Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20131108

Meaning the intensity of the sun on average over the course of the year is excellent. That means youll produce more energy per square foot than you would in an area with less intense sun. It also had an existing gas Trance Mission line going through the property and we consume a little bit of natural gas, 2 a year, allowing us to start up and capture the first Morning Light by getting pipes warm. We make use of the flux and produce that steam quicker reducing and improve the overall performance. Thats one. The third is that there were existing transmission lines. In fact, the two lines that ran through date back all the way to the hoover dam, and by upgrading transmission lines, we can driver the power into the grid and help strengthen the reliability in that particular area. The land is owned by the bureau of land management. How could you build on governmentowned land . Guest you submit an application, form ss299, and in that, theres a lease. Theres been recent efforts to look at auctioning, but, basically, we lease the land from the federal government, and at the end of the lease, we are required to restore the land exactly the way it is, and to that end, we have collected four tons of seeds that sit in storming that came from the native grasslands in the lay down area where we had the tower to replant at the end. Its leased on federal land. The federal government leases land for oil and gas drilling, for wind development, for solar, and the deserts are public lands and you get multiple uses from that land, but comparison, there are 20 million acres in the deserts, i think its 21, and were on 3500 acres. Compare that to maybe only 25 Solar Projects licensed or leased by the blm on federal land. Onshore oil and Gas Exploration and drilling, they process about i want to say 2,000 leases a year, maybe for 7 million acres. I could have the figures off, but its a significant difference. What i point out, though, when you look at the solar plant like ours, what you see is the collection of the resource. In this case, the suns raid yept energy, and that transformation processing that in a product of electricity thats delivered to the grid. With a natural gas power plant, how it worked better with the technologies, but when you look at the power plant, you see the production of the electricity from the gas. What you dont see is the land used for exploration, extraction, processing, and transportation in the form of pipelines, so its a very efficient use of lain provided that youre identifying the appropriate land and habitat, and you take special steps to protect the spee species including plants and animals. Host you said at the end of the lease you restore it back to the original look. Does that mean the installlations go away at the end of the lease . Guest yeah. Host why . Guest thats the requirement. Host this is not a permanent solution . Guest when you say permanent, this power plant has a rated life of 30 years. The lease that we have is 50 years. I could be off a little. When a plant is reaching the end of the useful life, you can repower. Thats common with hydroplants, and you repower, upgrade, replace the turbine. Thats a question that will be asked at the end of 25 and to years whether it makes sense, but legally, were obligated to restore that, and we posted bonds in order to ensure that happened. What i point out is you bought a car, and once you pay for it, the gas is free for the life of the car. Thats here. You have high capital cost, and the economics that you look at about the plant the is fixed and vairnl costs versus something thats capital costs only. Host corpus christi, texas on the line, republican, arthur, good morning. Caller good morning, yall. I think you answered one of the questions. Ives just curious, one, how many mirrors are there, and, two, your towers are there limits as to how much heat they can take and is that guest great, great question. Ill walk you through how they operate. Theres three tours. Each tower is 459 feet tall or 140 meters on the metric system. Its one meter taller than the great pyramid, but each of the towers, we have a total of 173,000 mirrors, and the towers are roughly 133, 133, and 127, i think, megawatts in rating, and the difference in the rating size had to do with adjustments we made to accommodate Environmental Concerns going through the permitting process on one of the units, but each of the mirrors is individually controlled so at any given point in time, we dont need all the mirrors, but enough to maintain what we call flux, reflective sup light, on to the top of the tower, to maintain the appropriate temperature and pressure, and that temperature exceeds a thousand degrees fahrenheit or, i think, 538 degrees celsius in there in 25 00psi. Thats the conditions that we create, and having a Tower Technology allows you to achieve higher temperatures, higher pressures, in turning, allowing you to have a more efficient turbine to lower the cost of energy. In the solar fields, three fields, individually controlled, and thats how we get it dope. Host do you think this is the future of solar power, that this replaces the traditional panels that people think about . Guest again, excellent question, greta. No, not at all. It is one of you think about Energy Policy, its always all the above, meaning we need a mix in a diversity of resources whether its fossil fuel, nuclear, to make use of the investments we have already. What i can tell you is that different different Solar Projects have different attributes meaning a pv plant is variable. A wind power plant is variable, although, you can predict with fairly accurate numbers how much it will produce over the course of a month, and in the case of the solar plant, what were able to do is marry that technology up with thermal storage, and so we can capture the heat of the sun and use that to produce electricity when the sun goes down. Its a combination of the two. What the grid needs to operate reliably are resources that are flexible, dispatchable, created with thermal storage, but this is solar steam, and we can use steam in other applications like reducing the Carbon Intensity of natural gas plants, reducing the use of coal plants, using this for other parts of the world where they need it as well as enhanced oil recovery as we demonstrated in coaling in california. The future of clean energy is supportive of solar steam to compliment what happens elsewhere. Host a tweet from a viewer. Guest sure. Host what is your yearly maintenance burden, explain. You talk about expected lifetime, but is your hardware friendly to replacement and upgrade . Guest it is. We actually built onsite a building that is essentially think of an automotive plant, fabricate it, we installed the 17 3,000 on average at the rate of one per minute over the course of the construction. We have excess there. The maps, this is steel and glass and its just pretty much standard mirrors you expect to use and they figure, and the Hundred Acres includes cleaning the facilities, but the operation and maintenance in a power plant is very, and a thermal plant is wellknown and wellunderstood, and comparing, lets say, the number of workers in construction, we have, at the peak, 2100 craft workers, and theres 90 people on a goforward basis. Thats 90 people to operate all three units for the next 2530 years. Host what is the effect of all of this going into the atmosphere . Guest oh, theres nothing going into the atmosphere. When you reflect sunlight thats radiation that already exists. You dont p heat the air because its not dense at all, and you get intense strength if you think of a focusing mirrors, people use magnifying glasses or a photographer, you understand the idea of focal length so were pointing at that tower, and then the tower, the rates diverge. Theres no e possessions other than the small amount used for the natural gas, but we recycle the water, minimizing the foot print, and thats the reason that you look at renewable investments like con accept traiting solar thermal. Host there was concern over a desert tortoise. Guest great question again. There were concerns. We selected the land in part because the blm said it was a class three tortoise habitat, the least sensitive. We did the surveys. They indicated few tortoises would be onsite when we began construction. However, we found more. They are not exactly sure why that was the case. It was a drought year probably that contributed to that, but nonetheless, people legitimately had concerns, and weve taken great steps to ensure their protection. Ill give you an indication of what that involves. We have desert fencing that of the p es them from burrowing back in. At one time, we had 150 biologists, and they go through the system sorry, they walk through the solar field. Any tortoise identified was movedded to a iners ri where it was nursery tested for and had medical care, ensuring there was not respiratory disease. Theres two times a year to move tortoises. We found roughly 140 in total, but while in the nurseries awaiting the next window, we had 55 juvenile tortoises born in captivity so we have a Head Start Program, and the Head Start Program provides shelter because the survival rate of the tortoise, the desert tore tees in the wild is 2 meaning 98 dont make it to adulthood. They are part of the food chain. In this case, the survival of the Head Start Program because they are protected from predators is 98 . We lost two to some red ants early