whiteness and blackness in colonial america and how it impacted the or against of country music. then sunday afternoon at 4:00 on "real america." >> cautious congress, budget cutbacks and a tankel of state and local problems on the new year's horizon created evidence this crusade against society's greatest enemies may be slowed. or worse, may level off and fade. this was the climate, the land, and the unfinished task that faced lyndon johnson on the first of december, 1966. >> the film "the president: december 1966" documents the final month of the year of lyndon johnson, awarding the medal of honor to a marine who fought in vietnam and celebrating the holidays with his family at his texas ranch. and at 8:00 on the presidency, william hazelgrove, author of madam president, secret presidency of edith wilson. she was president wilson's

second wife. she buffered access to the president as he recovered from a massive stroke in 1919. for our complete american history tv schedule, go to c-span.org. >> now, a house science committee chair representative for opportunities in changes in environmental and energy development policies in a trump administration. others also talk about their goals working with the new president. >> good morning. good morning. are my mics now working? that's what i always get to do is be the mic test for everything before hand. i'm john hillboldt.

it's my pressure to welcome everyone to the auditorium as well as everyone joining us on our heritage website. we're pleased to host this with texas public policy foundation. for those in-house, our housekeeping duty is to make sure that your mobile devices have been silenced or turned off as a courtesy to all of our speakers. and of course, we're running based on a house vote schedule. so things this morning will be a little bit on the fly. so my introduction of our first guest will be very brief, welcoming on behalf of the heritage foundation is my colleague becky norton dunlop serves as ronald reagan distinguished fellow. she was a member of the reagan administration working in the white house with president reagan as well as attorney general nees at the department of justice, for those in virginia she was our secretary of natural resources before

coming to heritage. please join me in welcoming becky norton dunlop. [ applause ] >> well, good morning. there's lots of energy in this room, i can tell. truly it's a privilege on behalf of jim demint and board and staff of the heritage foundation to welcome you here. most especially we want to welcome our friends from texas. the texas public policy foundation is the genesis of this conference and we're delighted to be the co-sponsor with them. i'm not going to take much of your time before inviting the president of the texas public policy foundation to the podium but i do want to make a couple of points. the idea behind good policy is good politics. if you want to do something that's good politics, you come up with food policies and

advance them. you help people understand why good policies are good for people. and you know, the reason that's important is because we believe people are our most important, unique and valuable asset. the reason we care deeply about the management of natural resources, the wise management of natural resources, and the development of our energy resources is why? it's good for people. it's good for people. and we think principles need to guide our policies. principle policies are good for people. that's what conservatives are all about. our job at a think tank, the heritage foundation, is to help create the atmosphere so people who are in office, elected officials and appointed officials, want to do the right thing. part of the reason you're here today, i hope, is to learn about

some of the right things that need to be done, some of the changes that need to be made as we're going forward. a growing economy and an improving environment go hand in hand. what you need to have a growing economy. you need energy. you need energy. you need an atmosphere of freedom so that you can have economic growth. all of this is good for people. so we're delighted at heritage to be on the front lines of advancing these good, sound policies and we're delighted to welcome the president of the texas public policy foundation brooke rollins who is going to tell us why texas policy foundation is involved in this. >> thank you. we're going to move a little quickly, but i am so happy to be here. my name is brooke rollins. i've had the great privilege of leading texas public policy foundation for the last 15 years, which is a little hard to

believe. the heritage foundation has been our mentor and model all of these years. 15 years ago there were three of us based in san antonio, texas. today we just hired our 66th employee based in austin, texas, in a brand-new headquarters building. truly what a remarkable journey it's been as we see washington, d.c., move more and more toward higher government, we see that in texas. we're so happy to be here and so grateful you're joining us. this is our third crossroads summit. the first one in houston, the second in austin and today we're so proud to be in washington, d.c. for those of you from tech, it won't surprise you we're a little bit of wildcatters down there. we decided to take a pretty big risk and say let's have an energy summit three weeks after the presidential election. we thought, you know, most people think it's going to be a really sad and dark and

unfortunate time for the country, and especially in this particular issue, but the alternative was if we did have a new day and new president and one that believed in unleashing potential of our energy sector that truly everything could change. today i will say here we are. the first two summits, first in houston like i say, second in austin, were a little sad and a little depressing what was happening on the national front in this particular issue but today the big thing that has changed is that there is great hope. so thank you for being here with us. it is an absolute privilege and blessing to partner with heritage foundation and continue this great work alongside so many of you. it is a great privilege also for me to introduce tim chapman with heritage action, who will be introducing our next panel, very special guest. help me welcome tim chapman with american heritage.

