Dialogue on the current legislative issues. In particular, id really like to thank chairman greg walden for being here today, particularly after the news we all heard this morning. Here at Bloomberg Government our tools, news and analysis are aligned with topics that the house energy and Commerce Committee has been working on. Were looking forward to discussing with him health care, energy, Consumer Protection among other topics. With that id like to introduce my colleague, lauren duggen who leads content at Bloomberg Government and will be chatting with greg walden this morning. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you toerch for joining us today. Obviously were beginning the event under a little bit of a darker circumstance, but i wanted to ask you, chairman walden, what do you know so far and whats the status of your colleagues at the moment . Thank you and good morning. Its not the way we want to start a day any day, and i hope well have a moment of silence and put in our prayers the lives of those being tended to at the hospitals in the washington d. C. Area. Including the majority leader who i have no firsthand knowledge, but i believe was hit in the hip and apparently two of his security detail as well in the shooting at the baseball practice out in outside of alexandria. Maybe we could take a moment of silence and pray for their health and recovery. Thank you. Thank you so much, mr. Chairman. I think it bears noting there was a security detail there which might have helped the situation out. These are people that follow the leaders of congress around and keep them safe. Its a reminder of the threats that exist and the bravery of the people that protect our leaders. Worth noting that as well. We come here today with a packed congressional agenda and perhaps no committee has a broader agenda than yours given the reach to health care, the energy and the environment, telecom, technology, all those issues. Its hard to pick one to start with. Id like to start with the biggest one, which i think is health care. Where do you assess the debate today . We know your Senate Colleagues are working on a bill, maybe behind closed doors now, circulating language. Where do you assess the status of this . In the first few months the year when we had this task before us, we got a lot of public suggestions from colleagues across the aisle. After we passed the bill and sent it to the senate, thats been kind of radio silent thereafter. They have a tough job. I respect that. And i know theyre serious about their work. I nola mar aleck zander is a terrific legislator. If anyone can pull it together, its him and warren hatch and the others involved. Its hard doing major reform of entitlement programs, something involving insurance at any level, especially Health Insurance is very difficult work, and they have virtually no margin of votes like we had virtually no margin to work with. Theirs is even tighter. I want to be respectful of their work. I would say this. That as part of getting them the reconciliation vehicle, we always understood there were changes, at least i understood, there would be changes to the bill, hopefully improvements in the bill. You always want your legislation to get better. To that end, we carved out some head room, if you will, about 86 billion that would be available to make other changes within the bill that they have access to. You see the data coming out of hhs and the studies. Theyre far more realistic than cbos and the insurance number, and so i im hopeful. I think theyll get Something Back to us, and then well have to evaluate it in the context of the votes we have. And with the support of the president. Is this a bill that you see headed to a Conference Committee where youre going to hash it out, or do you think if it passes the senate, thats what you have to work with and youll have to accept it . Im not going to preclude any potential future to continue to improve the legislation. We have to see what they pass. And when they pass it. The key for me is can we get a good package together that works for americans that deals with our budgetary problems, that fixes the individual Insurance Market that its inarguable that it is collapsing around us. We can argue over the support mechanisms that are there, but in the long run, this individual Insurance Market is becoming terribly expensive, and youre seeing fewer and fewer choices for people who are in that market to get access to Health Insurance at all. And you run into people who arent receiving the subsidies who are in the individual market. I talked to a woman, her premiums for 600 a month and her deductible is 16,000. She has it for catastrophic, basically. Thats not really what was intended, im sure, by the last administration. So we having work to do to fix this. Is there a plan b if this reconciliation bill doesnt get through the senate. Are you considering reduction issues the csr issue, i weighed in after evaluating it. I believe while it clearly we had won the lawsuit that the way the Obama Administration did it was illegal, the commitment in the contracts were such that we needed to make good on the contracts. And we didnt want to bring too much disruption, any disruption, any unnecessary disruption to the market. My view from the beginning has been that the csr should be funded but funded legally, and there are ways to do that. I think that would give stability to the market. Is that something you see needing to happen sooner rather than later . Lets see what happens in the next month or so. But i think whatever goes forward, our goal should be