On this weekends newsmakers, republican senator john hoeven of north dakota is our guest. He is responsible for a bill currently in the senate that would authorize the construction of the keystone xl pipeline. The present president has been quite critical of the pipeline. He has been saying that the jobs are temporary, and therefore not as good as perhaps some other broader infrastructure jobs. He has said that it will not lower gasoline prices. What i want to hear from you is what you think of these negative comments . Do you think it signals that he will reject this pipeline . We have addressed every one of those criticisms. We actually use it own administrations Environmental Impact assessments. The reasons that he is not approving the project is really hard why he does not make a decision. If he is opposed to it, why we still sitting here six years later and he has not done it . When you have poll after poll showing that 65 , to 75 of the public support the project, and you have a bipartisan support in the house and senate, why does he still not make a decision . Yyou can see the entire interview with north dakota senator john hoeven tomorrow on c span. The keystone bill remains on the agenda for the senate when it dabbles in on tuesday. Sanders will consider amendments to the legislation, with votes possible later in the day. The house is also back in session on tuesday. No votes are scheduled to take place that day. The houseboats at noon eastern and will recess by 5 30 pm in preparation for president obamas state of the union address. As always, you can watch the house live on c span and the senate on c span 2. Tuesday night, president obama will deliver his state of the union address. Live coverage starts at 8 00 eastern. Your reaction via open phones. On c span 2, watch the president psand the president s speech and the reaction. Just a few days away from the state of the union address, the white house today revealed the names of those who will join the first lady as guests. They include carolyn reid who owns a Sandwich Shop in chicago. Victor fugate, and also Staff Sergeant jason gibson, aand dallas resident, and that dallas resident, ana zamora. You can read more about those guest on the white house website. Next, the u. S. Chamber of commerce will discuss immigration, Cyber Security, and the next president ial race. Thank you very much for your patience and for coming today. I am tom donohue, present of the chamber. Just a few minutes ago, i delivered our annual look at the economy, and business, and what we might expect from others, and what you can expect from us this year. If you missed it, there is a copy of the speech that they are giving you. As is always the case but not last year because he was in the hospital our executive Vice President , a number of our senior advisers are here that handle many of the subjects they are over there. You can catch them all after your questions and pursue some of the issues and more that. As i said in the speech, the changer believes that the economy is gaining momentum. We expect growth to be in the 3 to 3. 5 range at least until the middle of the year. When we look beyond that, beyond the near term, ballot is uncertain. Businesses face a host of challenges and uncertainties including economic weakness abroad which is very significant. New Cyber Security threats, among others. What things are improving, the current policies of taxing and regulating are not cutting it. In fact, we have eroded our economys long term potential for growth because the summary factors. Instead of taking a victory lap, the administration, the congress, and all of us have to heed to the lesson of the last election. Work together to advance jobs and growth, and raise americans take home pay. Divided government is not an excuse to do nothing, it is an opportunity to Work Together. It is to everyones benefit. We know will not be easy, but there are good people in congress, and hopefully the present tending to his long term legacy, we think we will get things done. Our agenda is simple. What we are asking leaders to do in 2015 is to rally around a common bipartisan cause Stronger Economic growth in order to create jobs and expand opportunities for all americans. The chamber will be pursuing three things to help you achieve that. First, aggressively advance our jobs growth and opportunity agenda that capitalizes on the extraordinary potential that we have in trade, energy, and infrastructure. Second, we will build support for government reform agenda. This is not in an individual reform it is how we use growth, regulatory process, tax growth, the legal system, and, very importantly, our public schools. Third, the chamber will figure us the defend a set of fundamentally American Values that define who we are as a people the right to speak, the right to participate in a Free Enterprise system where you can take a risk, work hard, and achieve your dreams. We should all be concerned by the steady erosion of these rights and freedoms on a federal and state level. Most of all, we will fight to preserve the spirit of enterprise in america. This is the real economic populist we are all segments economic populism, well, we have a set of economic populism that we really believe in. It is reflected in the 28 million businesses of all sizes in this country. Americas enterprise system is not perfect, but it is built on the most successful economy in the history of the world. It has been built from the bottom up. This is the populism that really works. Last two thoughts a populism based on trickle down government, with an ever growing power in washington cannot work. With it, our economy cannot grow. We need policies that support the injured for entrepreneurial spirit, and make sure it thrives. With that, we will take your questions. You have to tell us who you are and know that if it is a tough question i will let bruce answered. Hi, thanks for having me. I am with the hill. You said that the chamber will have a renewed push on Regulatory