He was on the committee with ted kennedy. In 1988, he founded Podesta Associates with his brother tony. He served president clinton as deputy chief of staff and then whitehouse chief of staff. He was cochairman of president obama in 2008. He is the father of a proud airforce member. So much for biography. Our thanks to the angus ceo who are sitting at the table back there keeping me from the pain of premature requirement. We are on the record here. No tweeting. No filing of any kind while the breck fast is underway. There is no embargo when the session ends. This is one of the last ways of fussy folk waves so if you have a question send me a subtle, nonthreatening signal and i will call on you. We will let the guest make open comments and with that thanks for being here. Thank you, david. I will talk for two minutes and say that a lot has been going on in washington this week. But one thing i have been particularly focused on is the rollout of the proposal to reduce Carbon Pollution from power plants across the United States which jenna mcarthy raised on monday. I am coordinating the energy and power plants. Power plants con tribitute to a third of the gas emissions. It is the largest source of Carbon Monoxide so it is important to reduce them. The president began to discuss this proposal when we went to Childrens Hospital to tape his weekly address a week ago today. The reason he did that is there are Huge Public Health benefits that will come from this rule. More than a 130,000 asthma attacks among children avoided, 2800 heart attacks avoided, 27006600 premature deaths. More than 1800 visits to hospitals for cardio illnesss avoided. 310,000 less work days lost. Today at noon we will release a report that links the effects of Climate Change to Public Health. Many come from the cobenefit of reducing traditional pollutant like so2 and knox and pm 2. 5 emissions. But Climate Change itself will increasingly be a problem for our Public Health and the report we are releasing, the white paper, goes through the National Climate assessment as well as the ippc report to show how the effects of Climate Change will have effect on ground level ozone that is predicted to raise, for example, the emergency room visits in Suffolk County by 10 over the next decade. There are more frostfree day and more plantbased allergens in the upper midwest will which lead to more lost work days. Carbon pollution enhances the urban heat island effect and it has a particular effect on the elderly affect who are living in environments where they can be affected by the strong heat waves and the distribution of diseases from west nile or lyme disease are being effected in the United States. Particularly dealing with this rule and reducing Carbon Pollution will have a big effect on asthma. It is the third leading cause of hospitalization for children. Latino children are 40 more likely to die from asthma than caucasian children. This is a big deal. We intend to get the job done and created a flexible roll that believe be implemented by the state and it will have enormous Public Health benefits. I wanted to start with that because it is what i have been up to. I would note the jobs report came out this morning and we have a rule in the whitehouse that we dont talk about that until 9 30 so i will watch daves clock here and if anyone wants to ask me about that when the bewitching hour hits i am happy to talk about it. We will start with kate from the post and then darren good and go on from there. Press coverage of the power plant rule listed four, among others, four hurdles that could stand in the way of implementing it. A court challenge, action by coa coa coaldependent state and action by congress or the next president. Which risk did you consider the greatest and what are you doing to counter it . We are committed to gets this done. That is why we released it now. We have a year to finalize the rule. We are taking comments for 120 days. We had a request for the number of senators to extent the normal 60 day period to 120 days. The epa agreed to have discussions. We will hear from stakeholders across the country over the next 120 days. When i came into my position in january, one thing i needed to do was make sure the direction of the epa the president game last summer as part of the overall plan was to propose this rule by june 1. When i said that i didnt realize that was a sunday so we did manage to get it on june 2nd and we are committed to finishing the rule by next june and that will give the states one year to create impleme implementitation rules. The regional plan is the best way to go and if they chose to go that route like the southwest states or california has done, to go to a more marketbased system and get together to find the most Cost Effective reductions then they will have until 2018 to finalize those plans. I am quite confidant we will get our job done and that we will resist there is an attempt to try to overturn this through the congressional review act. I am certain we have the vote to uphold the rule once it is finalized. There is a goal under the massachusetts and the epa that recognizes carbon as a dangerous tool and we have the right to regulate it. There is no doubt there is going to be challenges but they have had a stunning strome of success in terms of holding their authority to tackle the major causes of pollution and illness in your country as you know the president has been quoted as saying i dont care to be president without the senate, but the former bush speech writer wrote in the post this morning that in the context between president ial legacy and democratic control obama has chosen legacy adding that obama is comp licating this and putting people at risk. What is wrong with this analy s analysis . Some of you are familiar with when i banned the word legacy in the whitehouse during the Clint Clinton administration. Hes has a desire to built a cleaner and stronger brighter for the future and tackle the problem of catastrophic Climate Change. We are seeing the cost of that already from increased droughts to heat waves to storm surges to Sea Level Rise across the country. We are seeing them across the country and in the Public Health as mentioned earlier. The president s obligation is to do what he needs to do under the legal authorities that he has been granted by congress through the Clean Air Act to ensure we tackle this most important problem. And i think that if you think about it from a political perspective the Washington Post had a poll out showing there is broad support to take action to reduce carbon country. 