stability, the market, lower premiums, more access and choice. And i think our legislation when analyzed, even as it came out of the house, would provide lower premiums, according to cbo and others in the out years, but we begin to bend the curve down and achieve it. Im not sure there are any other plans out there that do that. Does the 23 million number concern you when it comes to messaging the bill . Sure it does. I dont believe its accurate. Cbo has a difficult job to do. But their analysts put an enormous premium on the effect of the individual mandate. I believe that that view is overrated, and dispelled by their own data against reality. If you look at the report that just came out in terms of obama care enrollment. In 2016 and 2017, theyre off by a two to one ratio in terms of how many people they said were signed up versus how many are. Year by year theyre off by about a two to one ratio. I spoke to a group of cfos who said if your predictions and calculations were off by two to one, do you think youd still be working for the ceo . I mean, this is crazy. While they have a tough job, they get it wrong consistently and dramatically when it comes to enrollment. I have a different view. When we did Medicare Part d, we had more flexibility to enact the legislation, and if you look at where we are on Medicare Part d, its 52 lower in drug costs today than what the cbo said it would be in 2003. Theres a dynamic competitive marketplace with an exchange, if you will. Seniors like it, about 85 approval. No bus trips to canada and mexico much anymore to get drugs. It works. It works. There are ways to design the markets that will cork, and it is what it is. What flexibility do you sense on the package of medicaid, changes in particular, that were in your bill . Well, this is one of the tougher parts. It was hard for us as well. Because half the republicans in the house come from states that are expansion states like mine. Half are from states that didnt do the expansion. Thats a natural conflict then. What we tried to do was make sure that states could cover low income individuals appropriately but not have a blank check. And thats why with the per capita caps we put in in traditional medicaid, if you look at the medicaid cpi medical and cpi medical plus one, those are the two different categories we did, those numbers generally run above what states are spending today, but it puts it on a budget. Now, the expansion population is the issue. If you cut to the chase, the debate were having over medicate is what percent should states bear in support of low income people who need medical care in their states versus the federal taxpayer. On the expanded population obama care said well pick up 100 . If somebody gave you a credit card and said shop and buy whatever you want, well pay the whole thing, youre going to make choices about which stores you go to. If its your credit card, you make a different choice. In a state such as mine, our f map rate is 63 . That means the federal government pings up that much. State picks up 37 . When obamacare phases in, the debate will be between a 90 on the expanded population and 63 . Whats the right number . The head room that we gave the senate in some funding allows them to adjust the tax credits, and ive always felt they should be adjusted to income, and some other support mechanisms plus the Patient State Stability Fund at 138 billion. It gives them a lot of flexibility. They can adjust the timelines on the expansion. If theres a phase down, phase out, they can adjust the ratios. They have a lot of opportunities to figure that out. Theyve got to do it in the context of their politics. Well have to do it in the context of our politics, but i believe the they have a lot of tools in the tool box to work with. A related program thats not been part of the reconciliation debate but faces a deadline is chip, the childrens Health Insurance program. What principles do you take and how long of an extension are you supportive of and are there issues . Before we get to that one, we had the user fee agreements with fda. We voted that out of committee 540. That was on a the next deadline. We have a bunch of these deadlines. You have to be chairman and discover deadlines. Ill have to talk to fred upton. No. These are on my watch, but its always fun to blame fred, you know. So we got whar we called it going, the user fee agreements. Were working with the senate to get that done. If we dont get done in the next few weeks perhaps fda has to send out layoff notices. Do you have floor time for that bill . Yeah. Im not worried about that. Now to your question on sship. This is an Important Program for the states and children in the states. When obama dacare was construct there was a notion schip wouldnt need to be. That hasnt played out. And so were looking now at that reauthorization. How long, how much, when do you fund it . And all of that. Im not going to get too far over my ski tips in terms of what were going to do. But we recognize its an Important Program. I anticipate reauthorization, but were going to evaluate it as well. The majority leader talked a lot about phase one, phase two, phase three. Phase one being the reconciliation, phase two being what secretary price can do, phase three, other Things Congress can do. What are the oh things in phase three you want to pursue . Phase three is like what we passed this week or will pass this week on medical malpractice reform. We couldnt do that in the context of reconciliation because of the rules, but it will save up to 52 billion to taxpayers if we enact what california