on. Thats exact opposite. Its another way of saying as a result of the project, we will return more adult desert tortoises into the valley than if they had been no project at all. I know people have a hard time sometimes understanding that, but thats exactly whats happening. Additionally, we are tracking for science with transmitters, 400 of the tortoises that were moved as well as control population, the recipient population, and its yielding a wealth of Scientific Data that was not known about it. The concerns were legitimate. They have conditions imposed on the project. Everybody has worked hard, and im happy to say that so far there has been no statistically significant difference between adults moved and the others in the controlled populations and their new neighbors. Its been a tremendous success. Host lets end with this email from greg in sioux falls, south dakota. How many square feet of pams or mirrors does it take to support a single perp with everything electric the average person uses and owns daily. The country that has 320 Million People. Guest i can fell you the average annual consumption in california is 750 kilowatt hours a year. Thats california consumption. Taking into account big screen tvs, stereos, lights, and cooking. We have roughly we serve 140,000 homes, but think of it is one mirror serves one home, and so thats another way of thinking about it. In terms of the solar pv, i think theres an installlation going in at one every four minutes right now in the country, and projected to be 12 billion dollars of investment, but on the concentrating solar side, its roughly given the size of the mirror is one per home, and two and a half people a home. Do the math that way. Host the project is called ivan paw, the largest Solar Project in the world costing 2. 6 billion with taxpayers giving 1. 6 billion through the federal Loan Guarantee program. Thank you very much, appreciate your time. Guest great, thank you, okay. Host were back talking about Renewable Energies here on washington journal today focusing on wind energy. Joining us from denver, the chief economist, director of industry, data, and analysis for the American Wind Energy association. Lets begin with what is your organization and who belongs to it . Guest hi, thanks for having me. The American Wind Energy sorbs is the National Trade group for the entire u. S. Wind industry. Were somewhat unique in that we represent all sectors of the u. S. Wind industry including project developers, but also the supply chain, all of the companies that supply components for our Wind Turbines, the electric utilities that buy power, the Transportation Companies that move the components, Service Companies that vie operations and maps, and 10 we have about and so we have 1300 businesses involved in the association. Host you had a recent report out that said the wind industry experienced, quote, a painful slow down at the beginning of 2013. What happened . Guest yeah, we had the industry saw a lot of uncertainty in 2012 that caused us to halt investment, slow down development because of that uncertainty making it very difficult to justify future investments in new wind projects or innovation or research and development, and the consequence of the uncertainty around our policy, the production tax credit, and whether or not it was going to be in place in 2013 and beyond, that really caused that uncertainty, and the consequences of that were we saw very limited installations during the First Six Months of 2013, only one turbine was installed in the First Six Months of this year, and thats a consequence of the uncertainty that we felt during 2012, and the way to break free from that cycle is really put in place clear and consistent policy that lets us make the long term Business Investments for our industry and innovation and projects. Were lucky that it was extended, the production tax credit, in early 2013, and were seeing the impacts and benefits of the extension today with electric utilities purchasing a significant amount of wind power because of the affordability. Were starting to see turbine orders come through to the wind industry and ramping up our Wind Manufacturing and were seeing jobs start to pick back up. Host lets show the viewers from your website, the American Wind Energy association, the numbers, what happened in 2012 by quarter. You can see wind installations measured by megawatts and what was happening with those being put into place, and then take a look at the First Quarter of 2013. As a comparison, the Fourth Quarter of 2012 had 1695 megawatts, 0 in 20 13, and now up to 68. 3 in the third quarter. What do you expect for the Fourth Quarter . Guest well, as the industry responds to the extension of the production tax credit and ramp up development, and take investments and see manufacturing get back to work, we do expect to see a significant amount of activity in the Fourth Quarter in terms of new construction of new projects of responding to the ptv, and that will continue into 20 14 and beyond the the challenge here continues to be the lead time for capital intensive wind projects, you know, 1824 months, and in order for investments, we need clarity and consistency over a much longer period of time in order to make those investments, and so its uncertainty continues it rule the day. Well continue to see impacts like we saw in 20 13 in the First Six Months. Host what parts of the country, what states are contributing the most in wind power . Guest we, you know, around the country, we have 38 states, actually, that have utility scale wind installations at this moment. The number one state is texas with far more wind energy than any other state at the moment followed by iowa and california. Whats interesting is with iowa, on average, over a given year, 20 of the electricity produced in the state of iowa as well as south dakota is actually coming from wind energy today. In texas, were approaching 10 of the electricity coming from wind energy. One of the more exciting areas for development in the wind industry is actually some of the areas that havent been historically our growth regions, places like michigan and ohio with the new technology of win tour bines. Weve been able to enter the regions and scale up wind power at a very affordable rate. Weve seen some of the utilities, for example, in michigan actually cite wind power as one of the least cost resources to build today. Its actually more affordable than any other form of Electricity Generation that they have available in the state of michigan, and this is also happening in the region of the southeast which maybe we all dont think as a traditional area for wind energy development, but because of the low affordable rates that wind Energy Provides today, utilities in the southeast are actually bringing in the affordable waipped power from places like kansas and oklahoma and texas citing the fact that its the best choice for their consumers right now. Host what do you say to critics who say that the wind industry is too dependent ob the production tax credit and cant stand on its own . Guest you know, its an interesting point that we do hear often, and, you know, we dont have Energy Policy in the country. Our de facto Energy Policy is using tax policy to support domestic, clean, affordable, secure energy in the country, and weve been doing it for about a hundred years where we provide tax relief to Domestic Energy resources in order to make sure we have access to domestic and affordable electricity and other forms of energy, and so the production tax credit is really just the form that tax relief takes for the wind industry. Theres different forms depending on what Energy Source you are, but for the production tax credit, its been such a successful policy over the past few years where it las leveraged over a hundred billion in private investment and new wind projects, and what that led to is a whole new Manufacturing Sector that we didnt have five or ten years ago in the country. The components of a wind turbine are heavy, sophisticated, large pieces of hardware that make makes the most sense to make these products close to home for, you know, transportation and logistics that can be very expensive. By having a robust market thats growing with the support of the production tax credit, its actually led us to about 550 manufacturing facilities around the country, around the u. S. That are supplying the wind industry with our turbines actually getting 70 of the content from the u. S. Source, and so those are all the impacts and benefittings that have come from the production tax credit in recent years, and i think one of the things that maybe we dont realize about the tax credit is while it does spur development of wind Energy Around the country in terms of new projects, that tax relief is ultimately passed through to the rate payer, you and i, when we pay the electricity bill, that relief shows up on the electricity bills because were able to negotiate lower Contract Prices with the electric utilities so at enof the day, we see the cost savings on our bill. Talking about the u. S. Wind industry with Elizabeth Salerno with the American Wind Energy association. Shell take the calls here, republicans 20258538811, and independents, all others, 202a 853882. Tweet us at cspan wj is the handle. Before we get to the viewers, what about jobs . You talk about manufacturing, but how many jobs has it created, the wind industry . Guest thats a great question, and its a critical part of the industry because the jobs we need