Transcripts For CSPAN Public Affairs Events 20161117 : vimar

And significantly further to deliver pay that is disproportionately benefit. To hear the thoughts of the honorable lady, they should not be able to give a premonition and have to wait for another occasion. Thank you, mister speaker. Before i answer the question may i wish his wife all the best in the treatment she is going through at the moment. We have a manifesto commitment to the personal allowance meaning what we have done already by increasing the allowance identified in 201011 or 201617. We cut taxes for 30 Million People and we have taken all Million People out of an income tax altogether. That helped people out the lower end of the income. Angus robertson. The leader of the opposition extending condolences following the tragedy paying tribute to emergency services, the institute for government which has close ties to Civil Service published a report, the intake of the approach toward brexit, chaotic and dysfunctional, an existential threat to operations, the Prime Minister has a secretive approach toward brexit, the present situation is unsustainable. That is the Prime Minister plan to carry on like this . The right honorable gentlemen would not be surprised if i tell him about the relation to brexit. As i said earlier the most important thing for the government to do is calmly and carefully get on with the job of preparing complex negotiations. The most important thing we can do is make sure we are not giving running commentary on those negotiations. To get the worst deal. Angus robertson, the day we hear the post truth has become the international word, we have a running commentary from the foreign secretary, he is prepared to tell the media in the Czech Republic the United Kingdom is likely to leave the eu customs unit with brexit but wants to trade freely afterwards. His colleague from the netherlands said that option doesnt exist, both of these things cannot be corrected. It is confirmed to the parliament or the country what is likely to leave the eu customs post brexit yes or no . The Customs Union is not just a binary deficiency but lets set that to one side. To get the best possible deal for access to the trading we are operating within the single european market. The right honorable gentlemen time and again in Prime Ministers questions has said to me he wants access to the single european market. I might remind him it was only a couple years ago he wants to take scotland out. [shouting] order order order order you are in a very emotional condition. I normally regard you as a cerebral denizen of the house, tried to regard your composure. Crimes such as burglary and vehicle theft but now crime is on the increase particularly perpetrated by drug dealers, drug users, it will be a priority for her majestys government. Is there anything more my humble friends can do to deal with this challenge . I think my honorable friend for raising an issue that is important for everybody. Certainly the government will do all it can to support Crime Commissioners and already doing an excellent job in ethics. We have seen crime figures falling since 2009 but i recognize concerns my honorable friend has shown which is why the home office is supporting these, conducting weeks of action against operations, we legislated about dangerous signs including tough sentencing in place making sure defendants are punished. We should send a clear message we will not tolerate crime in this country. Mister speaker, many people visit the United States every year to study on business or simply enjoy one of the greatest countries on earth. What asking what action would you take if the new president elect carries through on his Campaign Promise to discriminate against our citizens on the basis of their religion . Will she give a commitment, a special relationship she believes the government has with the us president will be conducted on the basis of respect for the dignity of all our citizens irrespective of their race or religion . I am happy to say the special relationship with the United States is very important, the United States and the United Kingdom, we will be continuing to build on that special relationship with the conversation i had with president elect trump shortly after his election as president elect. We want to ensure the dignity of our citizens of the United States, the rules they put in place but we will be ensuring a special relationship continues and continues in the interest of the uk and the us. Andrea jenkins. On tuesday of last week i attended a control summit. The summit highlights a great way the department of health and an organization dramatically decreasing also raised e. Coli, will my right honorable friends join me in commending an outline of Government Strategy . Absolutely join my honorable friends and she raised an important issue and they are doing vital work for infection rates. We have results of 57 reduction since 2010, the 47 reduction but there is more to do and that is why we are setting bold objectives for negative blood injections by 2020 and last week, a new National Infection league, i am grateful to my right honorable friend for using it. Freetrade is absolutely vital for prosperity and brexit does not mean rejecting globalization. Will the Prime Minister assure any trade deals with the wider we are of off of brexit are based on mutual recognition, not the overly elaborate descriptive regulation that underpins the european Single Market . I welcome the honorable gentlemens support of freetrade. Hes absolutely right but as we come out of the European Union the opportunity to develop trading relationships around the world, flexible trading arrangement around the world, those that suit the United Kingdom with the strength of our economy i believe we can go out and i welcome the honorable gentlemen. Thank you, mister speaker. Last wednesday, seven people tragically died, 50 were injured, i am sure the town will join with the Prime Minister, leader of the opposition and leader of the s p extending our heartfelt condolences to the reeve families. There are three investigations underway by british police, road and rail and the rail accident investigation board. Can the Prime Minister assure the house and the families that any recommendation to improve safety across the country made by those investigations will be rapidly implemented by the government . I join my honorable friend in expressing our condolences to friends of the 70 who died in a terrible incident in what took place. Our sympathies with those who were injured and affected, our thanks to emergency services. It is important that we allow these to continue, able to come up with recommendations in due course. We can never be complacent about safety and security, we do need to make sure the lessons we learn. Close question, neil gray. I will get the government is committed to protecting the most vulnerable in society including disabled people and those with health conditions. People receiving employment support they will continue to receive a safe level of financial support. We are ensuring the support available is concentrated on those who are most in need and ensuring support is available not just to benefit but in a wider package, held those in the workplace to reach that point in the workplace. The Prime Minister, there is a change in the air and when People Demand Change it is the job of politicians respond. How will she respond to disability organizations who want these stopped or the people on the other side and debate. Surely they must respond accordingly. We are focusing on those most in need, it has gone up, we are having extra support to those in work related groups who could get into the workplace to help them get into the workplace but it is important not just the issue of benefits but the whole package including independence payments that provide living costs but i would remind the honorable gentlemen, concerned about level of payment in scotland, and the new powers that they have. And whether they intend to use those powers. Mister speaker, following the election of mister trump and given the welcome progress made in our society by women and those from ethnic minorities, what message of reassurance to the Prime Minister have from fat middleaged white men who may feel we have been left behind . [laughter] that is a very interesting point. My honorable friend should come and see me sometime. Lucy powell. In that state of the nation report, the Reliability Commission today issued a damning verdict on progress, things are getting worse. They concluded the key drivers of social mobility, quality in early education, narrowing Educational Attainment gap, aspects of work and housing going backwards under her watch. When will she come forward with a real strategy for opportunity for all, fixating on creating an even more elite education for those already elite. I note social Mobility Commission reported all workingclass youngsters benefiting Higher Education than any point, the government invested record levels in early years and the payment gap as reported strategies narrowed but she refers to the education system, i refer to her to report the commission by Labor Council to look at how they can improve Education Achievement and that report reintroducing grammar schools potentially transformative idea for workingclass heads. Thank you, mister speaker. The pbc has its biggest expansion since 1940 including 11 Year Services supporting around the world. Will the Prime Minister agree with me this is an excellent example around the world . I absolutely agree with my honorable friend. The service the bbc provides for the world service, the independent journalism, millions of people around the world is very important work they do including often free speech is limited. It is important to support them and that is why we are investing 289 million over the next four years to support the world service, as it provides independent news, the remote parts of the world. My constituents get 25 of Research Funding from the eu, benefiting from freedom of movement tuesday what guarantee can she get on wednesday to Research Funding and freedom of movement for academics as well. And already give guarantee in relation to the Research Available from the eu and those contracts that will be signed. He will know we are able in the immigration rules to ensure the brightest and best can come to the United Kingdom but i would remind him it wasnt that long ago that he was campaigning to come out of the European Union. Thank you, mister speaker. I learn the historical allegations serving members, and student despite everything we said we have paid for lawyers to go out and collect evidence in theater. I know the Prime Ministers commitment, would she agree with me that we need to work harder to close the gap, for service men and women. My honorable friend raises an important point and i recognize the concerns of a number of honorable friends. What it is having on service men and women. It is important that it conduct its inquiry in an honorable timescale. It weeds out those cases, he would accept with me, where there are allegations, credible allegations to be properly investigated but conscious of the need to ensure service men and women who do such a good job around the world keeping us safe and secure with the support they need. I met the first minister at the joint Ministerial Committee but the next meeting of that is planned from early in the new year and the uk government engages regularly with the Scottish Government on a range of issues. I am sure it is not just the first minister but 22nd of june this year bruce davidson, those supporting, taylor what we want with a single mask. Neither the Prime Minister, part of the government dragging government over the European Union. On 23 june people of the United Kingdom leave the European Union, that is what the government will deliver. Members should not seek to shut down the Prime Minister. The question was asked and the answer has been provided. It is right the Prime Minister has incidents and negotiations to the eu, and the campaign was very clear the rights of eu citizens would not be affected if the country were to leave the eu. They never naturalized, can the Prime Minister assure me she will never instruct me to take away the rights of millions of eu citizens . I recognize the personal passion with which my honorable friend raises this issue. I intend and expect to guarantee the rights of those living in the United Kingdom but i also want to see the rights of uk citizens living in the European Union being guaranteed. As i said previously i hope this is an issue on which we can come to a position we can discuss with my european colleagues at an early stage. Mister speaker, the Health Crisis by the oms to deal with the leading cause of death, far more from referrals, diagnosis, will the Prime Minister pledge to bring about currency, and to introduce, with that. Come in the honorable issue, it is a personal concern for her. It affects people across constituencies across the house. We set an ambitious target by 2020. And invested in the development of research institute. And that is why we created national end of life Program Board to implement the commitment to highquality personalized end of life care for all to raise the important issue. I can assure her this is an issue of that. Doctor julian lewis. At the same time rightly restoring hundreds of millions of pounds of funding to the bbc world service, there are no plans to restore the very modest 20 Million Pounds a year at cost, that they are monitoring. Former members of the intelligence and Security Committee like lord campbell and i are dismayed the bbc is proposing service to cut the monitoring service, close havisham park and break the location with its american counterparts. Will the Prime Minister agree to meet us and have a discussion before this disaster is visited on an incomparable open Source Information on which so many Government Departments and intelligence agencies depend . An important issue. Of course provision for Monitoring Services for the bbc, but we are clear on the importance of the service this provides, highquality reporting to the for an offense ministry of defense and the bbc itself. I can tell my honorable friend as part of the bbc charter review process talking with the bbc about a new agreement in relation to monitoring roles we believe will result in an improvement of the government or reduced one. Control of the worlds events, with child abuse inquiry she sets up. And two years only three chairs, eight senior lawyers. And serious allegations have been made to the inquiry panel, so whether she shares the full confidence in the inquiry expressed from moments ago and if so, why . I recognize the issue to the honorable lady on which she champions the cause of those, the victims inspired and like her, that is the victims and survivors at the forefront of our minds. The inquiry was able to continue and the point was made this morning by the right honorable friends, the new chairman of the committee. We owe it to the victims for the inquiry to continue and i have to say having seen the word, and we have absolute confidence in this and at the front of anything. Now that he is elected president , to ensure there was very good trading. We have an opportunity in the trading, social media is the western choice. To run him out, will she agree to meet with me to discuss Companies Like facebook and twitter can be held to account of what is too easily used. The honorable member raises important issues of social media, used for good intent or parties for their campaigning and other ways. He raises an important point of what is abused and ill used, and members of the house, significantly as a result of controlling social media. The home office is well appraised over the years, talking to the companies about responsibilities they have, this is an issue by terms and conditions themselves and the home secretary carefully deployed what is raised. Mister speaker, with opposition from the conservative party, changing the law to make sure it was released halfway through their pensions irrespective of whether they misbehaved improvements or still posed to the public, which was contributed to the violence in our system. Does the Million People<\/a> and we have taken all Million People<\/a> out of an income tax altogether. That helped people out the lower end of the income. Angus robertson. The leader of the opposition extending condolences following the tragedy paying tribute to emergency services, the institute for government which has close ties to Civil Service<\/a> published a report, the intake of the approach toward brexit, chaotic and dysfunctional, an existential threat to operations, the Prime Minister<\/a> has a secretive approach toward brexit, the present situation is unsustainable. That is the Prime Minister<\/a> plan to carry on like this . The right honorable gentlemen would not be surprised if i tell him about the relation to brexit. As i said earlier the most important thing for the government to do is calmly and carefully get on with the job of preparing complex negotiations. The most important thing we can do is make sure we are not giving running commentary on those negotiations. To get the worst deal. Angus robertson, the day we hear the post truth has become the international word, we have a running commentary from the foreign secretary, he is prepared to tell the media in the Czech Republic<\/a> the United Kingdom<\/a> is likely to leave the eu customs unit with brexit but wants to trade freely afterwards. His colleague from the netherlands said that option doesnt exist, both of these things cannot be corrected. It is confirmed to the parliament or the country what is likely to leave the eu customs post brexit yes or no . The Customs Union<\/a> is not just a binary deficiency but lets set that to one side. To get the best possible deal for access to the trading we are operating within the single european market. The right honorable gentlemen time and again in Prime Minister<\/a>s questions has said to me he wants access to the single european market. I might remind him it was only a couple years ago he wants to take scotland out. [shouting] order order order order you are in a very emotional condition. I normally regard you as a cerebral denizen of the house, tried to regard your composure. Crimes such as burglary and vehicle theft but now crime is on the increase particularly perpetrated by drug dealers, drug users, it will be a priority for her majestys government. Is there anything more my humble friends can do to deal with this challenge . I think my honorable friend for raising an issue that is important for everybody. Certainly the government will do all it can to support Crime Commissioners<\/a> and already doing an excellent job in ethics. We have seen crime figures falling since 2009 but i recognize concerns my honorable friend has shown which is why the home office is supporting these, conducting weeks of action against operations, we legislated about dangerous signs including tough sentencing in place making sure defendants are punished. We should send a clear message we will not tolerate crime in this country. Mister speaker, many people visit the United States<\/a> every year to study on business or simply enjoy one of the greatest countries on earth. What asking what action would you take if the new president elect carries through on his Campaign Promise<\/a> to discriminate against our citizens on the basis of their religion . Will she give a commitment, a special relationship she believes the government has with the us president will be conducted on the basis of respect for the dignity of all our citizens irrespective of their race or religion . I am happy to say the special relationship with the United States<\/a> is very important, the United States<\/a> and the United Kingdom<\/a>, we will be continuing to build on that special relationship with the conversation i had with president elect trump shortly after his election as president elect. We want to ensure the dignity of our citizens of the United States<\/a>, the rules they put in place but we will be ensuring a special relationship continues and continues in the interest of the uk and the us. Andrea jenkins. On tuesday of last week i attended a control summit. The summit highlights a great way the department of health and an organization dramatically decreasing also raised e. Coli, will my right honorable friends join me in commending an outline of Government Strategy<\/a> . Absolutely join my honorable friends and she raised an important issue and they are doing vital work for infection rates. We have results of 57 reduction since 2010, the 47 reduction but there is more to do and that is why we are setting bold objectives for negative blood injections by 2020 and last week, a new National Infection<\/a> league, i am grateful to my right honorable friend for using it. Freetrade is absolutely vital for prosperity and brexit does not mean rejecting globalization. Will the Prime Minister<\/a> assure any trade deals with the wider we are of off of brexit are based on mutual recognition, not the overly elaborate descriptive regulation that underpins the european Single Market<\/a> . I welcome the honorable gentlemens support of freetrade. Hes absolutely right but as we come out of the European Union<\/a> the opportunity to develop trading relationships around the world, flexible trading arrangement around the world, those that suit the United Kingdom<\/a> with the strength of our economy i believe we can go out and i welcome the honorable gentlemen. Thank you, mister speaker. Last wednesday, seven people tragically died, 50 were injured, i am sure the town will join with the Prime Minister<\/a>, leader of the opposition and leader of the s p extending our heartfelt condolences to the reeve families. There are three investigations underway by british police, road and rail and the rail accident investigation board. Can the Prime Minister<\/a> assure the house and the families that any recommendation to improve safety across the country made by those investigations will be rapidly implemented by the government . I join my honorable friend in expressing our condolences to friends of the 70 who died in a terrible incident in what took place. Our sympathies with those who were injured and affected, our thanks to emergency services. It is important that we allow these to continue, able to come up with recommendations in due course. We can never be complacent about safety and security, we do need to make sure the lessons we learn. Close question, neil gray. I will get the government is committed to protecting the most vulnerable in society including disabled people and those with health