has. Were passing that in the house. The Association Health plans. We looked at that. Were trying to evaluate how you would do purchase across the state lines and create a national marketplace. Theres one thing after another here that youll see us take up and move forward as time sort of permits given these other mandatory things we have to address on the health side. You know, well be working on these. Remember, those we knew it would require 60 votes in the senate. Some of these we passed in the senate before, and its kind of that Jimmy Buffett song if the phone doesnt ring, it must be me. You dont hear much back. Theyve got a tougher hill to climb. When it comes to your home state senator ron wyden, hes worked on ideas. Are there ideas you and he have about issues specific to oregon when it comes to health care that youd like to pursue. We held up the aisle in the Alaska Airlines flight for about an hour flying back to oregon and talking about a host of issues. Not a lot on health care, i would confess. More on some Natural Resource issues and a few other things in that conversation. He lives and breathes health care and finance. He had a medicare reform proposal with speaker ryan several years ago. There may be opportunities Going Forward. But lets face it. On obamacare, the Affordable Care act n its a partisan issue. It was when it got created. Any changes to it are perceived that way. I never anticipated democrats being able to come forward and do much in this environment in a bipartisan way. Its just too much of a base political issue. And so we knew wed have to carry the water. But i think on other Health Reforms there are opportunities. And certainly when it comes to spending in our states, efficiency in our states. Were back. There was a story today in oregon about a new Software Program theyve been working on thats now multiples of what they anticipated. Theyre up to 141 million on a new i. T. System. For gosh sakes, if youre spending four or five hundred million just on the software, how does that happen . So anyway. Lets shift to environment and energy issues. You announced three bills. One deals with yucca mountain. Its been stalled but one of the biggest blockers may have left the Congress Last year. Were going to rename it too. What are you going to call it now . Oh, somebody suggested the former majority leaders name. So talk to us about that bill and maybe what your vision is for that, the brown fields program. Those are all good questions in fact on yucca, were looking at interim and permanent storage. Got to get that right. But the key here is for taxpayers for the industry we need to get a solution. Nobody has led stronger and better and more eagerly than john shimpdis. When i made him chairman, i said there are two things i want you to focus on, one is a long Term Solution for nuclear waste, yucca, and two is rsf reform. Thats like thanks a lot. Yucca is at the top. Secretary perry was out the nevada. Looked at yucca y. We discussed it. We want to move forward. And we will move forward, and we hope to get this done. I recognize it wont be easy. I know that challenges ahead or it would have been done a long time ago, but this is high on my list to try to give it our best shot. Were working on that. Brown fields legislation, this is a very, very Important Program for the country. You want to create jobs and clean up environmental waste and mess . This is the program to do it. We have great partnerships and stories with the states. And its one of these, and ill get the multiple wrong. Somebody will fact check me so i wont use it. Its like whatever we put in, theres multiples of economic return on the other side. Because you clean up these places and then theyre developed. And whether its oregon has some Great Stories about that, west virginia. All over the country. And we really need to evaluate as a country how much we invest here. The rate were going, its like 1,000 years to get it done. Were looking at the appropriate funding levels and authorization. But mechanically the program is really solid. It needs to be reauthorized and modernized. Youll see us in the committee. One of the charges from the speaker and the Steering Committee was to every committee, look at the programs under your jurisdiction that have not been reauthorized in modern times, and reauthorize them. And if you dont have time to do it, maybe we need to look at other committees taking that jurisdiction. Wait a minute. No. No. No. Well get to it. Some of these like safe drinking water, the brown fields, these are 30yearold programs. They havent been authorized. Since then, a lot has changed. Thats why i asked joe barton to work with secretary perry on a 21st Century Energy department. It was basically created in an era of scarcity. And were not in that era anymore. I think its our responsibility to look at the programs. I think youll see a lot of them come out on a bipartisan basis. What are some of the ideas you take to the debate about how to refocus the Energy Department . I think we need to delve in and see what works and what doesnt. Thats why joe is going to head it up in partnership with fred upton. You have two different sub committees with jurisdiction. We have the whole nuclear piece, the department of energy, and our jurisdiction there is fairly broad and deep. We dont have the codes of the missiles, but bewe do have a lo of the rest of it. Ive done oversight work at some of the issues on the labs, security, a bunch of things. That will be part of it. And then what is its appropriate role. Some of energy has bled off into epa where