the house of representatives, the person at the center of the debate over the use of our federal lands. thanks so much for being our guest this week. thank you for the invitation to be here. susan: let me introduce the reporters who will be asking questions. esther wielder with the politico and bridget baumann with "roll call," who will go first. bridget: are you confident that the government will remain open cap rep. bishop: a bill just passed in the house and i expect to be passed in the senate. i expect there will be some sort of continuing resolution with the probable exception of the defense department. if we do a continuing resolution for military spending, we harm our military and a major way, and a think everyone recognizes that. bridget: to clarify, you are not expecting congress to pass an omnibus spending package for the rest of 2017 in the coming days? would be happy if they would because there's a couple of things i would like to put in that package, but i can live without it. i can understand if it does not take place, with the exception being for the defense of this nation. esther: you said there's a couple of things you would like to get on there. what are some of the things you are gunning for? rep. bishop: we're dealing with climate issues, endangered species issues. a lot of those, i would like to some particular way. this would be an ideal time to do it. i hope it happens. if it does not, we will find another vehicle. esther: trump on wednesday issued an executive order that i'm sure leaves you quite a bit directing the review of national monuments. you in the past have talked about wanting to revoke a monument in your own state. do you think we will see the interior secretary recommend revocation of the monument and if trump would do it and would you be satisfied by anything less? bunch ofop: you have a good questions all piled up into one. what he did with the executive order gives us an opportunity to do with the right way and allow people who live in the area, elected officials in that area to have their voices heard. that in and of itself is a very good first step. there also is the review of a whole bunch of things. in my state, there will be two specific ones. it affects areas in maine and new mexico and nevada off the coast of massachusetts, pacific islands, off the coast of hawaii. anything will be able to be reviewed, and i do not have a way of predicting with the secretary will say. i know there are things i would like him to say, but it will have to come under review and it also will not particularly be within the interior department. what the president can and cannot do also will have to come from a review of from the .ustice department it is going to be a multi-administration, multi-bureaucracy effort to tie together to do a really good, cumulative report to say maybe there are areas where we have private land and state land locked into a monument and that should not be the designation. maybe there are some areas like in nevada that have circumstances that go beyond just the boundary of the monument itself. problems develop because of that. maybe those should be looked at as well and to see if maybe the integrity of that review -- they take we sat should do for water. esther: you mentioned the antiquities act. looking to revamp the antiquities act, what is the motivation in congress to get something done and what things need to change about the law? rep. bishop: a lot will change depending on the results of this review, but the bottom line is the antiquities act, which has never been changed or modernized in over 100 years, was passed in an era when there were only 46 states. there was no parks service. there were almost no environmental laws. it was in a different era. what has to happen now more than anything is the ability to make sure more people have the ability to have their voices heard in how these are developed so that maps of these areas are done before any declaration is made so you can find out where the problem areas are. so the management techniques are decided upon before the monument is announced so you can work these things through and know you're doing it the right way the first time in that of having the announcement and then going back and trying to fix all the problems that are there. put of the problem with the antiquities act is that president obama and his administration did not want to have to go through the process which mandates public hearings and that kind of public input. it.yone else has to do they even want to. so these monuments canopy in coordination with any other agency. what i have said in the past is true -- you have to do the negotiation. the work on these things are done in the dark. you cannot find out what will happen ahead of time. sprunghe announcement is on people. that's a horrible way of doing business. if we could just modernize the antiquities act to allow the president to go through a streamlined process so he gets that kind of input from those other agencies, we would have a much better process. a minimum to get the kind of input is what we need to do with the antiquities act. >> your committee has jurisdiction over puerto rico. we know that funding efforts, medicaid reimbursement for puerto rico has been one of the major sticking points in the cost. the president said allowing this funding would amount to a bailout. do you agree with that? how do you think this should be addressed in the spending negotiation? be one ofp: it will those areas that only tangentially goes through my somettee, so i only get say into what is going on. we have established a bore down there to