conditions. People receiving employment support they will continue to receive a safe level of financial support. We are ensuring the support available is concentrated on those who are most in need and ensuring support is available not just to benefit but in a wider package, held those in the workplace to reach that point in the workplace. The Prime Minister<\/a>, there is a change in the air and when People Demand Change<\/a> it is the job of politicians respond. How will she respond to disability organizations who want these stopped or the people on the other side and debate. Surely they must respond accordingly. We are focusing on those most in need, it has gone up, we are having extra support to those in work related groups who could get into the workplace to help them get into the workplace but it is important not just the issue of benefits but the whole package including independence payments that provide living costs but i would remind the honorable gentlemen, concerned about level of payment in scotland, and the new powers that they have. And whether they intend to use those powers. Mister speaker, following the election of mister trump and given the welcome progress made in our society by women and those from ethnic minorities, what message of reassurance to the Prime Minister<\/a> have from fat middleaged white men who may feel we have been left behind . [laughter] that is a very interesting point. My honorable friend should come and see me sometime. Lucy powell. In that state of the nation report, the Reliability Commission<\/a> today issued a damning verdict on progress, things are getting worse. They concluded the key drivers of social mobility, quality in early education, narrowing Educational Attainment<\/a> gap, aspects of work and housing going backwards under her watch. When will she come forward with a real strategy for opportunity for all, fixating on creating an even more elite education for those already elite. I note social Mobility Commission<\/a> reported all workingclass youngsters benefiting Higher Education<\/a> than any point, the government invested record levels in early years and the payment gap as reported strategies narrowed but she refers to the education system, i refer to her to report the commission by Labor Council<\/a> to look at how they can improve Education Achievement<\/a> and that report reintroducing grammar schools potentially transformative idea for workingclass heads. Thank you, mister speaker. The pbc has its biggest expansion since 1940 including 11 Year Services<\/a> supporting around the world. Will the Prime Minister<\/a> agree with me this is an excellent example around the world . I absolutely agree with my honorable friend. The service the bbc provides for the world service, the independent journalism, millions of people around the world is very important work they do including often free speech is limited. It is important to support them and that is why we are investing 289 million over the next four years to support the world service, as it provides independent news, the remote parts of the world. My constituents get 25 of Research Funding<\/a> from the eu, benefiting from freedom of movement tuesday what guarantee can she get on wednesday to Research Funding<\/a> and freedom of movement for academics as well. And already give guarantee in relation to the Research Available<\/a> from the eu and those contracts that will be signed. He will know we are able in the immigration rules to ensure the brightest and best can come to the United Kingdom<\/a> but i would remind him it wasnt that long ago that he was campaigning to come out of the European Union<\/a>. Thank you, mister speaker. I learn the historical allegations serving members, and student despite everything we said we have paid for lawyers to go out and collect evidence in theater. I know the Prime Minister<\/a>s commitment, would she agree with me that we need to work harder to close the gap, for service men and women. My honorable friend raises an important point and i recognize the concerns of a number of honorable friends. What it is having on service men and women. It is important that it conduct its inquiry in an honorable timescale. It weeds out those cases, he would accept with me, where there are allegations, credible allegations to be properly investigated but conscious of the need to ensure service men and women who do such a good job around the world keeping us safe and secure with the support they need. I met the first minister at the joint Ministerial Committee<\/a> but the next meeting of that is planned from early in the new year and the uk government engages regularly with the Scottish Government<\/a> on a range of issues. I am sure it is not just the first minister but 22nd of june this year bruce davidson, those supporting, taylor what we want with a single mask. Neither the Prime Minister<\/a>, part of the government dragging government over the European Union<\/a>. On 23 june people of the United Kingdom<\/a> leave the European Union<\/a>, that is what the government will deliver. Members should not seek to shut down the Prime Minister<\/a>. The question was asked and the answer has been provided. It is right the Prime Minister<\/a> has incidents and negotiations to the eu, and the campaign was very clear the rights of eu citizens would not be affected if the country were to leave the eu. They never naturalized, can the Prime Minister<\/a> assure me she will never instruct me to take away the rights of millions of eu citizens . I recognize the personal passion with which my honorable friend raises this issue. I intend and expect to guarantee the rights of those living in the United Kingdom<\/a> but i also want to see the rights of uk citizens living in the European Union<\/a> being guaranteed. As i said previously i hope this is an issue on which we can come to a position we can discuss with my european colleagues at an early stage. Mister speaker, the Health Crisis<\/a> by the oms to deal with the leading cause of death, far more from referrals, diagnosis, will the Prime Minister<\/a> pledge to bring about currency, and to introduce, with that. Come in the honorable issue, it is a personal concern for her. It affects people across constituencies across the house. We set an ambitious target by 2020. And invested in the development of research institute. And that is why we created national end of life Program Board<\/a> to implement the commitment to highquality personalized end of life care for all to raise the important issue. I can assure her this is an issue of that. Doctor julian lewis. At the same time rightly restoring hundreds of millions of pounds of funding to the bbc world service, there are no plans to restore the very modest 20 Million Pounds<\/a> a year at cost, that they are monitoring. Former members of the intelligence and Security Committee<\/a> like lord campbell and i are dismayed the bbc is proposing service to cut the monitoring service, close havisham park and break the location with its american counterparts. Will the Prime Minister<\/a> agree to meet us and have a discussion before this disaster is visited on an incomparable open Source Information<\/a> on which so many Government Departments<\/a> and intelligence agencies depend . An important issue. Of course provision for Monitoring Services<\/a> for the bbc, but we are clear on the importance of the service this provides, highquality reporting to the for an offense ministry of defense and the bbc itself. I can tell my honorable friend as part of the bbc charter review process talking with the bbc about a new agreement in relation to monitoring roles we believe will result in an improvement of the government or reduced one. Control of the worlds events, with child abuse inquiry she sets up. And two years only three chairs, eight senior lawyers. And serious allegations have been made to the inquiry panel, so whether she shares the full confidence in the inquiry expressed from moments ago and if so, why . I recognize the issue to the honorable lady on which she champions the cause of those, the victims inspired and like her, that is the victims and survivors at the forefront of our minds. The inquiry was able to continue and the point was made this morning by the right honorable friends, the new chairman of the committee. We owe it to the victims for the inquiry to continue and i have to say having seen the word, and we have absolute confidence in this and at the front of anything. Now that he is elected president , to ensure there was very good trading. We have an opportunity in the trading, social media is the western choice. To run him out, will she agree to meet with me to discuss Companies Like<\/a> facebook and twitter can be held to account of what is too easily used. The honorable member raises important issues of social media, used for good intent or parties for their campaigning and other ways. He raises an important point of what is abused and ill used, and members of the house, significantly as a result of controlling social media. The home office is well appraised over the years, talking to the companies about responsibilities they have, this is an issue by terms and conditions themselves and the home secretary carefully deployed what is raised. Mister speaker, with opposition from the conservative party, changing the law to make sure it was released halfway through their pensions irrespective of whether they misbehaved improvements or still posed to the public, which was contributed to the violence in our system. Does the Prime Minister<\/a> agree with the labor government that it should be released halfway through irrespective of how they behave to the general public or does she agree with me this is an outrage flying in the face of Public Opinion<\/a> and must be reversed . The important point to indicate, the way decisions are taking the release of prisoners, and the impact of that release on wider community. That is why this is an issue that has been looked at. This was an issue that was of concern. We measured in place to rehabilitate lenders, which is why the work done by previous just the secretaries and continued by the current justice secretary is so important. By the prisoners who were released. Can the Prime Minister<\/a> confirm or deny if there have been any official conversations given nigel virage peace . [laughter] all i can say is such matters are normally never discussed in public. Graham evans. Will my right honorable friend, the Prime Minister<\/a> join me in welcoming the announcement from crude to Manchester Airport<\/a> bringing jobs and prosperity to the Northwest Region<\/a> including north wales closing the northbound side. My honorable friend champions this for a long time, absolutely right, i welcome the announcement on this. The Big Decisions<\/a> help support the economy and crucially to support the economy in the part of the country he represents. The relationship between the uk and the republic of ireland over the years. Both have enjoyed that within these, both joined in 1973. The uk voted to leave the European Union<\/a>, the Prime Minister<\/a> assure us there are no extra barriers, that could threaten trade, threaten tourism and threaten our special relationship. The honorable gentleman refers to the Free Movement<\/a> in places like 1973, started 50 years earlier. For some considerable time, what existed but i will repeat what i said before when asked about this issue, we are working with the republic of ireland, very clear we dont want to see a return to the borders of the past, we want to ensure we recognize the importance of those movements for people on both i have boys been a great admirer, student of American History<\/a>, particularly the history of its african descended people. Thenday not on q a, author talks about his memoir, never look at american in the eye. My uncle formed this impression from watching cinema, western specifically, where cowboys got together in a bar, exchanged a few words, and we never understood what they were saying. My uncle formed an impression that that is what americans would do to you should you shoot you, if you looked at them in the eye. Sunday, on cspans q a. Donald trump elected as the next u. S. President , Melania Trump<\/a> becomes our nations second foreignborn first lady since louisa adams. A learn more about the influence of americas president ial spouses from cspans book, thest ladies, a look into personal lives and influence of every president ial spouse in American History<\/a>. It is a companion to cspans wellregarded biography tv series and features interviews with 54 of the nations leading , historians, biographies of first ladies, and archival photos from each of their lives. Ladies, published by public affairs, is available wherever you buy both and in paperback by books and in paperback. Vice President Biden<\/a> welcomed Vice President<\/a> elect pence to the naval observatory on wednesday to have lunch and to discuss the current transition process. Afterwards, the two appeared with their wives and spoke briefly to reporters. Very, very well. I hope they enjoyed it as much as kill and i have as jill and i have. Dayiden i am confident on one, everything will be in good hands. Governor pence, what are your biggest concerns about moving to washington . Veryect pence we are grateful for the hospitality of the president. A very enjoyable time. We got a good tour. Important, we made real progress. [laughter] president ,r. Vice are you worried that the new administration will resend everything you have accomplished . Vp biden no, i am not. Reporter we can hear you, mr. Vice president. Vp biden no, i am not worried about it. Ran on a platform. They will try to move. I think theres a lot of things where we can reach some accommodation and, look, it is a whole new world and we are prepared to work. I told mike, Vice President<\/a> elect, i am available to him 20 47. We have already talked about 24 7. We never talked about foreign policy. As we have already talked about foreign policy. On the National Security<\/a> apparatus for a long time. There is a lot you are unaware of that you did not realize existed, and so, i plan on being available as senior staff for mike as he moves. Reject mostsmart to of my ideas, but i think even listen to some of them. Reporter thank you. Vp biden we build walked down. Will walk down. Vpelect pence ra. All right. [indiscernible] [laughter] see you, guys. Vp biden thank you everybody. Reporter lets go, thank you. Fall of the transition of government on cspan donald trump becomes the 45th president of the United States<\/a> and republicans maintain control of the house and senate. We will take you to key events as they happen without interruption. Watch live on cspan. Watch ondemand at www. Cspan. Org, or listen on our free cspan radio app. Thank you very much. Welcome to congress. [applause] afterwards,ght on others abashed melody talks about the life of former Federal Reserve<\/a> chair greenspan. By alexterviewed rivlin, Brookings Institute<\/a> senior fellow of economic studies. Had an unusualan upbringing, raised in the 1930s, the child of a single mom. His father left his mother when allen was only three, and then was a distant figure, unreliable, who would not show up. I think that probably reinforced a tendency that alan had to live inside his own head. Go to book tv. Org for the complete weekend schedule. Next, a Senate Hearing<\/a> on the future of Nuclear Power<\/a> in the united dates. Best United States<\/a>. Testified before the Senate Appropriations<\/a> subcommittee on energy and water development. This is about 90 minutes. Subcommittee on energy and water, please come to order. This afternoon, well will have the second of two oversight hearings to discuss the future of Nuclear Power<\/a> in the United States<\/a>. We discussed which change should be taken to maintain todays Nuclear Power<\/a> plants and ensure our country continues to invest in Nuclear Power<\/a>. , today we will this us the Task Force Report<\/a> on the future of Nuclear Power<\/a> and the secretary of energys Advisory Board<\/a>. Energy discuss basic research and development to support Nuclear Power<\/a>. Work is being done to safely extend reactor licenses from 60 to 80 years, where appropriate and the development of new Nuclear Technologies<\/a> including advanced reactors, small mob near Small Modular Reactor<\/a>s and fuels. Have anator will Opening Statement<\/a> and then i will recognize read senator for up to five minutes for an Opening Statement<\/a>. And then we will go from there. We will turn to the witnesses for their testimony. First panel will be dr. John doerrs. He is chair of the secretary of energys Advisory Board<\/a> and an Institute Professor<\/a> at m. I. T. He is a former director of cia Deputy Director<\/a> of defense and research and department of energy and the second Panel Includes<\/a> dr. Alan i and alan eisenhower. Mckinsey, director of the Nuclear Program<\/a> with the National Resources<\/a> defense council. After that, we will have some questions. I would like to make a brief Opening Statement<\/a>, todays hearing is our second oversight hearing to discuss steps we can take to ensure that carbon free has a strong i future in our country. Our first hearing, we heard from secretary moneys about the challenges we heard about research that is being done at our National Laboratories<\/a>. We heard senator whitehouse, who is concerned about Climate Change<\/a> tell us that in his view, it may no sense to close carbon and free reactors at the same time we are trying to deal with Climate Change<\/a>. We also heard from senator judd gregg and the ceo of the foundation who gave us much of the same message and talked. Bout the amount of innovation 40 to 50 companies are working on advanced concepts that would increase safety, make better use of fuel management. I believe our future in Nuclear Power<\/a> can be bright, but we need to prepare now by building more reactors, ending the stalemate on what to do about Nuclear Waste<\/a>. Senator feinstein and i are united about that. This wasn is of picking winners and losers in the marketplace which this incentivizes at the use of Nuclear Power<\/a> and pushing back on excessive regulation, more freemarket innovation with governmentsponsored research. Witnesses today will discuss the mentioned, r d, and sets we can make to maintain the fleet. Report in october from the Secretaries Energy<\/a> Advisory Board<\/a>, examined the challenges that the Nuclear Industry<\/a> is facing as well as steps necessary to develop new technologies and emphasize, i am john deutch will talk about. First is that Nuclear Power<\/a> does not get enough credit for being carbon free. Nuclear technologies are complex, expensive, and heavily regulated. Nuclearnot thought the waste stalemate which is going on for 25 years, stalemate. Market conditions and unanticipated events such as an accident. At a time when leading science academies of 20 developed countries and Many Americans<\/a> say Climate Change<\/a> is a threat, and that humans are significant cause of the threat, Nuclear Power<\/a> produces 60 of our countrys carbon free electricity and power plants produce nearly 40 of the carbon produced in our country. Now, just speaking for myself, in my hometown of maryville, tennessee, i had 20 fire marshals of repute come around and tell me my house might burn down, i might buy some fire insurance. So my recommendation is that we , should get insurance in this country against Climate Change<\/a>. I think the best insurance in the near term is Nuclear Power<\/a>. Makes no sense to close reactors at a time when people believe Climate Change<\/a> is a problem. We need to invest in the next generation of reactors. We need to continue to work with the Regulatory Commission<\/a> and move forward with modular reactors. Our bill, the appropriations bill of this committee, includes 95 million for that work. Task force recommends we undertake an advanced Nuclear Reactor<\/a> program, support the design, development, demonstration, licensing and construction of a first of a kind commercial scale reactor. Im looking forward to hearing more about that from mr. Deutsche. Daesh dr. Icenhour who is , here today on behalf of the Oak Ridge Laboratory<\/a>, leads a consortium for advanced simulation of light water reactors. Were looking forward to hearing his discussion of that. Secretary said by the end of the year, the department that would begin to process moving forward with interim Storage Facilities<\/a> for Nuclear Waste<\/a>. Solving thats something senator feinstein and i congratulated him for and have encouraged. Im pleased to report after our hearing, the Department Took<\/a> the initial step of seeking information on private interim Nuclear Waste<\/a> storage sites. We need to move on all tracks at the same time to solve the Nuclear Waste<\/a> stalemate. I appreciate the secretarys attention to this. Sen. Alexander secretary monis took that important step. New congress should take the next steps and pass the bipartisan Nuclear Waste<\/a> Administration Act<\/a> introduced last year by senator feinstein and i. Congress should pass the Pilot Program<\/a> that would allow the secretary to take title to use nuclear fuel. Both the Pilot Program<\/a> and funding for private interim storage were included. And this years Senate Energy<\/a> and water appropriations bill. We recommended it will approved. We recommended it and the committee approved. We need to maintain our existing Nuclear Fleet<\/a>. We need to extend reactor licenses from 60 to 80 years where it is appropriate and safe to do so. We need to relieve the burdens of unnecessary regulation, use our supercomputing resources. Since or since our hearing, another reactor has shut down, for calvin nuclear regeneration station was shut down on october 24th. Which means we lost another 484 megawatts of carbon free electricity. In conclusion, i would say this, imagine a day when the United States<\/a> is without Nuclear Power<\/a>. Thats the day i dont want to see in our countrys future. Seems distant and unlikely, but it is a real threat. By 2038, just 20 years from now, 50 reactors will have reached 60 years of operation, representing 42 of the Nuclear Generating<\/a> capacity in the United States<\/a>. So our country could lose about half our reactors if existing licenses cant be extended from 60 to 80 years and those reactors close. While there are four new reactors being built in the southeast, there are eight reactors, three in the northeast at seven plants which are scheduled to shut down by 2025. The Energy Information<\/a> administration estimates shutting down these eight reactors plus the recent closing of fort calhoun will result in a 3 increase in total Carbon Emissions<\/a> from the u. S. Electricity