Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On Fueling Freedom 20160703

Hes got this going for him in including being a great street poet. Lets not get stuck in these stereotypes or images of each other. We are all human beings and are looking for a short period of time for a diverse world. But love each other. Teaching with conscience is a book that timeout this year. The man impossible, radical manifesto comes out in september and we mentioned the spring 2017 title. Have a book coming out with you cant fire that was and 20 other myths about teachers. There are a series of books that are myths and thats another attempt to change the frame of the discussion. The idea that theres always things said about bad teachers, you cant fight the bad ones, there aimlessly sucking on the teeth of society. All those things. Im in a go through all those arguments and try to make a little handbook for fighting backs longtime education professor and author bill ayres has been our guest on tv. Thank you this is book tv on cspan2. Heres a prime time lineup. Starting shortly, even more and kathleen argue for fossil fuels. On after words natalia holt is on book tv to talk about rise of the rocket girls, the women who propelled us from missiles to the moon to mars. At 9 00 p. M. Book tv and to of the cna interview with mark green. Mr. Green discusses his book price infinite future on the progressive rise. Then attend, a tour of the largest africanAmerican History and literature collection and midwest. First up, a look at possible fuels fossil fuels. Good afternoon and welcome to the heritage foundation. Of course we welcome those who join us online and those on the tv at a future occasion. We asked everyone in house to be courteous and check that your mobile devices have been silenced or turned off as we begin. For those on minor in the future you can send us your questions and comments at any time simply emailing speaker at heritage. Org. We will post the program on our homepage for easy access. Introducing our program and hosting our guest is mrs. Dunlap. She is the distinguished fellow at the heritage foundation. She served as chairman of the conservative action project, advocates for american conservative conservation ethic and advances energy and National Resources policy in general. She also serves on numerous, as a board member for numerous organizations and associations. Prior to this she was heritage Vice President for external relations, prior to joining us she served in the cabinet of governor george allen as secretary of natural resources. She also held significant rolls in the Reagan Administration as Deputy Assistant for the president ial personnel she also served as Senior Special assistant in particular to todays program as deputy undersecretary as well as the system for secretary, fish wildlife and parks. Join me in welcoming my alley. Im. You much john and is just a pleasure to see all of you here today. This is an exciting day. Its always exciting with good friends and great people turn out great books. Without once a day that we are going to be introducing to you. Its my pleasure to introduce both of our coauthors for today and im going to introduce them both and then ask them to come to the podium to make their remarks will have plenty of time for questions. Our first coauthor is Kathleen White. She is a distinguished fellow and resident and director of the Armstrong Center for energy and the environment at the policy foundation. Prior to going with this foundation she served a sixyear term as chairman and commissioner of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for with regulatory jurisdiction over air quality, Water Quality and water right, storage and disposal of waste, she has an annual budget of over 600 million regional offices making it the Largest Agency in the world after the u. S. Environmental protection agency. It is our goal and not too distant future to make it the first largest in the world. Prior to the appointment in 2001 she served as then governor george bushs appointee to the Texas Water Development board where she sat until appointed to the ceq. She also served on the Texas Economic Development commission and the environmental flow study commission. She recently completed her term as an officer and director of the Lower Colorado river authority. She now sits on the and vittorio of the journal of regulatory science for the texas Emission Reduction Advisory Board in the texas water foundation. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications including national review, business daily, Washington Examiner and other major texas newspapers. She is also a contributor to the heritage study she was recently testified before the u. S. Senate, environment and public works committee. Perhaps most importantly to me, she is a dear friend of long standing, we met when we were children in washington d. C. Fighting for liberty. She continued to be a great warrior for liberty. Our other author is mr. Steven moore. Everybody knows the more. He is a Television Star who weve seen a lot of television and on the radio we like to listen to him. He formally wrote on the economy of policy for the wall street journal and he is now a distinguished visiting hello for the project for Economic Growth. The heritage foundation. He was a member of the Journal Editorial Board and he returns to heritage in 2004, about 25 years after the first served here, that was actually 2014. He also founded and served as president of the club for growth which raises money for political candidates who favor freemarket and economic policies. He also founded the free in a price fun before joining the wall street journal. Over the years he has served as the senior economist at the Congressional Joint Economic Committee and as a senior economics fellow at the Cato Institute where he published dozens of studies on fiscal policy. He was also a consultant to the National Economic commission in 1987 and Research Director for president reagans commission on privatization. He is a Fox News Contributor as well as writing regularly for national review, forbes, Investment Business daily, business daily, the Washington Times and the Orange County register. He has a master of arts in economics from george