are many, diverse in the sectors where we need trained, skilled individuals who be part of the industry so at the end of 2012, we had 80,000 individuals directly involved in the u. S. Wind industry. These are skilled workers in construction, in operations and maintenance, engineers, civil, Mechanical Engineering needed for a wind project site and the manufacturing and supply chain. About 25,000 of the 80,000 jobs are in the Manufacturing Sector in the u. S. At those 550 facilities i mentioned, and so we have a very diverse set of employment in our industry that needs a different set of skills, one of the most unique jobs in our industry is a wind technician, individuals who are highly skill in mechanical and electrical engineers, and that maintain the turbines when they need after they are operating, and this is a very interesting field because these are local individuals with a permanent job, where the project is in Rural Regions of the country getting paid a great salary. Host what is the salary, do you know . Guest it depends where you are located, it can be up over six figures for a senior technician. If you manage the team of people who are operating the turbines, and it really leads back to the unique set of skills needed to maintain the turbines. Host on twitter, they ask a question about solar, but applying that to wind, how can we store wind energy produced, you know, when the wind is not blowing, how do you store what you previously produced . Guest its a great question and one that comes up often. We are lucky that in the u. S. We operate the power grid as an entire system where all the resources, the natural gas plants, coal plants, and Renewable Energy facilities Work Together on a system, and wherever the demand is, the electricity flows, and so using the system to make sure that we can actually move the power when the wind is blowing to make sure we have the transmission to move that electricity to the place where the demand is is actually the most affordable and effective way to utilize wind energy when it is blowing, and if the wind is not so strong op certain parts of the day, we have a robust system that allows flexible power plants like gas units to ramp up and down and balance the supply and demand so this system as a whole is actually the best way to quoteonquote sort of store and utilize Renewable Resources when they are producing. Host clark next, auburn hills, michigan, independent caller. Caller morning. Host good morning. Caller i studied green energy for 11 or 12 years now, and one of the biggest problems that i have is im going to address this, actually, to the previous caller, the example, the previous displayer, he was saying it cost 2 billion to service a thousand households. Well, if you look at the math on that, thats 2 million over a period of 50 years, and i looked into wind engineer, talked to an engineer in who put in an 18,000 windmill, and he says, chuck, im saving about a buck80 a month, and its, like, well do the math, 18,000, a buck80 a month, and im going whats to prevent, we dig a big financial hole in the ground, and the taxpayers have to pay for it. Can you answer that, please . Guest yeah, i think i can answer it through the way our tax relief, the production tax credit works is its really a Remarkable Program where you are not eligible to receive any of that tax relief until you bring your project all the way to completion, your online, operating, delivering electricity with the grid, and you produce electricity, thats eligible for the tax relief under the tax credit so the way the program is designed is really to encourage private investment from the private sector to develop, construct, and bring that wind project to completion and only at that point are you eligible to receive tax relief based on how much you produce. The program is designed to optimize and maximize production of electricity. Carls next, seattle, democratic caller. Caller good morning. I live in an area, actually, in Central Washington where theres an enormous amount of wind and wind farms now close to my house, and my neighbors and i find the most obnoxious aspect of the obnoxious devices is when the flashing red lights are more and more obvious as night falls and becomes darker and darker, it becomes more and more intrucive causing anxiety problems. I looked into this. I found theres a system called the acronym of obstacle collisional avoidance system that could radar switch these things if theres an approaching aircraft at the proper range and altitude, and i wish these things could become far nicer neighbors for us. They are inflicted on us violating height restrictions. Our board of county commissioners vote unanimously to keep them out of our lives. They are not producing anything of value at all. They cost more money than the electricity they produce. Bonville Power Authority took them to court to try to get them to shut these things down because of the chaos they introduce into the grid, and the Supreme Court turned them down saying its unfair to wind mills as if they are an ethical machinery. Can you comment and tell me where to go from here . Wheres my next stop . Who do i talk to to get the radar switch system in so theres less of a burden on our lives . A largebuilding astronomical observatory which is numb and ruined by these things. Let me know where i can go from here. Just the point on the lighting on the radar. I want to push back a little bit on the value that wind energy is bringing to this country. A renewable resource. It is something that does not run out. The affordability of this Energy Resource is incredible right now. It is a great deal of consumers deal for consumers. Wind energy can provide an affordable form of power. We can lock in rates for the consumers for 20 or 30 years. All ofice is protecting us from future volatility or future risk. Fuel price volatility, Regulatory Risk we are insulating ourselves from that because we can lock in our price for 20 or 30 years. That is something important to think about as we build out energy in this country. Projects,velop wind the industry takes very seriously with the local impacts are of the project. We spend a significant amount of time before, during, and after the project is completed studying the local impacts of our projects. With several experts that have come to the industry over the years. We do work with the federal Aviation Administration on rules and the department of defense on ensuring that the turbines to not interact with other objects at altitude. Safetyhting is part of a measure, obviously, that is a requirement as part of our regulatory program. Do work closely with the federal Aviation Administration and the department of defense to understand visuals and make sure they work in conjunction, not only for the wind industry, but also for the surrounding community. That is a place where we work closely and that is where i recommend future work be taken up. Host phil is in ohio. Republican color. Caller good morning. Thank you for cspan. My question is what can you do to keep the windmills from killing eagles and keys geese . I believe that is my question. Guest thanks for the question. It is an important one. The wind industry takes very seriously the impact we have on wildlife. One of the benefits of Renewable Energy is that it does not produce any localized air pollutants or contribute to greenhouse gases. As a benefit of wind energy, we on ther broader impact local ecosystem very seriously. We try to minimize any local impacts on wildlife by doing studies for several years prior to breaking ground on construction at a site. We want to make sure we understand what the impacts are going to be on the local wildlife, whether it is avian or ground wildlife. We try to work in conjunction with the Environmental Community and the Aviation Community to understand these impacts better. One of the ways we have tried to get ahead of this issue and make sure we really understand what the impact would be and how to prevent it is an organization that was set up that is half Environmental Community, half industry working together. The american wind the wildlife institute. That is where we try to do the research to understand how to minimize the impacts. At the end of the day, the industry is proud to be one of the lowest impact Energy Resources we have at our fingertips today that can be deployed because it does not contribute to local air pollutants that obviously impact any species and it does not contribute to greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gas and Global Climate change could lead to a much broader impact on wildlife through extinctions. By helping address Climate Change and air pollutants, we are having a much broader benefit that will help over the longhaul. Host anthony is next in rochester, new york. Democrat line. I am interested in finding out more about wind energy and solar energy. [indiscernible] heard the not sure i last part of the question. Perhaps how to get more wind energy to your region. We are having Developers Look at every region of the country right now. Looking at different wind sites, the different wind resources, seeing if it is appropriate for a project to be developed. Also, where we are manufacturing all of the components. If youre in a state that his furry windy, you might see wind project development. State that isa not windy at the moment, your sing manufacturing ramp up because of the 8000 Component Parts that are in a wind turbine , the vast majority of which are being made in the United States now. There is an opportunity for every state and every region to be involved in the wind Industry Growth. Host when you look at how americans get their electricity, this is a chart from the Energy Information agency. Renewables make up 12 . 