coast industrialists and barons who have to come down south to protect their property against poncho via. it's great -- poncho villa. it's great, roaring, page-turning fiction for anyone who really loves american history, wants to see the intersection of history and fiction in vivid historical characters. >> host: bob weil is publisher at liveright. those are some of the books coming out by that company. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon, welcome to

the heritage foundation and our louislerman auditorium. we, of course, welcome those who join us on our heritage.org web site as well as those who will be joining us on booktv at a future occasion. we would ask everyone in house to be courteous and check your mobile devices have been silenced or turned off. for those online or in the future, you're welcome to send your questions or comments to us at any time simply e-mailing speaker@heritage.org, and we, of course, will post today's program on the heritage home page for everyone's future reference. we are also pleased today to be co-hosting this program with our colleagues and allies at the texas public policy foundation of which kathleen is a fellow. introducing our program and hosting our guests today is becky norton dunlop. mrs. dunlop is the ronald reagan distinguished fellow at the heritage foundation. as a conservative movement leader, she serves as chairman of the conservative action project, leads heritage's

restore america project, advocates for american conservative ethic -- conservation ethic and advances energy and natural resources policy in general. she also serves on numerous -- as a board member for numerous public policy organizations and associations. prior to this, she was heritage's executive -- vice president for external relations. prior to joining us at heritage, she served in the cabinet of governor george allen as secretary of natural resources. she has also held significant roles in the reagan administration as deputy assistant to the president for presidential personnel, later his special assistant to the president and director of his office of cabinet affairs. she also served as senior special assistant to attorney general edwin meese and particular to today's program, as deputy undersecretary of the department of the interior as well as the assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks.

please join me in welcoming my colleague, becky norton dunlop. becky? [applause] >> thank you so much, john, and it's just a pleasure to see all of you here today. this is an exciting day. it's always exciting when good friends and great people turn out great books. and we've got one today that we're going to be introducing to you. it's my pleasure to introduce both of our co-authors for today, and i'm going to introduce them both and then ask them to come to the podium and make their remarks, and we'll have plenty of time for questions. our first co-author is kathleen hart net white, distinguished fellow in residence and director of the armstrong center for energy and the environment at the texas public policy foundation. prior to going with the foundation, she served a six-year term as chairman and commissioner of the texas commission on environmental quality. with regular -- regulatory

jurisdiction over air quality, water quality, utilities storage and disposal of waste, tceq's staff of 3,000 with an annual budget of over $600 million and 16 regional offices makes it the second largest environmental regulatory agency in the world after the u.s. environmental protection agency. it is our goal in the not-too-distant future to make it the first largest in the world. [laughter] prior to governor perry's appointment of white to the tceq in 2001, she served as then-governor george bush's appointee to the texas water development board where she sat until appointed to the ceq. she also served on the texas economic development commission and the environmental flow study commission. she recently completed her term as an officer and director of the lower colorado river authority. she now sits on the editorial

board of the journal of regulatory science, the texas emission reduction advisory board and the texas water foundation. her writing has appeared in numerous publications including national review, investors business daily, washington examiner, "forbes", daily caller, the hill and major texas newspapers. i might say parenthetically, she also is a contributor to the heritage foundation study, environmental conservation: eight principles of the american conservation ethic, which i hope you all have a copy of. it's good reading before today's book is released. she most recently testified before the u.s. senate environment and public works committee. and perhaps most importantly to me, she is a dear friend of long standing. we met when we were mere children here in washington, d.c -- [laughter] fighting for liberty. she continues to be a great warrior for liberty. our other co-author, mr. stephen moore.

everybody knows steve moore. he's a television star. we see him a lot on television these days and on the radio, we like to listen to him. he formerly wrote on the economy and public policy for "the wall street journal," he is now a distinguished visiting fellow for the project for economic growth here at heritage foundation. he was a member of the journal or's to editorial board, and he returned to heritage in 2004, about 25 years after he first served -- >> 2014. >> say again? >> 2014. >> 2014 -- >> i thought you said 2004. >> 2014. about 25 years after his tenure as the leading conservative think tank's grover m. herman fellow and budgetary affairs from 1984 to 987. 1987. he also founded and served as president of the club for growth which raises money for political candidates who favor free market economic policies. and he also founded the free