70 across the states in red and blue and republicans and democrats. There is strong support for taking action to reduce Carbon Pollution. There is no doubt there are some states where this is an issue that presents a different political challenge. Particularly coalproducing states and there is no doubt polluters will come after this rule and they will try to attack it and knock down the approval rating. And they will try to put it squarely in the context of the political campaigns that are ongoing in 2014. But i think if anyone who wants to go out and talk about the benefits from this rule, do what the president did, visit a Childrens Hospital in their home state, i think they will find that the politics is such that you can defend taking action here and the public will support that. I think that we think that people who deny the existence of Climate Change, who want to run suggesting they are not scientist and they dont get it and they cant see what is going on, and they want to deny the Public Health effects the pollution is having on our families and children in the country. I think that is the loosing side of the argument. I am certain that if you think about this in the time coming forward anyone trying to run as a climate denier in 2016 is going to have a hard time running on that nationally. People need put together the resources to fight back from the coch brothers and others that is politics people have to decide on a statebystate bases have you read Hilary Clintons book and what do you think about her writing about her disagreement with obama about arming syrian rebles rebals it i think it was probably a hard choice. I have no doubt that the narrative she tells in the book, from her experience as secretary of state, will be honest and she will lay the facts out as she felt and saw them. I am anxious to read it. I read excerpts from the book and saw a couple passages. But i am still catching up like most of you. I am sure it will be interesting for the public to see what it is like to have to take on those tough problems that she took on quite successfully as secretary of state. I can the public is waiting to lineup at the bookstore in manhattan on tuesday and get copies of the book. Darren . Thank you. This is a complicated epa rules and i dont want to get into the weeds. I will try not to also. One thing that stood out is some states have as late as 2018 to finalize as you do this and that puts you in the next administration. Do you run the risk of seating too much leverage and ground to the whitehouse especially if a republican is there . I think the country needs to tackle this problem. I think with the deadline of 2018 existing for states that want to join together to try to reduce emissions in the most costeffective way possible. I think states that chose that option will make a commitment to do that and Carry Forward with making the reductions. The rule will have been finalized so the need for states to reduce admissions will have been finalized by the end of the Obama Administration so they will be under legal obligations to try to take the reductions down. I think the states that decide whether they want to join with california and i know that there is some discussion on the west coast of not only washington oregon but other states combining with the ab32 system that company implemented or more states want to join reggie and maybe new jersey would be going back into the that or other states depending on the election in pennsylvania you might see that happening. There are other states that might decide that is the path forward. But i think once you made the decision there is going to be a legal obligation and political commitment to move forward and i think the rule will be implemented. President bush tried to overturn a number of rules that president clinton issued in this term and i dont believe many were successful. Many in the environmental arena. A few president bush took credit for including the diesel rule and others. But he tried to reverse the appliance efficiency rules and the courts upheld them because they were finalized as was appropriate and under the laws that were prevailing at the time. So people can try to, you know, to roll it back and i am confidant. Of course i am confidant we will have a president who embraces the cause of tackling Climate Change and reducing emissions. If you think about a challenge in the 2016 context and the politics of this, if you a climate denier trying to run nationally i think you will have a hard road to hoe. Can you talk about what is next for the Climate Action plan . Are these rules the peak . Do you hope to accomplish more in the remainder of obamas presiden presidency . The Climate Action plan that was put out last summer is based on three pillars. Mitigation, of which this is a i would describe this as a crown jewel but there are other elements including implementing efficiency rules for heavy duty trucks and more deployment of renewables. We are doubleling the amount of renewables on land. We had a