mason university. He has offered numerous books including whos the fairest of them all and its Getting Better all the time, still an open door and an inquiry into the causes of the wealth estate. Today he releases a book that he has coauthored about fueling freedom and exposing the mad war on energy. Lets open to our coding entrance podium Kathleen White and steven moore. [applause] thank you becky. That was a kind introduction and think you for all the years that you have been a mentor to me. I also want to thank a very patient man and he is the editor of our book and he is seated in the back his skill was extraordinary, to see how he transformed and helped me by my voice was excellent but his patients is to be a homework. The book many of you in this room know much about these issues. The book is for a general audience that i find unaware of the magnitude of the issues we have going on. I call them forces, not issues because we have to forces going on, is occurring at the very same time in history and both are unprecedented. One is the shale revolution. Its called other things but some people call it the Unconventional Oil and gas revolution. I think many remain unaware of the magnitude of it and given the persistence plunging crisis that began in 2014, a, a kind of got off the radar other than the dreary reports of how many people are unemployed. The opportunity that the shale revolution offers and the kind of revolution and the dynamic of the revolution is unprecedented. In much of the book tries to reveal that. Just an example, if the the revolution was not just another economic boom, it was on the basis of technological innovation access to what they all called the mother load of all hydrocarbons. They knew they were there when they were entering drilling in conventional vertical that allows them to drill only 10 . That is what is assessable. Whatever the price of oil is commands was now acceptable. It was not the result of government plans or programs or subsidy. It was not the result will companies. This was risk taking energy that operate in competitive market. Enormous risks and enormous gain. We dont have a minister of oil in this country but for the first time in history we have a market generated. It remains uncertain but the opportunities that that provides is amazing. I wont go on, the book goes on in detail. Living in texas where the technology was first developed and utilized in the state was able to cut costs of hydraulic fracturing and increasing outputs, but its still going on. I think were unaware of the opportunity that allows us. That is occurring. That is occurring at the same time that a very powerful global crowd is determined to eliminate fossil fuels and natural gas as fast as possible. Theyve done a tragically good case with coal. When as our government eliminated, and i would say eliminated but almost killed an entire industry . I am taking, having been dealing with Environmental Issues that again, those that make decisions, policymakers and those who get the public attention in the media are abysmally unaware of the magnitude of Climate Policies. A lot of talk in the last couple years about the greatest civilizational threat to date which are pretty lofty terms of how our president what it is drastically talk about manmade problem. We are a fossil fuels civilization. We use perhaps 200 more energy that flows through our lives and all kinds of goods and services that people did in 1800s. Some changes that occurred, lifespan is three times longer. Average income per capita, depending on how you measure it is ten or 20 or 30 times higher. The population of the world is now about 7 billion instead of 1 million. Things literally have gotten better in those indeed are at risk. Something that some people call the greek fact of history and that we kind of forget in this economic time in which we live is the unprecedented scale of modern Economic Growth. Our book submits that energy didnt cost that. Fossil fuels, when they were first applied, coal was the first resource to be so widely used and converted and it seems like countless numbers, but never before had a middleclass, and enduring middleclass emerge. The productivity made possible by fossil fueled energies just changed the whole dynamics. Productivity increases much of the price of goods fell. Those who made the goods could afford them but most importantly a middleclass simultaneously was the emergence of liberal democracies, i hope this group knows i dont mean less meaning, that combination of property rights, of the inalienable rights of our declaration of independence attributes to each human being, the far more competitive markets that emerged before, that value of fossil fuel to change the world. A couple examples that i think its worthy of reminding of how far weve come. In early 1900s, the workweek was 72 hours a week and you didnt come home to a meal ready in your house. You just were trying to provide basic needs. We all know what it is now. Its a 40 hour week. Thats amazing. The u. S. Has long been known for having the highest standard of living. What does that mean . In 1875, the average family in the world spent 74 of its income for existence needs. In 1995, they spent 13 . Those are precious achievements. We have indicators, but we have a flagging middleclass, reduced income, we did not have good signals about the continued growth of a robust middleclass. Climate policy, i feel, when the media talks about something other than candidate personality or the most recent insole, we really need to lift up the really major issues, the major policy decisions that the next president and the next congress will make. Theres no mention to the candidates who all have the written policies that you can find on the website. When Economic Growth is talked about, i think theres always a missing factor which often has to do with what kind of Energy Availability will we have. Renewables have been assigned a job they cannot complete. All Climate Policies assume we can fairly well replace all fossil fuels with Current Technology to bring renewable energy. The book goes into this in great detail. Theres a section that lists the number of headlines from the european headlines about the false hope in the fatal blunder and