it belongs back in energy. We have both agencies. I think im right that epa was never actually constituted. Its just a collection of programs put under a name. In some respects the whole department itself hasnt been really reviewed. Id put that on my list Going Forward. You cant do it all at once. But these are the debates we should have as the authorizing committees. So appropriators arent called upon to do both jobs. When it comes to the epa, they wanted a cut using the annual level. Its a significant reduction j similar reduction in the head count at the epa. What vision does that take the epa to . Heres how i approach it. I think you have to look at whats the core mission of the epa. And i reference things like brown fields. And those things that you have this enormous backlog, and its essential to the environment and to the economy of community after community after community to get those cleaned up and put back into productive use. Part of what were trying to do, whether its our review of the epa and the proposed budget, or other agencies is say whats your core mission . I was in business for 21 years. I remember during one of the economic downturns which you always go through, we had to make some tough budgetary choices. And when it was all over, it was a Better Organization because when things kind of just nobody holds you accountable, you dont hold yourself accountable, you kind of let things spread and grow, and when things are tighter, you go okay, is that really part of my core mission over here . Did i add that person or that thing and part doing it because i could . And i think i bring that principle to that debate. What are the most important things we could do . Safe drinking water, clear. Clearly a key issue. Brown fields cleanup . Yes. Superfund . Yes. Hanford, yes. Nuclear waste storage . Yes. Those are the things i think we should look at taxpayer investment and then build the organization from there. Ive never been a fan of saying were cutting x dollars and figure out the programs. Id rather say whats the core mission and the Important Programs and build it from there. I think you get better policy. Its your sense the deep cut will resonate with the republicans . Part of the issue that ive had and others in the conference have had is an epa that lost track of the mission and got into all kinds of things that perhaps exceeded the law. Certainly congressional intent. And caused consternation in many quarters, especially in rural america. And so, again, if you get back to a core mission and find the things that matter most, get them out of the politics, we get things done. The president withdrew us from the Paris Agreement a few weeks ago. Some states said theyll try to comply. Is there a role for congress in here to give direction or to take their the reason our Carbon Emissions are below 1996 levels is because innovation in the energy sector. What we look at is yes, lets reduce emissions. Thats fine. I think most americans i drive a hybrid on both coasts. I think im the only one in the delegation that does, i proudly say. Now i have a chevy quad cab fourwheel drive that my camper is on, so i do have an offset to my prius. Its hard to pull the camper with the prius. It didnt sit very well on it. But my point is when you look at back to the department of energy and epa and back to carbon reductions, what has been that big change to the detriment of coal, its been natural gas. How do you get natural gas . Because of modern innovatie vags in fracking. Thats resulted in lower emissions in the power sector. Its disruptive, but thats part of whats done it. I think what our job is to look at how do we improve and expedite pipelines, power lines, broad band. How do we incent innovation in conservation . We held an internet of things display, ill call it, yesterday in the rayburn foyer with all the companies that came to show us their new things. And i went online the other day and ordered wifi thermostat. It will hook up so i can turn my airconditioning down here when im not here or whatever, and have more control over it. Youll all be hacking into my airconditioning now. Dang. The longer a short of it, this innovation matters. And so we can do a lot to help the environment by incenting innovation in america. Not be tax incentives, but as we look at driverless cars, how do we get efficiency and innovation and make it happen here . So thats been my focus. We can argue about paris, voluntary agreements. I suppose they could have put it up as a treaty and put it up in the senate. I dont think it would have passed. I think you have to get beyond the politics of that and say what is it were trying to accomplish . Cities want to play, counties, go to it. But none of that matters if we dont have ability to get the power grid in a position where it can take the solar and wind energy and manage it. And if we dont have a hydro system that doesnt work right. If we dont have the balance. My view has been put consumers first. Whats it cost them when we go down the paths and what choices do they have in were looking al those issues. You mentioned the cars you drive. I saw a Youtube Video of you checking out and riding in an automated driverless car. What was the experience like . I think you were in the passengers side . Guaranteed. Not the backseat . Audi 7, its a great car. One of the states around here mandates that they have a separate set of pedals on the passenger side. The first thing the driver says, dont touch those. And bob said when he road it, he said i wish id had that when i was teaching my kids to drive. All parents probably