Received his bachelors degree and juris doctorate and worked for the house of representatives judiciary committee. Went on the serve as United States attorney for district of massachusetts, and eventually the u. S. Assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division. In 1990 mr. Weld was elected as governor of massachusetts. And in 1994 he was reelected to that position by the largest margin of victory in massachusetts history. Governor weld is now running for president under the republican ticket. Although he is challenging President Trump in the gop primaries, we do have to clarify that this is a policy the event and not a campaign event. Mr. Weld has a history of service in the Republican Party and to his country and the Dartmouth College republicans are proud to host him on campus. Without further ado, governor weld. [ applause ] thank you so much. A pleasure. Well, im going to sit by the side here so theres nothing between me and you and i plan to speck for 10 or 15 minutes on my chosen topic which is Climate Change and after that my understanding well have questions and answers for a slightly longer time than that. Climate change is right at the top of the list of things that i want to do if im successful in becoming president of the United States. Its really a threat, not only to our country, but really to the entire planet, and the issue is that if the atmospheric temperature rises by a certain amount between now and the middle of the century, 2050, then its very likely the polar ice cap in its entirety would melt which would carry completely catastrophic consequences for the entire world. Many countries would not be able to sustain their populations because of the impact of colossally problematic weather events. Weve already seen that start to happen in the last couple of decades and at an accelerating pace there would be worldwide flooding, all of the mountain glaciers in the world would melt. The mountain glaciers are the sole source of Drinking Water for 300 Million People which is just a little less than the population of the entire United States. So that would be catastrophic event. All the coastlines of the world would be rearranged and, you know, people who are now on the coast would be 13 to 30 feet under water and a lot of shore front property that is not shore front property now. Probably not here. Problem safe from that here. But really enough to ravage the economy and settle patterns of activity in virtually every country in the world very much including the United States with our two very lengthy coastlines. So it just is an event that has to be, has to be avoid and its got to go to the top of the list for the new president. You cant treat it as something that is not going to happen. 97 of all the scientists in the world agree that it is going to happen and the science here is settled. Thats all the bad news. The good news is that the solution to the problem is not really that difficult. To put it in physical terms, whats necessary is that the countries of the world gettogether and prevent such a big amount of carbon going into the atmosphere that the temperature of the atmosphere rises 1. 5 degrees centigrade. If we can stop that from happening then well have avoid all these colossal bad things that ive just been describing. The way you do that as you doubtless know is by reducing at that point of carbon thats emitted into the atmosphere. And so its a mechanical, an math assignment for the nations of the world. One of my first acts as president is to rejoin fairs accord which is a group of many, many countries under the u. N. The framework on Climate Change. And to work with china and the rest of the world to get a solution that would to our bit to reduce carbon in the earths atmosphere. In terms of the United States contribution to the problem and responsibility were the second largest polluter in the world after china. Were the biggest per capita. So what we and china do would be highly important. In terms of upholding our responsibility and its a quantitative thing how much carbon you get out of the atmosphere i propose we set a price on carbon. This would be legislation or executive proposal that i would introduce in the first month, probably going to the senate to seek approval for it as a treaty under established procedures, and putting a price on carbon means that either by executive order or congressional enactment everyone who emits carbon in the atmosphere has to pay a certain price per ton, probably lets say 40 per ton. It might float up to 50 per ton. That would be imposed upstream so would not be felt by consumers and by upstream for oil and gas companies, for mining companies. So that would raise a couple hundred billion dollars a year. So thats something thats coming from these sources of carbon. However, i want this to be a price on carbon not a tax on carbon. So my proposal is that all of that money would be remitted to taxpayers so it would be revenue neutral to the government. In that sense it would not be a tax, simply a price. The most common way to remit it to the taxpayers, its been proposed, is simply to give payroll tax relief which is paid by everybody thats working, and i propose that be put on a gradient so its more relief for lower income taxpayers. To the extent you need cooperation of congress i would appeal to democrats, you would be able for relatively short money to repeal the gas tax and diesel tax. That might appeal to republicans. But it would not be a terribly painful thing to do in terms ever its importance to the world at large. One idea that ive had that i havent seen others put forward is for industrialized countries like ourselves and or china to buy up sovereign debt of countries that have a great deal of forests, particularly rain forest, which is very, very good for the atmosphere. More trees is a very good thing. And buy up that sovereign debt on condition that the rain forest stay in their existing status. If they were to be savaged, that would be very bad for global warming. So this is what we need to do. And its not something that causes us to have to commit economic suicide. It could be paired with Infrastructure Investments by the United States and such things as rail, roads and bridges to guard against flooding. And anything that promotes climate resiliency. Its not that difficult a measure if the political will is there to do it. And that would be number one on my list. So theres the plan. Im happy to take questions from anybody on this or any other issues and thank you again for coming. