Healthcare while at the same time again reducing costs. That task force and its finding will be discussed at the february meeting in washington. Governors are taking a variety of different leads on this issue. His entire state of the state address to the issue of drug abuse including the abuse of Prescription Drugs and how it leads to more serious concerns about heroin addiction. If you have not read his state of the state, i would advise you to do so. Its remarkable. This nations infrastructure provides the skeletal structure that connects us to one another. We talk about infrastructure but you only think about highways, transit systems that connect people and places. Infrastructure is more than surface transportation. It includes utility systems that connects us to power and water, schools, public buildings that connect us to opportunity and participation. A states emerge from the economic downturn, its critical we work with our partners to rebuild and invest in roads, rail, bridges, airports, waterways, and energy infrastructure. We face a steep funding gap believe to be as high as 1. 6 trillion factoring in the 2. 6 trillion projected to keep the infrastructure system safe and reliable minus current revenue. For surface transportation alone, the federal Highway Trust Fund faces another perilous fiscal cliff later this year. Projected receipts including general Fund Transfers will be less. Infrastructure is about the future. Economic prosperity, innovation rely on a robust and sustainable infrastructure as the foundation. At the state level, governors are leading the way by creating new approaches to fixing, funding, financing infrastructure to help meet the needs of the 21st century. Carefullyrts include managing costs, identifying opportunities for new Revenue Sources using advanced technologies to improve performance, lower lifecycle expenditures, and using Public Private partnerships to speed up project delivery and lower overall cost. Several governors including those from illinois, north carolina, colorado were participating in a new effort to help states examine how they can deploy a financing strategies to deliver infrastructure. We have seen success already with that approach in colorado. We have a new Commuter Rail line expansion in are suing another Publicprivate Partnership to improve the roads between denver and boulder. They have long called for legislation that says longterm stability can allow states to invest in a longterm surface transportation with consistent and reliable federal partner. Fallinay, governor testified about the need for longterm reauthorization of these critical programs. The message was uncertainty forces states to act to fill in the void. Governors agree state action is about devolution. Requires an intragovernmental partnership. Its about more than just roads. Congress is working hard to reauthorize a water resource and development fact, key legislation to help accelerate investing in the Water Infrastructure systems. We call on the house and senate for passing bipartisan bills to reauthorize and call on congress to complete and send a bill are for signature to the president. A Strong Partnership is even more crucial within the state budget. Governors were both hearts and am dismayed when the government deal was reached. Washingtonope that and the state could Work Together to address the fiscal problem facing the country and today was supposed to be another critical deadline that the federal government would again close its doors this the president and congress could not agree. Of state of the state and the federal government are inextricably linked. The politics of fiscal responsibility can no longer be centered around crises and deadlines. We have the budget agreement reached by congress but now we have to have success. The budget deal raises important questions for the country. Governmentrces should provide and at what level, how we should pay for them, and which reforms are necessary for a modern economy. In the area tax reform, recognizing the need to simplify and improve the federal tax code. A taxear, we created Reform Task Force to make recommendations on those areas where it intersects state policy. Two strong recommendations emerged from that group. One, maintain the exclusion of income for interest earned on Municipal Bonds. For more than a century, Municipal Bonds have been used to build this country. They have all been built thanks to the unique status of Municipal Bonds. Federal laws and regulations should not increase issuance costs to states directly or indirectly nor diminished market demand for the bonds issued by state and local government. If infrastructure is a priority for the nation, the tax exempt status of Municipal Bonds must be preserved. Ofewise, the deductibility state and local taxes for federal income taxes part of the federal tax code since its inception more than 100 years ago. Eliminating federal deductibility would reverse the historic separation of federal, state, and local taxing authority. It would be forcing double taxation among taxpayers. One thing congress can and must do is partner with states to pass the marketplace fairness act. This past holiday season, new records were set with consumers paying for more than 500 billion worth of online goods. Storeshe main street decorate our street and select local sales tax, the internet competitors do not. Marketplace fairness is just common sense is legislation that upholds the principles of federalism and is fair, simple, good for business. Stillot like the internet need a lift. It encourages competition and preserves mainstreet jobs closing this unfair loophole, an issue on which congress