sector. We need to take steps today to ensure Nuclear Power<\/a> has a future in this country. With that, i would like to recognize senator feinstein, ours is committee our s senior ranking senator feinstein well, thank you very much, mr. Chairman. I think you know that there really is no one i respect more in the senate from either party than you. And one of my great pleasures has been to work with you. On most things, we have agreed. We do not agree on Nuclear Power<\/a>, as you know. And so, because im a history major, i thought that i might in my opening remarks, cite facts of history about the nuclear experience. I think examining the potential risks and opportunities of advanced reactors is important. Theyre in competition with federal Research Funding<\/a>, with other clean Energy Sources<\/a>. And the 4,400 megawatts of californias Nuclear Power<\/a>, which is in the process of being shut down, will be replaced with clean energy, and california is going to aim to make 50 of its power all clean power before too long. Sen. Feinstein now, some may claim the future is bright for this technology. I suggest otherwise. Advanced Nuclear Reactor<\/a>s are those that achieve higher efficiencies in electricity production through the use of graphite, salt, and metals as coolants and moderators instead of water. In 1956, United States<\/a> navy admiral, the father of our navy admiral, hyman riggle, set up advanced reactors. I quote, they are expensive to build, complex to operate, susceptible to prolonged shut down, as a result of even minor malfunctions, and difficult and time consuming to repair. End quote. And strangely enough, his words have been prophetic. In 1965, the sodium cooled fast reactor went online in southeast michigan. Ten months later, it suffered a partial meltdown when a coolant inlet became blocked and the core overheated. It operated briefly again from 1970 to late 1972. When it was shut down due to cost issues. The plant took nine years to build and operated for only three years. Then in the 1970s, the United States<\/a> spent over 1 billion on the clinch reeve river breeder reactor project in eastern tennessee. Costs were initialliest lyly estimated at 400 million. By 1983, the gao said the project would cost 8 billion, something we go through with the rain him uranium now. Congress abandoned the project. President carter, a nuclear engineer, said of the project, and i quote, the clinch river breeder reactor is a technological dinosaur. It is an assault on our attempts to control the spread of Dangerous Nuclear<\/a> materials. It marches our Nuclear Policy<\/a> in exactly the wrong direction. End quote. Those are fundamentally the same reactor designs were still discussing today. More recently, the monju fast breeder reactor in japan operated for only a few months in 1994 and 1995 before a coolant leak caused a fire. Then it operated again for three months in 2010 before another accident during a refueling. After spending 12 billion building, briefly operating and repairing the facility, the japanese government decided last month to abandon the project once and for all. The recent history in the United States<\/a> is not much better. The Energy Policy<\/a> act of 2005 authorized doe to work with industry to develop a next Generation Nuclear<\/a> plant. The plant was intended to process heat and hydrogen for use in industrial applications. The program included costshared research and Development Activities<\/a> with industry that would eventually lead to a demonstration facility. By 2012, this committee had invested 550 million in the next Generation Nuclear<\/a> plan and was ready to move into phase two by inviting industry participation. But not a Single Company<\/a> could be found to put up the meager 40 million cost share that was needed. Doe ended the program in 2013 because the government could not justify spending millions to develop advanced reactor designs that have no real support from the industry. Even if advanced reactors overcome their history of disappointment, this congress has not yet grappled with the need to find a workable solution to Nuclear Waste<\/a>. Despite the best efforts of this committee. A bottom line fact is that the existing fleet of reactors has generated 77,000 metric tons of highly radioactive spent fuel. That Staggering Amount<\/a> is growing by an average of 22 tons per year. Even if some advanced reactor designs someday run more efficiently, or even consume more spent fuel, a future built on Nuclear Power<\/a> is impossible if we dont have a solution for dealing with existing waste. Mr. Chairman, the nation faces real challenges in addressing Climate Change<\/a>, grid reliability, increased Energy Efficiency<\/a>, a proper mix of generation sources. In each of these areas, this Committee Funds<\/a> comeplex and necessary programs for research. I dont see how we can afford to divert several billion more dollars from these programs in order to explore speculative technologies that the industry itself has shied away from. I think Nuclear Power<\/a> must overcome its own significant shortcomings. One, astronomical up front costs , and two, waste that is toxic for thousands of years, if nuclear is to be a significant solution to our climate challenges. Before this committee decides to devote significant, new resources to the development of advanced Nuclear Reactor<\/a>s, i believe we need to see three things. One, a solution to Nuclear Waste<\/a>, longterm and viable. Two, an indication that these reactor designs can overcome their history of technical shortcomings. And three, an industry willing to make a financial commitment on its own. And i know thats a tall order. So i very much look forward to our witnesses today. Ive known john for a long time. I have Great Respect<\/a> for him. I look forward to along to his thank you, senator feinstein. Senator tester . Yeah, ill be brief. First of all, thank you, mr. Chairman and Ranking Member<\/a> feinstein for having this hearing. It is a good discussion to have and talk about the challenges. I appreciate you, mr. Chairman, bringing up Climate Change<\/a>. It is occurring whether we want to deny it or not. It is happening. Ive been on the farm now since 1978 and things are happening that never, ever happened before. Some of them are good. A lot of them arent so ood. And just for full disclosure, and ive been farming my whole life, i lost more money on an investment in Electrical Energy<\/a> company that had a Nuclear Power<\/a> plant than i ever lost doing anything else in life. With that aside, i certainly dont have issues with the power. I think there is positive things about the environment from a co2 standpoint. I think senator feinstein brought up some points on reactor design. The waste is the problem. Weve got to figure out how you can repurpose it and get it done if were going to do this. We may be changing co2 for Nuclear Waste<\/a>. I dont think we want to do that. I think we want to make sure if were going to have something that our kids and grandkids and generations and generations from now can deal with, its got to work. And so i appreciate the hearing. I think it is a good discussion. And i think i dont think anybody on this committee, and i certainly have the utmost respect for you, mr. Chairman, utmost respect for you, mr. Chairman, wants to do something our kids are going to have to pay for forever. Thank you very much. Thanks, senator tester. Senator udall. Mr. Chairman, ready to proceed to the witness. Thank you. Thanks, senator udall. Dr. Deutsch, usually we ask witnesses to take about five minutes because that gives more time for questions, but you are the only witness on the first panel and youve worked long and hard on a Task Force Report<\/a> plus youve got a lot of experience so if you need more time than that why dont you take it. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator feinstein, senator udall. Im very pleased to be here. I was chair of the secretary of Energy Task Force<\/a> could you speak directly into the mic, john . Yes. Is that better . Better. If its not poke me again and i will do better. So im here to report to you on this task force that i chaired and i want to make clear what our task was. Secretary asked the task force to describe an initiative that had the potential of giving the country the option, the ability, to have between 5,000 and 10,000 gigawatts of electricity built annually in the time period 2030 to 2050. That was our task. Many other questions about Nuclear Power<\/a> were not part of our task. What would the country have to do to restore the level that, for example, was here when i joined the department of energy in 1976. That was the task. The summary report the report and summary charts are in the public domain, theyve been supplied to Committee Staff<\/a> so im just going to focus on the main views of the committee, what was the message of our task force, what the message is and then say a few words about five or six main findings. So here are the main take a ways. If the country is going to have a Nuclear Option<\/a> in 2030, it must undertake an initiative of the scope and size that this committee described. It doesnt have to be exactly the same, but if you do not undertake a Major Initiative<\/a> now it is inevitable that in 2030 the country will not have a Nuclear Option<\/a>. Secondly, any such initiative is going to require time, considerable federal resources, redesign of electricity markets and sustained and skilled management. Third, there is no shortcut to doing this. There is not going to be a Magic Technology<\/a> provided that at low cost, quickly can get you safe and reliable Nuclear Power<\/a>. Those are the take away messages. So i want to now speak to the five or six central findings and recommendations of the Task Force Report<\/a>. First, as you know, the Nuclear Fleet<\/a> is aging and there have been a number of early retirements. The early retirements are due in many respects to the rules governing electricity rates and dispatch that differ in different parts of the country which makes it challenging to have valuebased Nuclear Power<\/a>. Examples include the structure of regs in wholesale capacity markets, preferential dispatch rules for renewable generation, exclusion of Nuclear Power<\/a> from renewable portfolio standards and rates that are inadequate to assure recovery of investment. Task force report makes several suggestions for redesign of market rate structure, but for existing plants this has to be done on a state by state basis and different states are approaching it in different ways. New york came to some agreement which seems to be suitable for that state. I believe that illinois is under detailed discussions at the present time, but fundamentally for existing reactors that disparate in Market Structure<\/a> has to be addressed at a state level and its not going to be changed easily. The outlook for the construction of Nuclear Plants<\/a> in the United States<\/a> and other oecd countries is bleak, primarily because of the high overnight capital cost of Nuclear Power<\/a>, roughly 5,000, compared to natural gas, 1,000 or less. Which makes a levelized cost of uclear power for the foreseeable future higher than the closest competitor which is at least for the time being with low Natural Gas Prices<\/a> the levelized cost of electricity from natural gas. The cost disparate would be greatly diminished if the carbon free nature of Nuclear Power<\/a> were recognized. It could be recognized in two ways, by the assessment of a carbon emission charge based on the social cost of carbon on fossil fuel generating electricity plants or at tift on a production payment to new Nuclear Plants<\/a> for their carbon free recognize their car bonn free character. That is on the order of 2. 7 cents per kilowatt hour. That is their carbon free equivalent value. Let me know that wind and solar generation have that same carbon free character and indeed do have an ongoing through the production through the investment tax credit a contribution from the taxpayers of this country roughly comparable to the 2. 7 cents i mentioned before. So that would be a rule that i would apply to all new carbon free Electricity Generation<\/a>. The task force actually recommends a twopart program. It is not only about advanced Nuclear Reactor<\/a>s. First part is are there light order reactor technologies which will lead to new constructions of lower cost which have other advantages such as the Small Modular Reactor<\/a>. So the first aspect of the recommendations is pursue promising light water reactor technologies which no longer have an unproven technology, but which have the practical questions of cost, licensing, siting, Waste Management<\/a>. Our first but all new plants need to have a 2. 7 cent production payment or its equivalent in order to prove itself competitive with natural Gas Generation<\/a> which is the generating of course carbon. For advanced reactors based on new technology the Task Force Recommends<\/a> a fourpart program to bring an advanced program from the Research Level<\/a> to the construction of a first of a kind plant first of a kind commercial plant. The task force based its estimate of the time and cost of that as being 11. 6 billion with huge uncertainty around that number and taking about 25 years. N important aspect of that judgment was based on carefully looking at a stage by Stage Development<\/a> program from concept all the way to construction of a first commercial scale plant. Here are many people who believe that could be shorter and indeed was mentioned, mr. Chairman, there are 20 or 30 Venture Capital<\/a> based firms hich are exploring all different sorts of technology. That would see optimistically a much smaller time and cost for going through this Development Process<\/a> for an advanced reactor. We dont believe thats so and we believe one important way of deciding is to compare the template for development that the task force has proposed with the template for development that the private sector firms are suggesting. In any event what i want to leave with the committee is that our judgment roughly speaking this is a 6. 5 billion program for the period from electing a plant all the way to the point where you start spending money on your first commercial plant. We talked about financing of that. We believe that it should be at a well run program half roughly half provided by the federal government mostly in the early stages where there are Great Technology<\/a> efforts to reduce Technology Risks<\/a> and the latter that are more by private sector investors who see the practicality of these new reactor types. Let me next turn to fuel cycle and Waste Management<\/a>. I should say to you that when i was in the department of energy in the mid 70s the department confirmed president fords decision not to do commercial reprocessing of spent fuel and the department continually proposed no additional funding for clinch river breeder reactor, but there was a great effort to maintain light water Reactor Technology<\/a> and the base Nuclear Technology<\/a> or next generation plants. There is no question about it that advanced reactors will have a different fuel cycle and, therefore, require different approaches for both licensing and for Waste Management<\/a>. That is a part of the challenge of moving to a new generation of reactors. Ow, we recommend for the management of this program, 25 year, 11. 9 billion 11. 6 billion program, the creation of a quasi Public Corporation<\/a> created by the congress with a onetime appropriation for that long period of a difficult Technical Task<\/a> going through several different administrations to Pay Attention<\/a> and responsibly execute this program. I notice that the Blue Ribbon Task<\/a> force that you mentioned that you both support as i understand it of lee hamilton and brent skocroft recommends the same quasi corporation to carry out the Waste Management<\/a> part of this challenge. There may be the possibility for having a single as Committee Staff<\/a> has suggested to me. Quasi Public Corporation<\/a> to carry out both the Waste Management<\/a> piece and the new Reactor Development<\/a> piece. The nrc today only has recent experience with licensing light water reactor plants. That means if you want to proceed to an advanced reactor, the nrc must develop the capability to do that licensing carefully. Its going to require more time and more resources for the nrc to do that job. We believe and in our report we discuss we had two ex chairs of the nuclear Regulatory Commission<\/a> on our task force, a staged approach to licensing of advanced reactors that we believe deserves attention. Meevopers y oose t construct and license new advanced reactors in other untries, for example, china. I remind those developers and everyone here that the first time one of those plants come back into the United States<\/a> they will have to go through the whole entire nrc process again. So we will always have the oversight of the nrc prospect. My final point, mr. Chairman, has to do with international linkages. For a long, long time a counter proliferation policy of the United States<\/a> where we have been a world leader has been based on the influence we have through our knowledge and our activities in Nuclear Power<\/a> technology. As you know, the plants which are going to be built around the world are not going to be in europe, theyre not going to be in the United States<\/a>, theyre mainly going to be in china, in india, in russia, in several countries in asia which this will be their first plant. The emirates, turkey, jordan. We all want to make sure that the proliferation resistance of those plants is maintained. We have a National Security<\/a> interest in maintaining our international activities, especially in safety in the future of Nuclear Power<\/a>. I want to make a concluding remark. The task force completely unanimous in this report. We had a wide range of people with different experience and backgrounds. Unanimous. Especially unanimous on the point that if the United States<\/a> does not undertake an Initiative Like<\/a> this the Nuclear Option<\/a> is not going to be there in 2030. Now, that leaves open the broader question, senator feinstein addressed, does a country need this . Is it a practical thing that we can do given the fact that we have a changing administration all the time. And there were very widely ranging different views on that. So its not the case that everybody on our task force believes the country must do exactly this, but we all agree that if you dont do Something Like<\/a> this theres no possibility of Nuclear Power<\/a>. Then there is a set of people that say what is the consequence of not having that base low generation . Can it all be done with clean power or renewable sources . Differences of view on that, too. It depends very heavily as you this committee knows on where how the grid develops. Let me say it again. We give you a program to consider which is in scale and time of dollars in the scale of both time and dollars one way of getting possibly a substantially 30 or so cheaper, not zero cost Nuclear Power<\/a> in the future. And we raise a warning that if you dont do Something Like<\/a> this the country does not have a Nuclear Option<\/a>. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thanks, dr. Deutsch and thanks to you and your committee for your leadership. We will have a round of fiveminute questions now and i will begin. Just to reiterate, today we have, what, 99 reactors or bout that. They produce about 20 of all of our electricity. About 60 of our carbon free electricity. I know in the region where i come from the Tennessee Valley<\/a> authority expects to have 40 of its electricity from Nuclear Power<\/a> within a few years and when combined that with its pollution control equipment on coal and new gas plants its going to be a very clean lower cost mix of power. Youre saying, though, that your committee unanimously agrees that if we dont take some action like the one the Committee Recommended<\/a> that by 2030 as a country we wont have the option of having electricity produced by Nuclear Power<\/a> . S that what youre saying . Precisely. Let me say to you that when i joined the department of energy six or seven Nuclear Plants<\/a> were being fielded every year. We had four u. S. Manufacturers of reactors, babcock and wilcox, combustion engineering, ge and westinghouse. Four competing u. S. Firms. That kind of capability is not going to be there in 2030 for sure, no new plants will be built in the United States<\/a> unless they have a very favorable regulatory findings about managing the market the market problems that i mentioned to you. So we would lose 20 of our what we call our caseload capacity of our electricity, which is caseload capacity in this case and about 60 of our carbon free. What is likely to replace that if that were not there . Natural gas. Natural gas. But let me point out to you, you, i think, said that how many 50 or so plants which are going to reach 80 years of age. By 2038. I personally do not think it likely that the companies that manage those plants or the nrc are likely to relicense these plants for 60 to 80 years. They are the oldest plants we have. They would require quite a lot of additional investment and without any attention to whether not whether their cost of construction is cheaper but if they actually dont have their electricity dispatched for one reason or another, they are not going to be they are not going to be there. Now, to reiterate again, you gave us a recommendation and said unless you do Something Like<\/a> the 25year 11. 6 billion program to create advanced reactors we wont have the option. If we did Something Like<\/a> that we were more likely to have the Nuclear Option<\/a>. Let me pull it back one step further. The first five years were proposing part one is that our d face, meanwhile you have these advanced light water reactors coming on, they may fit the bill. But they are going to need some help, there is no certainty that that will be there. But there may be someone who comes forward with a light water reactor proposal thats as good as the advanced reactor stuff. We are not married to any particular technology. We want to see the best technology developed. And you said that one of the difficulties you mentioned five different difficulties in the report, but within of the difficulties is that Nuclear Power<\/a> doesnt get credit for being carbon free at a time when many people think carbon free electricity is important. If i heard you right you said that in order to get credit that would be equal to the credit given to wind power, for example, it would be 2. 