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you for joining us. Well begin the q and a session. The line will start right here. Come up if you have a question. Ill hold the mic. Please be polite. Anyone want to start . If youre sitting on this side of the auditorium you can come up and line up over here or ask a question over here. My name is ethan. My sqquestion is what is the thoughts on the Green New Deal. Its fine as far as it goes on the Renewable Energy and the wind and solar. Thats great. In this part of the world we have hydro. Im an outlier on the plan as its emerged as i think Nuclear Power has to be part of the equation as well. People have been sitting around for a long time why cant we invent something that uses no carbon and that thing was invented a long time ago and its called the atom. Ive been around to a bunch of, usually thinly populated counties, im thinking of upstate new york. They already have little Nuclear Plants there and they would love to have more. They are very Good Neighbors and very good sources of employment. The fact is that in the first draft of aoc, alexandria occasiocortezs Green New Deal nuclear was included. But then somehow she was persuaded she had to cut it out because it wasnt absolutely clean because it generated nuclear waste. First of all, thats a problem that could be solved in one stroke with the Yucca Mountain that harry reid is no longer the majority leader in the senate. Second, the new generation of Nuclear Plants, gen 4 and gen 5, many of them are complete cycle plants so they consume their own waste. So that problem would just go away. Third, i think advances in Carbon Capture and sequestration will solve that problem anyway. I would put nuclear in which is less heavylifting and a creating guarantee it would be handled by renewables. One place i get off the bus on the Green New Deal it says well invest x trillion, hundreds of trillions of dollars in green energy and that will create so many jobs and so much wealth that were going to offer everyone in the country a guaranteed basic income. Irrespeespective of whether th are willing to work. That wont work in the United States. It might work in europe but not here. Carve that one out and save the rest of the clean new deal. All right. Hi, governor. My question for you is, my name is kyle, by the way. My question for you is beyond rejoining the paris climate accords would you take any further action to convince other countries to bring down their own carbon emission . Sure. What i would do to get to where we need to go on climb change there would be a lot of hard bargaining. Xi jinping said something very early on before the election of trump we have a thousand reasons to be friends. Hes right. We have a thousand touch points. Our economies. Our diplomacy. Our aspirations have a thousand touch points. Of all the countries in the world the u. S. Has the most touch point of anybody. As part of a wide ranging bilateral discussion with virtually any country i could think of i would say well it might not be fair if we industrialized nations said to the south which is a general term i use for lesser developed countries, if we said to the lesser developed countries, well too bad you came to the party late, weve really enjoyed the fruits of the industrial revolution, all that wealth and ease that its create sod were going to continue to eat all the ice cream but you cant have any. So you have to stay where you are relatively speaking in the dark ages with respect to Industrial Development and do nothing. And that would mean youre such good boys and girls because you wouldnt have emitted any carbon in the atmosphere. Seems that wouldnt be fair. I do think countries like the United States and china have, to you know, suck it up and do what they have to do and as i said it doesnt mean you have to declare economic suicide. You can achieve your objective in many different ways and i dont think would have a big impact in the United States. If theres a country that has a long way to go there, its china. I spent a lot of time in asia and africa traveling on business in the last 15 years. And if you go from beijing west all the way to the border theres a coal plant every few miles. Thats their major source. They have a lot to do and they know it. Theres very much politically incented to do it. Two things that drive the people nuts with communism is pollution and corruption. Pollution is number one. I was in beijing shortly before the olympics. You couldnt see across the streets. During the olympics beautiful clear skies you ever saw because they shut down every coal plant. Command and control economy. So i look for things like that with other countries. And the United States would have a certain amount of clout and we wouldnt have to be ugly about it but just say look you be a good citizen, it will come back and you wont regret it and this is why and that would be the approach. My name is ethan. What are your thoughts on the trump impeachment inquiry currently in