enterprise fund before joining "the wall street journal." over the years he has served as a senior economist at the congressional joint economic committee, excuse me, and as a senior economics fellow at cato institute where he published dozens of studies on federal and state fiscal policy. he was also a consultant to the national economic commission in 1987 and research director for president reagan's commission on privatization. steve is a fox news contributor as well as writing weeingly for "forbes" -- writing regularly for "forbes," the washington times and the orange county register. he holds a master of arts in economics from george mason university. he has offered numerous -- authored numerous books including who's the fairest of them all, it's getting better all the time, still an open door and an inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of states. and today, of course, he

releases a book which he has co-authored with kathleen white, "fueling freedom: exposing the mad war on energy." let's welcome to our podium kathleen hartnett white followed by stephen moore. [applause] >> thank you, becky, for the kind introduction, and thank you for all the years that you have been a mentor and a model to me. i also want to thank a very patient man, and he is the editor of our book, tom spence with regnery, who's seated in the back. [applause] whose skill was extraordinary. to see how to he transformed and helped me find my voice was excellent, but his patience is to be a hallmark. [laughter] the book many of you in the room

know much about these issues. the book, we hope, is really for a general audience that i find abysmally una aware of the magnitude of the issue that is we have going on right now. i call them forces, not issues, because we have two forces going on, occurring at the very same time in history. both are unprecedented. one is the shale revolution. called many other things. i like to call it the shale gale. some call it the unconventional oil and gas revolution. i think many remain unaware of the magnitude of it, and given the precipitous prices in 2014 kind of got off the radar other than dreary reports of how many people are unemployed or how many rigs -- but the opportunity that the shale revolution offers and the kind of revolution and the dynamic of the revolution is unprecedented.

i give you just -- and much of the book tries to reveal that. just an example, the revolution was not just another economic boom, it was on the basis of technological innovation is access to what -- [inaudible] just called the mother load of all hydrocarbons that they knew were there when they were drilling in conventional vertical wells that allowed them to extract maybe only 1%, maybe only 10% of the actual resource trapped in shale. that is what is accessible, whatever the price of oil is. that is what is now accessible. and it was not a result of government plans or programs or subsidy, it was -- and it was not the result of the global major oil companies, exxon, duke, nothing wrong with them. but this was an achievement of risk-taking energy entrepreneurs be they geologists or financiers

that operate in a competitive market. enormous risk, enormous gain. we don't have, thankfully, a minister of oil in this country. but for, i think, the first time in history we have a truly market-generated energy revolution. its future remains uncertain, but the opportunities that that provides is amazing. i won't go on. book goes on many detail. living in texas where the technology was fist developed and first -- first developed and first utilized and is still the state that was able to cut costs of hydraulic fracturing and increasing output, so it still, it's still going on. but that, i think we're unaware of the opportunity it allows us. that is occurring because that is occurring at the same time that a very powerful global crowd is determined to eliminate fossil fuels and natural gas as fast as possible. and they've done, most

regrettably, a tragically good case with coal. when has our government eliminated -- and i wouldn't go so far as to say eliminated, but so, so almost killed an entire industry? i am taken, having been 30 years and more dealing with environmental issues that, again, those that make decisions, the policymakers, those that get the public's attention in the media have, are abysmally unaware of the magnitude of climate policies. a lot of talk in the last couple years about the greatest civilizational threat to date, which are pretty lofty terms, of our president would enthusiastically conclude that it is so-called manmade global warming. i would submit and the book tries to explain why in great detail that climate policies themselves would be the greatest threat to western civilization as we know it. we are a fossil-fueled

civilization. we use, perhaps, 200 times energy that flow through our life in all kinds of goods and services than people did in 1800. some changes that occurred since then, life span is three times longer, average income per capita is ten -- depending on how you measure it, ten to twenty or thirty times higher. the population of world is now about 7.5 billion instead of 1 billion. things, literally, have gotten better. and those, indeed, are at risk. something that some people call the great fact of history, we kind of forget in a somewhat dreary economic time in which we live, is the unprecedented scale of modern economic growth. our book submits that energy didn't cost that. i mean, fossil fuels were first methodically applied in the english industrial revolution,

coal being the first hydrocarbon resource to be so widely used and converted in it seems like a countless number of creative technologies. but never before had a middle class, an enduring middle class emerged. the productivity made possible by fossil-fueled energies just changed the whole dynamic. productivity increased so much that the price of goods fell. those who made the goods could, in fact, afford them. but most importantly, a middle class simultaneously was the emergence of liberal democracies, liberal -- i would hope this group knows i don't mean left-leaning, i mean classical democracies emerged. and that combination of property rights of the inalienable rights that our declaration of independence attributes to each human being, the emergence of

far more competitive markets than had emerged before butt rested by -- buttressed by the incredible value of fossil fuels changed the world. and a couple examples of -- i think it's worthy reminding of how far we've come n. 1900 the average workweek was 72 years -- 72 hours. can you imagine? i mean, can you imagine? and you didn't come home to meal-ready things in your house. you began just trying to provide basic subsis tense. unbelievable. 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. we all know what it is now, it's a 40-hour week. that's amazing. the u.s. has long been known by having by far the highest standard of living. well, what does that mean? in 1875 the average family in the world to include in the united states spent 74% of its income for just subsistence need, food, clothing, shelter. in 1995 they spent 13%.

