Lets give each man two minutes on this. I will have you start first here, mr. Ham. Mr. Nye will have the last word. What is the one thing more than anything else upon which you base your beliefs . Well, again, to summarize the things that ive been saying, there is a book called the bible. Its a very unique book. Its very different from any other book out there. In fact, i dont know of any other religion that has a book that starts by telling you that theres an infinite god and it talks about the origin of the universe, the origin of matter, the origin of light, the origin of darkness and the origin of day and night and the origin of the earth, the origin of dry land, and the origin of plants, the origin of the sun, moon and stars, the origin of the sea creatures, the origin of flying creatures, the origin of land creatures, the origin of man, the origin of woman, the origin of death, the origin of sin, the origin of marriage, the origin of different languages, the origin of clothing, the origin of nations, i mean its a very , very specific book and it gives us an account of a global flood in the history and the tower of babel and if that history is true, then what about the rest of the book. Well that history says that man is a sinner, that says that man is separated from god and it gives us a message we call the gospel. A message of salvation that gods son stepped into history and died on the cross and raised from the dead and offers a free gift of salvation because the history is true thats why the message based in history is true. I actually went through some predictions and listed down some of these and theres a lot more that you can look at and you can go and test these for yourself. If this book really is true, it is so specific it should explain the world. It should make sense of what we see. The flood, yeah, we have fossils all over the world. The tower of babel, yeah, different people, different languages, flood legends very similar to the bible, creation legends similar to the bible, and prophecies and so on. And most of all, as i said, the bible says if you come to god, believing that he is, he will reveal himself to you and you will know. If you search out the truth, if you really want god to show you as you search out for the silver and gold, he will show you. He will reveal himself to you. Would you repeat the question . What is the one thing more than anything else upon which you base your beliefs . As my old professor carl sagan said so often, when you are in love, you want to tell the world. And i base my beliefs on the information and the process that we call science. It fills me with joy to make discoveries everyday, of things ive never seen before. It fills me with joy to know that we can pursue these answers. It is a wonderful and astonishing thing to me that we are, you and i, are somehow at least one of the ways that the universe knows itself. You and i are a product of the universe. Its astonishing. I see your faces and we have come to be because of the universes existence. And we are driven to pursue that, to find out where we came from. And the second question we all want to know, are we alone . Are we alone in the universe . And these questions are deep within us and they drive us. So the process of science, the way we know nature is the most compelling thing to me. And i just want to close by reminding everybody whats at stake here. If we abandon all that weve learned. Our ancestors, what theyve learned about nature and our place in it. If we abandon the process by which we know it, if we eschew, if we let go of everything that people have learned before us, if we stop driving forward, stop looking for the next answer to the next question, we and the United States will be outcompeted by other countries, other economies. Now that would be okay, i guess. But i was born here, im a patriot. And so we have to embrace Science Education. To the voters and taxpayers that are watching, please keep that in mind. We have to keep Science Education in science, in science classes. One tiny bit of important housekeeping, the county is now under a level two snow emergency. Drive home carefully. You have a lot to talk about but drive carefully. This debate will be archived at debatelive. Org. It will be at that site for several days. You can encourage friends and family to watch. Thanks so much to mr. Nye and mr. Ham. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [no audio] would see five things. Stem. We have got to get math and science back into our schools. We are being in the 20s in math and science is a tough place to be, and theres not one job in our factories that you could ork at that isnt automated need some basic analytical skills, and we have fallen way behind. Our focus on stem is important. That is where the Ge Foundation spends most of its money. And try toge towns change the curriculum of education and focus on math and science in education. We believe in high standards. Its a little bit controversial on common core, but we believe in high standards as we look at what we do. I stand with the Business Roundtable on that activity. Community colleges. If i go to a state and a governor can describe how many welders they prepare every year, thats a good thing. That means you can step into a Manufacturing Base that is incredibly ready and important. From thee retiring, standpoint of the oil and gas industry and other industries. You have a real vacuum. Community colleges do that. We partner with local Community Colleges that are training people during the day. For four hoursol and ge for four hours. Sayou as a governor can this is my Community