Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us. My name is cliff johnson, the general manager and head of Government Affairs solutions here at Bloomberg Government. I am actually delighted to welcome you to a 2020 springhill watch event. Hopefully by now youve all the chance to take a look at the newest addition of our biannual hill watch report that explores what to watch on capitol hill across more than 20 different policy areas, and of course, this report also examines the effect of covid19, the need for related relief legislation as both parties agendas and plans for 2020. Today were incredibly excited to build upon of a reporting teams expert analysis through conversation with a key lawmaker, and that is senator john thune of south dakota, who is here with us today to discuss the current state of affairs. You can participate in todays discussion on social media by using the hashtag bgovhillwatch to be sure to follow bgov on twitter. I do have a couple of housekeeping announcements just to get us through todays presentation. We are virtual and this is a new world for many of us. This is broadcast live and although we dont anticipate any technical issues, should you experience any streaming delays with audio, maybe video quality, go ahead and refresh your browser. That should resolve the issue. Your browser. That should resolve the issue. This is also an interactive event. We want you to be a part of this conversation. Well have live calls going on and we look forward to you , submitting questions he would like to ask. Now, to ask a question, you will see a q a box to the lower righthand corner of your screen. Go ahead and type in your request and it will pop up in front of us. At the top right of your screen , you will see another box that says slides and polish. Polling. This is a panel where you can respond to a couple of other questions that we will be pushing out during the conversation to keep this as engaging as possible. Should you experience any delays or issues, just refresh your browser. We also have a Tech Support Team online as well but refresh ing is probably the best bet for right now. With that, it is my distinct pleasure to introduce senator john soon. Thune. Senator thune served three terms as south dakota lone member of the u. S. House of representatives before being elected to the senate in 2004. He currently serves as the Senate Republican whip, thats the number two position that Senate Republican leadership. He has served as chairman of the Senate Republican policy as well as chairman of the Senate Republican conference. Currently, senator thune serves as chairman of the Commerce Committee subcommittee on communications, technology, innovation and the internet. As well as chairman of the finance Committee Subcommittee on taxation and irs oversight. And so with that, let me turn things over to emily wilkins, congressional reporter for a conversation with senator thune. Emily the floor is yours. Much cliff. Ks so , senator thune, thank you give us a much for joining us today. We are excited to have your ethics and one who is joining online. I wish would be there in person because these adventures on really good food, but we are glad we could make this work regardless. Senator thune, i wanted to start off by talking a little bit about how you have been dealing with the current shutdown. I know you been up to a couple of things including growing a beard and then shaving said beard. I know youre also been doing some history lessons for kids on youtube. Sen. Thune right. Thanks, emily. Thanks cliff. ,appreciate the opportunity. Thanks to all your audience members out there. Like you, i wish we could do this in person, but this is what were left with these days. As you pointed out, we are doing a lot of things from home. We learned a lot about technology, different platforms. I mentioned before i have learned how to use skype and zoom and google hangout and shindig and Facebook Live an old bunch of other platforms and apps weve used to stay connected. Thank god we got there. Sen. Thune it makes these investments we make in technology and highspeed internet services, i think, all that much more important, particularly when you see how they been used during the virus. So yes, i grew a beard for a while, kind of a quarantine beard and figured when we started flattening the curve i would let the beer to go. Beard go. Which was great for my motherinlaw, who was always complaining about it anyway. Anyhow, weve done some things to try and just stay connected with different constituencies. When i was in south dakota, under normal circumstances, i would be traveling around the state talking to government classes, school oscilloscope taking questions and so we decided, theyre looking for curriculum and probably a little bored out there to put together a few lessons on how the congress and how laws are made, how the congress works. So anyway we did some things , with that, too, but but its all a part of this experience that were going through, and everybody is adapting and doing the best that they can. Emily absolutely. Absolutely. Well, i guess part of the , adaption means we get to integrate new technology into this. I went to see if you could go to our first poll question. Were going to let our viewers take the time to answer this while i asked senator thune a little bit about it. I want to start off i think with the topic that is on everyones mind right now, which is the next coronavirus stimulus package. I just wanted to see if you can talk a little bit this one seems a little bit trickier than the past ones in that there are several issues for state and local funding liability , protections for businesses. What are you hearing from members at this point about what needs to be in this next bill and what should we expect . Sen. Thune right, emily. As you know, we have passed four pieces of legislation already but there will be i think another iteration of this that comes in the next few weeks. And it will depend what it looks like will depend a lot on how things are working out there right now. There will be a need probably to reload and perhaps even expand the ppp program, but we expect the funding there to carry through most of the month of june. Unemployment insurance runs out in july so that will be another deadline. We will have to deal with that issue. You mentioned state and local government funding. Theres been a fairly robust debate about that. In our own republican conference, not