how electricity became a ledger luxury good. They are now three times higher than they are in the United States. The Economic Impact study only all the really big variables. What it would cost to replace the Global Energy infrastructure from extraction to production to delivery or distribution, highly regarded number crunchers say maybe eight or 10 trillion just to install enough renewable so the map said you could possibly replace significant shares of fossil fuels and thats also in the trillions. The Global Economy would take on, this is what our country would take on when we have such a need of more vibrant Economic Growth. There is so much opportunity. I will close by saying being an environmental regulator, i would like to call myself a reagan republican from a very early age, my parents gave me no choice, but its also a very missing ingredient in our policies. Its not about the genuine protection of our environment. The propaganda that comes out is unbelievable its deserve to be relied upon some basic investment of health risks. They are so far out of the way. We have learned in the last 20 or 30 years and weve had dramatic reduction of what i called genuine pollutants those listed in the Clean Air Act that can genuinely impact human health. Weve had faults of 60, 70, 80 . The aggregate omissions that come out of our tailpipes is 90 less than it was in 19. Im old enough to know you could always see the exhaust coming out of your tailpipe. Even concentrated cities like that you dont see it. We have learned how to operate and produce with great environment olson to be. We have been prosperous enough to store the extra cost. Environmental and hands that should go on, but dioxide is not a clue. Its a gas of life. We are educating whole generations that think that carbon is among the worst weapons of mass destruction were in trouble because our bones of blood are made out of carbon. That i think is also an important insight. It a very dark side to policy. You need to look no further than the words of global and National Leaders that its as if we are reformulating this really pessimistic, people use antihumanity people who believe that the enemy of humanity and rather than people with faith and the creativity of the human mind and what the dynamic freedom. You dont find Breakthrough Innovations in highly authoritarian countries. So i think this is, in in all way, a moral issue. Millions of the world what ill just be. We cant imagine what it would be like to live electricity. Any hope for Economic Growth and Health Education of those that still lack access to electricity, they dont need to. They need energyefficient Energy Sources that are controlled by incredibly effective technology. So two forces, its an odd collision. Our candidates, if you like to go to their website and read their Energy Policy, they offer dramatic alternatives. Its a pleasure to be here. And i think becky and tom, thank you steve and we really hope we can get this book out to many, many people who still have an open mind and are unaware of the magnitude of the risk we are taking on with Climate Policy and the magnitude of the opportunities that it gives to the United States largest producer of oil, natural gas and coal. Thank you,. I am going to sit because i have some slides i want to show to you. Becky, thank you very much for the nice introduction. I. I see a lot of friends here, many of the scholar here at heritage. Thank you for coming. Let me just start by saying kathleen really was the inspiration for this book. She had written a paper on the moral case for fossil fuels. As soon as i saw that, i said this is really a of the argument. We always make the economic argument and sometimes the strategic argument that this idea that using fossil fuels is a moral thing to do not end a moral thing to do. Let me give you some examples of what im talking about. Let me, we open the book that happened to me personally which was about four or five years ago, almost exactly four or five years to the day that we had a huge storm in virginia. It was a summer storm that had massive winds and knock down thousands of trees in the area and we had huge Power Outages that lasted for three or four days before they could restore the power. I tell the story about how my sons were teenagers at the time. I have three sons, two teenagers who i dont like very much in an 11yearold who im very fond of yet. At the time because this is kind of cool and we used flashlights and candles. For about the first three or four hours it was a neat experience but then to see how things developed, they could use their ipod or their game boys and they couldnt watch tv and they can get netflix and all these things that millennials have become so accustomed to. After literally, 48 hours, it was like oh my gosh, how did people live lives without electricity. It is something we take always used electric power and its just a given in our lives. It hasnt been for many, many centuries. About energy a lot. Your generation thinks its cool to be green. Its a cultural thing but still green and lets get all our electricity from wind mill in solar power. I always ask the students, where do we get our electricity from . I always get the same answer. It comes from that little outlet in the wall. Most americans have no idea where they get electricity from. Most of them dont. I think natural gas just, natural gas and coal are about even. I think about 35 or so comes from coal and 35 or 40 comes from natural gas. So three quarters of our electricity comes from natural gas and coal. Kathleen really was the inspiration of the book in one of the wrote was so great about the Industrial Revolution and how its really not understood that the Industrial Revolution is really the story, we know that it was the first massive leap forward in terms of Living Standards and it was the age of machinery and automobiles and steam engines in modern manufacturing, but what kathleen really points out is whats not told in the history books is the story of the Industrial Revolution is really a story about fossil fuels and we stopped using things like wooden windmills we started using really efficient forms of electric Power Production which came from coal. By the way when people say we should shut down