12 from Renewable Energy, wind makes up 28 of that. Michael on twitter wants to know guest excellent question. It is something the industry is prepared to do. To ramp up to society wants to make renewable a larger portion of our energy mix. It was a report done a few years ago that i was part of under the Bush Administration coming out of the department of energy looking at what he Percent Wind Energy by 2030 and understanding what it would take for the u. S. To scale up and reached 20 of by 2030. Gy the industry is ready and able to scale up and reach that 20 mark. We have stayed ahead of the trajectory laid out in that report over the last five years. The Industry Growth has stayed ahead of the curve, on the path to 20 . The department of energy today is midway through the process of updating that report to understand, given everything that has changed, the new technology, changes in the power sector, what other challenges we might face and what are the benefits of scaling up very quickly in order to meet any of the energy goals we have in this country, whether it is Climate Change, addressing Climate Change with green energy, security, affordability, diversity, making sure our portfolio is diverse and secured. We are not overly reliant on any source. The department of energy is halfway through a process of updating that report of reaching 20 to 2030. Host isabel in new york. Independent. Caller hello. , are we using any trees for these windmills . Guest did u. S. About trees . Are we losing very many trees to windmills . Guest that is an interesting question. It is useful to know where our wind projects are built in this country. It 98 of the wind projects in this country we have 45,000 operating Wind Turbines across the country and the vast majority of these turbines are onlt on private land, farming, ranching land with private landowners where the developer works directly with the landowner and leases we actually leased the land from the private landowner. We come on and put up a wind turbine. The vast majority of the land that the landowner as for renting or farming purposes can be used for its original purpose. We generally use about two 5 for the2 to turbine and access rose. The land is left for its original purpose which is commonly farming and ranching. Those are generally the partners that we have to when we develop wind projects across the country. Host how much of the landowners getting in leasing fees . The local benefits of what comes from a wind project are not just the land lease payments but also the property tax payments to go to the local community for a land lease. A landowner might get anywhere to 5,000 for turbine per turbine over the year. A project could be 50 turbines. The project that is thousands of dollars of extra cash to the landowner. That additional cash income that they get is the difference between them being in the red and the black we hear sometimes. It is not exposed to some of the volatility of crop prices or other income coming into the farm. It is helpful in keeping these families farms running. Businessash positive with the extra income from the Wind Turbines. In addition to those land lease payments, we do have to pay property taxes in most counties and most states. That property tax is also some of the largest income that the counties have ever seen. We often build schools or libraries or hospitals and that money is followed back into the community. Really changing the dynamics once a wind project comes in. Host tweet mike, republican caller. Yes, i am interested in knowing, when we have a lot of power,d we have excess why can we turn some of that power into hydrogen and burn the hydrogen or use the hydrogen to make power when there is not any wind . Guest that is an excellent question and some in our industry as well as the r d labs at the department of energy have spent time looking at different ways to utilize all the wind energy we produce because when you produce wind, it is free. There is no fuel price, so the best way to utilize wind energy is to make sure there is sufficient transmission capacity that we can move the power to the demand center wherever it electricity is needed. There are several demonstration projects around the country looking at different ways, with battery or potentially hydrogen, looking at different ways to see if that makes sense. But right now with the amount of wind power we are producing, we can scale up to a fairly significant level of wind penetration, and just using the power grid and operating it is efficiently is the cheapest way, if we want to think about using the most portable forms first, the cheapest way to move effectively free power to the demand centers. There are lots of demonstration projects going on right now in combination with the industry and the department of industry and the department of energy to understand the opportunities such as the one that you mentioned that to be part of our system in the future. , thanklizabeth salerno you very much. For more information, go to a say basically what happened here the stock market is back, and if someone said, you guys are all part of this, what would you say to them . I would start by saying that is not the goal we are making sure that the economy is Going Forward. When we go back to the 2007 year, the Financial Sector really froze and that could mean that some people were bailed out in my response was, well, of course it is a moral hazard. The issue is what are the consequences of not dealing with right now, and i think that the president and all the people in this administration. Some of me on the street got bailed out. Usually when people say that, its more frustration, i think, what this. The Unemployment Rate is still high. I think it would be fun to have you talk about the Bush Administration the biggest shock is that bear stearns go under. And what should we have done after that that we couldnt do before that we could have. Let me just Say Something on the previous point. Just wars have unintended victims, and appropriate pair bailouts have an appropriate beneficiaries. Nonetheless, it is the case that if you look at the shareholders, bear stearns, and this includes citigroup and bank of america down 90 . If you look at the vast majorities of the ceos involved. And everyone tends to member their own comments better than they remember their own not pressing comments. And then violently after bear stearns had failed, that the systemwide and there were a variety of junctions at which this was critically raised in the for bear stearns failed in the early summer, well before the capital couldve been raised. It does seem to me that that is a major failure on the part of their management and not recognizing the need to shore up the defenses. This includes the substantial capital rates and this is very substantial agility fragility and it is not possible that they could have been found in may or june. But yes, they couldnt have been found at prices that were attractive in this includes the previous environment. But if you look back, that was a moment when both the private and public sectors and is taking steps that could have attenuated the declines in output. And it goes to an issue which i have to say i am still concerned is with us today they said that bear stearns was well capitalized the day before it failed. So, how do you interpret that . I would interpret that as suggesting the regulatory capital is flawed as an indicator of fragility. Something similar is true with respect to capital ratios as reported and judged by regulators for a variety of the other institutions that failed or found themselves in serious trouble. And i did still worried about carrying on the dialogue in terms of a concept that says this was well capitalized. Obviously that wasnt possible, obviously it gives us the authority to do these sorts of things and there is a pretty incredible power. One of the things we are doing is talking about main street. And in retrospect, the dialogue is still there. Sometimes it can mean something else. There is just this disconnect of rewinding to june. I would like to take your point that it is and it is much easier sit on the outside and do both, to take the bold steps that we can take than it is and i think that is completely fair and i dont think anyone should be faulty for any kind of situation. And that includes the responsibility of the financial situation. That being said, you said that no one in june could have realized how serious it is and d that no one in june could have realized how serious it is and i refer you to my oped and plenty of other people. This includes plenty of other people that were capitalized at this time. And the republicans would routinely call upon them to suspend dividends if they did not take steps to raise cattle. I am not that critical. Especially going and doing myths. Theres a lot of good systems between this and others, saying we need to to raise more capital and i forgot the regular message. Did any firms raise capital . Im not sure its. But you made the point. Okay. When obama comes in and they say its a lot worse than what they led him to be, one thing that they did was what i assumed at the time was financial fiscal stakes. So was that the right thing to do, and was that of the right size and shape and design . The first stimulus is actually under the bus and tram Bush Administration that happened with checks that went out in may of 2008 and we have studied that and the effects of that stimulus. They were modest at best. And we were virtually, at that point, everyone is desperate. Not only that we felt that this would work, but we felt that we would have to try something. Looking at it at that time, everybody felt it was necessary to do something. Based on the historical record, i dont think it was particularly effective in i think it was the wrong strategy. It was the wrong strategy rather than a long one. We are sitting here five years later and this is the long run and the kinds of growth policies to get us moving. There is kantian, rationality, its not designed to encourage longterm growth. There are things like the tax system and regulatory structure in things like the budget structure. The problem with stimulus is in the right medicine. I think my perception of washington is capable of dealing with is the problem that they are getting the problem of this going. And i think poor for people get one either but they want. Wit this, there are four Different Things and only one of them is correct. They have to orient around deciding which one is correct and do that. We thought the economy was shrinking a 3. 