Recent measures to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions. President trump as a way to bring back coal mining jobs. My administration is putting an end to the war on coal. Weve financial to have clean comb, really clean coal. With todays executive action, i am taking historic steps to lift restrictions on american energy, to reverse government intrusion and to can sell jobkilling regulation. But critics say the order will do little to help the coal industry since other source of energy, like natural gas are already cleaner and cheaper. Joining me now from the academy of scientists, jonathan foley. Nice to have you here. Thanks, for having me here today. What is your reaction of President Trumps rolling back mandate fighting Climate Change . Theyre down right bizarre the climate is clear its bad for the u. S. Economy and our interests around the world. Also, these measures wont bring back coal jobs. Those jobs have been gone. They have been replaced by automation and machine. They will not benefit the environment certainly and will not be creating new jobs. The president referred to something as clean coal s. There something as clean coal in. No, there isnt. There has never been a Clean Coal Technology that can completely remove the coal. This is something that the industry makes up as a fantasy to continue to burn comb. Its never happened and the funding to even create that has routinely been cut by the department of energy. Thats just a fiction. So sticking about this and taking a look closer at california. What impact do you think it will have in this state . Well, california doesnt burn dole coal for Electricity Service was. This will affect our legislation and california has its own about Climate Changes when it comes to those kind of policies. We have a law that requires california to essentially generate half of the electricity from clean sources by 2030 is there thats right. That wont change, so i dont think anything in california specifically will clang in terms of this particular legislation what is happening is dangerous nationally. We are still a part of the United States and other states, which were going in the right zfpe fnyyk0o4n eliminateing Environmental Protection staff and the people who kind of track our storms and keep us safe from terrible weather events. This is just an unprecedented war on the environment and also on science, itself. You called it a war on science. Yes. In your progress in scientific americans, can you examine that and is this the worst you have seen it in all your years as a scientist . Oh, absolutely. This is the worst. Scientists always had a place in the political landscape. Generally speaking, its had pi partisan support. People of political persuasion knew the facts at the end of the day matter. That doing research on health care, whats going on in the environment on new materials, on new engineering systems, was all the way good for us. Even from a washington standpoint, it has been bipartisan . I dont oh, yes. Republican president s were considered good on the environment, even richard nixon, for example. Some say he would be the best. The e was founded under nixon the Clean Air Act the endangered species act. They were funned in the early 70s under president nixon and george bush, i, was a very good president when it came to basic science and the environment. So then what do you thinkt the motivation now behind the war on science, as you put it . Well, i think the motivation is if you cant win the war on policy and on facts, you attack the science, itself. Its very, very clear today that burning coal, doing things in the fossil fuel industry is not in the American Interest long term. Theyre not good for the environment, for health. Things like solar and renewables are getting cheaper and creating more jobs. I think this was an industry fighting a losing battle, trying to win a few more years and in order to kind of get that message across, they cant win the war on facts, so they try to attract the scientists, themselves, and nuzzle them so they cant speak out. Eliminating their funding and intimidating them. This is something worse than the proposed funding cuts is putting a muzzle on federal scientists saying you cant use the words Climate Change if you work for the department of energy. We seen kind of scientists in the past. For example, one of the most famous cases happened several years ago, the penn state researcher, michael mann received an envelope containing white powder that turned out to not be anthrax but rather carn starch, still it created quite a skamplt are you worried about all we will see a return to those days where we see threats and harassment directed at scientists . It happened every day, actually. It seems to have gotten worse in the last few years, especially the last few times. This is dangerous. Just think about it. Scientists are like regular folks leak you and me. They get up in the morning, they take their kids to school and many are working for us. Theyre public servants. Theyre trying to keep us safe. Theyre trying to advance our technologies, we make medical breakthroughs and so on. Yet at the end of the day some are told by tear president and members of congress that theyre liars and cheats and frauds. And on top of that, many get Death Threats or rape threats on social media on a daily basis. Have you, yourself, gotten threats . Yeah, almost everybody i know. Not lately. I will probably get some after today. But, yeah, that happens all the time. Michael mann for example was testifying in the House Science Committee yesterday. He had a whole bunch of hate mail on social media. Almost every scientist i know with issues has to put up with that. Thats crazy. Theyre regular folks working for all americans. They dont deserve that kind of treatment. Nobody does. How does the war on science as you put it affects every day lives . It will affect our health, our safety, jobs we have in this country and how competitive we are abroad. Make no mistake