review what is going on, and we want to make sure the onesd -- they are who understand the significance of the issue and they are the ones i think should have a great deal of say into how we move forward with that. having said that, medicaid a slightly different, but it is kind of sad we are in this situation with puerto rico. i truly wish the former administration would have tried to deal with this before and not walked away with it. exacerbated, obviously, by the obama care act, so it will take some negotiation. obviously, health and human services has a response to that and a position that has to be ourewed along with committee, the emc committee, as well as the president, so i think people will get together. ultimately, there's got to be a good solution, and i think we can find one. staff reportsal said puerto rico could run out of costs this year to cover medicaid costs. do you think these things should be addressed in the larger spending package being negotiated right now? i think it needs to be addressed, yes. esther: this weekend, protesters flocked to see streets on the issue of climate change. what role do you think the federal government should play and monitoring and helping mitigate the impact of climate change? this probably a whole bunch of areas. this is one of the things with the federal government could take a good lesson from what states are doing. in my state, the topography of the area makes it basically a big bowl, and in the winter, when it is cold and there is snow on the ground, it will always have that air quality. i grew up in that. what we have today in the state of utah is air far cleaner and far healthier than it was when i , and they make steps going forward with that because they understand the uniqueness of their particular area. the best thing we can do is turn to the states because every area has topographical challenges that the states know how to address. they usually are inhibited or her with the federal government one-size-fits-all standard on every place in the country. it does not necessarily work that way. if the federal government really wants to help in this issue, we have to turn to the people who really understand and are the experts, and those are the state and local leaders on the ground. epa made a ruling on air quality standards in my area in which they claim that the air patterns in brigham city with the exact same air patterns found in salt lake. the bottom line is they are not. epastate understood what did improperly and understood how to actually mitigate it, but they were overruled by the environmental protection agency. that's wrong. they have the power to do it, but it is still a wrong thing to do. it is not good science. if we really want to have good science, we will need to rely more on local government to make sure we understand the varieties and uniqueness in those communities. esther: i was wondering if you could on that same theme talk about funding, you know, the test truck has proposed cuts pretty much across the board for the agency -- agencies, and a lot of those agencies deal with environmental issues. do you think the climate change aspects of these agencies should be targeted in particular? rep. bishop: once again, what you do with funding is a variance of where you put your priorities. if we do more collaborative work, you can change where those priorities are. in the areas in which i have some kind of perfume and we look at their budget, one of the problems i have is that always seem to put a great deal more on funding levels when they are on top of the administrative charts in washington and in regional areas at the expense of people who live on the ground and do the work. if you were to change that prioritization and put more money into those who are on the ground doing the work, i think we could come up with a better project and probably save money while you were doing it at the same time. bridget: shifting gears for a moment to health care, we saw a republican lawmakers revise their health care bill, making changes, making it more palatable for conservatives. i'm curious what you think of and how you feel about a vote. leadership says they are close to getting enough votes to pass it. rep. bishop: i have to admit, this is not my specialty area in congress, but deep down inside, i really want to solve the problem of health care. not just because we need to make sure that people have the coverage and that it is affordable and that we have a program right now which is on the pathway to self-destruction, and that will hurt everyone, but also because the issues i care about so deeply in my committee are kind of on the back burner now until we get health care done, so i would really like to get health care satisfactorily moving on so we can start talking about my land and forest issues i think are equally as important. leadership told people in march that leadership was frustrated and disappointed that you could not move forward on health care. members of congress still questioning speaker ryan costs leadership? were frustrated because we had not moved on because they were so many other issues i would like to address and the vote that did take place was really as much a procedural one as it was a substantive one. the reforms that would take -- the reforms and changes that would take place to obamacare were not in that bill itself. the frustration is we would like to be able to move on to other issues at the same time, but it is better, as i think the speaker has said and other people have said, to take a little time now and that give ourselves an arbitrary deadline and do it the right