the whole industry, that can put into one sentence what you are saying, this this country was built on coal. We have 500 years of of that and we should be using it. But im an economist. Im not an Energy Expert the way that kathleen is but i want to talk about the Economic Opportunity we have as a nation with this issue because of the fossil fuel revolution and the oil and gas which has changed the world in such a dramatic way. Let me show you a couple of charts. Lets start with this. If you want to see why electricity matters, many of you have seen this, i just love this photograph. What youre looking at, the black areas in korea at night in the bottom area is so preoccupied. You can see the lights. North korea lacks many things but what they lacked fundamentally, indigestion to Economic Freedom is they dont have electric power. You can see there is no light in north korea at night and south korea is lit up. South korea has been Living Standard that is five or six or seven times higher than north korea and electric power is just a springboard to economic improvement. Now, this is kind of an interesting one. This deals with the issue of emissions that you were talking about cap and i just love this one. If you look at the natural gas revolution, to me the future is natural gas. It is made in america, its cheap, its abundant and its clean. Why wouldnt we want to use natural gas. We should use as muc of it as we can. Its the most cleanburning source of power that we can have. What you can is that natural Gas Production has gone way up in the United States. You can see whats happened to the amount of emissions and theyve gone down. Natural gas, and its very interesting, the last, all these groups like the sierra club, they used to be pronatural gas. They recognize the incredible benefits of natural gas. They were in favor of natural gas until the action fracking revolution came up. The price fell very dramatically and all this and they were against it. I think they were just against industrialization. This just shows that we are an incredibly energyefficient economy. The left keeps talking about making america more efficient and we are. This is just the natural progress of things. We produce more and more goods and services with less energy. We dont need the government to tell us that. We dont need the government to mandate it. It happens, its showing methane. This is one of the charges that the left is making. Methane emissions have fallen even as we have used way more natural gas. This is another important point. I think most of you in this room recognize this because you understand the free markets. Barack obama doesnt understand this. If you look at what barack obama was saying, he was saying we have to move to green energy because we are running out of fossil fuels. They say were running out of it so fast that will have to drill on them Washington Monument because thats the only place one technology has doubled or tripled the amount of gas we have. Were certainly not running out of coal. We have 500 years of it. That argument has disappeared. One of the terms of the book is that if were getting this right, we would have more oil and gas and coal than any other country in the world and we can create a 21stcentury where the United States is a saudi arabia of energy. That has profound impact for our economy and our security. Ill get to that in a minute. The oil spill is just another example of how we are cleaning up even as we use more energy. This was kind of an interesting one about what happened, i just made the point about how we doubled and tripled the amount of oil we have. By the way all these charts come from the book. This is showing you, look what happened around 2005, we almost doubled overnight the amount of Energy Reserves that we have. The Energy Reserves keepkeep going up over time. Were not running out of this stuff. Kind of a fun one. Its just showing, you just look at state laws that have a big impact in terms of where we produce energy. California, im using california and texas in terms of the way they view energy. California is an extremely rich state. They were estimated to have as much in oil and gas is virtually the whole state of texas. Texas obviously is one of the most oilrich places on the planet. You can see thats happening. Look at the difference of production of oil and gas in texas versus california. I would submit this is almost all attributable to environmental regulations. California has the resources, they just decided not to use them. So when i debate, people on the left say sure, they have all the soil. While california has a two just decided not season. North dakota just passed them as a producer of oil. If you follow the water crisis in california, the same kind of water policies better place in california are the same type of policies they have with respect to oil. This just makes the point that you were making about the fact that we are cleaning up the environment. Clean coal is here today. The amount of admissions from whole plants in terms of major pollutants that we look at. I think people get mixed up. Carbon monoxide is a pollution. Carbon dioxide is not. You can see dramatic reductions. Some of this is certainly attributable to the epa regulations. There is a difference between smart regulations and non smart regulations. This is just showing we are not running out of this stuff. The technologies get better all the time. Let me just summarize by saying, just as an economic strategy, why does this issue matter so much in terms of americas economic future, not just our Energy Future . You all thought the jobs report that came out on friday with the economy growing at a slow rate. I estimate that over the last 29 months they were going out one and a half percent and we should be growing at 4 . Points provide enough jobs or tax revenues for new business at the one and one and a half. We have to grow much much faster. The question that all comments are asking now, how do we get america back to the 4 growth path that we were on during Ronald Reagan and john f. Kennedy when we have real prosperity in the United States. One of the big answers, but i dont think think enough of our politicians are, even people on our side on the right are paying enough