about this there are positions being cut and the muzzleing of scientists and federal agencies, people are going to die because of this. We will have people dying from clearwater pollution. We will see more storms, with better without food tracking. We will see environmental toxins. We will see things that are very, very dangerous that really should be the job of the government to protect us from and no longer will be the case. This is dangerous. It affects every american. You know, in a position and maybe other scientists feel like they need to take a stronger more vocal stand. They are planning to take part in aprils maur march for science. You encourage other scientists as well to become more political. Not everyone agrees with that scandal. There are a fair number of scientists who believe they should stick to science and not politicize any of this. What is your response to them . Well, theyre just wrong. I mean, politics with a lower case p, if you will, if you go back to the greek word, it means the affairs of the city. It means, how do we govern ourselves . How do we talk about things . How do we solve our problems . Science has to be a part of political discourse, it has to be a part of what we talked about on a daily basis, how do we solve our problems toke, since so many issues touch on science and technology. Now, politics with a capital p if you will, writing elections, partisan politics, that shooins science should have no connection at all. We should be connected to every day conversations, whether in our halls to congress or in court and science must be a part of. That because science is so central so to many of those issues, if a scientist isnt in the room, who is . Were the only professional in the world who seems reluctant to talk about the things we know about. Thats just crazy. How do you plan to will the peoples hearts and minds . I think scientists need to get out of their ivory towers and become a part of the community. We are. We are going grocery shopping, taking our kids and to soccer. I encourage folks to get out and talk about what we know and who we are. Jonathan foley, executive director of the California Academy of scientists. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. Earlier this week, lawmakers on capitol hill rule to protect the privacy of consumers online. The rules would have stopped Internet Service providers, at t or sprint collecting data and selling it without their permission t. White house strongly supports doing away with the privacy rules passedpy the fcc last october. The white house supports congress using authority under the Congressional Review Act to roll back last years ftc rules on broad bandz regulation. This will allow Service Providers to be treated fairly and Consumer Protection and privacy concerns to be reviewed on an equal playing field. To discuss this further, i am joined by a senior technologies at the electronics here foundation and larry downes, from the Georgetown Center of business and public policy. Gentleman, thank you beth for being here. Jeremy, the new rules havent 18 everyone taken effect yet. What is the significance of what congress did . Certainly i would have classified the rules as a huge win for Consumer Privacy so we lost that wind the other part is the way congress decided to prohibit the rules prohibits them from enacting similar rules in the future. It cut them from regulating the privacy. Why do you say these rules would have been a huge win for consumers . Because the rules effectively said that your Internet Provider,. Com cast, verizon, whoever, whofd to get your permission before sharing or selling your data. They would have had to opt in. And that hasnt been the case in the past. And larry, you set that optin option is not a good idea. Why . Well, its very expensive. Its confusing for consumers, too, because ifps have to get opt in, everybody else is on this old version to opt out. Google and facebook and the like. You are not being collected if you have to. The other case is if you agree to it. So what i would have preferred is to go back to what we had the last 20 years, which is a uniform policy, all enforced be i the federal trade commission. What is that policy . Thats with the notice and choice. Where you as a provider, you have to state what your Privacy Policy is, how you collect data and use it and give consumeters option of opting out if they dont like what you say. If you dont get anything, you automatically considered in . Thats right. What is the problem with that, jeremy . There is essentially two problems, one is nobody ever reads the privacy policies, right . I think there was a study that says you take up most of your entire life if you try i to read the policies of every platform you use. Knowing they are checking it, unless you get some sort of indication where they sister to affirmatively ask you, is this okay with you . Its a low barriers past to say, yeah, im okay with you using this information. You had said before this is unfair the rules were repealed, because they targeted Internet Service providers, so lets take this opportunity to define what our Service Providers, how are they different from google and facebook, because some people may be unsure and it may be unfair. Its your mobile provider or land line or wire provider, theyre the access providers, obviously, everybody else thinks of the content and Service Providers, the googles and the facebooks and the like. Right now we have an 80 billion internet advertising market. Thats whats drives the internets growth, free or subsidized services, all is almost google or facebook. Wed like to see more competition, more growth. Its a deteriorate way to get free goods and services and these rules would have made it much mar harder to to break into that mark the way the other providers are. The big difference is that your Internet Provider sees a whole lot more information. They see all of your traffic. Google and facebook only see a small practice. You can shoo choose not to