to mention with democrats and across the country. So i think there are a number of potential issues that will be front and center again as we look at the next benefit phase, but one of the things that we are focused on in the republican conference is trying to get some Liability Protections for businesses, schools, and hospitals as they open up again , thinking if we dont have those in place and there is a mountain of litigation that is enormously costly, that it could have a pretty profound and adverse impact on the recovery. That is something that will be important for us. I would say the interaction between Unemployment Insurance and getting people transition ed back into the workplace is something, too. Theres a concern that because of the Unemployment Insurance benefit being fairly robust, particularly in some states, that it is acting as a disincentive for people to go back to work as economy begins to open up again. And i would say a really heavy emphasis on testing. Theres been a lot of emphasis on that already, but i think even more as we get into the fall and schools and making sure that were doing everything we can short of a vaccine and an antiviral therapeutic to determine who has it and who doesnt so we can open up safely. Those are probably three components that will be pretty vigorously debated in the next package and things we care about , and of course, the democrats will come with their own list, and that will get the negotiations going. Emily i want to to dive in particularly on the legal liability debate. I know theres been some tension between democrats and republicans on that. Is that an issue you think you might be able to find some sort of middle ground on, like perhaps only include Certain Industries in the protection . Sen. Thune i hope we can. That should be something that will be bipartisan agreement about. I think that, you know opening , up safely and making sure that we are doing every everything we can to protect people who are doing all the right things, as they are practicing the guidelines following the laws, adhering to what the cdc is saying, and then, are subject to these frivolous lawsuits, and that again cause them lots of money to defend themselves against, that could be very harmful as we try to gradually ramp back up and get the economy going again. So there ought to be some Common Ground. Hopefully we can find it. Obviously, the democrats are just sort of generally speaking resistant to any kind of Liability Protections and theyve got a part of their constituency, and trial lawyers are weighing in heavily in this debate as well, but in my view, at least this is something we , ought to be able to find some Common Ground on. And if you are just protecting people from the bad actors, the types of lawsuits that really are clearly frivolous, then you there ought to be some Common Ground. If theres willful misconduct, gross negligence, clearly those , are not the types of things we are interested in protecting people against. We want to predict the good actors, people playing by the rules and doing everything they can to get the economy going again. Emily sure, and you also mentioned that with state and local funding, that there has also been some debate within the republican conference as well for this at this point i one. Understand one of the biggest concerns is states would use this money not to help with side effects from the coronavirus but perhaps other budgetary issues that existed before. Do you think that there is going to be some compromise on that as well . How confident are you we might see something on states and localities . Sen. Thune think there could be something, particularly with regard to state and local governments, with regard to funding that is already out there. There were restrictions on it. There are a lot of stipulations when that was passed. There were members in our conference that felt very strongly that they didnt want states using this for anything that wasnt related to coronavirus, and so, there was 150 billion put in the pipeline specifically for dealing with that, and that was on top of already about another 350 billion that went out to state s in the form of medicaid, medicare reimbursements, of the, other forms of assistance coming through the federal pipeline. Zone sort of flooded the already, but it does have restrictions. We have members, republican members, as well as a lot of democrats, who would like to some of those restrictions lifted and some of those dollars being able to be used for other things like revenue replacement. That will be a fairly spirited debate. I will tell you, within the republican conference, because we have very strong views. To your point about it being used for sort of bailouts, that also was something that was totally hotly debated when we looked at the amount that was put out in the first place. And that is states that we reviewed to have pension systems that were not run well and bloated budgets that there , wasnt much appetite among republican senators at the time for bailing out those types of bad practices. That will continue to hover over any discussion we have about this. But again, the democrats, a big priority for them. They dont want just the flexibly with the current money, that is out there. They want another trillion dollars on top of it. That is something that it will be very hard to get republican votes for in the senate. Emily i just wanted to draw everyones attention to the poll numbers. Thank you for everyone who participated. Senator it seems like a lot of , our viewers agree with you about the importance for liability shield for businesses. I know theres also some discussion about having tax breaks for employers. More than 50 people on the this call are in agreement with that. Looks like extending the 600 per week for those on unemployment is less popular, only 32 . And then slightly less than half said there should be another round of stimulus checks given directly to americans. Senator i know something youre , taking into consideration here as well as other Top Republicans , is that before the next stimulus bill is passed, you wanted to see, in effect how , funding from previous stimulus bills was being used. And i wanted to see its been a month since the last bill got past are you satisfied with how you are saying federal funding been used . Do think there can be various improvements that can be made in the next round . Sen. Thune we do. We think are some things, for example, the