wish they had that second set of pedals. It have great. It had the ability to switch lanes on its own and signal, and had is ability we went up 395. You dont get over 8 Miles Per Hour anyway, so it doesnt matter. We did. We were going freeway speeds. Theyre still working on it. Its fascinating. The engineer in the front seat came out of the auto pilot airplane auto pilot engineering world. If you make a plane land and take off, you can probably make a car do it to a certain extent. We traded in my wifes old dodge van last year and got a Subaru Outback wagon. She said i dont need the bells and whifls. Of course the only three models in oregon had all the bells and whistles. We have the version with this Collision Avoidance software in it. Its phenomenal. We were on a road trip two weekends ago, and a couple of things. One, it will keep you in the lane if theres good paint on either side. This is an issue. Should there be standards, what should it look like. Paint doesnt matter if theres four inches of snow. So there are limitations, but it would gently keep you from drifting over. It pulls you back if you have it turned on. And then on the cruise control, i could pick one to four car lengths to stay behind a vehicle. I could set it at whatever speed. Of course, i only set it at the legal speed limit. Got to go with traffic, and so it would keep me three car lengths behind the car in front of me. As we approached my hometown, the highway comes to a stop. I wondered how it would work. So i let it bring me to a complete stop behind the car in front of me. And it did. When the car pulls away, it is a fourway stop, what happens . Thats probably not going to work well. So i hit the brake. Because it did want to launch me once that car took off not knowing the others are coming across. It could be a problem, but it worked. So you think about 85 or so of accidents in america occur because of some sort of driver distraction. You lose 30,000 people a year, 4. 6 million are injured. Youre not going to stop all of it, and there will be interaction with the systems but if you can do half of that, i think generations will look back and say you drove yourselves . Really . How did you text and do that . Well, that was the problem, wasnt it . And so this is Amazing Technology thats out there. Theres a whole set of steps, one to five or something, layers clear to no Steering Wheel which is odd. But between that, theres a lot we can do along the way. Youll see a package of bills come out. Theyll need work. But because this stuff gets complicated, i met with some insurers yesterday. They were like whos responsible . Who is responsible if something happens in the driverless vehicle . You didnt download the software patch, and something didnt work right. Is that you . Is it the car . Is it the manufacturer . There are going to be a bunch of those issue that have to be worked out. Whose data in the car . Who does that belong to . After market . You get all those things. As part of the infrastructure debate maybe later this year, what are things you want to see happen whether its technology in rural america, emergency infrastructure that could take a ride on this package . All the above. We put a lot of time. Fred, john as in hearings on infrastructure. And it is the power lines, broad band, how do we get it out there, and the things that impede that. The president s radio address where he talked about we built a dam in three or four years and the golden gate bring in three or four years. You cant even hire the law firm to begin the work in three years now. I had a Tiny Community in my district which will be epicenter of the eclipse on august 21st, mitchel, oregon, population of about 50. If you want to be in the middle of nowhere, go there. No cell service for 50 miles in either direction until i raised the issue when i was out there. Theyre going to have tens and thousands of people. The ambulance so called driver said theres no cell service out here. What are we going to do with all these people. Theres going to be a heart attack or an overdose or something. Its like a grateful dead follower or something that follows these eclipses or something. Anyway, off topic. Theyre expecting millions of people in oregon. I dont know if thats going to happen or not, but i know the last hotel room in bend, oregon in a holiday inn was going for 800 a night. Thats a little higher than normal price. So where was i . That little down of mitchel spent several years trying to get four power poles cited on land so they could get phase three power into town to get an environmental study to get four power poles into the ground. This is the nonsense that drives up the cost, delays everything else. Were look at the appropriate role. How do you maintain public input but not have the process determine the project because delay can destroy. The president referenced this. We believe in it. And whether its pipelines or power lines. I mean, that the town of primeville, oregon, there are data hubs for facebook, apple, rack space, and maybe somebody else. They had some additional folks wanting to locate there who needed three or four, or 500 megawatts of power. They dont have it. Guess what, if youre a manufacturer, youre out of there. Youre gone. Youre not going to wait three to five years. So we have this grid capacity issue. And security issue. And so thats part of infrastructure as well. Youll see us do more work on that front. Well open it up to our audience now. Gentleman up front. Yeah. You better wait until you get the mike. Otherwise well both get fired. Totally okay. Im