those are precious achievements. and we have indicators and the book get into this and steve may talk about them, you know, we have a flagging middle class, a reduced income, we have, we do not have good signals about the continued growth of a robust middle class. climate policies. i feel when the media ever talks about something other than candidates' personalities or the most recent insult, we really, really need to to lift up the really major issues, the major policy decisions that next president and next congress will make. there's no mention. the candidates have all had their written energy policies you can find on their web site and perhaps have given a couple speeches, then the issue just recedes to the background. .

electric rate at three times higher than the united states is the economic impact studies for these policies amid the big variables might cost to replace the global energy infrastructure from extraction to production to

delivery or distribution, highly regarded number crunchers say eight to $10 trillion to install some of the math said you could replace significant shares of fossil fuels is also in the trillions. the global economy will take this on? this is what our country would take on, in such a need a more vibrant economic growth, so much opportunity. i will close by saying being the environmental regulator, i would like to call myself a reagan republican from an early age, my parents gave me no choice, is also a very missing ingredient in discussions of climate policy and energy policy and

environmental policy. they are about energy, pure propaganda that comes out of epa is unbelievable. citizens deserve to retire and basic investment in health risk, epa is so far out of the way. we have learned we had dramatic reduction in genuine public this list in the clean air act that continually impact human health. we had falls 60%, 8% in aggregate emissions, of our tailpipes, 90% less in 1960. you always could see exhaust even concentrated cities like this, you don't see it, and we

produced great environmental sensitivity, and environmental enhancement should go on but carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, it is gas of life. we are educating generations that evidently agree with former secretary of state john kerry that carbon is the worst weapon of mass destruction, we are in trouble because our bones and blood are made of carbon but i think that is an important insight. there is a very dark side to climate policy, look no further than the words of global and national leaders. as if we are reformulating this pessimistic person from pick anti humanity, people that believe the enemy of humanity is man rather than people with faith in the creativity of the

human mind and what the imac of freedom means, you don't find break through innovation in highly authoritarian countries so i think this in all kinds of ways is a moral issue. millions live without electricity, you can't imagine what it would be like but any hope for economic growth, education, of those that still lack access to electricity don't need solar panels, they need energy-efficient, energy sources that are controlled by effective technologies. two forces. it is an odd coalition with our candidate if he would like to go to their web sites and read their energy policy, offers dramatic alternatives but is a

pleasure to be here. we really hope we can get this bill got to many people who still have an open mind and unaware of the magnitude of risks we're taking on with climate policy and the magnitude of opportunities it gives to the united states as the largest producer of oil, natural gas and coal. [applause] >> i have some slides to show you. thank you for the nice introduction. i see a lot of friends from enterprise institute and many scholars, thank you coming. let me say when kathleen was the inspiration for this book, had written a long paper for the public policy foundation and the moral case for path fossil fuels, and i said this is the

essence of the argument, economic and strategic argument, using fossil fuels is the moral thing to do. let me give a couple examples, one of the first, we open the book with a story about something that happened to me personally, four or five years ago, almost exactly, we have one of these huge storms in virginia, big summer storm, massive winds knocked down thousands of trees, we give inert with huge power outages, power outages lasted three or four days before they could restore power. i tell the story how my sons were teenagers, three sense, two

teenagers, a little girl i'm very fond of. we use candles, and the first two four hours, it involves electricity but it was so interesting to see how things developed. they couldn't use their ipods or ipads or game boys and could watch tv or get netflix, the things millennials are so accustomed to. after 48 hours, how did people loof without electricity? is something we take for granted because we have always lived with electric power as a given in our lives but it hasn't been for many centuries before the advent of fossil fuels. i do give a lot of talks on high school and college campuses and i talk about energy a lot and

one of the questions i ask is your generation i see a lot of young people, your generation thinks it is cool to be green, is a cultural thing, let's go green and get electricity from windmills and solar power. i ask these kids, where do we get our electricity from? highways get the same answer, that little hop let. it comes out of the little outlet on the wall. most americans have no idea where they get electricity from. most of and don't. was the number-1 source of america electricity? who knows? natural-gas and coal are about even. 35% or so, between 35% and 40%, comes from natural gas so three quarters of electricity comes from natural gas and coal.