College plan, that is huge. A dream of people that are going to probably find jobs in the 21st century, it will be engineers and welders. Engineers are incredibly important trade they create jobs important. They create jobs. A Good University is incredibly investable. This is where we like investing. When i go back to the things i talked about on the age of gas, advanced manufacturing, probably on each one of those things we will partner with three universities each to have multiyear, multimillion Dollar Research and Development Programs that can cre. We are going to talk about native american spirituality, in particular cherokee. There is a forum being provided that was not provided in the old traditional newsroom setting. That is great for people interested in it. I think it should be funded, and it is being funded. It is fabulous that it is being funded. But it is difficult to raise money in this harsh environment. It is wonderful that there are big endowments. There is the ford foundation. Are all these organizations out there becoming absolutely vital, if we want this kind of coverage to continue. There are smaller funders in britain doing the same thing. Many podcasts are done on a shoestring and are not making you rich, but it is rewarding and enriching in other ways. I will do one more. You dont have to answer this. I am wondering if you thought about the question of whether some religions get more better coverage than others. Either religions that get more and better and why . I am talking from a western perspective and my experience in the media here. I think the coverage has changed. It has traditionally been quite reverential toward christianity. In the bbc that i joined, and in this section of the bbc that was the religious department there were a lot of christian devotional programs put out. And even the news, it was, and still to a certain extent is largely about christianity. That reflects the audience in the domestic sphere, and it is still quite a churched audience that listens to the program. I would be constantly pushing the boundaries a little bit, very interested in covering different religions. Islam has got a real beating in the press for a long time. I think and hope that has changed quite a bit, especially. T it. It was interesting after 9 11 to see western governments, such as the British Government, and , the london bombings, the British Government went out looking for the moderate voices of islam. They try to coopt certain groups. That did not go down very well in many muslim communities. And they looked at sufis. They said they are great. And then they thought, they actually have a very traditional view of the koran and womens rights. Interesting process on that continues. Process goinging on that continues. I would like to see fuller coverage that gives all angles of the story. Certainly, islam became the news because of negative news events. It is much harder to get into initiatives happening within islam and between religions that are positive developments. Such as the Common Word Initiative that is happening within islam. Tony blairs foundation is involved in encouraging engagement as well is to look at the role of religion in foreign policy. An area he believes has been under assessed for many years when people look at ideologies and different economic circumstances are not looking at religious causes. An outshoot of the tony blair initiative. Initiatives to bring young people together to talk religion. That is interesting but hard to sell as a new story. 9 11 was the thing which has really given a boost to islam, and the coverage of islam. But the truth of the matter is watching, god which is a bbc domestic religion covers shows in the early 1990s which question different groups among christians, including islamic listeners and viewers, ask questions like, if you want more, what happens when it turns over . It was always islam. That would say we want more. Ignals were well before 9 11. There were some of us reporting on islam before 9 11. I mentioned the resolution and reform series on islam that i was doing. Other people were talking about it, it it was almost like it suddenly caught the news editors at the top unawares. They were playing catchup and unfortunately this happens quite a lot, a reactive environment. I think that is why it is good to have specialists. Theyre less reactive and more proactive. We have time for one more three more. We will start over here to my left. I did research on religion in the context of korea. I found that most of the time, journalists do cover religion in a positive manner. I found that they have kind of expectations of religion, what religion can do for society. Can you tell me one or more experiences when you cover religion in a policy manner. And why did you decide to do that . I didnt set out with an agenda, but there have been tragic stories out of which some very positive messages have come from communities. Christian communities. In a couple of instances i can think of, we had the july 7 bombings in london. Tragic events. The London Underground was bombed and a bus. A young man was killed in the london bus bombing. I approached his mother and as a human being, i felt a little bit reluctant. Here is a woman in full grief for her only son. And yet i had heard that she had a deep christian faith. The catholic cathedral that she attended gave me her number. I asked permission from her to get the number. She gave me the most moving interview that i have ever done in my life. This was within 24 hours with him losing her son. The interview went out on the Morning News Program on bbc radio 4 called