5 in saying that this is going to be horrible and then it turns out it was actually minus 9 . There was a division of opinion at the time and will this be be shaped recovery where we have this huge downturn and we will come rapidly back, is this going to be long and extended painful deleveraging and this is something that we could get a bunch of republican votes on. Those three camps turn into should this be short run into 2010 and 2009, should this be longterm stuff like infrastructure or structural things. Or should this be predominantly tax cuts. What ends up happening is some combination of all of those. The clash cassia clunkers, things like that, and we probably should not have oriented from 2000 and 2009 and we will look back and say that that wasnt effective because at a moment when everyone is trying to deliver it, they took the tax cut and try to pay down debt. And so i think some parts of the stimulus must of been better off than the fact that we shouldnt have been doing it when the economy is shrinking. So what are the advantages . I have a few things to say. First it was clear that the economy was the main concern in the priority had to attach to increasing demand of raising a supply potential of the economy and second, i think that the policies were enacted were probably as good as could be done given the political constraints and prevailing attitude at that time. It was not planetary at that moment and it was seen by republicans and a substantial number of democrats on the hill and turning it into a longrun was not a politically viable strategy at that moment you put as much infrastructure into that program and it would be plausible to actually move in two to three years and there was a judgment main. Does spending wouldve been coming in 2013 and no one had an appetite for increase than in 2013 because it didnt solve the problem in 2009, and because it made a deficit problem. From the benefit of hindsight . A longerterm Infrastructure Program would have been desirable if it didnt come at the expense of doing shortterm stimulus. First of all i think more of it was spent in second and so far as people put their tax cuts and use them to pay down debt, that accelerated the deleveraging process which then accelerated the recovery. So i think that targeted tax cuts was actually relatively well advised for a strategy and i would say many would not share this judgment. And this includes how to do structural things at the same time you we were doing stimulus and the more complicated structural things, trying to do them all at once. And i dont think the results have been enormously successful, either in providing stimulus were with respect to their stated objectives who came from conflating into a framework that was doing a very rapidly. That political judgment and if you want to get as much stimulus in the third, roberts would robertson always be happy to provide more funds for stimulus. And the reason for to frontload was that in the antireasonable judgment he made a mistake and he wanted more spending, you could get it. But if you made a mistake and he got too much spending, you would never be able to undo it. Changing the subject a little bit. So you can do the do over, and you can say that given everything i know now, i might have done something differently. But it seems to me one place worth thinking about as housing. Given where we are in the Housing Market five years later, how slow the recovery was, how many people are still underwater, the benefit of hindsight, which you didnt have at the time, is there something we could have done differently it was always feasible, but in 08, there was always a deal out. And theres a massive housing situation. One could imagine doing that and that would address the underlying sources of the problem. You can imagine doing it. In 2009, they actually could have done it, the whole thing and it was at a time when they thought about one sector, most of this does not show any evidence if you look up to this, up to the spring of 2008, the one exception is housing and the average was at 1. 5. So it would have been back in the early 2000 and three out that period of time. Our regulatory policies with respect to housing and mortgages and in retrospect i think that we were. But you got a lot of grows out of it and that was the positive aspect of it. Once the crisis hits, theres little that could be done and we thought about it, the Obama Administration. About it and tried it, didnt work. They quietly retracted the policy on that and it was because i think they were essentially not up to the task and i think it was simply about going to leave. But going back to what we talked about earlier, just picking up on a point. The important point in terms of Going Forward with housing and you name it, it is we have to think about what it is that we want to do in terms of moving the economy. And this includes those that would grow the economy over the long run. And that is not a prodemand strategy, its not a strategy that is going to be consistent with high productivity growth and one that is consistent for the long run. [talking over each other] that is the opposite of what we actually do. The New York Times and others said that our problem was we have made the cost of capital to achieve and so people are replacing jobs with machines. So i kind of dont think that. Okay, lets say that im housing. I think that your basic situation is you have a 24 trilliondollar market which drops to 20 trillion. And a bunch of people are now underwater. In this includes the reduction that can solve the debt overhang. And there were 750 billion of negative equity in the system and nobody can eat 750 billion. This is the one that you can count on, or lets count on people continuing to make their payments even though they are underwater. The banks cannot accept these losses, there was no way the government could accept 750 billion. So i think anyone who says they should have done more writedown is being way overly simplistic. Larry was absolutely 100 and present in the meetings, wanting to do everything he could in housing, fully well identify that this was going to be one of the the biggest debt overhang, we didnt have the money to do that and there was not any way to do that. You could not have. Im not suggesting you should have, but you could have. This is really hard and it may be that there was a better design that could have done this better than the one that we found were the one that the Bush Administration found and certainly the outcome has been lousy. But a great deal of what has been said with confidence is frankly part of the problem. Theres a huge number of people who are underwater. Its easy to say that there is mr. Paulsen, hes foreclose, its terrible for mr. Paulsen, its terrible for the bank. Its terrible for everyone. If you just wrote him down, the bank would be better off in mr. Paulsens community would be better off and why then why cant those idiots just get it done. It is really easy to say that, like someone came to my office every three days to say that. I mean, i did understand that completely. And the problem is that for every mr. Paulsen, there were about seven mr. Wessels. [laughter] and he was also underwater, about as much is mr. Paulsen was, but he and the bank were doing fine. He was paying his mortgage and doing all of that. If he announced a program where everyone started paying their mortgage and i believe, he would stop paying as well and would spend a lot of money. And you would be doing an unjust thing. Why should all do people get money who bought housing badly, versus all the people that run and didnt buy housing. So the problem is how to do target these individuals without inducing a vast wave of defaults on the part of mr. Wessel. There was caution about setting off an epidemic of male your key in the fultz and i think that policymakers should have been cautious about that and in the end, what happened was we didnt have any massive voluntary defaults and we didnt reach nearly as many people with their Housing Assistance as we would have liked. Perhaps there wasnt, you really want to have setting off a vast wave of default and if you are confident and 200 million could have been moved without setting off a large set of problems and there were easy mechanisms, you have a confidence that goes well beyond anybodys whose lifetime has been spent in the world of mortgages. A brief rejoinder and then i will change the topic. Whats remarkable to me, and again this is across the administration, is seeing the problems and addressing them, but too late. It started in november 2008 and we address that in august of 2007. It was the by policy, but it took time. So the program eventually, they just didnt get enough credit for it. But it wasnt effective until the second situation, the last year and a half. Seeing the problem, diagnosing it, and is its taking the time to do a policy solution. Here it is, 2013, the economy has been growing for 40 years and we have 7. 