7 cents per kilowatt hour. Roughly. Roughly. The investment tax credit. Yeah. Which wind and solar and of course as you know as the penetration of wind and solar increases, there is an inter mittensy cost which has to be carried by somebody on the grid one way or the other. Thats not included in these so at the moment taxpayers give wind, for example, a 2. 7 cents advantage over Nuclear Power<\/a> both of them are equally carbon free. Yes, and i hope i wouldnt be misunderstood to say i hope we take that away from wind. I might do that but i understand you wouldnt. My point i want to underscore this carbon free Electricity Generation<\/a> is important in the United States<\/a> and the world and nuclear is an essential piece of that here and elsewhere in the world. Senator feinstein. You know, john, ive known you for a long time. Its interesting to me because i look at this so differently. I look at it from the california perspective. Ive been to Southern California<\/a> edison three times, seen the reactors. They have a problem with a steam generator, they buy two from a japanese company, theyre faulty. They end up having to shut down the plant. Theyve got 3,300 rods in spent fuel pools. No place to put them. They have a big security force. Theyve got a plant on a shelf above the pacific with 6 Million People<\/a> living around. Then i get a call from tony early of pg e that theyre going to shut down both of their reactors because they believe they can now find Cost Effective<\/a> clean energy to replace their 1,100 megawatts. So i have all this spent fuel sitting in metropolitan areas in an earthquake prone state when the rim of fire is going around the pacific with big quakes, the latest new zealand. Yes. 7. 8. I dont understand the push for this and the absence of a push to safely secure the waste. And we have tried and he has enormous patience with me and so we have tried year after year to get a pilot waste. We know there are people that want to build is, a waste facility, where some of this waste because even if yucca went ahead yucca would be filled and we have 77,000 metric tons of hot waste all over the country. To me until youve got a methodology to properly harbor this waste for the millennium its ridiculous to talk about any of this because something is going to happen. One day and its probably on the Pacific Coast<\/a> some kind of fukushima is going to happen and all the probabilities of a big quake are up. So i sit here and i listen to his and its like im in a fairy tale that what i see in my state with four of the biggest reactors shut down, waste piling up, it makes no sense to me. And i dont understand why the industry doesnt help us push for waste facilities, and they dont. First of all, again, i want to remind you these are very sensible questions to raise about the thats our task was to describe it. You may say just the waste alone, but i want to make some remarks about that. This congress commissioned a group of people under the chairmanship of brent and lee hamilton, in 2012 they came out with a report which was a systematic approach to managing the waste. You know, senator, i have to say im old enough to remember kansas and trying to put the waste away and i will tell you that proposal from congressman hamilton and general skocroft is an absolutely sound way to in an orderly fashion address all of the concerns that you properly are raising. We had hamilton in. We sat there with the chairs of the authorizing committee. We put together a Nuclear Waste<\/a> policy for this country which was voluntary, we went through three chairs of the Energy Committee<\/a> working on this, oh, from new mexico, bingaman, widen, murkowski, murkowski worked with us all along. We have a bill in there two appropriators, the two authorizers all support and it sits in committee and the Nuclear Waste<\/a> industry does nothing to help pass it. Why . I mean, i dont understand this. And we see the accidents take place. Its a kind of madness to build stuff and not be able to properly dispose of the waste. Pass the bill. The other thing i want to say now, california, i want to turn to california for a minute. If i might say a word about california. Sure. Which i know little about except that i have now two grandsons living in palo alto so i have a much bigger interest in their safety. Right. I dont know how california is going to manage without those plants, but i dont think its so clear that its going to be cost free. I mean, cost now in a risk sense. So i would say i dont know the head of pg e but i know a lot of people in california who know a lot about energy. I dont think its going to be so easy to get that energy. All i can say is so far so good. So far so good is good and we have to keep at it but i think its not at all clear how ts going to come out. Well, i guess i plead with the industry to help us get a permanent waste facility and one wont do it and there have to be a number of them. You know, the wip accident which is now costing in the billions of dollars, its expensive stuff. We deal with the waste, with the plutonium and uranium processing and its the same kind of thing. It comes in in the hundreds of millions and it grows to the billions of dollars to build these facilities. So somebody like me that sees whats happening in california says, why are we thinking about this if we cant provide the infrastructure to do it right. We have to we have to be players because theres going to be much bigger problems with these issues in india and china and the people that are going to be building these plants will be russian firms, japanese firms, chinese firms. We have to be players in that. Thank you, senator feinstein. Senator feinstein and i are going to figure out how to pass that bill. Senator udall. Thank you so much, mr. Chairman. And thank you both for your commitment to this and having this hearing. Mr. Deutsch, thank you. Very interesting testimony up until now and i hope show less text it will continue. 110 nations have ratified the paris climate deal which will demonstrate and initiate a need for Nuclear Power<\/a>. Here at home more than 360 businesses and investors support the paris climate agreement and a low Carbon Energy<\/a> future for the United States<\/a>. I am very concerned about president elect trumps statements about withdrawing from the paris agreement. Many Nuclear Companies<\/a> and supporters recognize the need for Nuclear Energy<\/a> to meet emission goals, especially in the short term when we need Dramatic Movement<\/a> on emissions. Wont withdrawing from paris have potentially negative consequences on the future of Nuclear Power<\/a> . Could you give me a yes or no on that and then you can expand of course. I dont think so, senator. You dont think so. I dont think i can give you a yes or no answer. Ok. Go ahead. No. No. No. I dont think i dont think its a question which, you know my credentials here are to report on the secretary of energys Advisory Board<\/a>, not to make comments but the expertise that you have directly reflects on this question. Senator, im just not going to be able to be helpful to you on this. I mean, i would go in a completely different direction, but this is not the occasion to address the question of paris or now they are in morocco now, right . Thats where they are, secretary monese and secretary kerry, unless theyre coming back, theyve been planning for cop 22. Right. Right. But im not the person here im not the person to ask about this. Ok. Today 20 of the u. S. Electricity and as the chairman said 63. 3 of our carbon free electricity is produced by approximately 100 light water Nuclear Reactor<\/a>s, however, many of these plants may be prematurely closing before their 2030 planned retirement. Which will result in an increased proportion of Energy Produced<\/a> by carbon emitting sources unless other renewables, solar, wind, are ble to replace the capacity of these lwrass. What structural or statutory changes are needed to ensure that our current Nuclear Energy<\/a> fleet remains a part of the u. S. s Carbon Free Energy<\/a> grid and what structural or statutory changes are needed to enable Nuclear Innovation<\/a> and the modernization of Nuclear Energy<\/a> reactors . Sir, the answer is that there has to be market redesign. In that subject is dealt with in great detail market redesign, some choices, what choices have to be made in the report. I would not have you would want to hear me talk about all of them but let me just say that you cannot have the circumstances now with around the country not everywhere, southeast United States<\/a> is an exception, you cannot have the market you have giving preference to in the dispatch of electricity to noncaseload generating plants so that they cannot make money even if they were cheap. So you have to find some solution to that. That has to be done on a state by state basis and its a very, very tough task but otherwise you are going to continue to have more early retirements like happened in alifornia. The and i want to ask that first question in a little different way. I mean, there are many efforts both at the interNational Level<\/a>, at the state level and at our National Level<\/a> to push us towards renewable sources of energy. Pulling back on those do you think would be a good idea . No. Ok. Now, Nuclear Energy<\/a> has a production tax credit incentive and has had it for many, many years as you know. However, that credit has now expired and the Nuclear Industry<\/a> is preparing to ask congress for new forms of support. On the other hand while Renewable Energy<\/a> credits were recently extended as you know, they are being phased out and theres no guarantee they will be extended again. Rather than congress debating and continuing new Technology Specific<\/a> tax credits like the nuclear ptc or renewable ptc would the best path be a renewable price on carbon which would promote all Clean Energy Technologies<\/a> including Nuclear Renewables<\/a> and Carbon Capture<\/a> and sequestration . You say i didnt quite get the last sentence, sir. The last is and its a long one so im going to go over it again. Thank you, sir. Rather than congress debating and continuing new technologyspecific tax credits that i mentioned earlier, like the nuclear ptc or renewable ptcs would the best policy be a Technology Neutral<\/a> price on carbon which would promote all Clean Energy Technologies<\/a> including nuclear, renewables and Carbon Capture<\/a> and sequestration . Absolutely yes. And thats and i would include in that all the oil and gas drilling things as well which gives subsidies for certain kinds of fossil fuels. The answer is yes. A single carbon charge. How the revenue is spent is critical to how it looks elsewhere, but the answer is yes it would be the most efficient way to do it and thats some members of my task force think thats exactly what should be done. But thats not part of our report because we were asked to frame an initiative not to say balance it with all these things we are now discussing. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator udall. Senator shaheen. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and that you dr. Deutsch for being here and for your work on the report. I have to say i share the issues that you raised in your testimony with respect to the importance of Nuclear Power<\/a> as were addressing our need to reduce Carbon Emissions<\/a> not only in the u. S. But throughout the world. I also share your concerns about the importance of American Technology<\/a> when it comes to Nuclear Safety<\/a> around the world. I remember talking to one of our engineers from the see better Nuclear Power<\/a> plant in New Hampshire<\/a> who relayed to me what he was doing with russia after chernobyl in an efrl so try to address safety there. So i think those are very important and very relevant as we think about our policy. And im disappointed, as youve heard from several of the people here that i served on the Energy Committee<\/a> under chairman bing amman when we produced an energy bill that would have addressed Nuclear Power<\/a> in the future that never made it to the floor. We have another bill thats currently being negotiated its not at all clear if thats going to make it out of congress that also addresses the future of Nuclear Power<\/a> in this country. So i think we have not been responsive in the way that we should in order to address the future challenges. In new england 30 of our total electricity is comes from Nuclear Power<\/a>. So the retirement of Nuclear Generators<\/a> is of particular concern. And you recommend significant reforms in the energy and electricity markets to help value the caseload power thats produced by Nuclear Reactor<\/a>s. I wonder if you could discuss in a little more detail than you did in response to senator udall what those kinds of reforms should look like because as we look at new englands wholesale electric operator iso new england i think its a challenge that we have both now and are looking at in the future. So what kinds of things are you talking about . Thank you, senator. Let me say that im not going to do as good a job as i could if i were here with some of my Task Force Members<\/a> who really specialize more in this than i do. But let me just take the case of illinois where they closed, i think, two reactors because there was no way for them to dispatch the electricity. At night wind will even bid negative prices so that they get dispatched in order to earn the 3 cents or whatever it is per kilowatt hour production payment, production tax credit that they get. So the fact is you have to fix that. You cannot have a situation where some sources of Technology Get<\/a> dispatched with a favorable rate because of a government subsidy, others dont have the government subsidy, they cant if they cant dispatch it, so thats a specific example. Many of the states do not acknowledge the kinds of rates that need to be set given whatever dispatch rules they have so that a company can get back its investment over time. Thats a negotiation between the Regulatory Commission<\/a> and the company, but there is a balance there. Its not being met in many places. Every state is different. So some parts of the country like the southeast are much more accommodating. But without market reform of some kind this aint going to happen. Again, here is a situation everybody on the committee is unanimous on this on our task force is unanimous. Well, shuz ferc have a role in this . What should their role be in trying to look at this issue . Im going to get myself into trouble but i think, yes, i think ferc should have a much larger role in this. I guess there is a Supreme Court<\/a> decision that gives them more ability to get into but we have a long jealously guarded history of having local and regional utilities set their own rates on their own basis, but fundamentally this does in my mind require more of a role for ferc, but thats another battle that im sure you guys would have to face. Im almost out of time, but i also wanted to raise an issue that were seeing in New Hampshire<\/a> with the seebrook Nuclear Power<\/a> plant because they will come up for relicensing i think in the early 2020s and they have encountered some issues concerning concrete degradation, the asr al can a liesed silica reaction and they have led to concerns about the afety of the plant and the relicensing process. So is this something that the committee looking at the future of Nuclear Power<\/a> has looked at . Are there how should we address safety issues like that and i believe, senator, that youre making exactly the same point that i tried to make earlier. When these plants turn to be 80 well, this one is not going to be 80. Its a relatively young as they get to be older questions are going to be raised that new plants would have to conform to and now you have the question about are you willing to make an assessment of the risk and say to them, no, were not going to relicense you or you have to repair this, and thats going to be done on a case biy case bases by the nrc. I dont know the circumstances at seabrook although one time i knew it pretty well but i dont know it anymore. Those questions in concrete is a big deal. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Dr. Deutsch youve been a terrific witness and its good to have your experience and your straightforwardness here. I think speaking for all of us we thank you and your committee for your time and work and secretary moneese for impanel impanelling you. If you have additional comments we would encourage you to send those to us after you leave. I think its time now to go to the second panel so we will excuse you and ask dr. Mckenzie and dr. Eisen hour to come forward. Dr. Eisenhower is the associate Laboratory Director<\/a> of Nuclear Science<\/a> at Oak Ridge Laboratory<\/a> and dr. Mckenzie Senior Scientist<\/a> at National Resources<\/a> defense council. Dr. Eisenhower, we will start with you if we may and i will ask each of you to summarize your testimony in about five minutes, if you will, which will give us time to consider to ask questions. And senator feinstein has an important appointment at 4 00 so we will conclude either by then or not long after that. Dr. Eisenhower. Thank you, chairman alexander and Ranking Member<\/a> feinstein. I am very pleased to participate in this panel today. At Oak Ridge National<\/a> laboratory im privileged to lead a very talented group of scientists and engineers as we address scientific and technological challenges in both fission and fusion energy, nuclear iso types, nuclear modeling and simulation and nuclear security. Our Nuclear Fission<\/a> r d efforts include light water reactor sustainability, accident tolerant fuels, used nuclear fuels, modeling and simulation such as the consortium for advanced simulation of light water reactors, materials and extreme environments, manufacturing and maintenance technologies and safety analysis and licensing approaches. This expertise enables broader contributionses to nuclear security, safeguardsand nonpro liveration liver operation related r d. We have all familiar with the Nuclear Cliff<\/a> which is when the Current Fleet<\/a> of plants rapidly retires. So how will we replace that capacity . How can we rapidly innovate and enable affordable and reliable advanced reactor technologies . The United States<\/a> has historically led Nuclear Energy<\/a> innovation and i believe that we must continue to do so. Development of the next generation of reactors will provide clean secure and Affordable Energy<\/a> and will ensure that the u. S. Industry is positioned to compete internationally. Rapid deployment of advanced Nuclear Systems<\/a> requires a sciencebased design and licensing approach. With contemporary sciencebased tools and techniques development can be accelerated in laboratory and High Performance<\/a> computing environments and this can also accelerate licensing. Materials used in Nuclear Systems<\/a> directly affect economics, performance and safety. The opportunity is at hand for a new generation of reactors that will also employ a new generation of materials. We also have the opportunity to see into reactors as never before. Modern instrumentation and sensing techniques can Optimize Operations<\/a> and further enhance safety. Predictive modeling and simulation tools provide a new basis for regulatory action and licensing. Innovations can be introduced more quickly and designs can evolve on the drawing board. Recognizing the challenges ahead we must move forward deliberately to avoid the Nuclear Cliff<\/a>. Future u. S. Policy for Nuclear Energy<\/a> will be critical. Decisions are needed with specific goals, rapid innovation will be essential and requires collaboration among the National Laboratories<\/a>, industry and universities. We must also leverage existing assets. For example, Oak Ridge National<\/a> laboratory has unique facilities such as our Research Reactor<\/a> and hot cells for the safe handling, experimentation and analysis of nuclear materials. We are working with idaho and argan National Laboratories<\/a> to implement the department of energys gateway for accelerated innovation in nuclear or gain initiative which is providing easier access to the technical capabilities of the National Laboratories<\/a>. The timelines and economics are a hurdle for new reactor technologies but they can be overcome through approaches such as increased use of modeling and simulation, advanced manufacturing techniques and development of new materials. There is a growing National Interest<\/a> in the deployment of advanced reactors and the associated fuel cycle as evidenced by the number of summits, symposia, workshops, hearings and other events focused on this. Such events reflect a collective source of urgency. National laboratories are a vital part of meeting the challenges to the few fewer of Nuclear Power<\/a>. A sustained r d program is needed with clear longterm goals, such program will retire technical and regulatory risk, improve economic competitiveness, develop the next generation of scientists and engineers, establish advanced facility capabilities and address the entire fuel cycle. We are prepared to help solve these compelling challenges and we are partnering to enable rapid innovation. Together we can succeed in bringing the best of our nations Scientific Understanding<\/a> and engineering capabilities to bear on deploying the next generation of carbon free Nuclear Energy<\/a> technologies. Thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts with the subcommittee. I request that my written testimony be made a part of the Public Record<\/a> and i would be happy to answer your questions. Thanks, dr. Eisenhower. Dr. Mckenzie. Welcome. Chairman alexander, Ranking Member<\/a> feinstein and members of the subcommittee thank you for providing the Natural Resources<\/a> dispense council nrdc with this opportunity to present our views on the future of Nuclear Power<\/a>. Nrdc is a National Nonprofit<\/a> organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental advocates with over 2 million members and supporters. Nrdc has been engaged with Nuclear Energy<\/a> and Nuclear Weapons<\/a> since our founding in 1970 and nrdc maintains a Nuclear Program<\/a> which i direct. The future of Nuclear Power<\/a> in the United States<\/a> is uncertain and faces significant challenges. As weve heard most reactors will reach the end of their licenses and close in the decades ahead and some are at risk of near term shut down. In addition to economic challenges, difficulties for Nuclear Power<\/a> arise from safety, security, pro liveration and Nuclear Waste<\/a> and the role of Nuclear Power<\/a> as a low Carbon Energy<\/a> resource is being superceded by advances in Energy Efficiency<\/a> and Renewable Energy<\/a> technologies. Only four reactors are currently under construction in the United States<\/a>, four large ap 1,000 reactors