Reform. Can you talk about that strategy . In the last session of the congress, we passed a three Part Congress passed a three part reform of the regulatory process. It dealt with the questions of permits, the fundamental issues of how the process of regulation was going to go forward. By the way, it was voted on in a bipartisan basis. I think there will be growing incentive to move this forward. We have had a lot of indication in the senate of interest for this reform process. Remember, i said in the speech, the last time we reformed our regulatory process, harry truman was the president. We think there is a sentiment for doing this. Im not worried about the president and that he may veto this. That is part of the process. Lets see what the discussion spring and how many people vote for. You pick them out. Brian with bloomberg news. This is a three part question. You always have a three part question. You tempered your language around reform. Im wondering if you want an outright into oil regulation. We have open trade with canada, should that be extended to mexico as well. Max goes a long way from getting its oil and gas, and so on, organized the way that canada has. They are moving in a very thoughtful way to do that. We think it is good for the nafta relationship the three countries that are together on trade and investment in security issues. We would hope that we would treat them the same way. Second, the Keystone Pipeline im going to behave today. That is a political joke. We have been through this thing in every possible way. Everybody knows that it creates jobs. The labor unions are vigorously for. Everybody knows that with all the studies, does not pose an environmental problem in this country. The thing that really bothers me the country that has been our friends, our partner, our supporter in every way, is canada. We achieve them very badly on this position. I think that is a mistake. On the question of exporting oil and gas, you have to look at it into circumstances. We had a circumstance one, 120 days ago . Prices were higher. There was a good surplus here in the United States. Now, it may go down some because of investments as the prices go down. There is plenty of opportunity for us to export oil and gas with, if they want regulation, that is fine. For the advantage of the american economy, to create jobs, and to help stability around the world. You can just think about the issue in the ukraine. There are a lot of opportunities to look at the stability issue. Are you picking them or am i . Hi. From the national journal. Do you think the chamber will be as involved in gop primaries . Primaries are created in two ways. One, people decide not to run, or people locally decide to challenge someone. We have already are already beginning to see folks who are looking at whether they think running is a good idea. I think there will be more opportunities. It is a long way until then. Some people will temporarily assume those jobs, or be appointed, or even elected, but that creates an opportunity for primaries. We had a conversation one day about we could even have primaries on the democratic side that we would be interested in. We think here is our fundamental one sentence deal. We think candidates matter more than anything else. We want people who want to govern, who want to come to washington and be part of the process. We will support them. How much will we spend . I have no idea. It basically comes down to how much we want to do and how much we need. Hi, good morning. Many things. I would like to ask what are the chambers goals this year for cuba . You also said in your speech, Immigration Reform could be possible this year. We see that the house is about to vote on a bill that would block the executive action by president obama. Could you please elaborate a bit on how you think Immigration Reform would be possible this year. The immigration thing what we are interested in, what i said in the speech, we need workers. We are a country with workers without jobs and jobs without workers. We are working very hard to find people for jobs with specific skills. We really believe that an Immigration Program that provides people on both ends of the spectrum people going to our great universities, and people who work in everything from hospitals to Nursing Homes to agriculture. We need a way for companies to know who they are hiring. There is a good process in place there that seems to be ready to be put in full use. We need to deal with the borders and it needs to be reasonable and thoughtful process. And we have to figure out what to do with people who are illegally here. I believe that the sentiment is growing across this country to do that. On the question by the way, on the question of what they are voting on today, it does not have a lot to do with immigration, has to do the constitutional prerogatives of the president. I think it is fine that they go about that. Theres a very civil way that the house and senate can resolve this problem, passed an immigration bill, send it to the president and let him sign it. On cuba we have been involved in cuban issue for a long time. We believe that the agreement, and the decisions by the president on this, are a good start. We only have three sentences to say about that today. No matter what, whatever you are doing for 50 years and it does not work, you have to find Something Else. Number two, if you look at the current government and what their plans are, when the major changes will be if you look at all the people from countries all over the world who are developing the economy over there it is time for us to move. Number three, after last time i was there and the two weeks following, putin and then the present from china where there. I would much rather that we were deciding what we will do in cuba and bend them deciding what they will do. Thank you very much. I write for tax notes. I will start with you, tom. It took you about half an hour to get to tax reform. It seemed like you were a little tepid when