today. It is usually a very gladiatorial, presenter versus politician, three minutes of hard fighting over political issues of the day. This one was about eight minutes and really stunned mainstream audience and a lot of editors as she talked in great depth and with huge heart about her son and about the impact of the bombings on her family but about her deep christian faith, how schieffer gave how she forgave the bombers, and this was 24 hours later. How she prayed for the bombers families and it was a really, really moving event that came out of something that was a real tragic case. You could have focused on here we go again and looking at the negative of religion. This is something that was very positive and very moving came out of it. In those sorts of situations another, when i was washington correspondent a few years ago. There was another one, the tragic shooting in Amish Country in pennsylvania in lancaster county. That was a fascinating example allhe media rushed there, of the hosts of the evening news channels were there, all the satellite trucks, cars it was two worlds colliding. You had all of the satellite trucks and journalists standing there reporting as a horsedrawn cart went past. That was a physical illustration of the two worlds colliding. You interviewed some of these families who had lost their children in a tragic shooting and they talked about forgiveness and the bible told them to believe in a certain approach that was forgiving. They instantly forgave the families. It was very moving. Things stood still for the secular media and this is religion in a different light. I didnt set out to do a positive religion story, but some events allowed those moments to unfold. They were very moving, i think. I would like to give you an opportunity to return to the question about whether some religions are treated differently in the media or more difficult to cover. I teach in the Anthropology Department here and i do research in sri lanka. I have been aware that from a media point of view, it is often very ironic and difficult for reporters to report from a place like sri lanka which has produced violence that has religious overtones to it that does not let it conform to our stereotypes of the religions that we have ahead of time. Two examples and i would like to offer some comments if you can think of any. The recently concluded the civil the recently concluded civil ka, which concluded in 2009, it was conducted by a rebel group and it was very often the case in the press that it was assumed that they were a religious group. That there cause was some kind of religious protest. It was assumed because they tamil, they must all be hindus. Some of the most powerful members of the groups and suicide bombers were christian. More recently, and since we are in boulder i think we have to bring this up, i think that buddhism always gets a favorable treatment in the press and it is the favorite religion here in boulder, for sure. [laughter] recently there has been a very militant religious conflict in lanka like burma and sri led by Buddhist Monks. Ironically, against the muslims. These are counted intuitive these are counterintuitive stories and i think they are a challenge to journalism. They are. You have any suggestions of how they could be covered better . When you mention sri lanka, i then thought of myanmar, burma, and the way that Buddhist Monks have been inciting violence against the muslim minority. That has shocked a lot of people around the world who understood buddhism to be a vegetarian, peaceloving, very gentle, meditative religion focused on raising ones consciousness. And achieving enlightenment. The truth on the ground is often quite different. Like everybody, new journalists have to catch up on that sometimes. That has certainly been the case in myanmar, burma. Technically the bbc now calls burma myanmar. It is a challenge and youre right. Quite often, buddhism and hinduism are given gentle treatment. I remember reporting a lot on hinduism in india and the nationalist parties there that gives a different face to it than the one we often see in america, in boulder. It is an ongoing challenge and i think it is right that some religions are possibly treated more gently than others. Of course, it also depends on where youre coming from and which media youre talking about. It isnt purely religion, but in america it seems that israel is given more positive treatment in the press and it is quite the opposite in europe. That is an ongoing issue about is fair and balanced. If that is an ongoing issue. You have the last question. Thank you for a lovely presentation. You, i worked ask as an assistant producer ed and islam channel. It is hard to balance between the moderate views and the extremists. I have been asked to do some filtering when having people on shows. Experience about balancing . It is a very difficult one. It is faced by programs everyday day, especially when something happens in islam. , somethingists happens, and there is a lot of internal navelgazing among editorial staff. Is it justified to call in the extremists who might have three followers to talk about a story. There is no clear line as to when you do that. I think sometimes it is justified to call them in. Something happened in that sphere that he can talk about, as long as you contextualize and say this is not a guy with a half million followers and he has five followers. It is the context. Context is all, i think. Toknow it is difficult label. It gets very confusing. It is an ongoing challenge. Bbcn talk from the perspective. There is a real effort to try to impartial ase as possible while