The takeover is a success. In 2010, then former president fidel castro gave a speech to the Cuban National assembly. We will show you that speech in its entirety tonight at 10 55 eastern time, here on cspan. Of our featured programs this weekend on cspan. Tonight at 8 00 eastern, the state of the black world conference discussing the impact of the 2016 election. Panelists include the author of the book are we there yet . Race, obama, and Public Policy and moderator mark thompson, host of make it plain. Also the mayor of newark, new jersey. You know, when we get together as black folk in this country and we have an agenda, you have to understand we have people toith other win. The object is to win. We dont want to struggle for struggle sake, right . Sake, right . Les there are people in our community who have been beaten, people who are dead. My mother and father did not participate in the movement for metals, for rewards, for twitter, for instagram, to get praised. They did this because it was necessary. Followed it to the clock by nebraska senator ben brass on the Founding Fathers and the american movement. It turns out the meaning of america is persuasion. The meaning of america is love. The meaning of america is building a better product or persuading someone to marry you or join your church or synagogue. There is a huge civic mindedness in american history. Sunday, newt gingrich, van jones, and Patrick Kennedy discuss opioid addiction and treatment. It is true people have to change their minds. They have to have some willpower. But they also, because the weight opioids work, they have to change their brains back. This is a biological your brain is an organ. And once these doctors hand you these pills and say, hey, we took a molar out of your mouth, take these pills. Hey, you broke your collar bone, take these pills. For a lot of people, these pills damage that word in. Listen for free on the cspan radio app. Now epa Administrator Gina Mccarthy talks about the environmental policy achievements of the obama administration, specifically the Paris Agreement and the Clean Power Plan. This is an hour. [gavel pounds] washingtonto the press club. Our guest today is the administrator of the Environmental Protection agency jenny mccarthy. I would like to a, public radio and cspan audiences, and would like to remind you that you can follow the action on twitter npclive. Npclive. Now its time to introduce our guests. Stand briefly as your name is announced. Please hold your applause until im finished introducing the entire table. Elizabeth mcgowan. Bill loveless. Chief of staff at the epa. Emily holden. Frank, office of Public Affairs epa. E skipping over our speaker just a moment a reporter at eu news. He arranged today from a luncheon very thank you, rob. Ofthew mccarey, the daughter our speaker today. A reporter at cq roll call. I messed that up. We have this conversation before. And jack williams. The former usa today weather editor and freelance science rider. Freelance science writer. [applause] epa administrator jackson of our current day was last at this podium in september 2013 to unveil the obama administrations opening bid to reduce Carbon Dioxide emissions. Those rules curb emissions from power plants, a precursor of the Clean Power Plan issued in 2015, which was designed to reduce Carbon Emissions are u. S. Power plants 32 below 2005 levels by 2030. The Clean Power Plan is americas chief commitment to the world in pursuit of achieving the paris accords goals two, global warming. But the fate of that, as well as many others issued by the epa are uncertain following the election. President elect donald trump has called Climate Change a hoax and has vowed to roll back federal regulations seen as crippling to u. S. Businesses. During her tenure, mccarthy has been in the crosshairs of republican members of congress and the fossil fuel industry for her perceived leadership over obama alleged war on coal. But if you ask her, mccarthy would say that her critics have been wrong. Her job is to protect the health of americans not just from air and water pollution, but from things such as carbon monoxide, methane, lead, and others. Mccarthy remains resolute in the epa mission. In a memo to her staff just after election day, she said, we are running, not walking to the finish line of president obamas presidency. Today, we learn more about what she has in mind and what her expectations are that those efforts will stand up to expected challenges. Please welcome epa Administrator Gina Mccarthy. [applause] thank you for your remarks. I think you probably gave mine as well. [applause] that is great. Thank you, everybody, at the National Press club for welcoming me back again. Its great to be here. A few of you may be old enough to remember i am certainly not but there was a time when Congress Passed a law with unanimous vote in the senate and only one nay vote in the house. I will give you a hint, it was not the renaming of a post office. It was actually the Clean Air Act of 1970. It was an historic law that was signed by a republican president , and it was a global turning point. The Clean Air Act was actually passed in response to a changing world. It sought to build this country up, to look forward, and to consider how our actions would impact people that we may never know, or that we may ever see