paycheck protection program, which has been largely very successful, heavily subscribed to early on, the first 350 billion went really 10 billion going on top of that. That program is about 660 billion. It slowed down a little bit now but its designed to keep people employed, keep workers working and so those jobs stay there. I think there have been a lot of suggestions about how, if we go back in and we extend that program which is a possibility, it, ate trying to extend least in terms of companies being able to use it beyond the eight week window. If we have to add additional dollars to it, my guess is the will be a number of suggestions, many of which are good ones, and i think theres probably general consensus on them that we could make some adjustments to that program. But i also think that when you look at some of these other elements of things that are out there right now, we mentioned , talked about earlier state and , local government funding, whether not restrictions ought to be lifted there. Thats something were monitoring. Trying to get an assessment from states about what their actual revenue losses are. Its hard to just throw money out there, not knowing what the need is and what a lot of our members want to know is, ok, what are the losses . What are we trying to fix . Were just not writing a blank check. A blank check, by the way, that is with borrowed dollars. Theres a lot of concern about what happens next. And then i think im in issue of the interaction between the ui program and additional 600 per person per week that was added , federal benefit on top of the state benefit, in some states is acting as a disincentive for people get back as the economy opens up. And so, figuring out how, when the Unemployment Insurance runs out at the end of july, does that ramp down at the end of the year . Is that bonus payment for people to go back to work . One of our colleagues, rob portman, would fix it that way. I think thursday going to be a really spirited discussion about whats working, whats not working, what do we need to fix . We are seeing things within the ppp program, probably a hard look at state and local funding, and how that is being used, and whether or not they should be more flexible that he there. They tried to fix this sort of glitch that we have that is been created because of that conflict between the Unemployment Program and the need to get people back in the workforce. Those are several things that will be a good amount of discussion in the weeks ahead. Emily a lot of very spirited debate right there. When do you think we might see the text of the bill . When might the senate get around to passing something . Sen. Thune well, i think, the liability language, the text is actually should be out fairly soon. We have folks working on that, the Liability Protection language, and again, trying to write that in a way that could actually get 60 votes in this hopefully pass the house which will be very, very challenging, by the way, as i mentioned earlier. That will get the negotiation going. But i think, from a timing standpoint we should start to , see some of these ideas percolate and come forward. We are not am not there yet, and i do not think that our members are ready to vote on anything just yet. Whether that happens in june or whether that gets pushed to july, sometime in the timeframe where we will have some items teed up and probably ready to go, at least to be debated. And hopefully, you know, something ultimately can pass and then get signed into law by the president. Its a challenging dynamic. You have got the democrat run house, republican run senate, where it takes 60 votes, so a certain number of democrats will pass anything. And then you got the administration who in many cases is in a different position entirely. What we are hoping this time around is that the white house will work with senate and House Republicans to put together the things that we are for, so that when we start the negotiation with the democrats, where at we are at least united on what we want to do. I hope that that way, this works because some cases we have had secretary minutia and was negotiating directly with the democrats in the house, and that tends tends to end up with a much bigger, more costly and more government Centric Program that i think many Senate Republicans will be willing to go for. Emily have you guys started talking with secretary mnuchin a bit on this . Sen. Thune some of those discussions are underway. We have had, as i have said a , number of discussion among our own members. We have been in session the last three weeks and the senate will be in session again next week. At least three times a week, socially distanced, but where we have a lot of these discussions. So the ideas are coming forward. Weve asked and the leader has, too, for individual community of jurisdiction to put together their list of ideas, present them, and get them into the mix. Whip office, has been collecting a lot of those ideas from the various, not only the committees, but also individual members who have ideas, things that they want to see for a phase four or a cares package that might come in the next couple of months. Were not there yet and it takes a little time for the things to ripen, and hopefully that will happen. In the meantime, were doing our best to make sure were listening carefully to members. Were getting good ideas to the from outside as people make suggestions about what would be something that would really work. They are talking about stimulating the economy, tax policy, what regulatory policy, thing could we change that would the economysee start to ramp up again and get back on its feet . Emily absolutely. I think we have another poll question for everyone who is watching about the post office. I know that has been a big topic of discussion. Senator i wanted to ask you , about it in particular because i know it is so important to so many south dakotans who live in rural areas and might not have a whole ton of options on how to want to get and send the mail. They are saying that the post office could be heading for bankruptcy as soon as president september. Trump said the agency should raise prices, cut costs before they get federal help. Do you agree with President Trump on that . Emily well, i think its fair to say that the president is interested in seeing some reforms, and i think a lot of us would like to see some reforms. There some dollars that been available already to the