recognizing that we all come with their own frames of reference. It is an ongoing challenge to try to do that. Attendees, iof the want to thank you and invite our audience to thank you. [applause] on the next washington journal, the Iowa Governor will talk about priorities in 2014. Labor Union President will discuss issues. The human report on north korea and crimes against humanity. We will also take your phone calls and look for your comments. This will start at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. On newsmakers, Lorraine Miller is our guest. Interim president of the naacp. She will talk about minimum wage and health care. At awas a discussion meeting with president obama. Here is a preview of the interview. One of the reasons i believe personally that he was able to do the executive order form and mama wage. The efforts that have been going washington and nine other cities where they are talking about waging raising the minimum wage. That gave him at this to do it he did with the executive order. Rights organizations are not in lockstep with the president. Themplaint we have seen in African American community is they dont think that president obama has put enough focus on the African American community during his time in office. Now that were in his second term, do you still see that being true . Is the white house looking at america to widely . I think they are looking much more strategically. Attic the president realizes that the Africanamerican Community has been a bedrock of support for his administration. An absolute bedrock. I look at my own church. Lord, bless we say the president and his family. He is looking at how he can make an impact on the Africanamerican Community in employment and health care and all the kind of issues that we are facing everyday. Are you saying that the white house has not been doing this before . They have been. I agree that they have been doing it from a larger lens now that they are narrowing that lens and focusing on strategic things, they feel they can really make a difference. The metrics of it, you can see unemployment go down in certain areas. You can watch our entire interview on newsmakers at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. American history tv debuts americaseries real featuring archival films produced by the u. S. Government on industry, and it educational institutions. This week, films on washington, d. C. During world war ii and women workers during the military buildup of the 1940s. Ago, a plea for help one up. The call came clear. Ships waited for cargo. That was the call for help which was echoing in the detroit area. Him and began to respond. Convinced they could do factory work or anything that men could do for uncle sam. Your sisters are singing. Women, a song of american women on the warpath. Real america starts today at 4 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan three. Cspan brings affairs from washington directly to you. Forut two in the room gaveltogavel coverage of the u. S. House. We are cspan, created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago and funded by local cable or satellite provider. Watch us in hd. Follow us on twitter and like us on facebook. Coming up, some of the National Governors Association Winter meeting. This is followed by washington journal live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern. The National Governors Association Dan began with a News Conference. Among the speakers was the. Overnor of oklahoma the News Conference was about 40 minutes. [inaudible] good morning and thank you all for coming today to our opening News Conference for the nga. I am proud to be joined today by our vice chair and our director as far as chairman, we have our best practices committee, John Hickenlooper of colorado, governor, thank you for joining us. Governor beebe from arkansas, our neighbor from the state of oklahoma, and i am governor mary fallin from oklahoma. And governor Harry Herbert from utah, who is also a member of our executive committee. We are all members of the executive committee, so we appreciate you joining us here today and being part of our beginning of our National Governors association, which will kick off in about an hour with our opening session. Let me start out by saying that our message is very clear and that is that governors are leading across the nation. Governors are addressing the problems that are facing our nation, they are proposing solutions. Governors are in the process of laying the groundwork for being able to develop a stronger state, building stronger economies, and we do not have the luxury of an action as we see many times here in washington, d. C. Governors are expected to solve problems, expected to solve issues that face our state, which i believe help our nation. While washington remains in the gridlock, many times we see a lot of partisan politics and in action in washington, d. C. , we find that our governors are doing their part to Work Together in collaboration, to share best practices on how we can grow our economy, how we can create a stronger, better educated workforce, and meet the challenges that are facing our states and certainly our nation. And we hope that as we continue to work with our federal partners here in washington, d. C. That we can Work Together in an effort of collaboration between the states and certainly be able to Work Together to solve these issues. Governors also believe in what we call flexible federalism. Pressing issues that are facing our states, improving our programs and policies, and also being able to bring innovation to many of the issues that