successful solar summit with the president out in california recently expanding the commitment to distributed solar and more building efficiency through the better building init initiative. The second is resilience. Communities are going to have to react to what is baked in the system already, plan for and build more resilient economies Going Forward. So there is a whole work stream on that and the president proposed a billion dollars in the current budget to give the states and communities the resources they need to begin to plan for the, if you will, baked in effects of Climate Change. The third son the International Front is on we have a strong dialogue at the Multi Lateral level. The president was just at the g7 and this was a serious topicic and all of the leaders reconnected to trying to move forward in the negotiationegoti paris in 2015 and all committed to put forward significant reduction strategy for the post2020 period. They spent a lot of time talking about Building Energy security as well. There is a lot of do on the international site. One of the principle places we are in dialogue is with the chinese. There is news coming from china, mostly from the academic ad visors to the government on what they intend to do in the post2020 period. But there is movement in taking on commissions to have their emissi emissions peak and then decrease. This is one element of a multi prong strategy. [inaudible question] why not do that permanently and turn the whole thing into a voucher which works . I think the veteran system and i think that people who you have seen it in the press, people that served veterans well when they are getting care. This has been a problem of getting into the system. I think that the bill senator sanders and mccain just agreed upon last night is a much better way to go than privatizing health benefits. I think the resources contained in the sandersmccain bill on getting more primary care doctors in the into system that foc focus on improving the facilities that would come from the resources that are contained in that bill would be a better way to go than privatizing the system. And you know, that builds on the president s commitment which sometimes gets lost in the conversations of having expanding access for pts and agent orange and for taking care of the veterans that are the baby boomer veteran and the post9 11 people thwho need the quality of care the va is capable of delivering but we have problems in the way and structure it was being perfo performed. And the acting secretary is now taking action and as he announced in the recent days he is going to put improven improvements to get that underway. They are happy at the way he is effective in raising money but dont feel he is effective in framing a message the democrats can run on. When are we going to see that and how does he break through all of the other issues getting the headlines of Bowe Bergdahl and va and everything else. I think the president s framed a choice between an economy that works for a middle class and worker people vur versus an economy that is based on failed ideas. His push for raising minimum wage is catching on and we see states raising the wage and pushing for pay equity. His push for reforming the way individuals are paid for overtime. These are all things that are valuble pointers in the direction that a Democratic Congress would lead the country versus the way a republican would. He is doing this job first for foremost and putting issues on the table we can make action on and noting the democrats are more effective to get the economy working and get wages growing the American People. He is not out running himself and he is going to engage when it is appropriate. He makes that argument i think to democratic. When . I think he has been out there talking about the issues that are important to the american public. And rather that is the cost of college, the minimum wage, the pay equity and there are issues on capital hill that democrats want to campaign on. I think he is not on the ballot. They are and they will have to make the case but i think he can provide a narrative and supporting environment that he is trying to make. Let me tell you where we are going next. John, susan, david, karen, and alexis, jim, lauren and todd at the end. Thank you, david. Sir, you talked about candidates runni running. We had a virginia candidate and a kentucky candidate and both came out faster than the republicans in denouncing the new standard and referred to it as an assault. The republicans claimed it is war on the four and it will lead to higher electricity rates for the lowest earning people. What do you say when another democrat criticize this within hours . With respatect for the republicans, i think the poor might be concerned to learn of the lack of concern for them. If you look at the real economics of this, as the epa steps in. I think there are things we need to do to ensure that people and the administration has a commitment to make sure that people get affordable, reliable, electricity and we think the bill gives the ability to that. The states need to implement it. I mentioned the reggie system. The nine states there have spent a significant amount of money weatherizing the homes of lowincome individuals and they have reduced their bills by 2 billion. So it is possible to do that with the right possible. I think that is what we are asking the states to look at and they have the flexibility to decide how to move forward with that. The other thing that i would say is i would come back to where i started which is the poor are the most effected by the Public Health affected by implications at the continued levels we are seeing. I gave you statistics to show you that. They get both the Public Health benefit and i think there are ways to ensure that