ardell. My question is we live in a hyperpartisan political environment. Going back to the health care issue, has there ever been a thought of working in a bipartisan way to improve aca instead of making a partisan issue with the ahca. Depending on where you stand, theres always going to be different views, but why not come together and find something that benefits all americans instead of saying this is only going to benefit this section and that section. I would argue that two things. I respect your question. And there have been multiple successful bipartisan efforts to reform the aca signed into law by president obama. Repea repeals, changes over the years. We generally had that hung around our neck as voting to repeal obamacare 63 times. That was the nonsense of the political speech. Because a lot of those ended up in law because there were problems with obamacare that needed to be fixed. There are some issues, i would tell you, that are just core differences between the parties and philosophy that you cannot bridge by saying well work together. I think there are parts of this we are working together on. I just never expected democrats to be able to vote for anything that looked like that would be character rised as Obamacare Repeal and replace. If you look at the legislation, i think you could argue that were not repealing exchanges. Were not going back to the preobamacare days in terms of what insurers could do. We didnt lift the lifetime caps. Theres a lot of the core elements of Health Care Reform that were done that frankly some of us supported then but didnt have a voice or an opportunity to offer one majority on the house floor. And so its unfortunate it got to that point. In the early early 90s, i was on the committee. I created a select committee to write and implement the Oregon Health plan, rewrite it in 1991. It was all bipartisan. Ive done a lot of Health Care Reform in the state legislature and here thats bipartisan. Its my preference. This tool, first of all, being on reconciliation around the senate makes it partisan. I hope youll see us Going Forward on issues much like we just did with reauthorizing the user fee agreements of the fda, 540. Our work on opioid, important and bipartisan. Mental health reform, first time we reformed the Mental Health care laws since kennedy signed the last bill into law before he was assassinated. Thats a long time. Theres a lot on health care outside of the aca or obamacare. But when you wrestle with medicaid to states and an exchange thats failing, people went to their sidelines. Id like to have a bipartisan. Most of our work is. Good morning, chairman. I am brittany. Im a Health Care Business analyst. What Health Care Policy is being established to include all social groups, specifically the lgbt community. A person cant have a prostate or a mammogram due to medical unlikely edits. What policy is being. Again . A person cant have a. Gram or a prostate on a claim due to medical unlikely edits which cancels the claim. Due to what . Medical unlikely edits . Medical unlikely edits . Yes. I dont know what that means. Its an edit that takes into account a gender of a woman. Im a woman so i dont have a prostate or. Gram so my claim will be cancelled. You cant have a mammogram as a woman. No. You cant have a mammogram or a prostate on the same person. If i was transgender, that would be denied. So what policy is being established to take this issue into concern . Thats a good question. This is new to me. Its not been brought to my attention before. Im happy to take a look at it. This is where you learn these things, right . Its a Society Changes and evolves, happy to take a look at it. And also in addition to that question, as far as technological policy, what is being established to take into account technological ways such as cell phones . Yes. A couple of things. One, on medical devices, on medical data, theres both enormous innovative opportunity on health care as well as risk. And the risk presents itself most recently in the ransom ware, want to cry. It shut down the British Health care system for a longer period of time than any of us would want. We dont want it here. Weve had some briefings on that. This gets to there was one, i believe there was one hole in the Microsoft Software that if you patched it, you were good. And apparently they hadnt patched in some of these areas. And then you learned that theyre in the medical world, a lot of medical device systems operate on old software that isnt even modernized and updated. So old operating systems that none of us want to admit we were ever using. And theyre the base system. Whats happened now is that those systems are getting integrated through wifi into billing systems and then all of that opens up exposure. And so we were told that there are some medical systems that have upwards of 200 or more openings like the one opening that was in the microsoft operating system. Nearly billions of dollars and tens of years to replace and modernize and upgrade all that. On the one side of Data Security and Cyber Security and risk, were trying to focus on how do you fix that. And protect patient data. And i asked the question while they do ransom ware, weve seen cases where they corrupted the data. Just throw a little one your way. What if they came back and changed your blood type in the record . Think about the implications of that. If you begin to have to question all the data and all the medical records of everybody that you serve, you have a real problem. And so they havent seen that. By the way, on these ransom ware attacks, they told us