way, and it will take more conversations with people to make sure everyone is comfortable that we it will beth that done the right way. susan: we are at the halfway point. health care was one of those votes president trump felt confident he could done does he could get done in the first 100 confident he could get done in the first 100 days. how do you think he has done so far? rep. bishop: he has a lot to do and many of his executive orders are trying to go back and review what has been done in the past, especially in the last two of years that our regulatory enforcement such that we think inhibits the ability of the economy to grow and certainly inhibits the american people to have control of their destinies and their futures. a lot of the is the review process very few presidents have had to go through, but i think it is appropriate he has done that, so i'm actually surprised and pleased with where we are at this stage of the game. i realize there are some people who would once again like to put some arbitrary time limit on things. to be honest, i think i would, too, but it's not necessarily the best thing for the country, and we are going on a positive course. esther: you mention how trump wants to help with economic development, and one of the ways you mentioned is helping the coal industry and helping development on public lands, and having theve order therior secretary revoke coal leasing band, and today he issued the executive order directing the secretary again to look at offshore drilling leasing. thehere demand, given that coal industry is struggling and general -- is their demand for public lands and for offshore as well? rep. bishop: demands for what? esther: from the industry. obviously, yes. the united states has become a leader in energy production, but that has all happened on state and private land. if the united states is truly going to live up to our potential becoming a leader in energy production to the point that we are not only independent but for dominant and we can help our allies and foreign policy, it has to be development that takes place in that of the land and offshore. arertunately, both of those in the purview of my committee. development of those areas needs to take place if we are going to reach the goal americans should have where we can be independent and a source of assistance to our allies. that is the future we have for us. we should not limit ourselves in doing that, and there's an opportunity to do it, which is why i'm pleased the authorities not becognized we should taking any source of energy off the table. we should be allowing renewables as well as fossil fuels be developed to the extent that we have the ability to do it. esther: do you think increased production and conservation can coexist? rep. bishop: a lot of those groups do not live in the west. they live in the east where everything is closer together. once you get where i live and realize that my county is bigger than the state of connecticut and you get out into those areas, you realize there's a bunch of land, which means it is easy to have conservation in areas that need to be conserved as well as economic development in those areas that can produce a good standard of living for people and fund our education system and have opportunity for recreation and they do not have to be in conflict. there is enough room or all of those. even in the public lands initiative i proposed -- and i will be proposing it again -- for every acre of economic development and recreation, we were proposing four acres of conservation. trust me, there's plenty of land to accommodate all those efforts and make sure they are all successful. esther: what is the prospect for your proposal? when declaration basically stopped things in their heels. we will have to sort that out again, but there's too much that we spent three years trying to develop to try to just walk away from it. there's a whole lot stuck in there that people in my state want. i'm going to bring it back again. susan: you have seven minutes left. rep. bishop: i'll get it passed in seven minutes. is that ok? bridget: the senior senator of your state said he has not decided if he will run for reelection. he sent signals that he will, but he is still undecided. if he decides to retire, would you consider running for senate? rep. bishop: i cannot tell you that. sworn to secrecy. we would have to kill you after. the chance of me running for senate is pretty minimal. i enjoy the house. i like the house. i cannot necessarily say the same thing about the senate. i am a creature of the house, and i find it very productive over here. >> while we're talking about the house, where you surprised by your colleague's announcement that he intends not to run for reelection, and how does it line with federal politics in your state? rep. bishop: he had talked to me about it earlier. pull the expect him to trigger, but i believe him when he says he wants to spend time with his family. he has two kids in college and one in law school, and he wants to be in a position to spend more time with them and take care of them financially, so i can respect him for what he is doing. as to how it realigns, we will have to see. we're going to have to let the people down in his area sort that out themselves. fires: the cost of forest are every year getting higher and higher and taking of huge portions of budgets that are supposed to be for things that prevent future forest fires like land management. there has been talk about trying to fix that and treat forest fires as an emergency. do you think chances are high? what are the chances of legislation