Postal Service, but yes, on the current trajectory, it doesnt look good. And what i can tell you is notwithstanding the views that , the president or others might articulate, there are many of us who believe that the Postal Service plays an Important Role. I come from a small town in south dakota. I grew up in a town with about 500 people. You know there are lots of ways , you can get transportation to areas of the country today, but getting that last mile of delivery is one that really matters. So, in rural parts of the country, the Postal Service is in for an agency, and yes, were interested in seeing if there are things we can do that will make it work more efficiently and make some of those reforms. But in the end, its an agency that we need to maintain and ensure is continuing to operate. And i suspect thats going to be anybody who represents a rural state in the country will hold that view and i think will probably have a good amount of influence in what ultimate ly emerges in terms of the solution. Emily do you think there any particular reforms that have support among your colleagues and you can see being implemented . Sen. Thune theres been a lot of discussion around how the Pension Program is funded and advance funded and why is it different than other government Pension Programs at the federal level function and operate . Thats one thing i can think of off the top of my head that is often discussed. It is something i think the Postal Service itself has been advocating her and trying to get changed, and we did, over time, through the years, Congress Makes tweets here or there, and sometimes, when you make a tweet, you might overreact in one direction, and it may be time to sort of pull that back a little bit, but it remains to be seen. But as you point out, theres a bit of a timeline issue we have to deal with here. But generally speaking, i would say broad support for the Important Role that they play. Emily and it looks like some of of ourl results, most viewers agree, overwhelmingly that congress should step in and , fund the Postal Service if that has become necessary. Although i definitely interested reformse what sort of congress will introduce with pensions or otherwise. I also want to ask you i know that everything is coronavirus, coronavirus, coronavirus right now. Away know that is sort of, from the cameras and the bright lights, they are working on the mustpass bills. The appropriations. Give a little bit of an overview. I know they will begin their markups on june 8. They will be headed to the floor in potentially june or july. What is your outlook for these . Are they being impacted by the coronavirus . Emily sen. Thune everything is being impacted by the coronavirus, and everything is being viewed through that lens now. You know, a lot of other business that we have to do. And you know that show has to go , on, too. And so, i think, you know what , congress has to demonstrate as is that we can multitask. We can do more than one thing at one time. We have to keep an eye and a clear focus on the things that we need to do to deal with the Health Emergency and the economic emergency that is connected to the coronavirus. But we do have a defense bill. Securityot national continues to be a priority. The world is not becoming a less dangerous place. It is becoming more dangerous. So, funding the department, making sure that we are resourcing our military personnel with the weaponry and the equipment that they need to do the job is going to be a really important priority. And as you point out, an annual exercise. We are in the midst of doing that right now. The committee is doing that work. Hopefully we can get that to the floor. The appropriation bills, it would be nice to move them. We have to get agreements on some of the 302b allocations. When the budget is broken up, the 302a sets the top line. We did that with the deal we did a couple years ago. Now you have to figure out how you will distribute the funds to different pots of money out there. Hopefully we can come to some sort of an agreement on that. Hopefully we can get them to the senate and get them in a conference with the house. Keep the budget process moving forward. The highway bill runs out september 30. And that, too, will be a priority. Its possible, i suppose, we could do a shortterm extension to get through the election, but it would be nice if we could get a fully funded reauthorization of the highway bill across the finish line before the end of the fiscal year as well. Water resources. There is a Water Resources development bill, infrastructure bill, that has been reported out by the environment of public works committee. That will btw and ready to go. I am hoping we can do some things. He pointed out earlier, theres Technology Issues because of the committee i serve on. As a former chairman, senate Commerce Committee, we were really focused on 5g and trying to get the infrastructure in place and streamline the permitting and all of the necessary essential aspects of getting these 5g networks built out there so that we can win that race. It is also something i hope we can get done as part of some of the bills that we move in the summer. Thats not an exhaustive list, but it gives you an idea or flavor for some of the things we have to get done in addition to funding the coronavirus and coming up with solutions there. Emily absolutely. I mean, i was actually just about to ask about all the bills this feels like a lifetime ago the bills that were teed up in february and in march. The bipartisan resources bill by senate markowski. I know there was an important Land Conservation bill. Both facing tough elections in november. You yourself alluded a little bit to it, but had a privacy bill that you had been working on. I mean i know i am very blunt bunch of different bills that you right now. How much work will you be able to get done compared to other years . Is this a year where we should expect to see not this much from the senate because of the coronavirus . Or do you think that there is enough of a process in place right now that we are still going to see movement on some of those bills . Sen. Thune i think that the coronavirus legislation and Everything Associated with it, it takes a tremendous amount of time and energy. The oversight we are doing on that is extensive. The health, education, labor, and pensions committee, for example, is very busy conducting oversight hearings on the health side. Youweeks ago, they had