2 of unemployment. Nearly 3 Million People out of work for a full year and still looking. We are far from potential. Is there nothing we could have done in 2008, 2009, that would put us in a better place . You seem to suggest that if we cut Capital Gains taxes we couldve done better . There were a lot of things we could have done. So pick one. One thing we could do is not just Capital Gains, but the single most important thing we could do is reduce taxes and essentially nontax capital. This is kind of us entered mainstream economics, Public Finance economics. Most people believe theres a lot of distortions in the system having to do with that versus equity. Those are things that should be remedied. And that is my number one. Number two i would say is if youre thinking about where we need to look for the future, i would be focusing more on trade. They credit the Obama Administration with a couple of things. First of all getting through the free trade agreements we have negotiated at the end of our term is actually a major accomplishment for which they deserve credit. And i wish that they would have been more aggressive in laying out the future. Lets be serious here, trade. I at silencing serious . [applause] on a highend estimate, im all for the freetrade agreements. On the highend estimate, it is a 10th of a percent of it. Of those in a highend estimate of the rest of it, it is way under half a percent of gdp. So its good in a lot of ways, but its just not good. Can we just understand what the rules world and what the environment was. On equipment, which is about 70 to 75 of corporate investments. In the first year would you buy the car you get to deduct the whole thing from your taxes. And by the way, the Interest Rate at which you could borrow whistler than the Second World War and the idea that had this deductibility in borrowing costs is somehow the high cost of capital, i have to say it is ludicrous and when you ask ask businesses why they wont invest in companies they they were not because they had substantial access and why should you invest. When you have substantial excess capacity. So we can debate the right kind of Corporate Tax reform is Going Forward and i think that it is important and makes a contribution. In terms of a broad sweep, if you want to take an argument from your side, i think that many people on your side overdo this argument. But that this is not the moment for a big regulatory push on bad Business Practices and that you need to be careful about the tendency that always exists with a new Democratic Administration for new regulations to becoming from 11 different sources and that may delay some investment to discourage some investments at a moment when you demand constrained, i think that argument is it tends to be very overdone, but i understand that argument as a legitimate concern and is something that needs to be a focus of Economic Policy and a sense that confidence is probably the cheapest form of stimulus. But the idea that it is a cost the cost of capital and taxation is sort of a standby for one side of the aisle. But it had a single least possible moment in the last 60 years in 2009, both because of the expensing and the low Interest Rate. Leary, i think youre living back in 2009. That is the period in which you are concerned about, but im not. Im thinking about where we are today and what policy should be for the future and what we need to do to grow the economy into the future. You may argue that in 2009 was a lack of demand and not the fact that capital was too costly. If you look at the evidence on this, you can pick any evidence you want, capital taxation is without question the most distortionary taxation you can have because capital is mobile and if you want to grow the economy the way we have to think about growing the economy is moving to a more efficient tax system. You and i might differ a bit on that, although i think fundamentally we wouldnt differ so much. But if im thinking about what is the best for the long run, the number one concern is what do we do to motivate. One thing that happens must be and have on there must be a professor whose name is associated with this, we go from having not enough capital or constraints and not enough liquidity and we overreact. So given what we are now, that the whole regulatory architecture whatever it is, but we have gone too far and we have a constraint on the economy now . We are looking at the extreme parts of the doddfrank amendment, and it doesnt make any sense. But on the whole, with additional capital, it has even done a pretty good job overall. It has had some negative effects, but its not surprising if we had doddfrank in the aftermath of the prices. The state of the tragedy is that regulators have lots of power before. Its not like something the doddfrank gave them that they didnt have to prevent the crisis. Including dealing with it after the fact in 2008. But they have the authority back then and they didnt use the. How we made it too hard in 2013 . We got on the squared circle in which Small Business people would come to the white house and say that we cant do credit and then the base would say, the banks have tightened the standards and some of them them are less credit worthy, but they dont want any credit and we kind of went back and forth on that and then they both agreed that lets just blame it on the regulators greater than you talk to them and they say that we havent applied any different standard to the banks. So i think its very hard to say. It feels to me like at least 75 of the tightness of credit has nothing to do with government regulation. It has to do with everybody that just came through such a horrible period that they pulled in their lines of credit and are emphatically not going to land at the kind of where they were before. Some comes from regulatory, but we do have to move on those issues and i worry that if you said that we know we need to get to a capital ratio of 7. 5 , we know that we are at three, but we dont want to mess something up in the short run, so its not actually discuss that until sometime in the future and i think the chances are weve never do it. Covenant life is back. That suggests that we are not starving for the credit on a general basis right now. I think that there are issues in the mortgage space where there is too little capital available today and i think that there is a danger in the name of preventing the abuses of the 2003 to 2006 period. We will take steps where we need this come out and for business credit, its mostly part of it. Bottom line, did all of this quantitative easing been printed to buy bonds, my view is that the first was very effective and very important and i think that the fed behaved not only responsibly, but also admirably by the way that we have talked about the governor of the bank as well for what they did and i think they were very effective and very helpful. My sense is that we have reached rapidly diminishing returns on this and i dont believe that the economy has healed sufficiently that we can declare victory and say its time to stop buying assets. The reason for stopping to buy assets is not that the economy is in better shape but rather because the policy is no longer particularly effective. At this point so they should stop . I would say we need to taper this. The second necessary condition is that the policy works and i dont believe its working. Dont filibuster. If you dont want to do it, dont do it. I think 10 years ago if you set any economy, not just the u. S. , the employment rate will have been 7. 5 or above for Something Like four or five straight years, it is still well below the 2 target and every economist in the world would say he so you should listen to Monetary Policy in that environment. In other say what should the Interest Rate be, the Interest Rates would be negative 2. 