can and should come together. He Senate Overwhelmingly passed legislation this year and now we hope it is the houses turn. As can tell, we have a lot to do. Governors are innovating and we want to continue to push our federal partners to Craft Solutions to support innovation at the federal level as well. We all want to return one year from now moving our nation forward by putting people back to work, by supporting growth, by educating our children, by improving our security. Innk you all for being here this lovely, wonderful place. Governor fallin, thank you so much for being such a remarkable leader, not just for oklahoma but for all of us governors. Thank you. [applause] i appreciate your comments. We would be glad to take a few statements from the press. From the bergen record in new jersey. Can you tell me if you would want Chris Christie campaigning for you and if you think this would be a problem for you looking forward to november . [laughter] its unfortunate what has happened in new jersey and i think the facts are so undetermined as far as all of the details, no governor ever wishes that upon another to have to go through that type of circumstance and we will have to wait and see what the details are. In the meantime, any time Public Policy hurts the public itself, which it appears that it did do that, thats not right. We still dont know the details as it relates to governor christie. Hes been a strong leader. We saw his leadership during hurricane standing when he helped them get back on their feet. Hes a man that speaks his mind and sometimes but also ruffles feathers. We will have to wait and see. Fox news channel. Can you tell us a little bit about the state exchanges and how its working in both of your states, some of the problems across the country for the different states in the exchanges . As governor hickenlooper stated, all want to improve healthcare and we are all concerned about medicaid costs, Rising Health care costs. We all want to make sure that not only individuals that businesses have access to quality care and we have seen as the rollout of the Affordable Care act that its not been smooth and that is both for republican and democratic governors alike. Each governor has chosen their own path whether it relates to their own state exchange or moving into a federal exchange. We appreciate the fact that all governors have different economies, different budgets, different political situations and different preferences on how the Healthcare System is administered. In my state of oklahoma, speaking for me, i did choose not to expand the federal medicaid system because im concerned about the cost and concerned about Congress Meeting its promises on funding. I also did not choose to form my own state exchange. We went with the federal exchange. Our citizens voted overwhelmingly not to support the Affordable Health care act in our state. We passed a constitutional amendment and oklahoma. What happens in oklahoma is different from colorado. In general, the nga respects other governors and their different budget situations but we do have an agreement on needing to lower medicare costs, improve Health Care Costs and also improving the health of our citizens. Beenthats obviously difficult. Our local exchange was smoother than the national rollout. I think we are close to 150,000 through expanded medicaid or those who did not have insurance for other reasons. One thing that gets lost in the discussion frequently, five years ago before obama care was even fully expressed, 90 of the doctors in the United States used paper for not just the medicaltions but records. We forget that. A big part of this was the Mexican Federal expenditures to incentivize and push modernization of how we do medicine. Obviously we are coming out of recession but we have come out of others before. If you go back over the last 50 for health care is rising but over the last three years, rising at a slower rate than they have over the last 50. Clearly a destructive, difficult time. Change is hard. Each governor, republican and democrat, we share that whole of theoving quality share goal of improving quality. At the same time, we try to figure out how to lower costs. When you are expanding the number of people who have the opportunity to get health care, this is the perfect time to begin using scale and technology to lower the costs and figure out better ways and systems of doing this. The states are the right place where that laboratory of innovation and democracy really is at stake here and i dont know a single governor right now not spending a significant amount of time trying to figure out how to do this better. [no audio] obviously, we want more. Near 800,000ewhere uninsured so we have a ways to go. Are we content with. . We are not. We need more. Dont have as, we many young, Healthy People signing up. Saw todayusetts, we few years. Theres a process by which young people become aware and how we communicate were certainly not satisfied. I am with the bond buyer. You met with president obama yesterday and i wanted to know if you talk at all about his upcoming budget requests and she was planning on continuing to propose a 28 cap on muni bond interest. I dont remember him mentioning anything about on the interest and caps. Talk about infrastructure. As governor hickenlooper mentioned, i had the opportunity to go in front of the transportation and Infrastructure Committee to testify on behalf of the governors. Am a former go member of that committee to talk about the importance of reauthorization and how the states need certainty when it comes to funding our nations infrastructure, whatever form of infrastructure that might