are facing not only our state but certainly our nation. As you know, the president getting ready to release his budget, and that will be around the middle of march, so we are looking forward to seeing what his budget holds. In the meantime, we also as governors want to share some principles that we think are important for the president and the administration, certainly be a u. S. Housing congress to consider. First of all, any type of federal reforms that we see coming from washington, d. C. That proposed to produce federal savings must also be able to produce state savings. In other words, as the federal government continues to look at ways to reduce our deficit, they also need to remember that states also have a budget, but we have to balance our budget unlike washington, d. C. We have to be fiscally responsible and we have to balance our budgets. We also believe that deficit reduction should not be achieved by shifting the costs to the states. As i said, we have to balance our budgets and we cannot support Unfunded Mandates coming down to our states and those shifting of costs. States also want to be given increased flexibility to be able to create more efficiencies, to be able to look at more innovative programs, to achieve becomes of results to achieve the types of results will support also think congress should not pass Unfunded Mandates, especially with Strings Attached to them. That include sending funding to the states, but also saying there are Strings Attached if you want to this federal funding. In short, governor state flexibility because there are many great, and innovative, creative programs that are being proposed by the governors as they are leading the way to address the challenges facing our state and certainly our citizens. As i look around the room and i see our governors that have joined us here today, i want to just emphasize that we can accomplish a lot. By working together, in the spirit of collaboration. There are certainly differences of opinion between the different political parties, but we also believe that governors can come together and offer best practices, good ideas, work in a way that is collaborative to be able to move our nation forward while we can improve our economy, create jobs, improve our schools and be fiscally responsible in our budgets. That is why the nga is important. It is a Bipartisan Organization where we can all come together, we can identify priorities, identified best practices, bring innovative solutions, and identify those issues that bring us together, not divide us. So that is exactly what we are going to be working on this weekend during the nga meeting. That is having candid conversations between our governors about policies and being able to share those ideas. We will also spend this time on our initiative for this year, and that is the chairs initiative. I have the great pleasure to be able to serve as the chair for nga. Good to have you here, north dakota do a strong. Im glad to have you here. My mission this year is called america works, education and training for tomorrows jobs. That is an issue that is important to all governors, whether youre republican or democratic, it is important to the nation. That is being able to create more jobs in america, stronger jobs, build a stronger economy, create better opportunity for our children, generations of children, and even for those adults who are in the workforce. My initiative outlines a way that states can lead the charge in creating those jobs and bringing solutions to improve our workforce, improve our skills gap that we find in our nation. States are leading the way in improving their Education Systems, and we also know the importance of building a highly skilled workforce. As all of us talk to our employers and individual states, we know many times our employers tell us they cannot find the workers they need with the right kinds of skill sets, yet we also know citizens and our states that are looking for jobs or even College Graduates and High School Graduates or Career Technology School Graduates that are looking for jobs and want to find a way to expand their own home state. That is why our chairs initiative is going to be working on improving education, certainly working on including our private sector businesses in that along with our Education Systems and to the initiative itself so that we can realign our Education Systems, to realign it with the needs of the current employers, the current needs of the workforce, and being able to fill that skills gap so we can have a highly skilled, educated workforce to help america still be calm and still be the superpower of the world and be very competitive. This Initiative Also talks about something that we think its very important, and that is, as you look at todays workforce, we know that the majority of jobs that are created in america now require more than a high school degree. In fact, we call it the new minimum, and the new minimum is that our Workforce Needs something beyond high school, whether it is a Career Technology a certificate, an associates degree, a College Degree or above, to be able to achieve the American Dream to be able to reach the middle class. That is something that we all strive for in our states and for our citizens. States can help overcome those gaps, those skills gaps by bringing together education, training programs, certainly our private sector businesses, to help better prepare our young people for the workforce. So this weekend, we are going to be focusing on education and training for tomorrows jobs, and we have the great pleasure this morning of starting out our opening session