5 . So while the fed has been trying to do is what it should be doing when the Interest Rate is already bopping around. We will turn to the audience. One of my concerns is that it wasnt that weve done damage to the potential growth rate of the u. S. Economy that will increase. Do you think that we have dented the financial growth rate . I dont think so when we look at the innovative parts of our economy. And . I d aquavit and . I dont think we are permanently reduced a growth rate. I do think we have reduced this and i think that gdp, as far as one can see will be on the order of three or 4 lower than it otherwise wouldve been in the present value is spectacularly high cost of this episode, which is why it is worth doing almost anything to mitigate this. One thing i would say that if you look at the data, it looks like we have reduced the growth rate, which is the historic average. But the fundamentals are still there, we have depreciated the stock of Human Capital and physical capital and our ability to create technologies, those are being talked about. There was a joke headline about this foreign country and restoring prosperity and i think that sometimes we can get into this, the 2000 expansion was fueled by a bubble and we can go back to that. So we will have slow growth for some period of time because that is oversteering with the growth wise. And i dont think that we are getting off the old trend. I think its all the fundamentals. The term [inaudible] wisdom of hindsight was used a lot. How much of the hindsight was foreseeable at the time when the academic standing but not applicable because of the environment and other pressures . I can say a few words on that one. Since i was the person who received the incoming flier from academic. And two stories. They are two imminent economists. One here at boothe and one at harvard. Saying, look, the only thing you need to do was change the bankruptcy code. Turn it to equity and youre done. Okay. So, you know, the obtuseness of the way the government works. Number two, whether we are moving from the asset purchases to the capital injection it was a slow period for that. Yeah. Exactly. We worked hard on it. But made a round of phone calls to academics saying were about to do this. Were thinking of doing this. What do you any . Of course were going do it and mainly get people on board. Is a very imminent academic said, look, its a Financial Sector was too big. And this is shrink aging to the right size. It was a tough way of doing it. Do you think we should curbs it . No. All the Academic Work had prepare you as a policy maker and your colleague prepare for this . No. Academic Mariah Carey Marc economics is a dynamic [inaudible] for 25 years. [laughter] was unconnected to any aspect of the problem. There were important academics who had written very important things that were influential. They were people like kings and min sky, they were people like mostly had written a long time had written a long time before. So surely the macroeconomic training sweffed influences what we did. I would say most of what passes for contemporary macroeconomics did not make a positive contribution. I agree and disagree with larry. I certainly agree, we didnt spend a lot of time thinking about Business Cycles here trying to construct Economic Policy on the fly in 2007 and 2008. One thing i will say, though, is virtually everything i think i did and i would venture to say the same is true with our colleague is based on the Human Capital you acquire being in academic. I think we think differently about the problems in government than the rest of our colleague. If you look at counsel of economic adviser and the Clinton Administration and the Obama Administration theres a lot more similarities there between those groups than there is between me and the political people, say, in the Bush Administration. Thank god we werent all economists. Possibly. When you see economists think about politics beware. What were best doing is sticking to the knitting. Bringing logical arguments to the table, and those usually went out in the long run. One set you can call on him as he stands up. Okay. I will say it was surprisingly infrequent in our discussions larry was running the process. The most policy about what was the right policy. The argument by political people oh no, you may want to do it that. But we cant do it. It seldom happens. Jebt l over here gentleman over here. Jim mcdanielle. Im a parter in at sidely austin. My question goes to root cause of the problem. There seems to be almost a consensus that fundamental problem if not the fundamental was the highly leveraged Home Mortgage market and the housing bubble. We know that government didnt recognize that. In time at least, but what was wrong with the private sector . This was funded, after all primarily by private investments. We know what the buyers or the sellers motivation. What was the buyers motivation. Why didnt they recognize they were purchasing what quickly became toxic assets . What happened to market [inaudible] whoever took more chances made more money. And so you go in to more and more venturesome security. What else can you learn from except the past. People extrapolate. I would argue virtually all financial error is has at the root naive extrapolation from the past, and that and getting past that. Thats why, if you think about it all the Great Investors are in some way or another con trairn whoa reject the lessons of recent experiences. Let take two or three. Here is one here. Maybe three and one here and two over there. Can someone bring a mic here and the other side. The gentleman on the aisle. Thank you for the panelists for coming here. Im a secondyear mba student. A lot has been said on wall street being a lot to blame for the crisis. It seems to me the incentive for the politicians in congress and the senate are equally to blame maybe not taking care of the crisis after it unfolded and seeing the budget mess. Most are inclined to get reelected. I want to get your views on how do you think the incentive are on the government side for solving problems in the u. S. At the moment. Lets take couple more and let the panelists answer. The gentleman up front and then the young man. When rob emanuel spoke the words no good crisis should go wasted. Is in for one or the other party or the opportunity for game for our society . Hes going answer that later when hes here. And the gentleman. My name is john a fourthyear economics major. We talked briefly about Monetary Policy. My question is increasing Lending Conditions is a top priority. Do you think the policy [inaudible] has inhibited that and should should be discontinued . Three different questions. Someone want to do what eddy said economists shouldnt do talk about politicians. Are there bad incentive for the im an incentive guy. I think there are some bad incentive. The best incentives actually are held at the white house. And the reason is that the president is an executive and everybody works for the president and certainly our role in the administration was was to make sure the president did the right thing. Congress has different incentive. It insists of individuals who incentive are designed to get attention for the individuals. I dont think we can rely, with all due respect, from people from congress here. I dont think we can rely on congress do. It the incentive are appropriate but at the executive branch. It requires leadership, and i think that sounds like an argument for democracy. I think it. No, i think the Congress Role is one making sure the president does the right thing. The leadership has to come from the white house. I think thats how the incentives are designed. They are always designed that way. They are effective. They have worked for a long time. I dont see a problem. I dont think you can expect that congress is going to come up with the appropriate kinds of mechanisms that will further Economic Growth nap has to be an executive branch function. You need a lot of money to get and hold office. They are responsive to those who finance and that centrality of is biggest incentive problem. You want to speak . How you should use the mandate. His context was unambiguously clear it was an opportunity to do things. And a classic example was his conviction which i think is right. You can do substantially more to reform it than you could have done absent this kind of provocation. , i mean, i would say looking at this some of the questions at the beginning of 2009 there was a sense of a missed opportunity. Right. I wonder if a different kind of stimulus with the changes that larry hinted at dropping the high speed rail and energy all of that might have gotten bipartisan support. Didnt happy. Im not blaming one side or the other. To me that is the question could a different set of choices brought the country together in a way that you know ive been critical of some of the more classically democratic part of the recovery program. But i was there. You know, the Senate Minority leader said that the basic purpose of his minority leadership was to make sure that the president was not reelected. I think its not easy to make the case that people the administration were prepared to walk a loan mile to get substantial substantial sport so i think it would have been much more difficult and the price of doing it would have been much more not the infrastructure direction, but in the tax cut direction that would have been problematic. The policy on whether paying interest on reserves. Before you do that sure. I was there. Look, many people in treasury were helping people on the hill. Many people say i was there. The feeling republicans on the hill didnt it was eight years of pent up spending. It came out. And the administration comes in january 20, 2009. Theyre already holding up many of our economic nominations. As we come in. Youve had the hearing. It was quite clear the thats counter factual. Completely counterfactual. Ill give you a list. Right but held up for the own reasons. Im not talking about the treasury. You were held up for reasons doing with senator reid what he did in the past, right with donald and others. Anyway. I think its completely counterfactual. The question, eddie, the fed used to have reserves and didnt pay it. Right one of the changes i now they can pay interest and look at a new tool. Thats right. So a number of people just to put in context, a number of