kathleen was the inspiration and won a chapter she wrote is about the industrial revolution and howard is not understood the industrial revolution is the story, it was the first massive be forward in living standards, the age of machinery and automobiles and steam engines. what is not told in the history books is the story of the industrial revolution is fossil fuels. fbn we stop using things like windmills, or efficient forms of electric power from coal, people talk about shutting down the coal industry, this country was built on coal and we have 500 years of it.

and i'm not an expert with kathleen is. i want to talk about economic opportunity, the fossil fuel revolution and shale oil and gas in a dramatic way. let me show you a couple charts. if you want to see why electricity matters this -- i love this photograph. the black area is north korea and the bottom area is south korea. north korea, they lack fundamentally, they have electric power. we have no lights in north korea, south korea is lit up. is 6 or 7 times higher than north korea, electric power is a

sprint to economic improvement. this looks like emissions you were talking about. i loved this one. when you look natural-gas revolution. the futures natural gas, a true wonder fuel. is made in america, it is cheap and clean burning. why wouldn't you want -- we should use as much as we can. the most clean burning source of electrical power we can have, natural gas production has gone up in the united states. you see what happened to the amount of emissions. they have gone down. natural gas, very interesting, the groups like the sierra club used to be pro natural gas to recognize the incredible benefits of natural gas, very much in favor of natural gas until the fracking revolution. they were not against fracking per se.

it was the mass production of natural gas so the price of natural gas fell dramatically and we had a super abundance of natural gas and they were against it. i think it is because they are against industrialization. want to smoke out the economy and pay penance. this shows we are energy-efficient economy. the left talks about making america more energy efficient, it is natural progress, we have produced more goods and services with less energy. we don't need the government to tell us that were to mandate it. it is the course of history. this is methane, one of the charges the left is making, methane emissions are out of control. we have to stop fracking. methane emissions have fallen as we have used more natural gas.

this is another important point. and a free-market, most americans don't understand. barack obama doesn't costanza this. if you look at what barack obama was saying in his first term in office, we have to move to green energy because we're running out of fossil fuels. we are running out of them. one of his famous quotes was we're running out so fast that pretty soon we have to drill on the washington monument, washington mall, that is the only place, we have drilled a 4 else. that is not true. because of the shale, oil and gas revolution we have doubled or tripled overnight. one technology has tripled the amount of oil and gas, we are not running out of oil or gas and not running out of coal. we have 5 news worth of it. that argument has disappeared. one of the themes is if we get

this right in terms of promoting any -- energy resources, we have more oil, gas and coal than any country in the world, we can create twenty-first century where the united states is the saudi arabia of energy and that has profound impact for the economy and security. oil spills are another example, we are cleaning up the environment even as we use more energy. this is interesting, what happened, i just made a point, doubled and tripled the amount of oil we have. all these charts are straight from the book. look what happened in 2005, 6, 7. we more than doubled to almost overnight the amount of energy we have. the energy resources keep going up over time as we refine more. we are not running out of this stuff. this is fun. it is showing -- this is for

you, kathleen, from texas. look at, state laws have a big impact in terms of where we produce energy. i am using california as the diameter opposite in the way they do energy. california has extremely rich energy, the shale is estimated to have as much oil and gas as texas, texas is one of the most oil-rich places on the planet as well. with the difference between production of oil and gas in texas vs. calif.. this is attributable to environmental regulations, labour regulations, calif. decided not to use it sell when i debate people on the left, texas got rich, they have all the oil, california has too but

decided not to. california is going in a long direction. it followed the water crisis in california, the same water policies being california are the same policies with respect to oil. this makes the point you were making, we are cleaning up the environment. clean coal, the emissions from coal plants, the major pollutants we look at whether it is led or soaker or carbon monoxide. people met -- carbon monoxide is pollution lincoln die from carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide is not a pollution d.c. dramatic reductions, led is 70, 90% from what it was in the 1970s, is attributable to epa regulations that the difference between smart regulations and non smart