with one of our top ceos in our nation, the ceo of general electric, ge, and that is jeffrey immelt. We are very excited to hear his comments, once again, about what employers need any type of focus that states need to provide. This afternoon, our conference will also take up another important issue, and that is transportation and infrastructure issues. We all want to see a reauthorization of the focus transportation bill that is currently being discussed in congress, and so our Economic Development and Commerce Committee session will be talking about surface transportation and how important it is that Congress Enact and build a path forward for sustainability, a longterm plan for transportation, infrastructure needs, and defining of that and the funding of that because transportation is so critical not only to commerce but to Economic Development, jobs creation, and it is important to our Global Competitiveness as a nation. Last month, i had the opportunity to go in front of the Transportation Committee in congress and testify on behalf of the governors about the importance of these surface reauthorization transportation bill itself. It is something within that all governors think is important in a bipartisan way. Next, our governors will also be meeting with her Homeland Security and Public Safety committee to talk about two important issues and that is an issue that all governors face, and that is dealing with natural disasters and how important it is that we maintain and strengthen our partnerships, it especially with our National Organizations like the american red cross, and other organizations that help us in times of tragedies and disaster. And then the second part of the discussion will involve the National Guard. As commanders in chief of the National Guard, we recognize the importance of having a Strong National guard in our individual states, whether it is helping during times of crisis with natural disasters or helping in times of supporting our military in the crucial roles and it being an integral part of the military itself. So we are looking forward to having general frank grass, who is the members of the joint chief of staff and the chief of the National Guard bureau who will join us as afternoon. Governors are also continuously calling for congress to work with the National Guard, especially what we see as disproportionate tests to the National Guard as they look at cutting the federal exit and ways they help reduce our debt in our nation, but governor still need the National Guard to have the capacity, to have the quality, the men and women and Service Agreement that we need to be able to stand up our National Guard. We look forward to continuing to work on that issue. Other findings that the National Commission of the structure of the air force put out earlier this year that relates to the National Guard, they also have been looking at ways to find cost savings, and that is one of the other reasons we are focusing on this issue is that states and governors need to be involved in a discussion as they are looking at cost savings. The guard is the only military force that a governor can call upon during times of disaster, so it is for important to us. Tomorrow, we will be looking at a discussion about Employment Trends within our states, growth opportunities, and the ever changing economic climate that we see in our nation. So we will have a special session with our governors to talk about jobs, the economy, greeting the right Business Climate for job growth, and Maria Bartiromo will be talking to us. She is an anchor on the fox news channel. She will be talking about many issues involving jobs in the economy. So now, i would like to pass comments onto our vice care of our National Governors association, and a friend of mine that i work for a closely with and that is governor John Hickenlooper of colorado. Governor . [applause] thank you, mary, and i want to publicly recognize you cannot put together a weekend like we have now without some great leadership, and governor fallin has done a remarkable job. If you are trying to move the runners from one place to another, there is a better word for i cannot really use in public, and that might all get you wondering what is in my mind, but i think it is a real testimony to your leadership, the talent, and im going to cover some of that. I think we are guaranteed success is by getting all of these people in the same room at the same time, and i think that having that opportunity for people to connect and build relationships is critically important. One of the great things is we have all of these governors up here, and i know each one of them. There is too much competition for their time, yet when they take time out to come to a conference like this, we build a Better Partnership for the federal government, but we also build a better relationship with each other. We love to share and steal ideas from each other and see them improve and then we steal them back, and there is not a person up here who is not contributed to moving the ball down the field in that effort. I think that that is a big part of what we are going to be doing here this weekend. Education at all levels is a top priority for all levels, and i think governor fallins initiative, really making sure that we get workforce training and education, much more focus of an integrated level is continuing to bear fruit. We have all been committed to providing worldclass education for every student, and we continue to ask congress to make the longoverdue reforms to the elementary and secondary education act. Those changes have to show flexibility you will