be. We did talk to the president about infrastructure. We talked to the president about job creation, education, workforce needs. Those were some of the key issues we visited with him about and we expressed that thomas has governors, as we have outlined in talking about various issues that there are Solutions Coming from the states that we believe can be models for the rest of the nation. We believe there needs to be more collaboration, more cooperation between the states and the federal government and that is where you see the National Governors association both last year and this year doing Something Different that weve never done and that is having a state of the states address to the National Media and some of the key groups in washington to talk about some of the challenges that the state space, challenges that we need washington to address, frankly our frustration at times that washington does not address those things. We need aep seat at the table. We do not have the luxury of an action Like Congress on many key legislation. We have to act. We have to balance our budgets. We have to find those solutions. We believe its important for governors to sit down with the president , Vice President but the house and senate to talk about what were doing in our states. Governor hickenlooper and i gave several examples. One is the states came together to hold 52 different meetings related to healthcare costs, Healthcare Systems, lowering medicaid costs, better quality of care. We have also talked about thatance abuse in issues the governors have taken. Governor hickenlooper and i have worked with other states talking about Energy Policy entirely do believe that america has great resources that we can have Energy Independence and more Economic Security for our nation. We have led an effort and encourage them to look at cng vehicles to save taxpayer money and utilize Financial Resources are abundant. It safe to support every priority in the nga im kidding. [laughter] i do think its fair to say that the president and Vice President we were there for over an hour, but they listen hard. They asked a lot of questions about our points. The governor shall mark utah talked about some of the waivers on Health Care Policy and why they had to be so hard and long. , or many cases, when the talk about waivers for tolth care, theyre trying streamline the process for infrastructure process. The president was literally saying, let me give you my cell phone number. If the bureaucracy is blocking the governors from getting stuff done, let us know and we will get on it. I think we all heard that with. Ratitude both Vice President biden and were clear. Ama lets get past the divisive stuff and lets try to get. Hings done they recognize governors are in a unique relationship with each other. Governor fallin and ill went to detroit 18 months ago to talk to Senior Executives at general ford. , chrysler, said,and again they arent you a republican . Arent you a republican . Argument democrat . What youre doing here . Trying to move forward and have you make vehicles that burns compressed natural gas that makes cleaner air and is cheaper. Now gm is putting an impolitic off the Assembly Line able to burn compressed National Natural gas. Ive got to get my oklahoma guy here. Oklahoman. You mentioned the state of the straight address by the verge vermont governor thomas and people make the same argument about marijuana being a gateway drug. I was wondering how you make a distinction. Governor fallin, would you ever see any advantage in the state legalizing marijuana. [laughter] first, i thought his kurds to really direct almost entirely his speech to this epidemic, a crisis of drug addiction, a lot of people are very concerned when we started using vicodin and prescribing opiates as pain relief that there could be significant unintended consequences. He points out that we are seeing dramatic increases in people going from these Prescription Drugs and going right into heroine. People, thef young lies, the accidental death, the jumping it is dramatically and is not just in vermont. As we worked on the Prescription Drug abuse task force, we see this all over the United States. Relevant and i think something every governor is looking at. Of marijuana, i opposed it. I think almost every elected official opposed it. Not that we dont recognize the war on drugs was an abject failure. It did not do what it was intended to do and had many negative consequences. It is now in our state constitution. We take it that this is the will of the people. As a be one of the great social and weent of the century take being first a serious sense of responsibility and obligation living will regulate the daylights out of it. We spent 15 i spent 15 years restaurant business. When you are making alcohol, the government is relentless and how they inspect your premise, how they tax you. Restaurant sells liquor to a minor, they will suspend on a second ord third offense, you will lose your license completely. We would be no less relentless with marijuana and we passed the standard. If youre driving while high, we will lock you up. Our focus is to keep corruption out. A number of top neuroscientists are concerned the highest thc content, with people whose minds are growing, kids under the age within one week, several exposures to the high thc in marijuana has the potential to diminish longterm memory permanently. Kids dont understand it. They think because his sling allies there is no inherent danger and thats not true. It will be passed that 25 plus local sales tax and we were use that money to create in ring a framework to protect minors in and we do not have people driving hig