regulations, this is showing we are not running out of this, we have hundreds of existing technologies, they get better all time. let me summarize -- what does this matter in terms of america's economic future? you saw the jobs report, growing at an abysmally slow rate. over the last 9 months the economy is growing at one.5%, you're not going to provide enough jobs or tax revenue or new businesses, we need to grow faster. the question economists are acting is how to get america back to the 4% growth path we read during ronald reagan and john f. kennedy when we had real prosperity in the united states. one of the dancers i don't think in of politicians, people on air

cytopenia attention to is the opportunity we have with energy. when the status, it has become a conventional wisdom, if we have the right energy policies, we is everything we have got for the first time in half a century will be energy independent which every president back to john f. kennedy said we will make it energy independent the we are on the cusp, i am not talking about the united states the all of north america, canada, u.s. mexico, producing more energy than the rest of the world. if we were to produce the energy, oil, gas, coal, nuclear power, whatever works and is cost efficient. if we use those resources we estimate we will start selling this abroad, we should be

selling abroad natural-gas, we producing more natural gas the don't have the infrastructure in place, when the president and hillary clinton talk about infrastructure, absolutely, the infrastructure we really need is energy infrastructure. we need pipelines, refineries, the kind of energy, once we get that in place we can send this all over the world. think of who the losers are, the national security implementations, if we start selling energy rather than buying it, we spend summer neighborhood of $200 billion a year importing energy, some comes from canada or mexico but a lot comes from opec countries, countries that he us, trying to kill us, countries like iran,

saudi arabia, venezuela, isis is completed funded with petrodollars. to the extent we can stop buying this makes an enormous been changing terms of middle east politics. from a security standpoint it is huge. what it means for the economy weak increased gdp growth by one percentage point kerri year. there is using coal, coal oil and gas and other stuff. and one% might not see much of the deal but that is the 2 and the dollar billion dollar increase 3-year. mcgovern to% of to the present growth and if we put on top of that three four is not that hard to put the right policies in place to get back on rapid growth policy, just use the resources we have. is this issue about global warming and not using fossil

fuels? i would simply say this. it is clear in terms of an election issue what americans consistently for the last two a three years every single poll shows there are no out liars. with the americans care most about? jobs, the economy, terrorism, the things, every poll, i defy anyone to find a poll does show those as top concerns. if you look at those polls done by gallup or fox or bbc news the duties pull all the time, what the major concerns, usually they list 25 concerns. guess what global warming is? 23, 24, 25 elapsed paul, 3% of americans with this as a top concern. republicans should talk about the little -- hart senate office building resources with respect to global warming state this, we are not going to have any global

warming policy that puts american jobs at stake. this idea that we're going to agree there -- the paris treaty, donald trump is right about this. the rest of the world is laughing at us. none of these countries are going to do any of this. china and india, as we sit here, the next two years are expected to build 500 new coal plant. every time we should double plant in united states china and india build ten. our call is cleaner than there is so all we're doing is exporting jobs and making the plant area because we are substituting cleaner coal indeed exist for dirtier coal in other countries. thank you again for being here. >> we want to open up for questions.

we have microphones in the room. one of those 3% of people concerned about climate change, high and worried that will regulate climate change so much they will destroy the economy. we have a microphone here. wait for the microphone and introduce yourself and ask your question, right here in the center. >> public policy research, my question, reading energy, the war, is other than the environmental protection agency currently guided by political appointees and the obama administration. there has been discussion in the policy world about possibility

of evolving the responsibilities -- abolishing epa over a period of three four five years and involving those responsibilities to fix something that from administrative standpoint is a lot easier than some people realize, epa was created by executive order by richard nixon in 1970 so could be done with by executive order. as someone who headed and state environmental energy, would you think of the idea? is this something realistic? they zinc this condone? >> most enthusiastically i think it is the best solution and can be done. i know this from texas, is

accurate for all other states, environmental regulatory agency implementing epa rules. with tp a deciding the standards the drive the rules trying to dictate how we are supposed to do it, but you don't have resources to open that but it is an excellent solution and you have to get more robust science, some people say we can't leave it to the states, has been national because state closer to ground 0 if you will, to what is going on in their state as far as air quality, water quality, they know their resources and the people involved, creating the pollution or trying to solve it, that is an excellent idea. some quick comments when i made earlier remarks, how right you

are about tpa's unbelievable rogue quality these days and i was thinking it is nine years now. epa against the will of congress, carbon dioxide is a pollutant. that is where all this comes from. is appalling to that that was not a decision of congress if it was going to be congress considers the market bill, the senate declined, there were other indications whether it one of both houses. unbelievable that agency could our country by asserting their own will. >> in texas i remember meeting with rick perry, talking about how much was reduced the on the national standard. texas sounds like a good

example. >> read it generates a lot of revenues. i think becky norton dunlop achieved the same thing in office. of ozone in texas in general but particularly the houston area which houses the largest concentration petrochemical company volume with los angeles, we developed a plan that nobody said would work, you had to fight tooth and nail with the epa, you got to do more, houston achieve the federal and the inert quality standards, something like that gives you the chills. we did it. of course epa immediately strengthened the standard on the basis of sham science.