>> thank you. >> we're the sister organization to the heritage foundation. we're on the front lines on capitol hill lobbying for the things we all believe in. we are very excited to be in a place where we're able to internally shoot with real bullets and get some things done over the next few years. so this conference comes at a fantastic time. i'm going move quickly because we've got votes that are going to be constraining us up here. we're going to have to all roll with the punches a little bit. we'll have members come in and out as they cast votes on the floor and we'll work to get questions from the audience as we go forward. the first member that i'd like to introduce is congressman lamar smith. he represents the 21st district in texas. he serves as chairman of science, space and technology committee, which as you all know has jurisdiction over a lot of the things we're talking about here today. the committee oversee agency budgets of $39 billion. congressman smith continues to serve on both judiciary committee and homeland security

committee as well and he's a former chairman of the judiciary committee and ethics committee. he was ranked as the most effective member in the house in 112th congress in a study jointly conducted by university of virginia and vanderbilt. he also was named policymaker of the year by "politico" for his work on patent reform legislation during that same congress. we are very lucky to be able to hear from the congressman today. congressman, please come up and give us your thoughts. [ applause ] >> tim, thank you for that introduction. and before i say anything else, let me put that study that had to do with effectiveness in perspective. when that study came out, that was the first time i ever heard of the study. i now think, of course, it was the most important study conducted in america 10 years ago. the other we looked at methodology and i think it's suspect. so nevertheless it may sound good but i'm not quite so sure

about it. in any case, it's just wonderful to be with you all here this morning. it's not often you feel you're 100% among friends. i do want to thank you, heritage, of course, for hosting us today and texas public policy foundation for frankly inviting me to be with you as well. on the texas public policy foundation, i just have to say, as brooke stated, three in san antonio to 66 in austin today. we, meaning conservatives, meaning republicans, and even [ inaudible ] conservatives and nonrepublicans recognize texas public policy foundation as the number one think tank in the state. they do such good work. we rely object them. they are on the front lines. they have great influence across the board. i'm just delighted to be a guest of theirs today and appreciate all they do for so many of us. it's not just limited to texans. it obviously goes beyond our borders. the other confession to make to

you all is one hesitates to say this publicly. i haven't been feeling too well. you can probably tell by my voice over the last few days. i'm probably going to excuse myself when i finish. i probably should have said i need to leave to go vote. >> built it in for you. >> i'm delighted my colleagues will be here shortly or coming back after they vote. i'm sorry i'm going to miss being with mike lee. he seems to be headed for supreme court. pete olson and gary palmer, a wonderful member of the science committee. you all are in good company when we are with them. this an exciting time for american energy. for the first time in eight years, congress can look forward to a partner in the white house who recognizes prosperity that is possible on the path towards energy independence.

as the obama administration comes to a close thankfully, the president in his extreme environmental allies remain committed to stop the energy revolution. since the lelection epa finalizd under fuel standard and moved to finalize tough fuel efficiency standards for vehicles. more unrealistic mandates won't benefit environment or lead to innovation in biofields technology. many of the new requirements are not even achievable in today's energy market. the white house also continues to delay the construction of pipeline projects and drags out permitting process for l&g. make no mistake while president obama may leave office, environmental extremists who fight against american energy are here to stay. they are determined to stop americans from using reliable and affordable power. they would rather see america keep our natural resources, as they say, in the ground. even as the united government in

2017, it will be an uphill climb to roll back the damage done by this administration. as chairman of science, space committee which has jurisdiction over federal agencies such as epa and department of energy's research and technology budget, which is about $9 billion, i will continue to take every action possible to reverse this administration's attacks on american energy. it is my committee's responsibility to ensure federal government is efficient, effective and accountable to the american people. we had our work cut out for us to accomplish these goals under obama administration. during congress issued 135 subpoenas to retrieve information administration had withheld from american people. to put that in perspective, it's been 21 years since a former science committee issued just one subpoena. so the 25th one that i signed a couple weeks ago made me feel

very good about how active and pro active the committee has been. it's been a little bit of an adjustment because there won't be nearly as many in the upcoming congress i don't think. one subpoena that we i should sought to recover. this is going to sound very familiar -- sought to recover some of the almost 6,000 text message sent and received by epa administrator mccarthy deleted from her official mobile device. she claimed, unbelievably, that only one of the 6,000 deleted message was official, even though they were all on her official device. that gives you a sense of the frustration we have felt. time and again epa officials have dismissed america's right to know and advanced expensive regulations without releasing data they used to justify these regulations. epa senior officials have been held in contempt of court, used

secret e-mail accounts and ignored freedom of information requests. under current administration epa pursued most aggressive regulatory agenda in its 44 history. one of the worst offenders is obama administration sweeping electricity regulation, the so-called clean power plan. this power plan will cost billions of dollars, cause financial hardship for american families and diminish competitiveness of american industry around the world with no significant benefit. in other words, it's all pain and no gain. epa justified it's dictate oriole saying reduce climate change and emissions. arbitrary emission targets will do lasting damage to our economy. eastbound the obama administration admits the rule will have little or no impact on global temperatures. regulations should be based on

sound science not science fiction. unfortunately the president's power plan, which he presented as the cornerstone of his agreement at the paris u.n. climate conference fails this test. in fact, epa's own data showed this regulation would eliminate less than 1% of global carbon emissions and would reduce sea level rise by only .001 of an inch or thickness of three sheets of paper. this to me if you wanted to remember one statistic about the paris agreement, paris summit, this would be what to remember. if all 190 -- whatever it is 187, 190 countries completely implemented the agreement this they submitted, these agreements were in effect the next 85 years, it would only prevent a temperature rise of 1/6 of 1 degrees celsius.