know, they had the doctors come in there and testify. The week, you had the Senate Banking committee had Senate Nomination and chairman powell come in and testify about the facilities they created to provide liquidity through this. Every committee, our committee, Commerce Committee, we have done a hearing on how this is impacting aviation and some of the things done already. We did one on broadband connectivity. What we need to do to make sure we have the necessary networks out there to accommodate the volume we are seeing and will see in the future. There is a lot of that going on. It is very timeconsuming. At the same time, there are other things we need to address. And next week, you mentioned the land Water Conservation issue, it is going to get called up next week in the senate and we will probably get on it, move to get on it, probably will not complete it until the following week. That is a major overhaul. It will include the parks piece as well as the land of Water Conservation peace. Those are major overhauls of programs that have been around for a long time. I hope that we can get that one done. I would love to be able to get something done. Privacy. That has been something that has eluded us for quite some time. That is a huge issue, especially now. There is more and more discussion about Peoples Health information. And you know, people want to use telehealth, if they want to, for example, use some sort of gps tracking device. Wheres that information going . Who has got it, how are they using it . Those are questions, i think, that we need to help answer and it will take a legislative framework, i think, to put the right privacy protections and in place. I think this would be a great opportunity to do that. But that is probably a little bit longer shot. Some of these things i think are very doable. The defense bill. Emily that is actually the next question i wanted to ask you. About Contact Tracing, i wanted to ask you a little bit. I know that you and several other senators have come up with a bill about keeping people s data safe and privacy safe. I wanted to see if you would talk a little bit about that and whether or not you could get that into an upcoming stimulus bill. You said that might be a little bit tricky to do. Did i hear you correctly on that . Sen. Thune i think it will be tricky to address the broader issue of privacy, but the more narrow issue as it relates to Contact Tracing is personal identifying information collected get through these gps apps being used to keep track of people who are coming into contact with those that have the coronavirus. That, to me, seems very relevant to the coronavirus. And i am hoping we can get that included in this package. And i am hoping that it will then serve on a foundation on which to build the broader privacy legislation that weve been working on for several years. And we have been working on privacy bills in the senate going back to a think before i was chairman of the Commerce Committee. I was a Ranking Member at the time. That goes back like six years. We have not been able to thread the needle. But it is important. We need to get it done. States obviously are acting on their own. One of the big issues is preemption. One of the big issues is a private right of action how do you define, you know, duty of care standard would look like . Those are all things that are kind of part of that debate. But it certainly will be engaged as part of the discussion about the coronavirus because the information that people are collecting relative to that. Emily absolutely. And we actually have i think most people our paul came up. I saw it flashing on the screen. They do agree there is this need a privacy and privacy standards. Particularly if youre going to have an app that traces peoples actions and motions. I know there are couple efforts underway right now including a big one from both apple and google. I mean have you been able to , look that over . Do you have any thoughts on whether their products should be trusted by the American People to maintain peoples privacy and security . Sen. Thune naz is usually the case apple and google offer a , lot of assurances that that is true. You know, we are not going to use it for this or that. We found out the hard way when i , was chairman of Commerce Committee, we had to call in Mark Zuckerberg from facebook because of a lot of the information that they were collecting, that they were selling to vendors that supposedly were not going to use it, but then were using it and selling it. And it was getting, you know, pretty soon you found out that there were these huge breaches of privacy. I think that that is what we want to avoid. And so we have looked at some of the google and the apple applications, and it just seems to me, at least, notwithstanding assurances that are made or can consent agreements that you sign terms into or as you sign the contract on these things, that there is a question about what constitutes willful consent. And are the ways in which this information will be used totally disclosed . I think that those are questions that need to be answered. I think that those can be tightened up in a way that does not step on these applications and their potential uses and the benefits that can come from that, but just ensure that that information will be locked down and guarded so that peoples you know their personal , information is not being used in ways they do not agree with. Emily absolutely. I also wanted to ask you a couple more politicaloriented questions. I know you spent a lot of time on policy. Which is of course our bread and butter here. I know there has been sort of a big debate lately that has come foreignmps firing of Inspector General set various agencies. I know this has raised concern among various democrats. And i know it previously previous president s, when they made similar moves, it has raised concern among republicans. As a reporter, i rely on these Inspector Generals to come out with researched and unbiased reports. I wanted to see what your thoughts were on trump hiring firing these attorney generals. Is this something that Congress Needs to look into . Emily i think that congress has an oversight role here. These people serve at the pleasure of the president. That is his article to power. He can hire and fire who he wants in the executive branch of the government. But inspectors general are there for a purpose. They are to be the watchdogs and to root out bad behavior and abuses