in georgia and South Carolina<\/a>. One type of Small Modular Reactor<\/a> the new scale smr may soon submit a license application to the nrc. So with many Nuclear Closures<\/a> and few nuclear builds the future of Nuclear Energy<\/a> is now one of decline. Todays hearing considers what are called advanced Nuclear Reactor<\/a>s and how they could impact the future of Nuclear Power<\/a> and Government Support<\/a> for their research and development. To summarize, my written testimony in a few words would be be very cautious on advanced nuclear. First, see what results we get with our current Government Investment<\/a> in new nuclear projects, the ap 1,000s, the new scale smr and importantly prioritize Unfinished Business<\/a> for nuclear, the waste issue among others. For Decades Nuclear<\/a> scientists and engineers have sought to develop advanced nuclear designs that reduce the amount of waste generated, that lower Nuclear Weapons<\/a> proliferation risk and improve safety but such benefits from advanced nuclear are still theoretical and importantly there is no evidence that advanced nuclear would be economically competitive in the future. In our testimony nrdc respectfully offers five recommendations for the subcommittee in consideration of the governments role in advanced Nuclear Energy<\/a> research and development. So i will go through these five recommendations. Recommendation one and i think this was echoed a lot in todays hearing give priority to solving the Nuclear Waste<\/a> problem. Many thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel must be isolated from people and from the environment for millenia. So our recommendations cite and construct a deep geologic repository using a consent based and science based process before spending money on advanced nuclear. Recommendation two, wait on the construction of the ap 1,000s and the new scale smr. Assess the Lessons Learned<\/a> from these projects for their safety, reliability and cost before looking at an advanced Nuclear Demonstration<\/a> plant. Recommendation three, consistently apply a Nuclear Weapons<\/a> proliferation test to advanced nuclear designs. Among the Energy Technology<\/a> choices for the United States<\/a> Nuclear Power<\/a> is unique in the overlaps between civilian Energy Technology<\/a> and Nuclear Weapons<\/a>. The risk of Nuclear Weapons<\/a> proliferation from Nuclear Power<\/a> can attempt to be managed but never eliminated. Preventing proliferation is of utmost importance for the future of Nuclear Energy<\/a>. Recommendation four, consider the full impacts of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle<\/a> associated with advanced reactors including severe accidents. Many aspects of the light water reactor fuel cycle are still not worked out including it hasnt come up yet at this hearing but the issue of decommissioning. Recommendation five, get clear on the economic competitiveness for advanced nuclear early on. Nrdc feels like history should teach us a caution, this was echoed in your Opening Statement<\/a>, senator, that funding advanced Nuclear Research<\/a> and development for uneconomicel designs can mean taxpayers are then responsible for far greater sums in the future. To conclude, if an Energy Policy<\/a> goal for subcommittee members is to preserve the Nuclear Power<\/a> option in the future, and we hope you maintain a healthy dose of skepticism regarding the benefits promised by advanced Nuclear Technology<\/a> concepts that seek taxpayer support. Thank you. Thank show less text you. Senator feinstein. Mr. Mckenzie, you know, its interesting because we have no Nuclear Waste<\/a> policy in this country and as such we pile up fines, i think its 20 million a year, which are in the hundreds of millions of dollars and yet still fail to act. Youve looked at this. Why does that happen . I mean, why wouldnt the industry want a Nuclear Waste<\/a> policy . Why wouldnt they want a Nuclear Policy<\/a>, a process by which this weve debated it, weve discussed it and come to the conclusion, you know, that it has to be practical, it has to be voluntary, states have to want it. We have one in new mexico whip, the people of whip around around it want t they take great pride in it. A stupid accident where even the most sophisticated agency oss ala mows who contracts out the kitty litter and they use the wrong kitty litter and it explodes. So its very hard for some of us to conceive of a future thats properly carried out and now that these smrs are being proposed i am told that the only way theyre cost theyre economically cost efficient is if theyre grouped together. So if youre going to put four 300 or 400 mega watt reactors in one place you still have to deal with the waste. How do you do that . So i guess ive really developed a very jaundiced view about the practicality in this country and the ability i mean, i was alerted by what senator shaheen said about the concrete, and without going into it, john deutsch said hats a serious problem. Now i will look and find out exactly what it is. O if either of you have some comments to make because i think our first responsibility is safety to the public is to see that these things are secure, that the waste is secure, that they are as functional and efficient and wellbuilt as they possibly can be, cited appropriately, run scrupulously and thats difficult to have happen and so it doesnt surprise me that people coming up or companies coming up for relicensing may opt not to go ahead ahead. If i could be very candid on why i think industry hasnt supported a Nuclear Waste<\/a> solution in a vigorous way, i think it would be because the current waste situation is consistent with the industrys business model. Storage of spent nuclear fuel mostly in wet pools, some in dry cask at reactor site, thats fine with the business model. Nrdc objects to the nrc finding that longterm storage of spent nuclear fuel in wet pools, in densely packed wet pools doesnt represent an incredible danger, an incredible risk. I think that is tolerated by the regularity. So there just is inertia in the industry. I think and somebody correct me if im wrong but i believe you store them for five to seven years and then they should be removed from the spent fuel pool and they should be put in dry casks hopefully transportationrelated dry asks so that they can be moved then to a permanent waste facility which we dont have. And so in my i can only speak for california which i know these things are just stacking up and, you know, there is a very real danger in spent fuel pools. If the water disappears, if the pool is fragmented by an earthquake and you have all these hot rods, 3,300 piled up, ts a big problem. O but no one seems to care. Thats what really bothers me. Obody seems to care. Its a very difficult problem. The nrdc advocates for a consentbased and sciencebased approach on repositories that also includes authority at the state level for regulating radioactive materials. Thats not there, that is a component of whip and we believe why whip was able to go forward in the first place, but we believe that state authority in regulating radioactive materials with respect to a repository is a key element to include. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator feinstein. Thanks to both of you. I will have a few just a couple of comments. I would not want people to leave this hearing without a different view being expressed about the safety of Nuclear Power<\/a>. There has never been a death in connection with the commercial operation of Nuclear Reactor<\/a>s in the United States<\/a> since they began. There has never been a death attributable to reactors in the navy since the 1950s when they began. The only most celebrated accident we had in the United States<\/a> was three mile island in 1979 and despite years of testing of everybody in the area no one was hurt. So based on the safety record, no other form of energy has a Better Safety<\/a> record and the nuclear Regulatory Commission<\/a> which has extensive careful regulation has determined that the used fuel is safely stored for many years in the places where it where it is, which is on which is on site. And, you know, i agree that we eed to move it and i would like to get it out of california, too, but we have a place to put it and the place is Yucca Mountain<\/a> in nevada and the law says thats where it should go and the courts law ays thats where it should go. The courts say thats where it is. And it is large enough to accept is all the used nuclear fuel that we have stored on site in the United States<\/a> today. We have a stalemate in congress. The reason we havent passed the legislation senator einstein and i would like to is because we take a position we should move on all tracks at once. If we get stuck on one, namely yucca, we should continue to on the others. Some say, well, if you dont move on yuck ya, youre not going to move on anything. We have to solve that. The help of others would support our position. Thats true. Thats our responsibility to work out. Were going to continue to try to do show less text that. Tkrf eisenhower, do you think the goal is achievable is and if so, what do you think it ill take to accomplish it . Yes, sir, i do think that is achievable. I like history also, as senator einstein said. When i drive into the national laboratory, i drive past the graphite reactor. Hats a lesson in history of what this country can do. A reactor that was built in ine months and went critical in november 1943. That just reminds me what we can do when we decide to do something. The question is how do we do it. We have to decide were going o do some. We have to set clear goals. We have to have focused effort, focused rnd that will help move us along the way. And it will take a Public Private<\/a> partnership to do this. The final element is along the way we have to continue to work to have the appropriate Regulatory Framework<\/a> in place. Dr. Eisenhower, you talked about the work youre doing modeling simulations. As we talk about take thing it from 40 years to 60 years or some of the existing reactors from 60 years to 80 years, the Regulatory Commission<\/a> is considering, how can the Super Computers<\/a> you work with help with whether it is safe and appropriate to do that at all . One example is the consortium for advanced simulation. It has developed a high fidelity model of a nuclear model. So were able to understand that very clearly whats happening with the reactor and as changes occur. So it is the use of advanced model simulation, coupled with experimental data to help inform the basis for moving orward for life extension. Dr. Mckenzie, you worked for a well ecognized group, the Natural Resources<\/a> defense counsel. I would assume you and the council are concerned about Climate Change<\/a>. Yes, sir. It was unanimous if we didnt take action by 2030 we wouldnt have Nuclear Power<\/a> in the United States<\/a>. We would lose 20 of our electricity. Do you think that helps us deal with Climate Change<\/a> . It will be more like a ramp down in power. This testimony was we hadnt acted by to 2030, the option would be gone. Which i mean i guess by then we wouldnt have a way to continue it. Over the next 20 years, the rest of the reactors close. Addressing Climate Change<\/a> is a critical problem that requires a transformation in ow our country and how the world generates and consumes nergy. In the United States<\/a> right now we have a mix wait a minute. Do you think that its helps to lose the Nuclear Option<\/a> by today the it produces 20 of our carbon free electricity. But it has an uncertain future. How much does wind power produce . Energy efficiency is really made incredible advances and showing itself as a lower cost option than nuclear for addressing Climate Change<\/a>. So you would be comfortable with losing the Nuclear Option<\/a> in terms the of our countrys ability to deal with Climate Change<\/a> . I am uncomfortable with unsolved problems. I believe that pragmatically nuclear will continue at a lower level into the future. I dont imagine it vanishing. We have the four ap reactors under construction. So i think a scenario in which everything is gone and by 2030 is perhaps too negative for Nuclear Energy<\/a>. But im skeptic that it can continue at its current level. What would replace it . Well, the department of energys own National Laboratories<\/a> have seen a scenario where Renewable Energy<\/a> can be the dom source of clean energy. Meaning wind mills . Solar, wind. Today is less than 1 of our electricity. Thats correct. And wind is about 3 or 4 . But the recent growth has been extraordinary. And that trend, we believe, will continue. And the wind is available when the wind blows and the solar is available when the sun shines . There is an issue of base load versus nonbase Load Generation<\/a> to contend with. I would say the transmission grid is evolving in time and change anything time and adapting to variable generation nd there will be advances in storage. I think it will play a role in the future. Im not sure how large. So you do agree finding a ay to store used nuclear fuel, i believe was your testimony, is urgent . Absolutely. So you support Yucca Mountain<\/a> . No. Why not . The court says the law said that and the Scientists Say<\/a> its safe for a million years. The process of restarting the project would begin with the license application. And the resolving over 200 contentions, new and significant information that may necessitate starting from scratch in terms of the license. So you think we can open another repository for rapidly than we can complete Yucca Mountain<\/a> . We believe Yucca Mountain<\/a> will likely fail. So we do need to go back to basics. It would fail because groups like yours dont support and the Scientists Say<\/a> its safe for a million years and the law said do it. We dont believe we should be able to get through the licensing process. E are not privy to the licensing process. Modifications would enable it to store more fuel and titanium drip shields. Yucca mountain is large enough to hold all the nuclear fuel that is currently stored under reactors. You disagree with that . I dont disagree with that. If youre talking about the 77,000 tons that are stored currently. But the United States<\/a> will generate, again, as much between now and mid century. Right. So my view is we should open Yucca Mountain<\/a>, move the fuel out of california, other places where it is and open new repositories, maybe a private repository, and solve our stalemate. In any event, we have had a terrific wide range of use here today both from the senators and expert witnesses, dr. Mczhi, dr. Eisenhower, thank you so much for being part of our iscussion. The hearing record will will remain open five days. All statements will be included in the record. The subcommittee requested all responses be provided 30 days within receipt. If either of you have something you would like us to consider that you didnt have a chance to say today or when you go home you wish you had send, send it to us and we will distribute it to the other senators. Thank you very much for being here. The subcommittee stands adjourned. Solves the stalemate. The second is to the tree carbon free producing Energy Sources<\/a> equally, either with no subsidy or the same subsidy. And then regulation. But can you do that under an administration that doesnt see Climate Change<\/a> as a threat . Climate change isnt the only reason for Nuclear Power<\/a>. It produces reliable power 95 of the time at a low cost that will help attract jobs. As soon as japan and germany started closing power plants, manufacturers started looking at the Tennessee Valley<\/a> to build their plants. Electricity prices in germany have gone through the roof because they have closed their Nuclear Power<\/a> plants. And for a big manufacturing country, if you want to create jobs, you dont need power just when the sun shines and the wind blows. You need it all the time. Would you support a carbon tax or Technology Neutral<\/a> tax . Im not ready to do that. I do want to see Nuclear Power<\/a> treated equally with every other form of carbon free lectricity, particularly since it produces Reliable Base Load Power<\/a> and 60 of all the power we have. Im glad to see that some of those who care the most about Climate Change<\/a> like senator brighthouse have come around to the position that it makes no sense to close Nuclear Reactor<\/a>s since Climate Change<\/a> is caused by carbon and Nuclear Power<\/a> plants producing 60 of our carbon free electricity. I think one of the reports was nuclear doesnt get enough credit for being a carbon free source of electricity. Maybe these hearings will help. Thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National<\/a> able satellite corp. 2016] captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption contents and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org this weekend book tv will be live from the 33rd annual miami book fair. Featuring readings and discussions with authors plus more than 250 publishers and book seller exhibits. Coverage begins at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. Senator Bernie Sanders<\/a> takes your phone calls and talks about his book, our revolution, a future to believe in. The Washington Post<\/a> wesley loury, they cant kill us all. By the book. Sunday gets under way at 10 30 a. M. Eastern and features fox news host and press secretary, with her latest book, how my best friend became americas dog. Join us live from miami starting saturday at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. Go to booktv. Org for the complete schedule. Vermont senator and former president ial candidate Bernie Sanders<\/a> spoke last night at George Washington<\/a> university about the 2016 Election Results<\/a> and the role of progressives moving forward. Part of the event included a sitdown interview with Washington Post<\/a> columnist. This is an hour and 15 minutes. Thank you. I cant quite see you but i understand there are a lot of people out there. Thank you very much for coming and i look forward to chatting with e. J. In a few moments. But before we do, i just wanted the a few words about election and where we are today. I know there are a lot of people who are frightened, a lot of people who are extremely unhappy, and i would not be telling you the truth if i didnt tell you that tuesday night was a very, very depressing evening for me. But i want to maybe begin by telling you that as a result of having the privilege and the the opportunity of running all over this country, going to 46 states during my campaign, i far the the campaign for more optimistic than when i began that campaign. And the reason for that is all over this country i saw extraordinarily beautiful people, working people, young people, who love this country and who are determined to do everything that they can to make the United States<\/a> of america the kind of nation we know we can become. [cheers and applause] the other point i want to make as we move into the trump era is to understand that real change and real politics never takes place from the top on down. It always occurs from the bottom on up. D what that means in my view is that when millions of people stand together and they refuse to allow demagoguery to divide us up by race, by the country we were born in by our sexual orientation, when we stand together by the millions we can stop mr. Trump or anyone else from doing bad things to this country. [applause] so as lisa just mentioned, what i have always believe is that election days are very, very important days, to be sure. And elections are enormously important. T politics is not just about elections. If you think about our history as a nation and the profound changes that have taken place, what you understand is that change only takes place when millions of people look around them and they say that the status quo is not working and are prepared to fight for social, racial, economic and environmental justice. I just want to, in terms of the election, make three points. Number one. In case you dont know and im sure most of you do Hillary Clinton<\/a> ended up winning the popular vote by what we think, after all the votes are countd, by about 2 million votes. [cheers and applause] number two. If you are a progressive, on issue after issue, whether it is raising the minimum wage to a living wage, whether it is pay equity for women, whether it is rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and creating jobs, s of decentpaying whether it is reforming a broken criminal Justice System<\/a>, or a broken immigration system, whether jobs, whether it is making public colleges or universities tuition free, whether it is demanding that the wealthy start paying their fair share of taxes on on all of those issues on more, the American People<\/a> are on our side. Dont ever forget that. [cheers and applause] now, during the course of his campaign mr. Trump and i should tell you that in that campaign i was as active as i could be during the last week that campaign i was in 12 battleground states giving 21 speeches at rallies all over this country, because i thought that it was absolutely imperative that we do everything that we can to make sure that Hillary Clinton<\/a> was elected and not donald trump. But it didnt turn out that way. And here is where we are today. It seems to me three things four things. Number one. Five things. Who knows. We dont know. During the course of his campaign which clearly and we have to acknowledge this was certainly one of the most unusual campaigns ever run by a candidate. Mr. Trump said a whole lot of things. A whole lot of things. And sometimes i think they would just come off the top of his head. Toward the end of the campaign, he was actually using the term that Many Democrats<\/a> use. He was saying that he was going to be the champion of the american working class. Thats what he said. Well, mr. Trump, we have a list of everything that you said and we are going to hold you to account. [applause] and what i think mr. Trump did and this speaks to why i personally believe we need major, major reforms of the Emocratic Party<\/a> [applause] what mr. Trump said and talked about is something that the pundits here in washington have not a clue about, and the Corporate Media<\/a> has very little understanding about. And that is that what he understood to be true and it is true is despite the fact that today we are far, far better off economically after 8 years of obama than we were when bush left office. That is true. There is another reality. And that is that all across this country there are millions and millions of decent, good people who are frightened about the world that they are living in. There are mothers out there, single moms, or young couples