attention to is this Incredible Opportunity we have with energy. To put it very simply, and this, i used to say this three or four years ago but now i think its a different kind of wisdom and i can construe. We have the right Energy Policy in place for reuse everything up with god, the first time we will be Energy Independent. The president s always they were going to be Energy Independent. And about canada, u. S. , mexico, we can all be producing more than were buying from the rest of the world. I estimate that if we were to produce the energy that we have, nuclear power, were very pronuclear power as well. Work for whatever whatever works. If we use those resources, we estimate that were going to start selling this abroad, not just buying. In fact we should be selling a broad natural gas. Work thing way more than we use, we just dont have the infrastructure in place to get its way to be. When the president and Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders keep talking about infrastructure, i keep saying absolutely. Infrastructure we really need in this country is energy infrastructure. We need pipelines, we need refineries, that kind of energy, once we get the infrastructure in place, we can start sending this stuff all the world. Think about who the losers are if we do this. Think about the National Security implications of this. If we start selling Energy Rather than buying it. Right now, today we spend about 200 billion a year importing energy from other countries. Not a lot of it comes from canada, some some of it comes from mexico but a lot of it comes from countries that hate us. It comes from countries like iran and saudi arabia and venezuela and we know that isis is almost completely funded with petrodollars so to the extent that we can stop buying this, that will make this an enormous game changer in terms of the middle east politics. From a security standpoint issue, the other issue, in terms of what this means for our economy, i estimate that we could increase our gdp by one percentage point each year with the pro American Energy using coal and everything that we have. Thats about 200 increase per year in production. That is. That means we go from 2 growth to 3 growth and by the way, if we put on top of that tax reform we go from 3 for. All we have to do is use the resources that we have. A final thing and all open it for questions, is this issue about Global Warming and not using fossil fuels because of death of the planet. Ill simply say this. Its clear in terms of an election issue is clear what americans have said consistently for the past two or three years. Every single pole shows us. What is the issue we care most about . Jobs, economy, terrorism. Terrorism. Those are the three things. Every single pole. I challenge anyone to find a poll that doesnt show those at the top concerns. Then its interesting, if you actually look down at those polls, they do these polls all the time. What your major concerns. Usually they list 25 concerns. Guess what Global Warming is . Is about 23, 2425. The last poll showed 3 as a top concern. As a matter of politics, republicans should talk about developing resources and with respect to Global Warming, some engines simply status. We will not have any Global Warming policy that puts american jobs at stake. This idea that we are going to agree to this paris treaty, donald trump is right about this. The rest of the world really is laughing at us. None of these countries are going to do any of these things. None of them. China and india. One last statistic. As we sit here, in the next two years they are expected to build 500 new coal. Every time we shut down the whole plant, china and india build ten of them. Our goal is much cleaner than theirs is so all we are doing is exporting jobs to the United States were actually making the planet dirtier because were substituting cleaner coal in the United States for dirtier coal. I will stop there and thank you all for being here. Thank you very much. We do want to open up for questions. We have microphones in the room. I might say parenthetically, im one of the 3 of people who is concerned about Climate Change because im worried that they will regulate Climate Change so much that i will destroy the economy with it. Okay, we have a microphone here and we have a second microphone. If you wait for the microphone and then introduce yourself before you ask your question, will start start right back in the center. My question is for kathleen, leading the cause against energy or the war on energy, is the epa currently guided by the obama administration. There has been some discussion in the policy world for some time about the possibility involving the responsibilities currently shared by abolishing the epa and taking those responsibilities to the state. Something that from an administrative standpoint is a lot easier than some people realize that epa was not created by congress. It created so it can also be done away with an executive order. Now as someone who handles the state environment agency, what do you think of the idea of evolution. Is this being realistic . You think this can be done . I appreciate your comments on it. Thank you. Most enthusiastically, i think its the best solution and i think it very much can be done. I know this from texas but i believe will be accurate for all other states. The major job of the Environmental Agency of the state is implementing epas rules. With epa deciding what are the standards that drive the rules and trying to dictate how are supposed to do it, but its something that you have some states that we think they didnt have the resources for all back, but i think its an excellent solution. I think he would have far more robust science, people think you cant leave that to the state because states closer to ground zero, if you will, what is really going on in their state as far as air quality and Water Quality, they they know their resources and they know their people involved, and whether theyre creating the pollution are trying to solve it. I think thats an excellent idea. I just have a couple quick comments that i didnt make one i made earlier, how right you are about epas unbelievable low quality is these. Im thinking just the other day, its been nine years, 