the house, thank you. You know i said this often, and i was just here for a policy speech, but speaking as a lawyer and a lawyer who worked on the nixon impeachment and wrote together with my office mate Hillary Clinton on whats the grounds for impeachment im a good person to ask. You know an Impeachable Offense is a word in the constitution is treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdeamnors. And treason is giving aid and comfort to our enemies. Bribery is use of your office to demand or accept something of value for you self. And high crimes and misdeamnors is sort of whatever congress defines it as. But the number of times that mr. Trump tried obstruct the mueller investigation, very clearly by ordering the documents be destroyed or that false documents be filed or that false testimony be given, that would be enough in itself. Every time he had that conversation with one of his folks and they said i cant do that, that would be a lie, that would be a false document he would say whats your point . As weve seen in his relationship with Jeff Sessions and with james comey from the fbi, you know, he thinks that the function of others in the government is to watch his political skirts. And the recent deal with ukraine and trying to use the leverage that he had from suspending 400 million of military aid to ukraine to get the president to investigate his most likely rival, joe biden, thats kind of over the top in terms of the definitions that i mentioned earlier. I think the house will go ahead. The delicate question is what are the republicans in the senate going to do the . You know there will be no removal unless 20 republicans vote for it, give or take. Right now they are holding the line, probably just a handful of republican votes for removal right now. But the polls in the last week have shown a slight majority support not only for impeachment but for removal and thats in the country at large. Republicans have not signed on to that yet. Republican senators who are up for reelection next year, they are dont have to win just the primary, they have to win the general election. So 60 of all the people in the country including democrats like the idea of removal, you know, x months from now, those republicans will think long and hard before they vote to not remove. All the republicans who defended president nixon all year in 1974 said theres not enough evidence, that he knew about the watergate conspiracy, they were proved wrong when the tapes came out showing he had known all along. They were all defeated. They were all defeated. My prediction which im making even those Senior Republicans have been my friends over the years will all lose and youll have a Democratic Senate and the republicans dont want that. Hi. My the name is claire. I was wondering what your plans would be to lower drug prices in our country . Plan is to how to lower drug prices. First things let people buy Prescription Drugs in canada and other countries. This is a left ward swing on my part that i was reluctant to get to. The big pharma has been so outrageous by failing to explain why they charge three times as much per Prescription Drugs here as they do in germany. Thats to allow medicare to negotiate Prescription Drug prices with big pharma. Generally im on the libertarian side of the Republican Party not the Movement Conservative side so generally its very important to me to keep government as small as possible so that individual liberties are as great as possible. But here its, you know, not government versus individual liberties, its government versus big pharma who is not playing square with us in my view. I would give medicare that power and that would be a sea change on day one. Enormous leverage on the price of Prescription Drugs. Hi. Im eric. Im a 23. You just said that when he about 1,000 reasons to be friends with china kpp you elaborate on that . You want one or two of them . No. If we gettogether. We can do a great deal. I myself have a thought about the issue with north korea. Mr. Trump has taken that all on himself to go have oneonones with his new beau. He came close to pressing the Nuclear Button on north korea when he was unhappy with mr. Kim right at the beginning. It was right after he successfully sent 59 cruise missiles into blow up the airbase that dropped chemical weapons into syria. Even i supported that and im a nonintervention and he felt his oats. But the stated reason for it was, i just figured out what a strong tough kid this is. He killed his own uncle. What a strong kid. Now he killed his own brother the guy who was poisoned the at the airport. Thats when he really fell in love with mr. Kim. Thats not really a good bromance. However, examine the problem. The problem is that north korea is heading down a path to get nuclear weapons. Is it because they really want to bomb los angeles . No. They want clout. They want respect. They are frustrated because they have the worst economy in the world. Their people are starving to death. Nobody gives them any respect. This at slaeft a way to get everybodys attention. No, they are a very poor country. Right below them is south korea which is much more highly developed. And theres, i dont know how many hundreds of missiles aimed right at north korea from a distance of, you know, nine miles, give or take. They dont like that. You know who else doesnt like that . China doesnt like that. You know who is right behind north korea, china is. China is north koreas big sponsor faint wasnt for china the North Koreans really would starve to death and everyone kind of knows that. But the United States has no interest in seeing the North Koreans starve to death and just as with some bumps, their reunification of germany has been a success and produced stability in the world.