use google. Its harder to change where your Internet Provider is. In most of the country, most americans only have one choice. Can you also block the sorts of tracking and advertising that google and facebooks do. Its a lot harder to block the tracking that your Internet Provider would do. So thats the privacy aspect. What about the point larry is making in choking off competition and lowering prices but this, in effect, if it had been allowed to stay in place, would in effect made it more expensive for ifps to do business in the only after expense is they would have had to ask your permission. This would have cut off is being able to sell and share your information without your permission. With these rules, ifps could have done it as long as they ask you first. They could have offered discounts, they could have offered free services, but they would have had to go get your permission before they subsidize this stuff with your personal data. Let me ask you this then, part of your argument is these rules were unfair, because they applied only to Internet Service providers and not Companies Like lookle and facebook, if they had been applied to Companies Like google and facebook, would they have been more respectable to you . No, the opposite, we like the model we have now. Most consumers like the fact. They probably dont think about it. They get so much on the internet for free or subsidized price. Thats all based on advertising. We might not want to see the ads. We understand thats the quid pro quo. Making everybody go through this process of asking, cataloguing, giving the option, make people read this stuff would have been a waste frankly of a lot of time and money for everybody. Wed much better see the notion and choice regime the ftc has had in place so long. In your writings, you have said groups and the aclu were really trying to use this issue of the rules that have now been detailed, like were trying to use this as a wedge issue. What do you mean by that . Well, not so much. A lot of the other consumer advocacy groups flankly dont like the advertising model. They dont want contexttural ads at all. They want to see all of this, everything you described opt in. They saw the ftc victory at the end of the Obama Administration as the first step in that process. Thats why google and other didnt go along, even though it will protect their market. What about privacy . The point that jeremy is making, do you think there are enough privacy protections right now . Because basically with the repeal of the rules is the status quo. Do we have enough right now. Consumers wear a lot of different hats on the internet. Sometimes they get a lot of value for sharing this information. Obviously, few buy something, search for something, you want to get as much as you can. The idea of being careful of what you give and being hygenic about giving information only whats needed to get what you want i think is very important. But, you know, these different ideas can happen and i think with a single standard, we might see more innovation, more choices, consumers who dont want to share can do things differently than those who like the free services. Obviously, jeremy disagrees, right, there are enough privacy protections. So, for those, these, what happened with the rules aside, for those who are still concerned about their privacy online, what can they do, jeremy . Are there certain tools they can use . In terms of getting away from this internet fasting, unfortunately the answer is not a lot you can do. The options arent great. About vpns . You can use a vpn. They cost money. Explain a vpn. Its a virtual privacy network. It enkripts it. You are paying another service for this. So its essentially like a privatacying act. You can use the tour browseer, the downside is that a lot of the browsing experience isnt as smooth. You will encounter a lot of catches so you are constantly analyzing funny pictures to prove you are human. So between those two, we got something that costs money or thats free but doesnt provide a smooth experience. All right. Whats next, duping, on this frontier . What about the whole concept of Net Neutrality . Do you feel like that, threatened . I definitely think, both republicans, the new chairman of the ftc have all said they want to roll back the Net Neutrality proceedings. They want to allow them to create fast lanes and slow lanes. Larry, do you agree . I think they said they want to rom back the decision, the public utilities. They are quite committed themselves, they need a legal basis and, indeed, republicans offered a bill at the end of 2014, that would have made eight matter of federal law, ended this pointless debate once and for all. All right. We will have to end it right there. Im sure there is much more to d come in the month even if you dont live in los angeles, you may have we heard of antonio villaraigosa. He was the first latino mayor of l. A. He now wants to be californias next governor, while the election isnt until next year, whoever wins the race will face a host of tough challenges from housing to transportation to job creation. Kqeds california politics of government reporter spoke earlier with antonio villaraigosa. Thank you so much for being here, mr. Mayor. Thank you for having me. Well, you are running for governor. Lets have you tell us why you are running and what really you are trying to convey to voters. I was born and raised here, in fact, in the golden state and its often said this is the place that gave me a shot and as ive traveled the state, its become Crystal Clear is that not enough people are getting a shot. Too many people are struggling. Yes, this is the sixth largest economy. Yes, were growing faster than the national average. Yes, we grew more jobs than florida and texas combined. 