and corruption and all those sorts of things. I think they have an Important Role to play. Fired,n somebody is normally, a letter has to be submitted for the reason of the hiring. I think that they complied with that, but chairman grassley, who chairs one of the relevant committees on the judiciary committee, subcommittee, is not satisfied with the explanation that has been given. And so i think that it is , important for just that, you know, checks and balances, and you know, the sort of separation of powers that our founders intended, it is important that the explanations offered by the executive branch for these firings really lay out in clear language what they were doing. What necessitated it. You dont wanted to be a want it to be a political consideration. These are people that are supposed to be above politics. And they have got a job that is supposed to not be above politics. I tend to sort of err on the side of, you know, when it comes to the article one powers that the congress has, we have an oversight rule there. We need to exercise it. The Administration Needs to be accountable to the congress in the ways that it deals with those important rolls in the the most Important Roles in the agencies. Emily i also wanted to take a minute and ask about the upcoming november elections, which are still on. Republicans are defending the senate majority. But i have seen some reporting early as someone who covers a lot of campaigns, showing that democrats are making certain races competitive that were not competitive last year. I wanted to see this message that you have for your your fellow republicans running in races and those charging democratic incumbents. What do you think the message needs to be from the gop to americans this november . Sen. Thune i think most americans right now are a little bit fearful about the future for , obvious reasons. And i think they need you know, our candidates need to be able to offer reassurance across this country that we have a clear vision for how we will fix the challenges and the problems they face. The most immediate one right now is what are you going to do about the Health Emergency . What are you going to do on the issue of testing and therapeutics and vaccines . And then, what are you going to do to deal with the economic crisis and fallout from that, to get the economy back on its feet . The candidates can speak in a reassuring way with a clear sense of direction about what we want to accomplish and how we want to get the country moving forward again. They will have the chance of winning. Most people, when it comes to elections, vote with their pocketbooks. Kitchen table issues that the family sits down and talks about. Right now, there is a lot of on uncertainty a lot of , questions. I think that they are looking for people that will step in there in an incredible way talk , about solutions that can help them get back on their feet and provide a greater, more security for them and their families. It is generally about the economy. There are others that play into it. National security always being one and one in which our side tends to have an advantage. I think this will be around about a response to the virus and steps that they will put in place to help them get the country restored to as close as normal as we can. Emily absolutely. We had a couple of your viewer questions that have come in. I think that there is one that kind of dovetails with what we are talking about here. I know that a big issue has been healthcare. Particularly, the high cost of Prescription Drugs. And surprise billing. I know that those are issues that congress has tried to work on in the past. We have a question asking if they might be wind up being addressed this year, either within a corona bill, their own bill. Is that something that you see Congress Working on . Sen. Thune yes, i do. There is not although, i will say this. One of those issues, regrettably , i think, could get caught up in an Election Year politics. I think that there are things that could be agreed upon. There is a range of issues that republicans and democrats are all willing to take on and fix. Restructuring, for example part , d under medicare. And you know driving the cost , down for seniors in that is something that there is pretty broad agreement about doing it and how to do it. There are more issues that are more divisive. And im afraid what will , probably happen, and i say this with regret, but i hope i am wrong both sides will end up , trying to use this issue in the election instead of trying to actually focus on getting a result before the election. Prescription drugs is a very powerful political issue. And it is one that affects a lot of americans. Health care every american. And Prescription Drug costs are an incredibly growing important part of that healthcare, you know, discussion in this country. And so it seems like to me, at , least, what we should do are the things that we can do, and just because we cant do everything does not mean we should do everything, but im afraid it might be caught up this year in the politics of an Election Year and end up being something that campaigns campaign about rather than members try and fixed. Six. We will see. Try and fix. We will see. There is still some time. It could ride on one of these, whether its a coronavirus bill or a year and spending bill, lots of places where Prescription Drug solutions could get attached. At this point, its just unclear what that is. Emily we also have another question. This one goes into the Liability Protection for employers. We also have another question about liability, in compliance with osha standards and the state the safe harbor protection, would it be easier or better for osha to put those standards in place. It sounds like they are asking if it is osha that is that should have responsibility there when it comes to Liability Protections. That could be ultimately what ends up happening. Even though the Liability Protections are a very important issue for republicans and any future coronavirus legislation negotiation that there probably is a limit to the price that republicans will pay to get that into a bill. Manned 2mocrats trillion additional dollars in addition to Liability Protections it will be hard for republican senators to vote for that. If we are unable, and let us help if we are successful. To get federale Liability Protections or shell put in place across the country, then what is the fallback . Osha regulations