who are making 30, 40, 50,000 a year, mom and dad are working, they need child care for their children, and yet child care costs 10 or 15,000. How do you afford 15,000 for child care when you are making 40 or 50,000 a year . There are workers in my state who see an explosion in technology. They see the very wealthiest people in this country becoming phenomenally richer. They see large corporations enjoying recordbreaking profits. And yet they are working not at one job, they are working at two jobs, they are working at three jobs. There are people all over this country who are 55, 60 years of age, they have worked their entire life and now they are going to be retiring soon and you know what . Half of those Older Workers<\/a> do not have a nickle in the bank for retirement. There are young people who went deeply into debt 30, 50, 80,000 in debt in order to go to college. But when they leave school, they find that the only job they can get are jobs which pay them 12, 14 an hour. Not enough to repay their debt. That is the reality for millions of people in this country. And that is the reality of a middle class which has been in decline for the last 40 years. That is the reality of 43 million fellow americans who today are living in poverty, something that we do not talk about at all, not mentioned on television. And some in dire poverty. We are living in a nation which as a grotesque level of income and wealth level inequality in which the top 1 10 of 1 now own as much as the bottom 90 . And that is the reality mr. Trump perceived to be true. And he said, i hear you are hurting and i hear and understand you are worried about the future for your kids. And i alone can do something about it. And people voted for him. Now, let me just tell you some f what mr. Trump talked about. And we are going to hold him accountable. Mr. Trump said cheers and applause] mr. Trump said, unlike Many Republican<\/a>s the vast majority of the republicans. He said he will not cut social security, medicare, and medicaid. Now, i believe we should expand social security. I believe in a medicare for all program. Ut that is what he said. And Pay Attention<\/a> to see what he now does. The question that will be resolved pretty quickly is whether or not everything that he was saying to the working families of this country was hypocracy, was dishonest, or whether he was sign seer. And we will find that out soon enough. But number one, no culingts said mr. Trump to social security, medicare, and medicaid. Mr. Trump says he wants to invest 1 trillion in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. That is a good sum of money. That is exactly what we should be doing. And we can create millions of goodpaying jobs if we do that. Mr. Trump, that is what you said on the campaign trail. That is what we look forward to seeing from you. [applause] now, i happen to believe that the federal minimum wage of 7 tth 25 is a starvation wage, that it should be raised to 15 n hour, a living wage. Mr. Trump did not say that. But what he did say is we should raise the minimum wage to 10 an hour. Not enough but a start. And we will hold him to those words. Mr. Trump said that wall street dangerous, doing bad things, he wants to reestablish glass spiegel legislation. I look forward to working with him. Mr. Trump said he wants six weeks of paid maternity leave. Well, every other major country on earth has i think at least 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave. But this is a start. This is a start. We look forward to working with him if he is honest about that. Mr. Trump said throughout his campaign, a cornerstone of his campaign, he wants to change our disastrous change policies. As someone who voted against every one of these trade policies, i look forward to working with him to make that happen. So i think what you will see on capitol hill is Many Democrats<\/a> will be prepared to work with mr. Trump if he turns out to be sincere about the promises he made during the campaign. If those promises turn out to be hollow, if they were nothing more than campaign rhetoric, we will not only oppose his economic policies, we will expose those that hypocracy as well. [applause] i ere is an area where and i think i can speak for virtually every member of the Democratic Caucus<\/a> will not be working with mr. Trump. We will not be involved in the expansion of bigotry, of racism, sexism, homophobia cheers and applause] this country, as you all know, since our inception has struggled to overcome discrimination of all forms. And that is racism and sexism and xenophobia and homophobia. For hundreds of years extraordinarily brave people have stood up and some of them have died in the struggle to end discrimination in america. And i say to mr. Trufrpbl from the bot mr. Trump from the bottom of my heart and i know i speak for millions of americans. Mr. Trump, we are not going backwards in terms of bigotry. We are going to go forward in creating a nondiscriminatory society. Upon that regard i call mr. Trump to resinned the appointment that he made of mr. Anen a president of the United States<\/a> should not have a racist at his side. Unacceptable. And there is another area which concerns me very much. And that is despite virtually all of the scientific evidence, mr. Trump throughout his campaign proclaimed that his view is that Climate Change<\/a> is a hoax created for whatever reason in china. Couldnt quite figure that out. Climate to mr. Trump, change is not a hoax. It is the great planetry crisis that we face. And that if we do not act boldly to transform our Energy System<\/a> away from fossil fuels to Energy Efficiency<\/a> and sustainable energy, the planet that we will be leaving to our children and our grandchildren and our great grandchildren will be far less healthy and habittable than the one that we have today. And this is an issue in which millions of americans and people all over the world this is not an american issue. This is a global issue. Because if the United States<\/a> backs down and gives up on the effort to combat Climate Change<\/a> all over the world china, russia, india, other countries are going to say what are we doing it . Why are we transforming our Energy System<\/a> . Americas not doing it. So millions have got to stand up and tell mr. Trump to read a little bit about science. [applause] to start listening to the Scientific Community<\/a> and not the ceos of the fossil fuel ndustry. Let me just before e. J. Comes out, let me just read a few words a couple of pages in order to get the discussion going from the very beginning, the introduction to the book. This is what i wrote. When we began our race for the presidency in april of 2015, we were considered by the political establishment and the media to be a fringe campaign, something not to be taken seriously. After all, i was a senator from a small state with very little name recognition. Our campaign had no money, no political organization, and we were taking on the entire dEmocratic Party<\/a> establishment and, by the way, we were also running against the most powerful political operation in the country,. The clinton machine had won the presidency for bill clinton twice and almost won the democratic president ial nomination for Hillary Clinton<\/a> in 2008. When our campaign finally came to a close in july 2016, it turned out that the pundits had got it wrong bigtime. We had made history and run one of the most consequential campaigns in the modern history of the country, a campaign that would in a very profound way change america. We seed more than 13 million votes in primaries and caucuses throughout the country. We won 22 states, more than a few by landslide proportions. We won 1846 pledge delegates to the democratic convention, 46 of the total. Importantly, in virtually every state we won a Strong Majority<\/a> of younger people, the future of america. We won large percentages of the vote from white, black, latino, asian american, and native american youth. We set the agenda for the america of tomorrow. Thank you. [cheers and applause] i love you, too. Its great to be here tonight. And also an event organized by politics and prose, which isnt just a book store but a Great Institution<\/a> in this city. It is, you might say if you are in a Bernie Sanders<\/a> crowd, a community organization. And what they do to organize public discussion and public debate is extraordinary. And i am just very happy to be here for that. But this is a grave and serious moment. Will get to this. Senator sanders and his book has really nice things to say about the media, about its tendency he is kidding. And its tendency to focus on side issues. But precisely because it is a grave moment and because you have written this book, senator, there are a few moments at the beginning of the book about yours that either that i didnt know and that i think people in the audience as they approach the book might be interested in knowing. I did not know, for example, that the boy scouts made your political career possible in a manner of speaking. And i just love you. I want to ask just a couple of things about your early life. I want to ask a couple of things about your early life. The boy scout story is quite wonderful. For every student athlete, i want you to know that Bernie Sanders<\/a> got cut from his High School Basketball<\/a> team. They were obviously influenced by the Corporate Media<\/a>, that coach. But you went on to become a rack star, a runner, and you i was curious. With this you have in common with president obama. Youre a democratic socialist, but you are a very competitive person. I would like you to talk about sort of those two experiences. And i have one other early Life Experience<\/a> before we get to the other questions. By the way, thank you all. I went through hundreds of questions back. You have asked excellent questions. I tried to lump some of them together in categories. And there are some i will ask specifically. But the boy scouts, bnl, running, and sports. I grew up in brooklyn, new york. Some of you have heard of brooklyn. [cheers and applause] and i grew up in a lower middle class neighborhood. I lived in a rent controlled apartment. Our family di not have a whole lot of money. And what i mentioned in the book, which i think had a profound impact on me and one way the world has changed not necessarily i think for the better. When we were kids, what we would do is we would go out into the street or into the school yards and we would play ball from morning to night. And we did it all ourselves. We didnt have any coaches, we didnt have any referees. We worked it all out. As i think about it in retro spesket, it turns out to have been a very democratic approach. Everybody knew you couldnt bull submit anybody else. You knew if you were the best ball player or the third best, everybody knew it. There was no argument about that. And we worked it out whether you were safe at second base or not, who brought the bat, who brought the ball, whether we were going to play football, punch ball, baseball. It was a means of young people without adult supervision working out thing soss they could play activity and fairly, choose up the teams, decide who wins or loses. If we are playing basketball, my team beats your team, your team quietly goes to the side, another team comes on, they beat me. We go off to the side. It was very much a democratic approach to how we do things. Now, what happened is our families didnt have a lot of money and in the summertime my parents would send my brother and me him earlier, he was older, to Boy Scout Camp<\/a> in new york. And we went up there and i said, my god, look at this. This is the country. There are stars in the night. Who knew that. And we slept in leantos, which were small structures without any doors. The mattresses that we had were literally hay put into sheets. It was a primenttive way of living but i loved it. I really did. That is my first introduction to yurel life and certainly influenced my decision early on to move to the state of vermont. By the way, senator sanders still remembers i quote the book i ran the mile in 4 37, fast enough for the third place for the new york city indoor mile championships. [cheers and applause] later in the book you talk about a group of organizations you joined when you were in college, and you talk about the Young People Socialist League<\/a>, Student Peace Union<\/a> and congress equality. You dont talk about why you joined the Young People Socialist League<\/a>. What was about it about democratic socialism at that moment when most americans did not think of themselves as democratic socialists . I guess not many do now but more than then. What made you join . You are asking a very profound question of which i cant answer. That is youre asking how do we turn out the way we turn out and why do we become the people we become. Ever since i was a little kid i really did not like to see bullies. I didnt like to see stronger kids picking on weaker kids. I didnt like discrimination. And i didnt like that. I didnt like power plays on the part of people who had the power. But that was just kind of instinctual. As a kid, i felt strongly about i ism and poverty and when went to the university of chicago i was not a good student but what i did do is spend an enormous amount of time down in the what they called the stacks of the library. Its a very good library. I would bury myself in there reading everything that i could read about history and politics and sociology and economics and psychology. I was not a terrible but i was not a good student, lets say that. But i did a whole lot of reading. But what the Young People Socialist League<\/a> did for me is help me put two and two together. In other words, we dont like poverty, racism, war, exploitation. What do they all have in common . And people say well, im against poverty. But why, for example, at a time when we were the wealthiest country in the history of the world why do we have 43 Million People<\/a> living in poverty . Why do we have such an unfair distribution of wealth and income . What does wealth and power mean . How does it influence politics . Money always played a dominant role, a very Important Role<\/a> in who gets elected now as a result of Citizens United<\/a> it is far worse. Who decide that had world war one would take place . Who even knows why we went to war in world war one . What was that about . Who makes these decisions . So what my studies tried to do is put two and two and two together. And that is why i kind of evolved through an analysis which tried to explain to me why what goes on in the world today and then. One other thing that i noticed in the book in personal terms is you come back to clothing a number of times. One of the first crisis you faced when you were elected mayor of burlington and i quote was purchasing clothing suitable to the mayor. At the time i didnt own a suit, just one or two cord roy sports jackets and a few ties. It wasnt my intention to become the bestdressed mayor in america or even to wear a tie all that often. I thought, however, that a little sprucing up wouldnt hurt. Overnight my ward robe doubled in size. You know, and thats absolutely true. For people of burlington, vermont, will attest to. But what was also true is a few years ago i had the distinction of being named by some inside the beltway magazine here to be the worstdressed member of the United States<\/a> senate. And all [applause] and all i can say, if you think badly dressed now, i like buttondown shirts myself. Let me move to the political a little bit. And this will move us to the questions. When you talk in the book about thinking of running for president , you have some interesting things to say about mrs. Clinton. On the one side you talk about an experience you had with her explaining her Health Care Program<\/a> and you write, she knew that plan backward and forward. She also answered questions flawlessly. 25 years later, this is when president clinton was trying to Pass Health Care<\/a> reform. 25 years later i still marvel at that performance. Yet you also are very critical of her on the same page. The clinton approach was to try to merge the interests of wall street and Corporate America<\/a> with the needs of the american middle class at impossible task. While the Clinton Administration<\/a> can boast some positive accomplishments, i supported bill clinton, there were major policy flaws. Tell me about after this is all over, what is your attitude toward the clintons, toward the politics, and toward mrs. Clinton at this at the end of this campaign . The section of the book you referred to was an event i went to at dartmouth medical school. D i was then in the congress and Hillary Clinton<\/a> was first lady and leading bill clinton, the administrations effort, for health care reform. I was able to hitch a ride on air force two with her and we chatted for a while and we went to dart muths dartmouth is only across the river from vermont. What blew me is away is she got up there and im guessing now, a long time ago but maybe for an hour she spoke without any notes whatsoever. No notes. On an enormously complicated program, which was their health care approach, which was too complicated. But she knew it all. My point was that she was the front person for the health care plan. She helped write it, she knew it, she answered questions flawlessly. That tells me that we have an extraordinarily intelligent person, and that was the memory then. And that hasnt changed. I have a lot of respect for Hillary Clinton<\/a>. Weve known each other for 25 years, got to know each other for better or worse a little bit more in the last yearandahalf. And she is a very impressive and i like her a lot. On the other hand, on the other hand, what is very clear is her politics and bill clintons politics are very different than mine. In terms of their policy views, and in terms of their understanding of how you change america. In terms of policy, it was the Clinton Administration<\/a> that brought forth nafta and i suspect had a democrat not been president at that time nafta would not have passed. I think that was a beginning of a series of disastrous trade agreements at the behest of corporations they wanted trade agreements. It was the Clinton Administration<\/a> that brought about the deregulation of wall street led by robert ruben formerly from city bank, i think, at that point. A major wall street force. And the point that im making is i happen to believe that at the end of the day politically you have to make a decision, and this is really the debate that we are going to have within the dEmocratic Party<\/a> right now. And that debate is which side are you on . Can you go out and raise substantial sums of money from the wealthy and wall street and other powerful special interests, and then convince the American People<\/a> that you are on the side of workers and the middle class . Or, do you finally have to say that we are going to take on the oligarks, we are going to take on wall street and the Drug Companies<\/a> and the insurance companies, and the Corporate Media<\/a>, and that we are going to bring millions of working people together to create a very different type of party, dEmocratic Party<\/a>, than currently exists . And that is a fundamental difference that exists between bill and Hillary Clinton<\/a> and myself. I was going to ask you this, the next question later but let me just put it to you now. Looking through the hundreds of questions, there were a number of people in the audience who basically talked about how the dEmocratic Party<\/a> had treated you unfairly, what were you going to do about that, what was going to happen to the party. And when some clinton supporters, just people knew i was doing this, they wanted me to ask you in a rather pointed way, do you think that what you did in the primaries hurt Hillary Clinton<\/a> . Im sure you saw it and didnt like it, the distinguished scholar poll in the New York Times<\/a> where she talked about your toldyouso message that youre giving now. Mr. Sanders refusele to concede in a timely way as Hillary Clinton<\/a> won many more million votes, his constant harping that she was corrupt further dangered mr. Trumps message and contributed to the con mans catastrophic victory. What do you say to those critics . Well, i say to those critics, number one, that you could argue the exact reverse. That maybe i would have been elected president of the United States<\/a> cheers and applause] but the presumption behind that question is that i guess we should anoint candidates for president. That a serious debate for candidates competing against each other is somehow a bad thing for democracy. The truth is, e. J. , my campaign brought millions of people in to the political process, many of whom i suspect the overwhelming majority of whom ended up voting for Hillary Clinton<\/a>. [applause] but the second point dealing with the first part of the question, you know, i think many people have read some of poddesta dia the emails that were released. And, you know, if you read those emails i think you learn that to say the very least the dnc was not a neutral force in the campaign. Thats to say the least. [applause] and that we had to take on and im proud of this. We had to take on the entire virtually the entire democratic establishment. So, you know, do i think our campaign in a sense made Hillary Clinton<\/a> a better candidate . Yeah, i do. And i will tell you why. Because by the end of the campaign, she was against the keystone pipeline, by the end of the campaign she was against the tpp. [applause] by the end of the campaign, she was supporting making public colleges and universities uition free. And i think those and other ideas that we incorporated into the democratic platform which is the most Progressive Party<\/a> platform in the history of this country i think all of that in fact made Hillary Clinton<\/a> a stronger candidate. Cheers and applause] by the way, i dont think the letter was saying you shouldnt rub. It was a cri run. It was a critique of what you did after the votes were counted. Apparently, people thought that california people in california and four other states on june 7th should not have a right to determine who they wanted to see as the democratic nominee. Im talking about after california. After california, this was my approach. My approach was to say i am fully prepared to support Hillary Clinton<\/a>. And by the way, very few people in this country were caught in Hillary Clinton<\/a> than i did. Lets be clear about that. But what i was also determined to do is to say to secretary clinton, ok, we got 13. 