people have been arguing that one of the problems in term of Funding Investment in the private sector. The fed is sucking money out of the of the system on paying interest out the reserve. I think its little evidence thats the case. The design of that policy was primarily to make sure that there was control over the fed rate. To keep the bend of fed rate narrower than they have been. Remember, it was a time when it was volatile, it was all over the place. It seemed to work effectively. The evidence for the policy is pretty positive. That doesnt mean it couldnt used to harm the private sector by sucking the money out of the economy. The fed has discretion on the rate it pays for those funds obviously by paying a rate too high. You can do a lot of damage. I dont think theres any we have to tend there. We want to thank the panel. Please join me in thanking them. [applause] i want to know that we had an hourlong discussion and nobody blamed the media for anything. Thats the first time thats happened to me on any panel ever. [applause] [inaudible conversations] about how automatic budget cuts are affecting military readiness. You can see the hearing in its entirety online at cspan. Org. Here is a little bit of the testimony from marine core commandant general james amous. Budget, this was not a strategydriven effort, it was a budgetdriven effort, pure and similar. Our Exhaustive Research backed by independent analysis determined a force of 174,000 marines quite simply is the Largest Force that we can afford. Assuming that the requirements for marines remain the same over the foreseeable future, a force of 174,000 will drive the marine corps to a one to 212. It will be that way for virtually all my operational units. Six months deployed, 12 months home recuperating, resetting and training and six months deployed once again. This is dangerously close to the same tempo we had in iraq and afghanistan while fighting in nullity theaters and maintaining steady state Amphibious Operations around the world. The 174,000 force accepts great risk when our nation commits itself to the next major theater war. As there are significant reductions in my service in Ground Combat and aviation Units Available for the fight. Under sequestration we will effectively lose a marine divisions worth of combat power. This is a marine corps that could deploy to a major contingency, fight and not return until the war is over. We will empty the entire bench. There will be no rotational relief like we had in iraq and afghanistan. Marines who joined the corps during that law will likely go straight from the drill field to the battlefield without the benefit of pre combat training. We will have fewer forces arriving less trained, arriving late tore the fight. This would delay the buildup of combat power, allow the in a few moments the Environmental Protection agency hosts a meeting on rules to regulate Carbon Emissions from power plants. In a little more than an hour and a half a discussion about how environmentalist effect Energy Policy. A look at the status and future of solar and wind energy. Several live events to tell you about tomorrow. Built spirally of public expense after Hurricane Katrina badly damaged when it hosted Football Games again. It was a national feelgood story. I would say so. But the public paid for the repair. The league put in the token amount. The public is invested about a billion collars in the her mercedes bends superdome. The man who owns the new Orleans Saints keeps almost all the revenue generate there had. I think why dont people rebel against . One reason many people in the public dont understand its taking place. I think the second reason is that they feel theres nothing they can do about it. Its bassed on insider deals. It is largely based on insider deal. The most recent time there was a vote in miami last year there was a vote whether to use public money to renovate the place with the dolphin plaid. Played. The citizens voted against doing it. They got vote on it. More with the king of sports author sunday night at 8 00 onn cspans q a. The Environmental Protection agency is hosting a series of Public Meetings before issuingnl rules on regulating carbonhostig emissions from power plants. The rules are part of president obamas plan to reduce reg greenhouse gases. In todays meeting included criticism of the plan from rules Senate Minority leader Mitch Mcconnell inspect mcc this portion is a little more than an hour and a half. [inaudible conversations] thank you very much for coming k to participate in todays session. Which is part of which is now an ongoing discussion intended to help the epa a epa a and the states determine promising approaches for reducing carbon intended pollution from existing powerdee plant. Car power plants are the nations single largest source of carbon we pollution. The source we must address as wn work to combat Climate Change ae work to combat public change and one of the most Significant Health risks of our time. Science tell us Climate Change is real and human activities are fueling the change and we must take action to avoid the most devastating consequences. In june the president called on agencies, including the epa, to take action and protect the country against Climate Change and lead the world in the effort. The president s call included a directive for epa to work quickly to complete carbon standards for both new and existing power plants. Closed quote. There are no federal standard in place to reduce the country from that large source of pollution. The epa responded and we will save consumers thousands of dollars at the pump and cut the Carbon Pollution from our cars in half by 2025. In september, we announced our proposal to set standards for carbon plants emitted by power plants in the future. These standards are practical, flexible and achievable and insure that Power Companies will use modern technology that limits emissions. These standards insure a clear path forward to a continued Diverse Energy mix. Epa is now beginning the work for proposed guidelines for consisting power plants. These guidelines will be used by the state as required by the Clean Air Act to develop and implement programs to reduce the carbon admission in each state. The epas job is to deliver clean water, air and safe and healthy land to american families. We have done this job for four decades and done it by relying on the best available science and being transparent in the decision making. And by working with everyone to develop common sense approaches to protecting and improving the environment across the country. The 40year history proves we can reduce pollution and increase jobs. It is this history that brings us here today to hear the opinions. At todays meeting and at ten others like this around the country this fall, the epa is reaching out to the public at large to get your input. We want to hear from everyone include community, leaders, environmental and health groups, faith leaders and labor organizations. We want to here about how epa should develop and implement Carbon Pollution guidelines for existing power plants under the Clean Air Act. In addition to sections like this, epa regional and Headquarters Staff and leadership, including administrator mccarty, has been meeting with ceos from the gas and coal organization. We have been meeting with everyone from state and local officials, health organization, faith groups and many other stakeholde stakeholders. We want to be open to what is important to each stake member. We are reaching out to leaders in all of the state and tribes to hear their ideas as we develop the proposed guidelines. The clean air calls on the states to play a key role. We can learn lot from ongoing efforts in the states and cities and communities as well all of which have been starters for innovation. Ner energy. Ading the w to eded might help us develop guides thele ed if you would like to comment on the future power plants proposals, there is information in the back of the room to get you started to submit the comments. The Clean Air Act gives us frame works to address new and existing sources. Before i turn it over to my partner let me remind you why it is so important you are here. Climate change is a threat for the future and now. The extreme weather is what we are talking about. No one can forget about super storm sandy. Extreme storms like that can cause more surges in the future. 2012 is the same year that was the hottest on record in the lower 48 states. We can expect to see longer more frequent heat waves and increased heatrelated deaths. Wild fires in 2012 scorched 9 million acres across eight states. They can put entire communities at risk. Damaging property and costing lives and dangerous level of air pollution are produced. And wild fires are were projected to burn larger areas in the future and flooding will throeatening the fish and Wildlife Habitat and threatening our drinking sources. Ultimately, and most importantly, Climate Change is about health. Carbon pollution and hotter weather can lead to longer allergy seasons, contribute to the spread of insect borne i illness and worsening smog. The good news is that we can do something about this. You know, the Climate Change cannot be solved over change. It is going to take a broad, n concerted effort. But we cannot afford to delay. We can successfully face the challenge of Climate Change if we Work Together and act now. The action we will discuss today is an important step in that process. Again, i would like to thank you veuc