2009, epa, against the will of congress may be in danger of finding that its a pollutant. Thats where all of this has come from. that generates a lot of revenues. And becky, i believe becky achieved the same thing when she was in office in virginia, but ozone in texas, particularly in houston in general, houses the largest petrochemical plan. Nobody would say it would work. Oh, no, you have to do more. Houston achieved the federal ambient and it gives me the chills thinking about it. And we did it. Epa strengthen the standard on the basis of science. One quick thing on the epa, the law im not an expert on the law but i was going receive search on this and the law says that the standards have to be achievable, at least standards of meeting. The clean power plant rules were made appears intentionally so that the coal center precisely to put them out of business. Okay, we have a gentleman over here. [inaudible] hi, as a coinherit or in up state new york, we get natural gas out of 250 well, natural gas comes out. And i was just wondering what is the likelyihood of the pressures, economic pressures, im sitting where in new york state. Politicians are looking at the greenies and do you see that in new york, that im interesting in, fracking will be allowed. I dont know whether i could make a prediction on that. I understand that that was really a large of urban, not you all, not necessarily reflecting the preference of those you all who live with the resource is and thats an urban, you know, concern about fracking, when thats really to me its nice to have a state fight rather than taking on all the federal government. But also at 250 feet most of the hydralicly fracktured we haves are going down a mile. How many have you seen that video thats from gas lands where West Virginia, they light up the big lighter near the water and it looks like im sure youve seen that, it looks like a blow torch. I remember when that came out. That came four or five years ago. I remember went to West Virginia and i was talking to these folks and i mentioned and these people burst out laughing. This has been happening for, you know, 75 years in West Virginia that people, you know, theres stories of drunk guy would come back from a night at the bar and he would come back in the shack and light up cigar and all would explode because there was so much methane in the water. Thats a perfect example of the propaganda. Its not fracking its natural and if that being the said, how do you prevent it from getting in the drunking water, you actually drill it out. You drill it out its less likely to contaminate the drinking water. The epa, correct me if im wrong, youre the expert, epa no findings of water contamination from fracking. I have to say, this is an amazing thing thats going on in this country. I gave a talk two years ago to the valedictorians of florida, there were about 50 of these kids and impressive and bright and smart and they were inquisitive and i remember they started to frown, wait, wait. How many of you in this room, how many of you think fracking is a good thing . About 12 raised their hands. How many do you think fracking is a bad thing . 30 raised their hands. To being against fracking is like being against cure to cancer. Its giving as access to huge amounts of energy at very low prize prices, how could anybody been against this . This is a tough thing to defeat. I think this whako Propaganda Campaign that infiltrates every area of our culture. Right here in the middle. Hi, im intern here at heritage. Im actually from West Virginia. So my question just so that i can myself battle the left youre not going to vote for hillary, are you . No. I guess in the 520 years in the future of coal, where do you foresee that taking place . Well, just one quick thing, coal has had two problems, epa and Market Forces and natural gas is really cheap and competitor against coal. Something that comes along is better, then use it. I think weve got we should be using coal because its incredible way to get electricity, theres huge new technologies going on Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Energy is one of the cleanest sources of energy production. We talk a little bit about the book, the new microprocess or, not the reactors but smaller ones that can provide for a small town or neighborhood or Something Like that. I guess we are for whatever works, whatever makes sense. Right now when solar power three to four times more expensive so just terrible, terribly infirst time ways to get electricity. Coal issue is not Anything Congress passed. It was epa decision, series of rules, very specifically directed as trying to kill an industry. And again as i said about carbon dioxide, decisions of that consequence where you eliminate that kinds of jobs just by making a decision, has got to be the decision of our congress. I think thats possible to happen, as a matter of fact. I think a lot of people can you know, our Communication Strategies may be were better maybe people understand the West Virginia of what has so rapidly harmed the state, you know, most people i dont think hopefully put kind of remote environmental goals ahead of basic human welfare. Sierra club right now, i know we have cspan audience. If youre giving money to sierra club, shame on you, theyre doing a big victory dance. They celebrate it. Whats interesting is this is the the flashing alarming that should be going off in this country. Sierra club is saying that theyre going to do with oil and gas what they have done to coal. They mean it. We have about 4 , what is it 3 or 4 . Of electricity is about 4 but total energy is less than that. Like 2. Yes. They wanting to to 2 and 4 solar and power to 100 . Thats crazy. That would shut down our economy. A couple of comments on that are worth making, are in the book, there are those who are very worried about the threat of Global Warming and think action needs to be taken that are physicists and engineers that see this as impossibility for sources like wind and solar to not only meet demand, but you know how many tons of concrete and steel are anchoring those turbans . How many acres theyre on . That led google launched an effort, you know, they were going to use their resources, get the best engineering minds and