happening there? rep. bishop: i'm glad you hit that. that is one of my soapboxes. things thatof the is one of those back burner issues i want to bring to the forefront. we have to deal with our forest management system. wildfires are one of the things that affect everybody. republicans and democrats. if we're going to handle it, it's not just a matter of suppression. it's how we actually manage the forest to make sure you do not have this many wildfires in the first place, and that is an essentially important effort. we passed a bill on forest resiliency in the house last year. it did not make it in the senate, but we were very close in those energy negotiations to having something finalized. we want to start that over again because this is essential so we actually do something to protect and improve the quality of our forests, which will, by its very nature, diminish the amount of wildfires we have and then come up with an alternative ending source to make sure we can handle the wildfires that actually exist, but they have to go together. having a source of funding for the wildfires as well as fire management -- i have to honest, getting rid of frivolous legislation was takes the money away from management techniques -- it has to be done. funding from all sources, even senators who have never talked about this before are realizing this is something we have to do for the future of the west in the future of the nation, so i expect that to happen, and the sooner i can get involved with that, the happier i will be. mentioned this is something you would really like to address. the 100-day timeline for what they would like to accomplish first, the state want to lay claim to the issue. issuesshop: all these have to be done. arms and leadership in the state legislature. -- i was in leadership in the state legislature. by laying out some of the things you want to do in the very beginning and being able to take those up -- if you do not get those out of the way, the ability to move through the other stuff that i think is still significant and important but maybe not as controversial as those -- they will bog down those things. it is kind of the expression that if you do first things first, second things can be added. if you try to do second things first, your cobblers knew the first nor second things. actually prioritizing three big issues that need to be out of the way before we can move on i think is a wise way of trying to go into a legislative session. that was basically good planning. now we need to execute it and i think it will happen. two minutesve about left. funer: i have kind of a final question for you. i found out you have a twitter account that has never actually sent a tweet. you said it is because you are an english teacher and the abbreviations drive you crazy. the president uses twitter to communicate with the american people. does that have you rethinking taking to twitter? of theshop: i am proud fact that i have never tweeted a single character and i will never tweet one. that public,e made you have challenged me and i cannot do it from here on in. i hated it when my students would write "cuz." the word is because. i'm not crazy bus symbols or emoji, even -- about symbols or emoji, eveither. esther, final question. esther: there has been a lot of talk about reorganization. trump has challenged the cabinet to look at their organizations. i hear that there could be challenges convincing lawmakers to give up their jurisdiction. do you support this organization plans, and is there anything you would like to see happen? rep. bishop: i do not know the specifics, so if i like it or not will depend on the specifics, but in general, any time you do a reorganization, that is a positive because at a minimum, you are reevaluating what the priorities are, and let's face it -- they change as time goes on. one of the things i'm very proud ryan for doing is his article one initiative which talks about decisions and rules and regulations being made by the executive branch and moving the back to the legislative ranch where the constitutional founders always intended them to be. by doing that, you empower the. the executive branch is not as directly attained to the people as members of congress who have to run every teetered years, and we are forced by the system that was set up by the founders to actually be engaged with people. having the legislature take a bigger role actually empowers people. those kinds of rethinking and reforms and reorganizations should be done on a regular basis and i applaud all of them. i want towe close, ask you -- how concerned are you about north korea right now? rep. bishop: very. i think everyone has to be. as the president says, diplomacy should always be the most important and first force you use, but for diplomacy to be effective, you have to have an adequately funded military to back it up. our allies know that. our enemies know that. we should realize that going or word with our policies on the united states. susan: thank you for being our guest on "newsmakers." i was wondering if you were surprised by the scenario chairman bishop laid out for not something else for spending. stir: that was surprising because that's not what we're hearing from leadership. -- bridget: leadership indicated that they do want to move on that broader spending package, so i was surprised because i have not heard many members say that. the issuesme turn to you focus on, energy and the environment. this approach to federal land is one of the hot buttons in this country. how do you see this playing out with the reviewed antiquities act? esther: i think