>> hamas is doing some research on this and the law says standards have to be commercially achievable, some thing industry has a chance of meeting. clean power plant rules were made so that the coal industry -- >> we have a gentleman of 3-year -- over here. >> asko inert with mr. in upstate new york, we get natural

gas, turning on the faucet natural-gas is down but i was wondering what is the likelihood of the economic pressures that someday i will be rich and have my island. i'm sitting on 290 acres. politicians are listening to the greenies. do you see a likelihood especially in new york state that fracking will be allowed? >> i could not make a prediction on that. eyes and the moratorium was not necessarily reflecting the preference of those of you who live with the resources is. that is and then concern about

fracking. to me is nice to have the state fight rather and taking an entire federal government. to hundred 50 feet, most of the hydraulic refractor wells are going down a mile. >> how many of you have seen that video, west virginia, they let a big glider near the water, i am sure you have seen that, look like a blowtorch. when did that come out? four years ago. i went to west virginia to talk about energy policy and i mentioned -- these people burst out laughing. this has been happening for 75 years in west virginia.

people, stories of an old drunk guy would come back from a night at the bar, like a his cigar and the whole thing would explode because there was methane in the water. that is not fracking. this is a perfect example of the propaganda campaign. is natural seepage as you are describing. it's seeps up, that being the case how you prevent it from getting in drinking water? you drilled it out. >> is less likely to contaminate drinking water. the epa, you're the expert, about a year or so ago said there were no findings of water contamination from fracking. and amazing thing is going on. i gave a talk two years ago to the valedictorian, a high school valedictorians in florida, there were 50 these kids, incredibly impressive, bright, smart,

inquisitive and during my talk i talked two or two minutes about energy, how great this is and they started to frown. this is kind of weird. how many of you in this room of view 50 kids think fracking is a good thing? about 12 raise their hands. how many think fracking is a bad thing? 30 raised their hands. to be against fracking is like being against a cure for cancer. this is one of the great size make technological breakthroughs giving us access to huge amounts of energy at very low prices. how can anybody be against it? record to meet these kids have been indoctrinated in his classes that fracking is a bad thing and this is a tough thing to defeat, this wacko propaganda campaign that infiltrates every

area of our culture. >> right here in the middle. >> i am from west virginia. my question -- >> you are not over hillary? >> no. in the 520 years geographically where do foresee that taking place? >> one quick thing. coal has two problems. what is the epa but the others market forces, natural-gas is really cheap and the bright competitor against coal. we believe as free marketeers that creative destruction. if something comes along that is better, use it. i think we have -- should be using coal because it is a great way to get electricity but that is not to say -- there are huge technology and nuclear industry. nuclear energy is one of the

cleanest sources of energy production. with talk about this microprocessor, not the big nuclear reactors but smaller ones that can provide electricity for a small town or neighborhood or something like that. we are for whatever works. whatever makes sense. wind and solar power are more expensive for kilowatts, just terribly inefficient ways to get electricity. >> the poll issue and the attack on coal is not anything congress passed. it was epa decisions, a directive from the president, directed as trying to kill an industry. as i said about carbon dioxide, decisions where you eliminate all kinds of jobs by making the

decision have got to be the decision of congress projected is possible to happen as a matter of fact. our communication strategies were better, people could understand the west virginia example of what has hardened the state. most people i don't think hopefully put remote environmental goals ahead of basic human welfare. >> sierra club, we have but c-span audience. if you're giving money to the sierra club shame on you. this year club is doing a big victory dance that they shutdown coal. anytime a plant closes down they celebrate. what is interesting is this is the fashion alarm that should be going off. sierra club says they're going to do to the oil and gas industry what they have done to coal and they mean it. they want to go from, we have 4%

from wind and solar. >> electricity is four but total energy is less. >> they want to go from 2% to one hundred% solar power. crazy. that would shut down our economy. >> a couple comments, there are those worried about the threat of and for a project global warming and think action needs to be taken better physicists and engineers to see this as a matter of physics, impossibility for intermittent sources like wind and solar to not only meet demand but how many tons of concrete and steel our anchoring each of those turbans, how many million acres there of leon and if we are at 400%, the magnitude of what appeared taking on led