77 of the top 300 cities in the nation with the highest poverty rates are in california. Three of the top five cities with the highest poverty rate are in the Central Valley. I think we got to grow our commitment i think we got to invest in our education and train people for the jobs in the 21st century. I think the economy is critical to our future and that the next governor has got to be focused on the economy, creating jobs and lifting more people up into the middle class. Is there a way to bring jobs to the Central Valley the same way you can bring them to l. A. Or the silicon valley. I think we have to invest in our schools, raise our expectations. We got to Bring Technology in our classrooms. We need to take our schools from out of the 19th century model into a 21st century model. We will bring arts and science back into our schools. We got to train people for jobs in the new economy. You dont sister to you dont need a bs in engineering to be a coder or a bs if biology to work in the health science. Were not training people for those jobs. Im curious as l. A. s mayor, what lessons do you take from that to the state house if you made it there sunday, you know, would you support things like additional tax or reforming prop 13, things that are very controversial . Well, i have never been afraid to take on controversial issues. If you recall, people were saying back in 2009 that the valley was going bankrupt. I said not on my watch. I made the tough calls. I streamlined our government. I lad to address the fact that we werent growing businesses in our town. So i made it free to open up a business in l. A. Weve doubled the number of Small Businesses coming to the city. On taxes, though, this is something our Current Governor has been reticent to support. We seen prop 30 extended. Without some of the more aggressive elements of it. I mean, is that an area that you think needs purchase suede or do you think overall tax reform . We have a broken tax system. Its broken at the top. Its broken on property taxes. Prop 13 is broken. You know, think long and california forward, two bipartisan commissions have looked at this. They said, if you are going to fix the tax system, you cant just fix it where, you got to fix it all across the board and that means we overrely on the upper income tax. So what happens . A 3 drop in revenue can have a 20 impact on the budget because of the way Capital Gains works and, yes, we, our property taxes are lower than most states around the country and we dont tax the service economy, which is up with of the Fastest Growing parts of the economy. So if you are going to fix the tax system, you got to fix it all the way around. Yes, i could support tax reform, in fact, i bought the the courage to take it on. So we see a lot of mixed reactions in california from democrats to the trump administration, i think the legislature and lawmakers have come out quite frankly swimming. Is it useful to be so outspoken . I understand why people are outspoken as you said. I tame umbridge with most of what i see coming out of washington and coming out of President Trumps tweets and policies. I think the governors found the right balance. Im not financial to respond to every ignorant tweet t. Best the way to respond to donald trump is to double down on what we do here and do it better. Look. California is the sixth largest economy in the world and california welcomes its immigrants. You know, california understands that they have created wealth in this country. Not just in tech and thinge ag service construction, as theyre growing business at a faster rate than the native born. We need to celebrate that and welcome that in a way thats different from donald trump. We need to invest in infrastructure. Hes talked about it, hasnt done much on it. How is it particularly in the you are began coastal areas and yet its something i think weve teen e seen not a lot of attention to in sacramento s. That something the state can be passing on . Again, let me tell you what was there. In the middle of the recession, we put money aside for Housing Trust funds. Then we went to the private sector, nonprofits. We built 20,000 units of housing. Not nearly what we need in a city of 4 million people. At the state level, we need to do the same. We need to put a Housing Trust fund together that leverages what cities and counties are putting up, where were making those links to address what people call smart growth, moving people closer to their jobs so were not commuting in the way that we do. We also need to look at Public Private partnerships. The notion that the government will be able to do all the infrastructure we need just is not a real solution. Youve had a long career in government. You left office in 2013. I know for a while you came on as an ad advisor to the nutritional company herbalife. They have been accused of praik on the latino community. When did you work for them . They were an l. A. Company that focused as you said on health and nutrition. Ive used their products in the past. The fact is my mom sold avon. She sold tupperware and thats what these people are doing. They are focused on health and nutrition and building Small Businesses. Yes, they were recently chastised by the ftc. So they have virtually every fortune 500 company i can think of and so, yes, i was working for them until about the ends of the year and now im campaigning and working for you. Great, well, thank you for coming in. Thank you for having me. And that will do it for us. For more of our coverage go to qqed. Org new the investigation into russian interference in the 2016 election gets turned inside out. Im robert costa, and well have the latest on the federal probes. Plus, why President Trump has duclaired war on leaders of hard line conservatives, tonight on washington week. President s trump fired National Security advisor Michael Flynn wants to make a deal. The retired threestar general is offering to testify about alleged russian meddling in last years election but only if he gets immunity. Flynn had a different view of immunity last year when secretary clinton aids were questioned about her email server. When youve given immunity that means youve committed a crime. Ditto for donald tr