hear that word all weekend. Flexible federalism is the catchphrase you will hear all weekend. We have to pursue innovation and unusual changes in policies to get the better outcome for the same money spent. We will focus on Early Childhood education. U. S. Editor of education, arne duncan, will be here for the apples of it is not a question of republican or democrat but we are all going to have different ways of going about it. But both sides recognize the value of Early Childhood education and looking at what works best for us and our states and the federal government has to be a partner in that as we move forward. The experimentation, the innovation is still happening at the state level. Sunday afternoon we have governors on the health and Human Services committee who will participate in a roundtable discussion on Prescription Drug abuse. We have been working tirelessly in each one of our states to try to slow that really what is a growing epidemic of Prescription Drug abuse. Last year, Governor Robert Bentley of alabama, myself, cochaired an nga initiative to really look at what the problem is and prescribe solutions, some applied measures that we can really begin to slow down the second this epidemic. Governor shumlin of vermont devoted his entire state of the state address in january to this issue in vermont. If you have not had a chance to see that address, it is worth googling. It is very sobering. This initiative on Prescription Drug abuse really was to try to figure out how do we not just take the idea but implement these ideas and strategies to reduce the number of people going to emergency rooms, to reduce the number of deaths that are a result of Prescription Drug abuses. In many of our states, this is something that in the last 20 years we have really started having opioids prescribed, and we always knew there would be risks, but i think it has gotten worse than what many governors certainly 20 years ago had anticipated. Another effort led by governors includes the healthcare Sustainability Task force. Again, really looking at what are the best practices, as chaired by i think two of the best governors in america, two of the best governors beside the governors who are here. [laughter] but the governor of oregon and the governor of tennessee. Those are two very focused individuals who have done a terrific job on how do you develop recommendations to strengthen that state and federal partnership, even as you improve the quality and health care, how do you reduce the perperson cost, and that is really the magic, and we are seeing some real results. There are some strategies we will be able to implement across the states. Assessing the findings of the task force this week and will be very illuminating. Also sunday afternoon, governors will gather for the Natural Resources Committee Session to talk about an environmentally sound push for energy selfsufficiency in this country that creates not only a different Strategic International perspective for the u. S. But also really creates Economic Growth all across the country at all different kind of levels. One of my guests will include the u. S. Secretary of energy, ernest moniz. If you look all across the country, governors are leading the effort to make full use of each Energy Resource natural gas and oil but wind and solar, nuclear, coal was about the same time we do that, how do we use less energy. And integrating all these efforts has been i think a focus for the last couple of years. Last year, governor fallin and i led a bipartisan forum on shale gas, shale energy, that allowed officials from roughly 20 states to share best practices and learn about how do you go about responsible development and how do you roll out when you talk about natural gas, which is less expensive and cleaner than importing crude oil and refining that into gasoline, how do they get those savings to our communities, to our school district, how do we convert more school buses to natural gas, how do we look within our municipalities, picking up trash, using natural gas. Those vehicles driving day in and day out really can make a difference in terms of cleaner air and saving money. We are focusing on strengthening our Energy Independence by responsible development of shale gas, but at the same time looking at wind energy and solar energy and had we a maximal maximum and how do we get maximum benefits. And we have another governors only meeting where we will allow her self to look at a variety of issues that often times we do not get a chance to have the time to talk about together. On monday after we do that, we go over to me with president obama and his cabinet post up obviously a pretty full weekend. But there is more even as we are doing now. We stay focused on key issues. One is the ongoing fight to get the marketplace fairness act done. I think every governor realizes the inequality of this, the companies that have rick and mortar enterprise brickandmortar enterprise in our states, pay sales tax on every transaction that takes place, whereas companies that are struggling through the internet really are not paying any taxes at all. A number of governors looked at whether they will be able to actually lower their sales tax in terms of making sure that if we finally get this done and make sure that every retailer is playing by the same set of rules in every purchaser is paying the same tax, in many cases, i think a number of states can allow people to actually reduce their overall sales tax that they charge to everybody. I think this whole approach is going to help states encourage co
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