4 million votes. Obviously you want those votes. I understand that. And i want you to have those votes. But you know what . I want you to speak what many of those people told me during the campaign. They want to make public colleges and universities tuition free. They want to expand health care. They want you to be a more progressive candidate. And that in fact ended up happening and i think that was an asset and a positive thing for secretary clintons campaign. [applause] there were a number of questions about the media. And i will just read a paragraph from your book. According to a study of Media Coverage<\/a> of the 2016 primaries by the shornstein center on media politics and public policy, only 11 of coverage focused on leadership abilities and professional histories. I find that hard to believe. My personal sense is that number is much too high. A couple of things on that. Talk about your critique of the Corporate Media<\/a> and how does that fit in with the fact that donald trump has been waging a campaign on the media as allegedly liberal and is clearly trying to discredit, if you will, factually oriented media. How does your critique fit with trumps critique . Ok, well, it doesnt fit at all. I thought you might say that. But here is the issue. It is in fact, i think the title of the chapter is the Corporate Media<\/a> a threat to our democracy. This is serious stuff. And it is all the more serious because youre not going to see it discussed on television. It is not going to be. And it is not going to be in most newspapers. But heres what youve got. You have approximately six major media conzpwhom rats timewarner et cetera who now control about 90 of the what we call media, which means that a handful of giant conglomerates exercise enormous power over what the American People<\/a> see, hear, and read. And we have got to disabuse ourselves of the idea that nbc, cbs, and cnn and fox theyre objective. Theyre referees. Theyre going to give both sides of the story. The function of Corporate Media<\/a> and i hope i dont shock anybody is to make money. That is their job. They are a business. They make money. And in fact somebody like a donald trump and e. J. , correct me if im wrong. The head of cbs and cnn both said trump was great for them. Was outrageous, he said outrageous things. Put him on again. There is donald trump attacking somebody. Great tv. Now, we had the misfor tune of not being a campaign which believed that we should viciously attack our opponent. Ok . And i tried to run as positive a campaign as i could. [cheers and applause] and i also also believed that a campaign, what democracy is about, is taking a hard look at the real issues facing the country and Offering Solutions<\/a> for those problems. The problem is i could not do that in three seconds. And the problem is that is not what media is interested in. Getting back to what ej jut read. And what he read is that study after study tells us most of Television Coverage<\/a> is attacks. All right . And that works very well for television. How much discussion this blew me away and this is in the book. I quoted some guy who did a study. And this is what the study said. The study said they looked at television over a period of time and they wanted to see how much discussion there was of poverty on television. I think it was the evening news. The evening news or sunday news shows. I cant remember. It turns out that two thirds of the entire discussion of poverty was based on things that i said. Now, that is pretty pathetic. That one candidate does two thirds of the discussion about one of the most important issues facing this country. Do you know how much discussion there is about Climate Change<\/a> on the evening news . Virtually none. Do you know how much discussion there is about comparing the American Health<\/a> care system to what goes on around the rest rest of the industrialized world where every country guarantees health care to all people . Virtually none. So the point about my critique was not that the media hates me and all that stuff. That wasnt the point. The point was that in a democracy we need serious discussion about serious issues. And that is not what the Corporate Media<\/a> is giving us. Cheers and applause] now, trumps problem is what the media was discovering was a he was a pathological liar. And i dont say that im not i Many Republican<\/a> friends, and we disagree. But every day this guy would Say Something<\/a> that was completely awful. He was the only person muslims celebrating the destruction of the 2012, nobody else in america saw that on television. He is absolutely convinced he saw that and on and on it goes. He media had a hard time trying to say, it is not quite true that he would take offense to that. A very different critique than mine. E. J. i am looking for a question that someone as, i ked, a followup of what in the heck happened. Or a third grader asked, why did so many people vote for trump if thats the case . Senator sanders i tried to cover that in my earlier remarks. I will have to be clear. There are people in america who are racist, there are people in america who are sexist, uglyhobic, who sought and remarks made by mr. Trump somebody they felt comfortable with. Let me say that i believe those people are a very small minority of the people who voted for mr. Trump. As i said earlier, what trump tapped is the sentiment of there are millions of working class people north miami by the media, totally ignored by the establishment. Workingclass people totally ignored by the media, totally ignored by the establishment. In many parts of the country, working people, workingclass people are seeing a decline in life expectancy. Have you seen this . Orical way, People Living<\/a> shorter lives than their parents because of the despair that leads them to drug, alcohol and suicide. People are hurting. They are worried about their children. They are making 10 or 12 an and and not going anyplace they are worried their children will do even worse. Willare worried about what happen when they are old. Trump said i hear you. And i alone can improve your life. A lot of people gave up on the dEmocratic Party<\/a> in terms of standing up for working people and they said i will go with this guy. We should not forget this trump enters the white house as in thist popular person position in the history of this country. Think everybody agrees with his sexist remarks, caps on women, racist remarks. That is not the case. There are a lot of people on death of dust desperation saying, i am hurting out of desperation saying i am hurting. I will give this guy a chance. [applause] i always thought that study explains a lot about this election and the authors referred to them as despair. I want to lump three ideas together. I have to give a shout out ever give me if i get get your name wrong. The reason i give her a shout out is today is her 21st birthday. [cheers and applause] happy hourhe skipped where she couldve had her first legal drink and she asked a question. I will read it the way she put it because i thought it was a lovely question. I want to link it to several others. There are so many people say yuppie bar activists because they are millennials at think it is cool, how did you come back to this when you were 21 . What advice would you give to us . Then there were a whole stream of questions about what do we do now about the election of donald trump. And to those two and i want to opinion my own, you talked about how you look forward to working with trump on a series of issues. Then you criticized him for naming steve bannon and his racism. As you know, a very strong fear in the Progressive Community<\/a> of normalizing trump at all. A real fear of authoritarian streak, a really courageous russian dissident but a powerful piece last week about autocracy and how autocrats very slowly make us think the abnormal is normal and before you know what, your rights are gone. Harry reid has been vocal in that needs torump gain our confidence. How is working with him fit with the need to resist normalizing this . What do you tell megan and all the people out there who asked what do we do . Let me sanders umm follow up with megan and say as i try to adjust early on. Every person out here is enormously powerful if you are prepared to use your power. And as at end of democracy, we are strong when people stand up and fight back. And we are weak when we do not do that. What i say to megan and everybody here and everybody in majority of, the the people in this nation are not racist, they are not sexist, they are not homophobic. If we stand together, mr. Trump will not be up to implement policies that are racist, sexist , homophobic. Second of all, i think what we ought to recognize and what trumps success was about and the media and people inside the beltway do not understand is there are millions of people hurting. What we will say to mr. Trump, you told us and the campaign you will take on wall street, but now a lot of wall street advisers are flocking to your campaign. Will you be a hypocrite or have the guts to do the right thing . Would rebuild the infrastructure and create millions of jobs. When he comes up with ideas that make sense for working people, we should be working with him. When he is racist and sexist and homophobic and islamophobe, we are going to be vigorously in opposition. , there ismate change no compromise. We have to mobilize the American People<\/a>. [cheers and applause] , there is this gets back to transforming the dEmocratic Party<\/a>, ordinary people have got to know that the dEmocratic Party<\/a> has the guts to stand up to some very powerful people today whose greed is destroying the middle class and working class of this country. , i do notot do that see much of a future for the dEmocratic Party<\/a>. [applause] e. J. i just want to pass along a thought for a canadian. The canadian mp is looking for a new leader, can you propose yourself . I will put that aside. I liked internship with . And a phone number. [laughter] there were a lot of questions about what democrats should do about the Supreme Court<\/a> vacancy. A great writer on the court said democrats should on principle oppose any nominee that trump makes because it is illegitimate given the blocking of america garland. It garland. Merr what will democrats do now the you are in leadership . [applause] senator sanders i can only speak for myself. It makes a very good point. The Republican Party<\/a> has been extraordinarily arrogant in recent years. They would not even hold a hearing for garland Crystal Clear<\/a> that our constitution provides for the president to nominate an individual to become Supreme Court<\/a> to justice. And in the senate holds hearings and goes about its business on whether or not they want to approve the individual. The republicans refuse to abide by the constitution. And i think if the republicans think we will bring forth our person and we expect you to go along with quick hearings and to vote for this person, to say the least, they have another thing they better think twice about that. [cheers and applause] , ittor sanders but, e. J. Is obviously terribly important what happens in the senate and the house. It is far, far more important what happens after the Grassroots Level<\/a> in this country. I was saying today, part of the leadership and my title is to be head of outreach efforts and that is something i take very seriously. I think, again, whether the Supreme Court<\/a> or the fight against bigotry or for Climate Change<\/a>, our job is to bring millions of people together. Republicans are many things. They are not dumb especially with regard to young people. If they see millions of young people demanding action on , demanding that our Energy System<\/a> be transformed. People sayingung we do not want to leave college 100,000 in debt. If young people are prepared to stand up and working class people to demand a minimum wage that is a living wage. If were all prepared to stand up to demand pay equity for women to fight for a womans right to choose and millions of us [cheers and applause] senator sanders it is no secret , republicans controlled the presidency and the house and the ofate, almost 2 3 legislatures around the country. Our job is to take politics outside of capitol hill and that is to mobilize people. Republicans, Mitch Mcconnell<\/a>, paul ryan, these are not dummies. If they look around and say were about to lose an entire generation of young people, we better move. We better become more reasonable and our approach. I believe we can do that. Our job is to mobilize people to stand up and fight back. You all berniek sanders style question. You have spoken about the corruption in the political system, the power of political money. Young people have voted against electionss for three in a row. People have mobilized on climate control. They have not moved at all. How can this penetrate and it goes to a series of question on between protest politics and protest movements against the donald trump and other forms of Political Action<\/a> . How do you answer that but cause is what you say is true, there should have been some movement from the republicans quite a while ago. Senator sanders the political difficulty that we have and it frightens me very, very much and should frighten every american rapidly losing our American Democratic<\/a> traditions. And by that, we have town Hall Meetings<\/a> and people come out a yell at each other. One person, one vote and democracy wins. As the Supreme Court<\/a> decision is the ability of billionaires to buy elections. Let me be let me be very clear about this Mitch Mcconnell<\/a> and Many Republican<\/a>s believe that Citizens United<\/a> did not go far enough. They believe we should end all Campaign Finance<\/a> restrictions. And that billionaires should be able to give directly, not independent expenditures. If you want to run, the koch isthers will say, e. J. , here 1 billion and we will support your campaign for presidency and we will give you your staff. You work for us. You are a paid employee of the koch brothers. That is number one. And number two, wafted deal with Voter Suppression<\/a> all we have to deal with Voter Suppression<\/a> all over this country. [cheers and applause] i just spokers with the Jesse Jackson<\/a> today and he is deeply concerned about what is going on in North Carolina<\/a> and elsewhere were intentional efforts, as you all know, by republican governors and attorney generals to make a harder for people of color, poor people, young people, old people to vote. We have a lot of work on our end. It is not easy stuff and is not easy to say i went to a demonstration and the world to did not change, i am giving up. Put yourself into a historical context. Struggles, 100 plus years ago that workers went through in order to gain a dignity on the job and form unions. Think about what women went through for a very long period of time and order to get the right to vote in order to get the right to have an education or the jobs they wanted. Some of those women died in the struggle, some went on hunger strikes, some ended up in jail. Thek about the struggles of dead community. How many decades and decades they fought with their straight allies in order to make sure people have the right to marry someone regardless of their gender. Change does not include lake easily. We are in a struggle. Does not come easily. And against powerful people who want it all. That is the bad news. The good news is there is a hell of a lot more of us than of them. We have [cheers and applause] e. J. there were two questions that i thought a lot of people in the audience might be interested in hearing you answer. One front wheel is, what do you think of larry david and how he plays you . And the other from elizabeth who asks, if you were stuck on a Desert Island<\/a> with three politicians, who would you pick . If you would want to be stuck on a Desert Island<\/a> with three politicians. Larry david in that question. Senator sanders umm [laughter] i am larry david. [cheers and applause] i fooledanders and you sanders is back in vermont and i am here and you fell for it. E. J. i have always wanted to meet larry david. I will tell you Something Else<\/a> about television, go on saturday night live and all of a sudden people know you who did not. Larry david is a brilliant comedian. A brilliant guy. A little bit scary watching him do me. He does me better than i do me. Question,f the second one of the before i ran for mayor of burlington, i was doing i did a video. What iwanted to do and wouldve done if i was not elected mayor to try to talk about political figures in our history who have been wiped out of history. The media does not talk about very much. And Extraordinary People<\/a> throughout our history who have done remarkable, courageous things we do not know about. I did a video about one of the great people in American History<\/a> named eugene. [cheers and applause] senator sanders i would be surprised if 10 of the American People<\/a> knew who he was. ,et, he was one of the original great leaders of the american working class, helped form the get smalleron and unions into one. Developed a program and he read for president on the socialist party six times, including once from a jail cell because he opposed world war i and was sent to jail and he got one million votes from a jail cell. I think from a historical perspective, he was an extraordinary man and i won not him,spending time with preferably a warm island. The other person i think everybody has heard of but does not fully appreciate his strategy in his Martin Luther<\/a> king jr. What the media what the media has done with king over the years is say this guy was a brave guy, a great guy and he helped to break down segregation to bring the help Voting Rights<\/a> act and was really, really great. What they do not tell you and what they kind of try to rates from history is i hope all of you know is that when king was assassinated, he was not on a civil rights demonstration. He was out helping garbage tennessee memphis, who were really working for terrible wages and terrible working conditions. Process of in the forming and putting together a poor peoples march, which was blacks and whites and native americans and latinos. Poor people. Demanding changes in National Status<\/a> spending unlimited sums of money on the military making sure people had health care and educational opportunities. The point i am trying to make if you read kings life, you understand he was extraordinarily courageous and standing up to the establishment. Wanted fortablishing him is you are a great civil rights leader and he said thank you but no thank you. I am going to oppose the war in vietnam, they do not want to hear that. He said i think we need to change our National Priorities<\/a> and take on the wealthy and the powerful, they do not want to hear back. This was a man of great magnitude and somebody i would not mind spending time with. They did not want to hear that. Make all the you russian intervention in this election and the fbi in this rich and and the fbi intervention . Senator sanders i do not want to speak about more than i know. I can believe what i said Hillary Clinton<\/a> said at the other day is true. It hurts her at the end of the campaign, no doubt. It hurt her once and twice, a few days before the election they decided there was nothing new in the emails they perus. Perused. It is of this whole situation of cyber security. The russians, we think, have done raises this unbelievable issue of whether or not anything we have all line is in fact private and secure. That is an extraordinary thought for your medical thoughts basicedical records, your banking accounts and emails that you ever sent out. We really need legislation to catch up with his exploding technology to ensure privacy for the American People<\/a>. [cheers and applause] e. J. other issue questions that came up a lot. One, we are not and neither is surprising. What can be done about the Electoral College<\/a> and about gerrymandering. And the other is, how can obamacare be defended and ultimately expanded . That was the theme of a lot of questions. Senator sanders i will start with the second. Some of my democratic friends will be in disagreement. I voted for the Affordable Care<\/a> , andsocalled obamacare got a major provisions which expanded Community Health<\/a> centers for many millions of people. After the end of the day, what we have to say is the question we have to ask ourselves on health care is a Pretty Simple<\/a> question how does it happen we are the only major country on our not a guarantee health care for all people as a right . Despite 28 happen Million People<\/a> having no insurance and many others underinsured, we end up spending far more per capita on health care . And how does our Health Care Outcomes<\/a> are not a better than other countries . We have a Health Care System<\/a> that is basically dysfunctional. I happen to believe we needed to move toward a medicare for all singlepayer program. [applause] senator sanders in terms of the Electoral College<\/a>, as we all know, Electoral College<\/a>. Hillary clinton got maybe 2 million more votes than mr. Trump but she is not going to be the president of the United States<\/a>. Other surface, it does not seem to make a lot of sense and a democratic society. But on top of that, you have the absurdity and i can tell you firsthand that this entire campaign was played out in 15 or 16 states. The assumption is, california, vermont, democratic. Wyoming and south the dakota are republican. We do not have to Pay Attention<\/a> to the needs of the peoples and those states. People in wyoming do not get any candidates coming. California is the largest day and is ignored politically and their needs are ignored. I think we have to rethink the whole Electoral College<\/a> very we should not have a campaign where states are ignored. Every vote matters. The vote in california, wyoming. Candidates should have to go after everyone and that would create a better democracy than what we have right now. [cheers and applause] e. J. . You have two more. We could go on forever. We have time for two more questions. E. J. i will give the last one. Just knowing i am going to ask one question from the pack and one on my own. Ongoes back to what we hit all the way through here. I am personally speaking for myself. It is more important than ever that everybody stays engaged in politics. We really need you now. [cheers and applause] e. J. shortterm, i wanted i want you to give people advise on how to act between now and the inauguration and how to make a lasting movement. I thought i had to ask this last question, are you going to run in 2020 . [cheers and applause] senator sanders i think what appeared to be a never ending campaign in 2016, the last thing the American People<\/a> are worried about who was going to run in 2020. E. J. it is right here on this card. [laughter] senator