ourselves. Today, times are different. But the nature of change has not changed. The world continues to be in motion and it will continue changing regardless of the few who choose not to acknowledge it. While the world continues to change, epas Mission Continues to endure. Our mission is to protect Public Health and to safeguard the precious Natural Resources that we all need to survive and to thrive. Our task is timeless. It is nonpartisan. It is essential to every single life. We cannot pursue liberty or happiness without clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. We cannot neglect to continue to support those hardworking americans who get up every morning, they get their kids to school, they take extra class, or they pick up an extra shift, and remember that the last thing that they actually want to do is listen to the rank or that too often characterizes our politics rancor that too often characterizes our politics. They may be fed up with what we hear from washington, but that does not mean that they do not care about what we do and do not do. They care about clean air and water, fishable rivers and streams, safe places to live, work, and play. Every one of those hardworking americans cares about having food that is free of harmful pesticides. How about products that are free of harmful toxics . In our neighborhoods in kids future, free from the day birds of Climate Change. Epa is here because the American People demanded it. We will be here because they continue to demand it, because we stand between pollution and our people. We have made incredible progress over the past five decades. Pollution today is less visible than it was in the good old days when i grew up, when smokestacks spewed black clouds and rivers caught on fire, but people expect us to deal with the pollution that they can no longer see, like air pollution that travels into our country or scoots across the states, or chemicals present in our Drinking Water that nobody can articulate the name of because it is way too long to figure out. People expect us to do our jobs using the best science and research to define not only the challenges but the solutions. People expect us to understand and use change as a catalyst for growth and prosperity. If we do not, if we place rancor over action, if we betray the people who put us here, if we stubbornly deny the science and the change that is happening around us, we will fall victim to our own paralysis. Science tells us that there is no bigger threat to American Progress and prosperity than the threat of global Climate Change. If you take absolutely nothing else from my speech today, take this. The train to a Global Clean Energy future has already left the station. So we have a choice. We can choose to get on board and actually provide leadership, or we can choose to be left behind to stand stubbornly still. When presented with that choice, president obama chose leadership. He chose action. He chose a calculated investment in our collective future. President obama recognizes that the inevitability of our Clean Energy Future is bigger than any one person or any one nation. Faxed today paint a very clear picture. Climate change is among the most significant Public Health, economic, and security challenges that we have ever faced as a nation, or as a world. And under his administration, with an economic recession, the likes which we have never seen since 1930, he had the foresight to invest in solar and wind and clean energy and clean auto manufacturing, to set a course for strong domestic action, positioning the u. S. To actually lead the way to securing an historic International Agreement. And he was right. The Paris Agreement was negotiation, and it is now in full force. And epa will continue to be essential to cutting Carbon Pollution in the United States and making good on our global leadership. We set Greenhouse Gas standards for cars and trucks that Carbon Pollution and save money for people at the pump. While it boosted the Auto Industry from near bankruptcy, to increases in both sales and jobs here in the United States. We set methane standards for landfills. No oil and Gas Production units. We are gathering the data nexus area set standards on existing ones. We helped a broker and historic two historic International Agreements to lower Carbon Emissions from aircraft. And Something Else that i am incredibly proud of, we have led the United States delegation that successfully amended the montreal protocol, an International Agreement to reduce hydrofluorocarbons. They are highly potent Greenhouse Gases. In this one agreement, in and of itself, will avoid up to 80 billion metric tons of Greenhouse Gases missions. Folks, that is equivalent to 10 years of u. S. Omissions. And the businesses like it. They were pushing for it, they celebrated in the end and once we got it over the finish line. Of course, we took historic action to set sensible Carbon Pollution limits at our largest stationary sources, our power plants, which we call the Clean Power Plan. I have heard some people talk about epas Clean Power Plan like it is the driving force kind this countrys transition to clean energy. In the reality, those folks give us too much credit. The cpp was designed to follow the Clean Energy Transition that was already underway. The one that the Energy Market depends on and the one that the Energy Market will continue to demand. Just look at where the u. S. Energy sector is now. In 2014 alone, Clean Energy Investment increased by 14 , that is five times greater growth than the rest of the u. S. Economy. U. S. Power plant co2 emissions in 2015 were about 24 below 2005 levels. Already well on the way to the cpps 2030 targets. 