will be oneway, and states can take legislative action as well. So there arew, other areas in venues where this could get address. I still think this makes the most sense to have these federal protections in place, and incoming out of previous type where we have these natural or not some cases natural, but catastrophic events, typically you find a way to come out of it , and private provide some level of Liability Protection, and again, in the course of negotiations, if the price for the democrats becomes too high, then it may not be the votes in the senate to get there. We will see, we will figure that out in time, but it will certainly be one of our red lines in terms of negotiation and something that the leaders made clear has to be in any future bill that we moved to the senate. Sen. Thune that is what negotiate emily that is what negotiations are for, the whole back and forth. I want to talk about an issue that i know you are passionate about, broadband, obviously it is more important than ever, i am working from home only because i have an internet connection, but so many people, i looked at the statistic. Householdsamerican with schoolaged kids, and i do not know how many millions of americans do not have internet access, and i do not know how they are doing things right now, that i wanted to see what your thoughts were on whether there would be broadband included in an upcoming stimulus package. Sen. Thune i think there could be, and there are a number of ways you can do it. Especially the issue you mentioned in underserved areas and places they do not have those types of services. High fund maintained at the fcc, a lot of times, dollars are generated by auctions. Thethere are four pots that dollars go into. I think there are ways that you could allocate, if you wanted to see some additional funding for those unserved areas. That would be one way of getting at that. Another way that is very important, and we have done quite a bit in the area of spectrum, but we need more spectrum and need to free up mid band spectrum. Won 5ghe game, and we and the lte that you have on that becausewe won we made the investment and the incentives were there for companies to make those investments. We need to make sure we do that for 5g, and that and i think it is important that we streamline the process with which those investments could be made. Taking it easier to permit and site the infrastructure cite the infrastructure. The infrastructure will be different, there are smaller cells and more densely compacted. It will be important that our country moves as aggressively as we can. When we talk about potential infrastructure package or additional coronavirus legislation, yes. We have to have for distance learning, we learned that, teleworking, telemedicine is becoming huge. There is more and more health care practiced through technology. And agriculture in my part of the world is enormously important and you will see incredible benefits come from howuse of technology and they apply seed and fertilizer. Tremendous applications. We have to win that battle. To do that we have to make the right investments. Infrastructure, and perhaps some funding through the fcc and some of those spectrum sales and options that could be allocated directly through areas that currently do not have it. I want to talk a little bit more about 5g. We are being asked if it is a potential issue. Do you think future the smallies for acquisition or small cell deployment legislation, and maybe you can talk about it for viewers who are not familiar. Sen. Thune that is a very wise and informed viewer who asked that question. Passed need to get that and to me it makes total sense if you are talking about an infrastructure bill. We are talking about something to include roads, bridges, and things we typically think of as infrastructure, but it is also making sure we have the fiber the wirelessin networks in place to get the higher speeds, additional productivity that comes with the 5g connections. And, if you look at what that would mean, you are talking about 100 times faster downloads and autonomous vehicles, a technology that is on its way and, we are already seeing a lot of that out there being deployed, but someday there will be autonomous vehicle, and now we have semi autonomous, but there are so many applications ont are writing riding this investment technology, so streamline the process by which companies can put the infrastructure in place to support the networks on which will be layered and built all of these applications. Everything from 4g, the iphone and apps which will be made because of the investment made in advance. That legislation, in my view, ought to move with any infrastructure bill that might be considered by congress and supported by the president to help the economy get back on its feet, so we will be pushing, i can assure you. With 5gow are we doing as a nation . I am not particularly tech savvy, but from my understanding, whatever nation gets 5g the fastest will be incredibly successful for the next decade or more for technological advances. ,en. Thune the benefit to jobs the gdp growth that comes from it. This is multiples of what we have seen before. Countries, south korea and china, have been investing, and shine it with their government run economy, they are putting up spectrum everywhere for their companies. Big concern have a about their Companies Investing in the u. S. Weihave a lot of hua equipment already, and i think the idea that the chinese could get their components and their equipment embedded into some of them some of our networks and use that surveillance is a frightening prospect, and one that i hope we will never have to deal with, and i hope that our european allies will join us in that. Doingespect to how we are relative to other countries, we have been a little bit behind, but we are picking up speed. There is some cool stuff and disruptive technologies, and a lot of investment being made, not just by the legacy these morebut by disruptive type approaches and solutions that are out there. I think you will see the United States pick up the pace and start to catch up. It is important first to win the race. The benefits are enormous, and what that means in terms of applications that we talked about, those are real, and they will mean a lot to the average worker, the average family, good paying jobs that come with it, and growth and gdp that everyone will benefit from. Glad to hear that we are picking up