sanders the first question is the more important. What do we do . His is what i think we do we make it clear that as a forle, we will not accept one second bigotry of any kind, racism, sexism, islamophobia, xenophobia. We are not going to sit by why a handful of people decide to destroy families and deport millions of people. We are now going to send by and allow those things to get data sit by and allow those things to happen. Rebuilding ae with the middleclass transforming our Energy System<\/a>, we have got to mobilize people around progressive politics. Here is the good news the good news right now is that the vast majority of the American People<\/a>, not to the republican leadership, the vast majority of American People<\/a> believe we should raise the minimum wage to a living wage. When we mobilize millions of peoples to make the white house and leadership of the house and senate understand that, it becomes active their peril to ignore that reality. Climate change is a tougher issue because trump campaigned in opposition to transforming our Energy System<\/a>. This is an issue we are going to have to mobilize like crazy. My view, theis, in future of the planet is at stake and we must transform our Energy System<\/a>. [cheers and applause] e. J. thank you, senator sanders and thanks to this extraordinary crowded. Never surrender to indifference and Never Surrender<\/a> to fear. Thank you all for being her tonight. For being here tonight. [cheers and applause] [captions Copyright National<\/a> cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer former president ial candidate Hillary Clinton<\/a> was in the where she was recognized by the Childrens Defense Fund<\/a> for her dedication to Child Advocacy<\/a>. It was her first public appearance since conceding the president ial race last week to donald trump. Providing introductory remarks is Childrens Defense Fund<\/a> founder and president Marion Wright<\/a> edelman. This half an hour. [applause] i am so glad you came out celebrate these five extraordinary young people. You will hear their stories. ,roy johnson, bethany, carlos antigenic. I am so proud of these young people who have lived through things most of us would not be achieving atand extraordinary levels. Thank you for coming out. We are here tonight to celebrate a great child advocate and a great friend and to have a love in for our dear friend, Hillary Rodham<\/a> clinton. [cheers and applause] marian i am so proud of her in so many ways. I have probably known of her longer than anybody was not her sibling are growing up with her chicago. I have known her longer than bill clinton has known her. We really go back a long way. She has made such a difference in the lives of the Childrens Defense Fund<\/a> and of our child ay movement. I first heard of her when she hit Time Magazine<\/a> challenging the democratic senator from massachusetts on his cold war stance from vietnam so we called her up, peter and i, to come to the league of women voters conference in ohio and that was the beginning of a long friendship. I went up to speak there and she came up to me after incident of to work for you i said you can work but i will not pay you have to find your own money but she did. I have always appreciated her for that. And always did whatever was necessary. At an internship, she went to the academy down south and then she went to look at the conditions of children living in migrant camps and she did that and when she got out of law school she said, i would like to come work. We were just then forming the project you know, how badly we pay you but she came to cambridge as the staff attorney with our First Mission<\/a> to figure out if this was a national problem. We saw there routinely in not enrolled in English Schools<\/a> 750,000 were not telling us why they were out of school. So we knocked on thousands of doors and you have to go behind the data to knock on doors and get to know them. Now those children between seven and 13 as well as that large portion for disabled children so that was the first big legislative victory that hillary was knocking on the doors. But then she says to my shock that she was going down to arkansas. She was going to go to arkansas with this fellow i had never heard of erie she did. And she went to fund a local Child Advocacy<\/a> group. She stuck with that. She became the chair of the board of trustees and then chairwoman and then when she became first lady, she resigned from the board. I have loved the staying power, the persistence of her commitment that she is reflected for children and families all of her adult life and i am very grateful. [applause] marian and i have loved her since 1992 and she came to washington with president bill clinton and the first thing they did was beat the odds to celebrate young people like those tonight who have been beating the odds. As first lady, began to Work Together<\/a> on immunizations and chip and all the things our children need to get ready for school. 2000 and 2008 the first formulator after she went through a stint in the white house to run for Political Office<\/a> in new york and she won that seat in new york. And was the junior United States<\/a> senator by a landslide and she was a very good senator. In 2008, she becomes the first woman to launch a Major Campaign<\/a> for president of the United States<\/a> in a hardfought primary. Senator barack obama prevails but in 2009 and he appointed 2012, Hillary Rodham<\/a> clinton secretary said she became the first former first lady to serve in a cabinet position. 2016, Hillary Rodham<\/a> clinton becomes the first woman to win the nomination of a major party for president of the United States<\/a> of america. [applause] marian and to win the popular vote. [applause] marian so we are going to say she is the peoples president. [applause] marian and as of the most recent count, 1,221,480 have said she is our president and she is our president. [applause] marian and i wanted to thank her because my two granddaughters are here tonight and because of all the paths she has paved for them, one day soon, your daughter and my. Is not granddaughters are going to sit in that oval office and we Hillary Oliver<\/a> Rodham Clinton<\/a> for that. Comeelighted to have her and share this evening and let her know that we love her and that we appreciate all the hard work she is done. And to say its not going to be for naught and she is a prisoner for the future. Hillary . [cheers and applause] secretary clinton thank you. [cheers and applause] secretary clinton it is so wonderful to be here with all of you on behalf of the Childrens Defense Fund<\/a>. I was listening backstage as marian went through the 45 years that we have known each other and even reminded me of some things that i had not recalled, namely that this event was the very first event that my husband and i went to after he was was elected president. And so its especially poignant and meaningful to me to be here again with all of you. I want to start by congratulating the terrific young people that we are celebrating tonight. [applause] secretary clinton you will hear more about each of them because each has faced painful challenges, violence and poverty, abandonment but they never gave up. They never stopped reaching, never stop dreaming and yes they have beaten the odds. They call troy the little poet who could. He is an artist on the Basketball Court<\/a> and a flourishing writer in the classroom and he dreams of becoming a filmmaker. Bethany lived in one foster home after another but with the help of a wonderful teacher and her own determination, she is thriving and hopes to become a doctor so she can care for others. Carlos left a difficult childhood in guatemala, made it to america all by himself. Then he took a second journey, making it all the way to college where he is studying to become an engineer. Janets secret weapon is her beautiful voice and her musical talent. Music has helped her overcome every obstacle that life has thrown in her path. And persevered to domestic through Domestic Violence<\/a> at home and bullying at school. She has found her voice producing a Student Television<\/a> show at school and now she has set her sights on becoming a journalist. These fearless, generous openhearted, determined young people represent a rising generation that should give us all much hope for the future. And they represent the continuing commitment of the Childrens Defense Fund<\/a> and Marian Wright<\/a> edelman. Now i will admit, coming here tonight wasnt the easiest thing for me. There have been a few times this past week when all i wanted to do was just to curl up with a good book or our dogs and never leave the house again. But, if there is anyone who knows how to pick yourself up and get back on your feet and get to work, it is marian. [applause] secretary clinton she has been doing it all her life and she has been helping the rest of us do it too. I am as inspired by marian today as i was the first time i met her 45 years ago. And she told the story, i was a young law student, i had lots of hopes and expectations about what a law degree would enable me to do. I had the words of my methodist faith ringing in my ears do all the good you can from the people you can and all the ways you can whenever you can. She was the crusading legal activist, also a graduate of Yale Law School<\/a> and she was translating her faith into a life devoted to children, service and social justice. Observing that being part of that is one of the greatest gifts anyone has ever given me. I often thought about marians journey about the stony road she walked, and how she never lost her faith and kept her eyes on i think of her taking the bar exam in mississippi, the first black woman ever to do so and then opening offices for the naacp and a Head Start Program<\/a> for children who desperately needed it. I think of her with Robert Kennedy<\/a> in a tiny shack in the delta opening his eyes to the realities of poverty in america. I think of her with dr. Martin luther king jr. Starting the Poor Peoples Campaign<\/a> and dreaming of an america of equality and opportunity. You have to look at marians life and ask, how did she beat the odds when so many gave up the hopes in those early days. For marian it has always been about children and families. Thats what matters and thats what has kept her going, helping to open Public Schools<\/a> to children with disabilities in the 1970s and effort i was honored to be part of, working to expand medicaid in the 1980s to cover more pregnant women and more children in need. Standing with me and others in the 1990s to create the Childrens Health<\/a> insurance program, improve foster care and create early head start, fighting in recent years to build a bipartisan movement to dismantle the schools to prison pipeline and reform our criminal Justice System<\/a> especially for juveniles and spending countless hours mentoring and training the next generation of leaders and activists. Under marians leadership, the Childrens Defense Fund<\/a> works to give every child a healthy start, a head start, a fair start, a safe start and a moral start in life. I cannot think of a more noble or necessary mission. No matter what the setbacks, she has always believed in the words of dr. King often repeated by president obama, and the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. Now sometimes it can feel awfully long, believe me i know, but i also know it does bend. It bends towards justice because people like marian and so many of you, and their people in this audience ive had the privilege of working with and admire for so many decades, and you refuse to stop pushing and when you get knocked down, you get back up. I often quote marian when she says that service is the rent we pay for living. You dont get to stop paying rent just because things dont go your way. I know many of you are deeply disappointed about the results of the election. I am too, more than i can ever express but as i said last week, our campaign was never about one person or even one election. It was about the country we love and about building an america that is hopeful, inclusive and i didnt get into Public Service<\/a> to hold high office. [applause] secretary clinton 45 years ago that would have seemed an absolute incredibly wrong headed view but i did decide to be an activist and use my law degree to help kids. Every child deserves to have the opportunity to live up to his or her godgiven potential and i believe the measure of any society is how we treat our children. As we move forward into a new and in many ways uncertain future, i think that must be the task for america and ourselves. Despite the progress, and we have made progress under president obama, more than 31 million children still live at or near poverty in america. And i hoped to have had the opportunity to build on the progress that president obama has made because i know that we are stronger together when we are lifting each other up. Lets be clear, when i talk about children in or near poverty, this isnt someone elses problem. These arent someone elses children. This is americas problem because they are americas children. Child poverty isnt just an urban challenge or a black or latino challenge, although children of color continue to suffer disproportionately from high rates of poverty, but make no mistake, there are poor children of every race and ethnicity. Three out of every 10 white children in america are at or near poverty. That is more than 11 million kids. When you add in 11 million latino children, more than 6 million black children, 1. 5 million asian and American Indian<\/a> children, nearly 2 million children of two or more races, the scope and scale of this challenge becomes clear. Poor children live in every state and in every congressional district, so they deserve the attention and efforts of every one of our representatives and leaders. The measure of success must be how many children and families climb out of poverty and reach the middle class . We know what works to support kids and give them opportunities to succeed. Parents need goodpaying jobs, affordable, Quality Health<\/a> care and childcare, to have helped balancing the demands of work and family. Communities need investments that lift families up, not neglect them and let them fall further behind. There are millions of children who will go to School Tomorrow<\/a> in classrooms with crumbling ceilings, empty bookshelves and walls covered with mold. There are children in places like flint, michigan Drinking Water<\/a> poisoned by lead and children all over our country face the daily danger of gun violence. We have to ask ourselves, what are we doing to give them the safe and healthy lives they deserve . There are also children who are afraid today like the little girl i met in nevada who started to cry when she told me how scared she was that her parents would be taken away from her and be deported. No child should have to live with fear like that. No child should be afraid to go to school because they are latino or africanamerican or muslim or because they have a disability. We should protect our children and help them love themselves and love others. [applause] secretary clinton so there is a lot of work to do as long as any child in america lives in poverty, as long as any child in america lives in fear, as long as any child, not just here but in the world faces these challenges, there is work to do. Girls as well as boys in every country on every continent deserve that chance to fulfill their own potential. And it is going to take all of us doing our part. I wrote a book 20 years ago called it takes a village. A lot of people asked, what the heck do you mean by back . That . I meant what was understood from the beginning, none of us can raise a family, build a business, lift a community or lift the country by ourselves. We have to do it together. So i urge you please dont give up on the values we share. Look at the young people we are honoring tonight. If they can persevere, so must all of us and if marian has taught us anything, it is there are so many ways to make a difference. Organizations like cdf have never been more important. Businesses, philanthropists, foundations, congregations of every faith have to step up too as there is work to be done in every community, debates to be joined in city halls and state capitols and even if it may not seem like it right now, there is Common Ground<\/a> to build on. A lot of governors and legislators and mayors are pioneering new ways to support parents and provide children with Early Learning<\/a> in red states as well as blue states. Many of our most important accomplishments for the wellbeing of children and families have come from both parties working together like the Childrens Health<\/a> insurance program. That could never have happened without republican leaders. Now it covers 8 million kids and even in this president ial campaign, for the first time ever, a broad consensus emerged about the importance of affordable, Quality Childcare<\/a> and paid family leave. [applause] secretary clinton so we have work to do and for the sake of our children and our families and our country, i ask you to stay engaged, stay engaged on every level. We need you. America needs you. Your energy, your ambitions and your talent. Thats how we get through this. Thats how we help to make our contributions to bend the arc of the moral universe poured toward justice. I know this is an easy, i know that over the past week a lot of people have asked themselves whether america is the country we thought it was. The divisions laid bare by this election run deep but please listen to me when i say this. America is worth it. Our children are worth it. Believe in our country, fight for our values and never, ever give up because over the past two years i have met so many people who reaffirmed my faith in our country, all kinds of people. Young people starting businesses, people working in every way they could to make the world a better place, Police Officers<\/a> who put their lives on the line, members of community who work with the police to try to keep everybody safe, immigrants who worked so hard to become citizens and so many people who work long hours caring for children and elderly even when the pay is not enough to support their own families. I met and had the chance to work and travel with mothers who lost children and turned around and started a movement for peace and justice. A pastor in South Carolina<\/a> shared his bible with me open to first corinthians. Love never fails that tells us and i believe that. Way back when i was in college, and i gave the commencement speech, i said to my classmates then that our goal should be to make what appears to be impossible, possible. I may be older now, a mother and a grandmother. I have seen my share of ups and downs but i still believe that we can make the impossible possible. [applause] secretary clinton i will hope that the stories of the people we are honoring tonight, marians story, all that she is achieved, the childrens defense defense fund has often made the impossible possible. And then finally as some of you heard me say during the campaign, i draw hope and sustenance from another person who influenced my life instilled does every day, my mother. I have talked about her difficult childhood. She was abandoned by her parents when she was just eight years old. They put her on a train to california all by herself in charge of her little sister who was three years younger. She ended up in california where she was mistreated by her grandparents, ended up on her own working as a housemaid. She beat the odds. She found a way to offer me the boundless love and support she never received herself. I think about her every day and sometimes i think about her on that train. I wish i could walk down the aisle and find the little wooden seat where she sat, Holding Tight<\/a> to her younger sister all alone and terrified. She doesnt yet know how much more she will have to face and even suffer. She doesnt yet know she will find the strength to escape that suffering. That is still years off. Her whole future is unknown, as it is for all of us as she stares out at the vast country moving past her. And i dream of going up to her and sitting next to her and taking her in my arms and saying look, look at me and listen. You will survive, you will have a family of your own, three children and as hard as it might be to imagine, your daughter will grow up to be a United States<\/a> senator who represents our country as secretary of state and win more than 62 million votes for president of the United States<\/a>. [applause] secretary clinton now i cant and you cant go back in time and hug all those children that preceded us but we can do that now. We can reach out to make sure every child has a champion because i am as sure of this is as anything i have ever known. America is still the greatest country in the world. This is still the place where anyone can beat the odds. Its up to each and every one of us to keep working to make america a better and stronger and fairer. Thank you. God bless you and god bless the work of the Childrens Defense Fund<\/a>. [cheers and applause] announcer cspan where history unfolds the daily. In 19 79, cspan was created as a Public Service<\/a> by americans Cable Television<\/a> companies and is brought to you buyer cable or satellite provider. Announcer here on cspan, washington journal is next. , the house gavels in for legislative business. On the agenda, a bill that would andent new regulations for a measure that would ban the u. S. Financial institutions from participating in an aircraft to sell to iran. Washington journal, we will discuss the 2016 election and the congressional agenda with two members of congress. First, republican representative Thomas Massie<\/a> of kentucky. He will discuss how the gop plans to work with a Trump Administration<\/a> and what key issues remain in the lameduck session. And later, democratic congresswoman marcy kaptur of ohio talks about her states role and we believe we need major reform of the dEmocratic Party<\/a>. Senator Bernie Sanders<\/a> last night speaks out in washington on democrats to pave a new path forward. Many in the party are doing new leadership needed to send a new message, many of whom supported president obamas election but earlier this month voted for democrats voted for donald trump. Do you agree, is a new direction needed for the party back of for the party","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia601903.us.archive.org\/23\/items\/CSPAN_20161117_080000_Public_Affairs_Events\/CSPAN_20161117_080000_Public_Affairs_Events.thumbs\/CSPAN_20161117_080000_Public_Affairs_Events_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240626T12:35:10+00:00"}