google to launch an effort, do their resources to get the best engineering minds and come up with a plan to eliminate fossil fuels that would work, relying on renewables, cheaper than coal. after several years as engineers who called themselves stalwart environmentalists, this doesn't work. this figure, the amount of materials used to put that much renewable infrastructure across the board would have more real environmental impact than -- bill gates who invested heavily in increasing wind and solar installations also reached the same conclusion, he is concerned about global warming but he says that won't work. we need to an energy miracle if we are going to get rid of fossil fuels, he is investing in break through technology which is the way to go.

next question. while we are waiting to go to the gentleman in the back let me ask a quick question. of the microphone back to him. >> where is the coal industry? >> west virginia, north dakota, i live in virginia. va is the coal producing state. this is the political issue. think of states that produce coal coming indiana, pa. ohio. it is a strong political issue for donald trump who is very pro fossil fuel development. i don't think any state is more reliant on coal than west virginia but i may be wrong. >> the same for regulatory

structures. let's go to the back. i failed to get your questions answered before. wait one minute here. let me ask you about the fracking issue and public lend. we have a bunch of republican members of the senate and probably in the house too who are advocating more federal way and. give the land and water conservation fund fully funded, how much fracking is going on federal land? >> not much. one of the best statistics is what would happen if we went all in and a strategy to use everything we got to become energy independent. we estimate on all the federal lands in federal water, we are sitting on a treasure chest of $50 trillion of carbon assets, talking about oil, gas and coal.

that is a big deal, $50 trillion is a huge deal. if we started allowing leases on those federal lands for coal and gas obama recently suspended coal. if we start allowing this to happen. rihanna talking you 7 or yellowstone national park, not environmentally important federal land, not only could we get $50 trillion increased output over the next 3 or 4 years but we estimate the federal government could raise $3 trillion to $4 trillion in income tax payments and we could use that to reduce the national debt or build more infrastructure or whatever purpose we want. that is a lot of money. >> i repeat what steve said. present prospects, what is public land, the u.s. taxpayer

purchased and maintains every year through taxpayer funds that there would be a net basis for the public like reducing the national debt and all of those. i also know states would very much have indicated they would very much like to have much more authority to manage energy development on federal lands and they are well equipped to do so. >> i started reading a wonderful book. one of the topics you touch on at great length is crony capitalism. when you are talking about the morality of fossil fuels the extent of crony capitalism for the alternative energy sector is through the roof. i wonder if you have any insights to share with us about

that. >> i would reiterate what i said as far as getting into that, crony capitalism. the contrast between that, without subsidies and loan guarantees and out regrets for the federal treasury and guaranteed contracts, we wouldn't have renewable installations going on which they are now. the great contrast, how many people know this for a fact? how many people know that 95% of all the oil and natural gas produced in this country is from small, medium, independent companies and not the global majors? anybody know that? that is very different economic dynamic i find refreshing.

it is classically expressed in texas by people that don't want any help from the government at all and want to make decisions about what financial risks they're going to take on and are remarkably generous when they are successful. the magnitude of subsidies, all we need is to look across the pond as face a in d.c. at what is going on in germany and the u.k. to see how subsidies balloon. if renewable snow only provide 4% of our energy we are going to need a unbelievable amounts more. the subsidies are ballooning. >> one of my favorite new yorker cartoons, wind chill form, there are these giant fans blowing into the wind chills to make the turbines turn.

it is amazing to me. one hundred $50 billion, the best statistic about subsidies that almost all have gone to wind and solar. folder has gone to renewable fuels like ethanol and that a lot of money, one hundred $50 billion. we had a big debate last year republicans made a big mistake. they renewed the subsidies this is a powerful industry. you deal with them everyday, they are well funded and their livelihoods depend on the wind farmers' association. if you don't renew these tax credits we're going of business. what business can survive without federal subsidies? the oil and gas industry, every year obama has new taxes and maybe there are some giveaways,

the oil and gas industry pace more taxes than any industry in the united states. they're incredibly high and taxed. we rarely use what works, we ought to get rid of them. recommendation, shut down the department of energy. >> move on. >> $30 million. >> we have a final question here? lady in the front row or the back side. >> energy intelligence. i want you to comment on the success the fossil fuel industry has had, you mentioned natural gas, has been enormous over the last several years but there is such a glut, layoffs have been absolutely phenomenal and texas is one of the price places. how do you answer -- those people are out of work.