you are talking about it. You did not seem to have a lot of confidence to think that it would happen this year. Which is unusual, i think everyone else who are taught to think that will happen. I want to ask ddid you say that the people you have talked to i was joking, it will not happen. I want to go to bruce, what is your take on that . It is a serious issue. There has been talk of compromise. You seem to have very low expectations. I will just add to that question if you look at the sequence of things that we talked about their importance is not in the order in which they were done. You know that im very passionate about the last things i talked about. By the way, we are realistic about taxes. Bruice will tell you what realism is. I think with tom try to do in his speech was to highlight the most obvious opportunities and legislative outcome. If you look at all the technology stuff. I think first off, we have two new chairman in the tax committee. He will take off will last person left off. Some of that deals with dynamic scoring, some of it deals with budget issues. Chairman hatch is close to 700 pages on tax reform. I met with both of them, and many others on this. I think tax reform is very hard to do. There has been a lot that suggest that the administration and the tax writing committees in both chambers and in both parties are on about the same page that is good. Of course, the other 20 it is hard stuff to do. There was a meeting yesterday with some small as this group. I think the difference here is that we began last fall a campaign on comprehensive tax reform. We are still engaged in that most heavily now on social media. Stay tuned, we will be doing more. The Business Community is always going to be divided. By definition, this is the winners and losers exercise. It did not take two years in 1986 they really took about five, and another a transition. We have a ways to go. It is one of the biggest things to do, and has one of the biggest potential impact on our economy. Hi, doug palmer with politico. My question has to do with tpa. You said in your speech that the president will have to round of support in his own party to get it approved. Im just wondering what is your sense of how Many Democrats are needed in the house to make this a bipartisan effort. Are you concerned that there might be a large number of republicans who wouldnt vote for the bill because they do not want to give obama the authority . Every president since jerry ford has had trade promotion. Our reading of this having our team all over the congress and talking to just about everybody is that there is plenty of support their. We further agreed that the president has begun to make it clear first of all to his own team, that he wants the cabin and others up there working on this. Im hopeful that he will be very aggressive on in the state of the union. He knows, and he has had some meetings recently, organizing the white house and others. He knows that theyre going to have to to have an effort to deal into areas and then necessary numbers of democrats, dealing with labor, and he knows that he has to spend sometimes assuring republicans of what it will be to. We believe that there are plenty, plenty of votes to get this done. I believe that we will get it done. Im very encouraged that this could be the first step in a three or four step process that would strengthen the economy of the United States for a long time to come. I would quickly add if i remember correctly, i think only about 25 House Democrats voted for tpa the last time. Im not sure if all 25 of them are still in the house at this time. In the senate, if i remember correctly, it was about 21 senate democrats. I believe only six of them are there. The point is there are not a lot of members of congress to understand tpa. Now, we have to add taa, as part of the journey to accomplish tpa. I agree with tom, if this gets done, that president will clearly have some challenges in and out of congress. He will have to work to bring some democrats with him. Lets not overlook the Republican Leadership in both chambers is on the same page as the president. Im with the wall street journal. Could you give us some more specifics about the legislative priorities regarding Financial Regulation . Do you think congressional action is needed beyond what is already happening . Also on cyber what specific legislation do you think is needed there . Lets do the cyber first. Over the years, there have been efforts to seek out a piece of legislation that would help us deal with what was at the time a problem that people were spending time looking at we never quite got there. One of the reasons is because in government, there was a view that there should be a law that told everybody how they had to react to cyber difficulties. It would take about every 12 minutes wwe would change how we would respond to that. We challenge that. Right now, what were seeing is there is a much more educated understanding of the subject and there was years ago what we need now so that companies and government at home and abroad lets say American Companies at home and abroad have to be able to Exchange Information with the government and in some instances between and among companies that have similar problems so that we, the American Economic system of government, is in a position to defend itself instantly, and to learn from the problems of others. We believe that a bill that addresses the issue with in appropriate limits is very important, so that we can Work Together to avoid the really difficult things that you have seen. You can multiply those out as being far more. On the issue of Financial Regulation, i think the first thing to understand in fact, i would say three things. The absolute frustration of running a bank or Financial Institution and having a half a dozen regulators in your building, telling you what you have to do every day, and not then being in conflict with one another, is not a good way to do business. There has to be some strengthening of t