they were going to come up with a plan to eliminate fossil fuels that would really work, relying on renewables and cheaper than coal, thats what they called it. Those engineers said, this isnt going to happen. This doesnt work. I mean, this would disfigure the earth, the amount of materials used to put that much renewable infrastructure across the board would have far more real Environmental Impact than not bill gates who invested heavily on invested and also reached the same conclusion and hes very concerned about Global Warming but he said, thats not going to work, we need an Energy Miracle if we are going to get rid of fossil fuels, he is investing in Breakthrough Technologies which is the way to go. But okay. Next question. While we are waiting to go to the gentleman in the back, let me ask a quick question here. If youll get the microphone back to him. I guess where in north america do you see the coal industry thriving . Yes. West virginia, north dakota. I live in virginia, virginia is a coalproducing state. Thats interesting thing as a political issue. Think about the state that is produce coal, indiana, pennsylvania, ohio, this is why its a very Strong Political issue for donald trump who is profossil fuel development, but i dont think theres probably any state thats more reliant on coal than West Virginia although may be wrong on that. But the same federal regulatory structures are affecting all states. Okay, lets go to the back. I failed to get your question and answer before i moved on. Marla, wait one minute here. Let me ask you about the fracking issue and public land. Now we have a bunch of republican members of the senate and probably in the house too who are advocating more federal land, get that land and Water Conservation fund, you know, fully funded by land. How much of this fracking is going on on federal land . Not much. One of the best you know, statistics in the book, what would happen if we all went in, a strategy to use everything weve got and to become Energy Independent and we estimate, becky, that out of all federal land and federal water we are sitting in a Treasure Chest of 50 trillion of assets, we are talking oil and coal. Thats a big deal, 50 trillion is a huge deal. If we started allowing leases on those federal lands for oil and by the way, obama suspended leases for coal on federal lands. If we started allowing this to happen by the way we are not talking about yellow stone, not environmentally important federal lands, not only can we get 50 trillion and we estimate the federal government can case 3 rand 4 trillion in loyalties and income tax payments and we can use that in National Debt or build more infrastructure or whatever purpose we want and thats a lot of money. I would repeat what steve said but, i think Pleasant Prospect of public land, what the u. S. Taxpayer purchaseed and maintains every year through Taxpayer Fund that there would be a net benefit for the public like reducing the National Debt and all of those and i also know that states would very much, you know, have indicated they would very much like to have much more authority to to thats for sure. To manage, you know, the Energy Development on federal lands and theyre well equipped to do so. Okay, marla. [inaudible] i started reading your wonderful book. [laughter] i noticed that one of the topics that you touched on, maybe at Great Lengths is forming capitalism and when youre talking about capitalism for the alternative Energy Sector is just through roof, i wonder if you have any insights to share about that . Well, i would just reiterate what i said as far as we have not we get into that, yes, we do capitalism are you the contrast between that without subsidies and outright from the federal treasury. We wouldnt have the renewable installations at the speed, which they are now. The contrast to that is how many people know for this a fact . How many people know that 95 of all the oil and natural gas produced in this country is from small and medium independent companies and not the global majors . How many did everybody know that . Everybody seemed to know that. Anyway, thats a very different economic dynamic, i find it refreshing. Its so classically expressed in texas but people that dont want any help from the government at all and they want to be able to make decisions about what Financial Risks theyre going to take on and theyre remarkably generous when they are successful. But the magnitude of subsidies and all we need is to look across the pond as they say in dc at whats going on in germany and the uk to see how subsidies balloon because if we have only if renewables only provide less than 4 of our energy and we are going to need, you know, unbelievable amounts more. The subsidies are just balloon. One of my favorite new yorker cartoons, its a Windmill Farm and giant fan that is are blowing in the windmills to make turn. 100 billion is statistic about how we spent subsidies that almost all have gone to wind and solar and some Renewable Fuels like ethenol. Republicans made a big mistake. They renewed all of the subsidies. This is a powerful industry. You do work with them every day. Theyre well funded and theyre livelihoods truly fend depend on the what the wind Farmers Association does if you dont renew we will go out of business. Meanwhile the oil and gas industry, you know, for all the talk, not paying their fair share of tax and every year obama has a new tax and maybe there are some giveaways to oil and gas industry. Im not an expert on that. They are incredibly highly taxed. We ought to use what works. My recommendation is shut down the department of energy. Im, seriously. What good the department that we have today. 