when you say we're going to drill more, do you do that? >> i'm glad we are ending on this. oil and gas, shell, victims of marone success. it is an amazing story. from 2007 through 2012 we doubled the amount of oil and gas production, over a 5-year period we double our production, this revolution that happened. all the new jobs and increasing gdp over barack obama's first term where attributable to the oil and gas industry. when i give talks, and was in texas price said congratulations, you're the people who reelected barack obama. they didn't like that very much. without the shale, oil and gas

revolution barack obama would not have been reelected. the economy would still have been in recession. what happened now is as you said that big boom turned into a bust and this is the history of the oil industry. it goes through these cycles. it is and a bust cycle but the prices on $30 to $50. kathleen is more expert than i am. when i talked to these folks they say the price is 50 to 63 and start making some money. dirksen senate office building 7 to be 70. it went as high as one hundred 10. here is the cool thing about the story. these inventions, horizontal drilling and fracking were depleted big ones, they were made in the united states, all done as you say by these wild cats. they would done by small entrepreneurial lend gas businesses who figured out how to crack the code. nighters of god endowed america with all this oil and gas. has been there for millions of years.

we finally figured out how to get out this stuff. my point is overtime this technology will get better and better, it will get better and better. right now they can make money at $60. and this the two or three years, 450, oil and gas will keep getting cheaper end we will see these oil and gas companies able to make money. by the way, when he made this point, why is it we keep -- why is it we keep making wrong bets on renewable energy? in the 70s, all these people say look at the technological progress with solar and wind, it gets better. what they never take into account is the oil and gas industry is getting better at

what the >> chamber thinking the price of oil wouldn't be $50. they thought it would be $200 a barrel, that is why they keep losing more money. is a vicious cycle. we should get rid of those subsidies. i think the oil and gas industry will come back very soon at low prices. >> i would like to add because i am from texas. i don't consider it up bust. for reasons we both said, it is a different type of boom and. is worth noting in 2005 federal energy bill which had the first ethanol mandate that became full-fledged with all the bells and whistles, tariffs, the wind and shale revolution. we were adopting a policy to end our addiction to foreign oil. the fall of that, the folly of

that and energy policy, i believe you implied this. the boom and bust cycles from the small and independent oil and gas people know about and what you get going, this has been missed by the most intelligent energy media coverage, the production levels didn't go down at all. there was a little blip. in 2015, we increased production, 15 million barrels. what you had is stewart rigs. they are not a good indication to me of oil productivity. you had wells that were much more productive operated by people with some nimble, rapid cost cutting so the geology is different and all that.

going back to the field those same wells that operate three four years ago, they have figured out how to reduce the cost of production. as i like to say, we have had a little skirmish if not a war between opec and the united states and i said around one, we won. >> i left a final question and we will wrap up. we have books for sale. one of the challenges you alluded to earlier is lack of knowledge by horse citizens, by our students, young americans about energy in general. tell us a little bit about who your book is aimed to? the youngest student who can reach and comprehend your book and the plant to get this book into the hands of people so they

will have knowledge. >> we didn't write it for the web and. is not for energy experts. my big worry is people will not realize the green agenda until it is too late. the shutdown oil and gas and coal industry and we will have brownouts and black outs that will have catastrophic effects. i was making light of people not having access to their game boys but think about hospitals and schools, you can't operate anything with brown outs and black outs. i wish it would hit people in the head, listen to what they're talking about. this is not feasible alternative. we ought to use the free-market energy and tools. >> middle school, high school, grade school. >> i will say publicly incorrect thing. the energy industry, the global

majors, the biggest or smallest independent and all the service industries and financial that surround this industry have been apologetic for decades. pmi list by beyond petroleum. they are going to get into the renewable business, which didn't last long. it is important to get in the hands -- there are organizations, not very sexy and d.c. at 7,000 members across the country that can, i think, on the local level first, people who know the energy business and their livelihood. they need and deserve that kind of information to tell their

story. that i think in the localities people at a local level, government and economic development the don't costanza the opportunity we have and what propaganda we are feeding our children and policymakers about environmental and energy threats. the bottom line is if you love liberty and you love economic growth people need to read this book to figure out. where is time to the editor? you have a plan? the plan begins today. there are books out here for you to purchase at have the author sign. thank you for joining us. [applause] >> here's a look at some books that being published this week.

look for these titles in bookstores this coming weekend watch for many of the operas in the near future on booktv and c-span2. >> booktv recen