the interior secretary has a difficult task ahead of him because there are strong opinions on both ends of what should happen, and the reality often is the gray area .etween the two he has talked about keeping an open mind and wants to hear the people. that usually means not just listening but doing something based on what people say. you also have to be able to support what you recommend to the president, and it are some pretty sensitive areas, and he tribalnowledged that, in lands, burial areas and things that have been poached in the past. he has to reconcile issues of politicians with those of locals. andn cole in the gym describes his with the antiquities act which is what -- susan: the president describes his concern with the antiquities act, which is what president obama used in the past. how much of his concerns reflect the broader concerns of congress? bridget: i think they definitely express the concerns of westerners and republicans. senator orrin hatch has been vocal about this, too. i think esther would have a better sense of where things are on the ground, but as the congressman mentioned, they are also focused on health care and tax reform. they have a lot to do before adjusting some of those other issues as well. esther: the challenge to the antiquities act is when you talk about messing with the antiquities act, you're talking apart, national monuments, big areas people visit all the time. like it or not, a lot of lawmakers have constituents that enjoy going to those parks, so it is kind of a touchy subject. i think it difficult to get something through the senate in that case. through, youget asked a lot about puerto rico and the larger context of health care reform. what is the issue and why should eople around the country care? bridget: puerto rico is an interesting issue. the congressional report i issued pointed out that needs a broader congressional fix. the puerto rico population is on medicaid, and remember, there also dealing with the zika virus. the rate at which the government reimburses those lines is much lower than the rate at which they reimburse other states. the report pointed out that maybe that should be shifted, that maybe those reimbursements level be based on income and that that needs a broader fix, so right now, puerto rico is facing a cliff with old run out of money. susan: the decision will have an effect on medicaid recipients or is solely directed toward puerto rico? bridget: it is solely directed to puerto rico. susan: we have a big budget that a week ahead. i think it will be a battle. what are your expectations for how this will play out in congress? esther: i think it will be difficult, as it always is. there's always people who want to add things to the bill. it's called the christmas tree effect, it was a gets so big they have to start over again. bridget: there are some sticking points. there are different specific issues democrats won out, so we will see, although leadership has been expressing optimism. susan: do you expect a health care vote? bridget: it's a very good question, and i'm not sure if leadership knows, although they have been sounding optimistic that they are close. we will have to see if they can change some minds. susan: we thank both of you for being our guest today on "newsmakers." [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> tonight on "q&a," the house of truth. we talk with author brad snyder on his book about a group of who met regularly in the early 1900s to debate politics and the future of the country. >> i think everybody associated with this house -- race was not a salient issue for them. they cared about the rights of workers. it took oliver wendell holmes junior and some of his opinions, including a 1923 case which found for the first time that the mob dominated criminal of southern blacks and violated the due process clause. that was the first time a state stripped-down a criminal conviction. huge in linking the idea of federal criminal trials with race. at 8:00 eastern on -span's "q&a." >> in case you missed it, on c-span, senator tammy duckworth made a speech on the senate floor. i know the path forward for our country cannot include, does not include turning our backs on the shared values that built this nation. >> secretary of agriculture sonny perdue. >> am excited about the opportunity. ready to go to work, roll up our sleeves and make sure that we make american agriculture as great as it can be in the future for rural prosperity and jobs. >> gary cohen on the trump administration tax reform plan. >> we are going to cut taxes and signify the tax code by taking the current seven tax brackets we have today and reducing them to only three brackets. >> david horwitz on communism. evil with the corruption that is within us. once you understand that, you are conservative. society iseve that an oppressive system, everything can be understood in terms of a dominant class or dominant race or dominant sex and everybody that they oppress, if that's the way you see the world, then you're a communist. >> secretary of state rex tillerson at the human security briefing on north korea. >> we must all do our share the china accounting for 40% of north korean trade has economic leverage that is unique, that its role is therefore particularly important. >> c-span programs are available at www.c-span.org, on our homepage and by searching the video library. >> several people gathered on the national mall yesterday for a rally to raise awareness on climate change. the event was organized by a coalition of groups known as the people's climate movement. it's just under two hours. ♪