this was pretty unsophisticated and the kid was able to close it pretty quickly. I forget where he was, but kind of identified a way to shut it off, an it happened over a weekend here, which we were able to get involved. Hhs had 3,000 people at the same time on a multihour Conference Call about what they were seeing and how to close this. We had a hearing on that last week. On their whole center, demand center they have to deal with Cyber Attacks in the health care space. You have that, and then you have a great opportunity to do data research, if you will. When we passed 21st century cures, one of the physicians from oregon who heads the Knight Cancer Research center, he said, i think he said 65 peta bytes of canner data. With todays technology, if you can harness the data and focus them, you can help find the right molecules. Its dramatically improving the Research OpportunitiesGoing Forward to find cures. And so, and then you have the third part of this. If were actually checking our Blood Pressure because theres a device that will do that easily or monitoring our glucose, whatever, in realtime, we can enhance our own Health Care Without having to go to the doctor or the e. R. And so this is an incredible time in which we live where we can improve our own health care, take more responsibility for that j drive down costs through inno nation. We have to make sure it all opens the exposure. We look at it from the broad perspective. The gentleman in the back, if we could. We didnt give him a chair. We can give him a question, i guess. Thats right. Cant afford a chair at bloomberg. Or enough chairs. Good morning. I just got here too late. Its a crowded group. It should be to the extent of your committees jurisdiction, and thank you for the overview of the health and environmental stuff. Im mark with the software and information industry association. Your committees jurisdiction also includes internet privacy. Ive heard that. You may have had a couple of experiences with that this year. Yep. Representative black burn has an internet privacy piece of legislation thats raised concern in the Tech Community and in others. It goes well beyond what the federal trade commission does to ensure consumer privacy. Im wondering if you have any reflections on the merits of the bill or the prospects . Well, chair blackburn is bright and capable and committed to the cause of data privacy. Individual control over the data. Its kind of unfortunate were in part of the reason were in this position is because the prior fcc went too far the other way and decided the internet should be treated like old ma bell, and went into title ii, common carrier status, which then meant the federal trade commission no longer had jurisdiction over those sorts of issues because they dont have jury diction over the common carriers. Only the fcc did. They were created and then they were suspended. They were never enforced. We repealed them and then got blamed by different entities saying were selling peoples privacy. All of which, none of it was accurate. It really opened the door to this debate now on privacy. And shes a very thoughtful and capable legislator, and a determined one. I would advise you to be in regular contact, and communication with chairman blackburn. In the back. My kneel is camille. Im a voter in your district as well as an organizer. Weve met before, climate action. Yes. As you know, my family has been has been in district two for four generations. I met with you about climate change, making life uninhabitable in my hometown by the time my kids would be my age. Ive heard about hybrids and i know about your interest in biomass, but you had a 5 score from the league of conservation voters last year, and you support the use of fossil fuels including natural gas which has 50 underreported methane leaks which makes it worse than coal. Im wondering having a son,. Your concerns about costs of taking action they pale in comparison to what youre giving to our generation to deal with. Say you had a conversation with your son, how could you look him in the eyes and tell him youre doing everything you can . Pretty easily, because i believe i am. I believe america has led in the effort, and i believe allowing china and others to add to their Carbon Emissions without penalty is not right. I would also say that we weve led in innovation. We can help in this area. We can create jobs here. But im not going to penalize americas economy unfairly while our competitors continue to expand and emit more carbon. Youll argue its okay for india to do that, probably, because your view on the paris accord. And you would argue that china should be able to do this because that is the agreement. I dont agree with that. In part, when you look at what weve done over time, we have given the world amazing environmental tools. We have fought wars and saved countries. And thats been part of our emissions accumulation, i assume, when were building ships and planes and things and going to war in europe time and again to save peoples. Im sure that added to emitted carbon during that time that now we get penalized for. What im trying to do is bring down Carbon Emissions and other emissions. Were going to look at methane. Were looking at all of it. I just disagree. Gentleman in the back . Thank you. I am peter pitch with intel. You have alluded to your committees very important jurisdiction over telecom broadly defined the new leadership at the fcc is looking at net neutrality, more additional spectrum for wireless. What do you see as your committees agenda on these issues . How do you approach them . Thank you. Theres a lot we can do in this space. Im not sure theres either a huge appetite for a big available reservoir of new spectrum to put on the market and to put out there. We talked about that. What i get is the pressure from the budget folks who say your committee needs to come up with more spectrum and auction it off so we have a better budget number. Weve done it over the years. But in terms of finding more spectrum, im sure with david who is terrific going to ntia, if somebody can manage it better federally, david can. He knows where its all hidden. And hell do a great job there. But im not sure thats really a piece. So then it is this get back to the siding issues. Was we move into a world of wireless spectrum and all of us being connected with multiple devices and most of us not having land lines and getting broad band out there and all the different ways you can do that, you got to have the backhaul. We need fiber back to the hubs. Part of it is how do you get that done efficiently to keep up with the expansion in the wireless . Youve got all this new technology coming in 5 g, lt 5 g. You have different frequencies we thought had little or no value now are the new beach front. And so were looking at all of that. You look at everything thats coming in that world, and then you look at the internet of things and the demand for spectrum is going to be out there. And so were working with the fcc on these matters. I fully expect the fcc will probably reclassify knowing where chairman pie starts from. Back to take it out of title ii, and that would open the door for legislation, i proposed, never introduced but proposed that would give certainty in the market to the rules of the road on the internet. To ban the bad behaviors and do it directly and clearly. And then that would if we get out of title ii, that solves your privacy issue. It goes back to the ftc. So that goes away. We have certainty for investment which has gone down against history. Since title ii, since the reclassification. You can get things open and operating. I dont know that we need to throw taxpayer dollars at broad band buildout. There are funds available. My view has been in a district such as mine, that you have areas that are still unserved. If theres a roll for a Public Private partnership, it is first in the unserved areas of the america so you can bring incredible power of the internet to a very remote, rural area. We still have areas in the country that you have dropped calls on cell service, and weve had legislation on that. You have lack of access to cellular coverage for basic phone service now today. Id all it basic. Those are all priorities for us as well. And then were going to look at a reauthorization of the ntia. I think we will at some point in the fcc. Because these are agencies that havent been. We were going to start with ntia until we got a wirk and nod that maybe they were going to ask david to be the ntai administrator. It wouldnt work well to have him design his new agency. So we put that on hold. Youll see us move forward on that. Well, chairman, i know we promised to get you out. I want to thank you and our guests. Your colleagues and their staff will be in our thoughts as the news continues to develop. We look forward to having you again. Thank you. Thank you so much. This weekend cspans city tour takes book tv and American History tv to hyde park new york as we explore the history and lit tear life of a town thats come to be snon houynonymous wi story of the roosevelt family. Saturday at noon eastern on book tv. An exclusive interview with grandson of fdr as he talks about his memory, a personal history of eleanor roosevelt. It really was not until my grandmothers funeral that i realized that she was really a special person. And something of a celebrity. We never thought of her in that way. We never viewed my grandmother. She was only a grandmother to us. And thats all she ever wanted to be. Then an author and his book, fdr and the post office. I found four letter in the archive in his handwriting, not typewritten, that actually credited stamp collecting with saving his life after he became ill and ended up being confined to a wheelchair. On sunday at 2 00 a. M. Eastern on American History tv, we tour the fdr president ial library. The first president ial library in the National Archives system. It was established by president franklin ruse vet. He was looking for a way to preserve the papers of his administration and his personal papers, and so he created a library on the grounds of his estate here in hyde park, new york. What he decided to do was raise private money to build the library, and then he gave it to the government to be operated by the National Archives. Watch cspan cities tour of hyde park, new York Saturday at noon eastern on book tv and sunday at 2 00 p. M. On American History tv on cspan3. Working with our if i fill yats and city affiliates and cities across the country. Barack is committed to presenting his story. And i think thats different from history. Part one of our interview with david garo. He talks about rising star the making of barack obama which covers barack backobamas life. I think his sense of destiny lead him to push sheila yeger aside. During that time, there was a wellknown political figure in chicago, hugely respected man, senator dick knewhouse. Everyone in black chicago believed could never go higher because he was married to a white bwoman. It is in the political tradition of black chicago in the early 90s that for a black man to aspire to represent black chicago, it is necessary to have