speed on that. Sen. Thune i was gonna say not just your netflix shows. Especially in this time. I also wanted to say another big news story that is not related to the coronavirus is the aca and going in front of the supreme court. It seems like a lot of people have agreed that even though aca is not perfect, what we had before is not where we want to be in the nation. How do you think Congress Might respond if that law emily sen. Thune a lot of it will depend on, and what is more likely to happen, it has been remanded to the circuit. And, they are going to look at this issue of separability, whether or not if one provision is struck, it doesnt strike anything else. This is myon is, and assumption not speaking as a lawyer. My guess is that in the end they will include if you strike down one provisional law it does not end everything else. If they did, the first thing you would have to do is congress would have to move quickly and put legislation in place to protect people with preexisting conditions to make sure that they continue to have coverage, and then we will have to, again, start to build a new and different system that is built around incentives instead of mandates. I think the big difference between the obamacare approach is that they tried to define in law basically what constitutes Insurance Coverage for all time, and sometimes that is a different solution, in a different part of the country. If you allow people to buy the Insurance Coverage that they want at a price you can afford, you have an incentivebased systems where the Insurance Companies start to compete. If you look at part d, it has been successful largely because it had free market principles. There was competition and it cost less than what was estimated. I tell you and might 45 years of congress, that is the only time i have seen that happen where a program at less cost at what it was predicted to. And a lot of that had to do with the way it was structured. This is a more far ranging conversation that we can have, but i think just to say, if they were struck down, then you start by making sure that you provide protections for people with preexisting conditions, because that is a political issue that everybody tries to raise, and then you look at how do we build a system that creates the right incentives for people to have the insurance they want at the price they afford, and create a competitive marketplace where you have lots of players offering products that are priced competitive, and i think that is what happens when you create those types of incentives in a marketplace. Today we do not have that. We have a system where the government touches 60 to 70 of every health care dollar. You can go right down the list. And then, those programs are going to stay there, intact. In the private marketplace, we have a vibrant marketplace that provides coverage that is affordable to everybody. I think we can come up with that kind of system. Emily got it. One last quick question and then i will hand it back. What do you expect from the Senate Schedule coming up. You guys have mostly gotten back into the rhythm of the calendar. Thexpect the senate to take scheduled breaks, or will this depend on what happens with coronavirus and a potential second wave . Sen. Thune i think that the coronavirus will bear on schedules, as it has already. As of right now, we are planning to stay on schedule. We will be in session when we think it is important to be there to do the peoples work. Next week we will take up that bill, and we have Defense Authorization bill, and appropriate appropriates asians appropriations bill. We hope to be able to transact those in the summer months, and in august you have the conventions, assuming those come off. September will be back for a while. I am told that we are in an Election Year, and we have a ton of not only president ial elections but a lot of senate races and candidates who want to be campaigning. I think the schedule you sought the beginning of the year, to the extent that we do not have something that is a major disruption as a result of the virus should be pretty much what it is. I am hoping we stay on the schedule and we can get the things done that we need to get done and get through this november election, and hopefully, if not before the election but not shortly after have a vaccine that will enable us to cut the economy loose and get back to normal. I am hoping that that is the way it works out, and sometimes the best laid plans are things that you do not control. We will see what happens, but thank you for having me. Is a getting a vaccine highly bipartisan thing. Think wesenator, i will hand it back, but i want to thank you for taking the time to chat with us. This was informative and we appreciate the chance to join us. Sen. Thune thank you for having me, and to all your folks out there, tell them to stay safe and strong, and hopefully with a few months ahead of us, we will get to a place where things start to return to normal. Grade. Thank you guy great, thank you guys so much. One thing i want to mention before we end is that, as emily mentioned at the beginning, we typically do those over breakfast, and for those who join us, this is one of those popular events that we have. In light of the current circumstances we made the decision to donate the event budget as well as for marthas table so we can help serve those in need and are food insecure. Thank you emily and senator thune for sharing your valuable insight. Thank you for allowing us to come into your home and be a part of your day. If you are interested in learning more about hell watch or Bloomberg Government hill watch or Bloomberg Government. Stay safe, stay healthy. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] at our livelook coverage wednesday. Former0 a. M. Eastern, Deputy Attorney general testifies before the Senate Judiciary committee as part of its investigation into the pfizer process and how it was used during the 2016 pressure probe followed by the confirmation hearing for russell to be the white house budget director. With00 jim clyburn speaks the Washington Post about Race Relations and the nationwide protests over the death of george floyd. Then the senate is back at 10 00 a. M. To consider executive and judicial nominations. On cspan three at 9 00 a. M. Eastern, confirmation hearing for the nominees picked to see to serve as member of the Postal Service board of governors. 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