30 million. All right, do we have another final question here. The lady in the front. I just wanted you to comment on the success that the fossil fuel industries has had in this country. You mentioned natural gas, its been enormous over the last several years but theres such a glut now, layoff has been phenomenal and texas is one of the prime places, we report on this stuff all of the time. How do we answer. Those people are out of work and what do you say, we are going to grill more. Its a great question. Im glad we are ending on this. So you saw you know, its an amazing story from 2007 through 2012 or so we doubled the amount of oil and Gas Production in this country, over a 5year period we doubled our production. And, you know, all the net new jobs and all the net increase in gdp over Barack Obamas first term were all attributable to the oil and gas industry. So when i give talks about gas industry. I was in texas, congratulations youre the people reelected who barack obama. Without the shell oil and gas revolution, barack obama would not have been reelected. The economy would have been in recession. The big boom has turned into a bust and this is the whole history of the industry. It goes through boom and busts cycles. The price has gone from 30 to 50 in the last couple of months. Kathleen is more of an expert than i am but when i talk to these folks incident at a price 50 to 60 we can start making some money. They like the price to be at 70. It went up as high as 110. Here is the cool thing about this story, these inventions, horizontal drilling and fracking, they were all made in the United States, these werent done by exxon and chevron, they figured out how to crack the code. We finally figured it out how to get at this stuff. My point is over time this technology is going to get better and better. Its going to get better and betterful right better and better. Its just going to keep so oil and gas are going to keep getting cheaper and we are going to see, you know, these oil and Gas Companies able to make money and thats by the way, when you made this point, marlo about why that we keep making the wrong bets on renewable energy, we go back to the 70s. What all these people get wrong, i think, marlo, all the people say look at all the Technological Progress thats going to happen with solar and wind, yeah, it gets better. They didnt count they were thinking that the price of oil wouldnt be 50, they thought it would be 200 a barrel. Thats why the solar and wind industry keep losing more and more money. Its just a vicious cycle and we should get rid of those subsidies. My guess, yeah, the oil industry is going to come back very soon at low prices. I would like to add because im from texas and cant resist. I dont consider it a bust. For reasons that we both said. Its a different type of boom. Great point. Came full pledged with all the bells and whistles and tariffs, that was wind. We were adopting policy to end our addiction to foreign oil at the time. How how the many problems of Energy Policy, i think that i believe you implied this, the boom and bust cycles is the small and independent oil and gas people know about and what you had going, i think this has been somewhat missed by some of the most Intelligent Energy Media Coverage is the production levels didnt really go down at all. I mean, theres a little blip but in 2015 we increased production at 15 15 millionbarrels and what you had is fewer rigs, rigs are not a good indication of oil productivity, you had fewer wells which were much more productive operated by people who lad done some rial nimble costcutting things and ge can havology geology is different. They have figured how to reduce the cost of production. As a texan, i like to say, i like to say we have weve had a little skirmish and not a war between opec, the ascended power and the United States, round one we won. Thats for sure. Im going to ask the final question and then wrap up. We have some books out here for sale. What are the challenges we have, i believe you alluded to earlier, steve, is the lack of knowledge by our citizens and students, Young Americans about energy in general. Tell us a little bit about who your book is aimed to, what is the youngest student who could read your book and comprehend it and what is the plan to get the books in the hands of people so they will have knowledge . Boy, first of all, we did write it for the layman. This is not for Energy Experts. The my big worry is that people arent going to realize what the real green agenda is until its too late, frankly and we shut down oil and gas industry and we will have blackouts and catastrophic effects. I was making light of people not having access to game boys and stuff. Think about hospitals and schools. You cant operate anything if you have brownouts and blackouts and i just wish there was a way to hit people in the head, look at what theyre talking about. Its not a feasible alternative, we ought to use the free market and energy and we want this in schools. Middle schools, grade schools, all of them. All of them. I will say a politically incorrect thing. [laughter] everybody is listening. [laughter] the Energy Industry biggest or smallest independent and all the financial that surround this industry have be apologetic for decades. So right. They were going to get into the renewable business which didnt last long but i think its important to get in the hands of the you know, there are organizations not very sexy in dc, the International Association of contractors, they have 7,000 members across the members that can, i think, really on the local level first with people that know the Energy Business and their likelihoods surrounded. I think they need and deserve that information to tell their story and and then i think localities people at the local level, even city governments that dont understand what opportunity we have from the shell and what propaganda we are feeding our children and policy makers about Environmental Energy threats. Is to bottom line is if you love liberty and you love Economic Growth, people need to read this book to figure out how to have both in well, said. Towards tom, the editor tom, you have a plan, right . [inaudible] [laughter] the plan begins today so there are books out here for you to purchase and have the authors sign. Thank you very much for joining us. [applause] [inaudible conversations] cspan created by americas Television Companies and brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. Thank you nathalai holt to talk about the socalled rocket girls. Thank you so much for having me. I would like to begin by just asking you how you discovered this group of women and how you decide today write about this largely forgotten piece of American History . Well, its a strange coincidence how i came across the story. It starts