2015 admissions were about the same as the cpps firstyear goal in 2022, in 2015. That is seven years ahead of schedule. 24 states have lower emissions in 2015 than the 2020 annual goal. 2022 annual goal. The first year of compliance in the cpp, including states like ohio, north carolina, pennsylvania, and south dakota. In the energy the Energy Information agency estimates 17 of new Energy Capacity expected to come online in 2016 will actually be zero imaging. Mostly solar and wind. So folks, clearly, there is more going on in our world and our Energy Sector than the cpp can account for. I am really not trying to say that the cpp is not important. You know that. I love it. I think it is great. But the truth is, if i were to stand here and explain the significance and virtues of the Clean Power Plan, it would keep you here for quite a lengthy period of time and i cannot fit it into a soundbite. It certainly does not fit into a tweet. I have tried it. I know. [laughter] i truly believe, guided by president obamas deliberate vision, that history will show that the Clean Power Plan marked a turning point in american climate leadership, a point where our country stepped up to the plate and delivered, and the rest of the world followed us. It is a sign of u. S. Commitment, a market signal to investors and innovators, and that brings stability and certainty to the Energy Sector and to the world. But the global transition to a low Carbon Economy is much more than anyone regulation, the Energy Market, and the commitment of the private sector is what is driving and will continue to drive this inevitable journey. And that journey is consistent with virtually every nations understanding of climate science, and our obligation to protect our childrens futures. We are in a spectacularly different place today than we were when president obama took office. Before developing countries would point a finger at us. Now they are wondering if the u. S. Will turn its back on science and be left behind. That is the choice that we face. As the president said, the inevitability of our Clean Energy Future is again bigger than any one person or nation and must be guided by a simple but profound truth. We dont have to choose between the economy or environment. Folks, we can and must choose both. The truth has been the foundation of all of the progress that we have made at epa. This truth. We have a track record to show for it. Over the past eight years, under president obamas leadership, we have taken tremendous strides forward in economic growth. Eight years of economic expansion and a record increase in median incomes. At the same time, we have made incredible progress in cutting pollution and protecting Public Health. And at the same time, this president has understood and stood up and said so clearly that a clean, healthy environment is not a luxury, it is not windowdressing. It is a right. It is the foundation of our economy and our lives. Our work to cut pollution must always focus not only on what the nation needs as a whole, but also on those who have been disproportionately hurt, disadvantaged communities that bear the burden of environmental injustice. In the past eight years, we have paid attention not only to our National Challenges but our ability and willingness and effort to partner with our states, local communities, and tribes. We set measurable, common sense standards. Let me tell you about a few of them. We have reduced mercury emissions from power plants and protected more people from harmful levels of ozone and particulate matter in our era. We have lower sulfur content in fuels and pollution from our cars. We have made a states accountable for harmful levels of air pollution that they send downwind. We have required fence line monitors around refineries. We have made progress in cleaning up our ports. We have clarified the jurisdictional boundaries of the Clean Air Act. 40 years of work we finally did it. We reduced toxic effluent from power plants, set new standards for the management of coal ash. We provided farmworkers with the same levels of protection that other workers have enjoyed for many years. And we made progress in restoring iconic water bodies, like the precious chesapeake bay, and the great lakes. And we have made sure that the standards are met with enforcement that puts people first, like the deepwater horizon spill settlement that provided 20 billion to restore and protect the gulf. Or the Volkswagen Settlement that ensures 14 billion to compensate consumers, to reduce pollution, and to invest in an infrastructure for zero imaging vehicles. And we have leveraged the power of information to broaden and empower our environmental enterprise in this country through programs like energy star, water sense, safer choice. They empower consumers to grow demand as well as the market for greener products. Through their purchases. Epa apps are tools that you can use to get in the game, folks, to protect yourself, to actually make a difference in yo