we can protect health and promote economic growth at the same time. contrary to what the current administration may suggest, these are not mutually exclusive goals. while legal challenges have delayed implementation of this harmful rule, it is vital that the next administration immediately rescind clean power plan and other rules that threaten the american economy. [ applause ] >> well, there we go. thank you. regulatory mandates and picking winners and losers in the energy marketplace only benefit this administration and extreme environmental activists. it's time to put an end to regulations that hurt the american people. americans are tired of administration's scare tactics and they sent that message loud and clear in the november elections. the science is clear and overwhelming but not in the way the president said. for example, statements by president obama and others continually attempt to link extreme weather events to

climate change. these claims are, of course, unfounded. the fact is there is little evidence that climate change causes extreme weather events of the lack of evidence is clear, no increased tornadoes, no increased hurricanes, no increased droughts or flooding. administration's claims are contradicted by the underlying science from the united nations intergovernmental panel and climate change. for instance, icc found there is, quote, low confidence that drought has increased in intensity or duration. the same can be said for trends in tornadoes and hurricanes in the last 100 years despite cob assistant insistence to the contrary from environmental activists. providing accurate information on climate change is not to this administration. ignored facts on climate and put limits on innovative technology like hydraulic fracking which could help us develop our natural resources.

that's why we need organizations like texas public policy foundation and heritage foundation to provide the truth and oppose government overreach and those who ignore the facts to advance their own political agenda. this congress, the house passed hr 1030, format which i sponsored. by the way, it also passed relevant committee in the senate. at that point, the president threatened to veto it and that's why it slowed down the legislation. the legislation simply requires epa to base its regulations on publicly available data. why would the epa want to hide this information from the american people? obviously one of three reasons. the data doesn't show what they claim it might show or the data doesn't exist or they cherry picked the data. the american people have every right to be suspicious when epa uses politically correct science to get the results they want and refuses to reveal the data behind how those decisions were made. the epa has a responsibility by

the way of kathleen white the epa administrator i'd have that tomorrow. the epa has a responsibility to be open and transparent with the people it serves and whose money it spends. enacting this important reform will be a key priority for the science committee in the next congress. president obama chose to circumvent congress at every step implementing his environmental agenda. he enacted regulations opposed by american people, negotiated climate deals that damaged our economy without consulting with congress. i look forward to working with the new president, president-elect trump restore transparency and reshape epa into an accountable science focused agency dedicated to a core mission of protecting our environment. again, thank you for all you do, everyone in this room. thank you for every member of the heritage foundation, every member of texas policy foundation, public policy foundation for all they have done to get the facts to the

american people. help us achieve a point where we will have reliable and inexpensive energy. that concludes my remarks. i want to try to embarrass two people before i leave. one is senator mike lee, who just joined us a minute ago. before he arrived, senator, i want you to know that you told everybody you were my pick, my candidate, my hope for the united states supreme court. i still hope that's a possibility. gary palmer has arrived. i mentioned him as a wonderful member of the science committee. i know pete olson is on his way. maybe he's going to vote and run here as well. the last person to embarrass is a member of the science committee staff, emily dominic to my right and whose father is to my left, doug. like father, like daughter, emily is just a wonderful and very initiative taking smart member of the science committee. if you liked my remarks today, you know who to thank. enjoyed being with you all.

[ applause ] >> mr. chairman, thank you very much. we hope you feel better. we also thank you for wearing your heritage tie today. it looks fantastic object you. next up we're going to have gary palmer come and give some remarks. it's a great privilege to be able to introduce gary to you all. gary since coming to congress has been a tremendous asset for the heritage foundation, the conservative movement. a real friend who has been there for us in many different fights. i learned something about gary when i was looking at his bio. i had no idea you walked onto bear bryant's football team. thattes pretty awesome. good for you. before coming to congress, gary was the leader of a think tank in alabama. so he is a conservative policy wonk. a her to this type through and through. as i said, since coming to congress, he has joined lots of different groups on the hill.

he's being a member of the house freedom caucus, worked with a lot of our most conservative members but has a kind of ability about him i've noticed to not just work with most conservative members in congress but to really kind of pull a lot of folks in his direction. it's his demeanor, his wife. people like that he has passion for what he does. i'm excited to introduce to you gary palmer. please welcome him to the stage. [ applause ] >> and because they are about to call votes, i will be brief. i do want to say something about brook collins. i adore this woman. i just told senator lee, she's a rock star. i've worked with her for years through the think tank movement. i try to remind our colleagues of the think tank movement and how they have shaped public policy not only at the state level but at the federal level.

there's 65 state-based think tanks, combined budgets over $180 million. i think with this new administration there's a lot of optimism for what we can get done. chairman smith mentioned mccarthy's e-mails. we had a hearing on that. she said out of 6,000 only one was work related. my question was, when did you work? i have teenager daughters that didn't text that much. but i want to make a couple points about where i think we've really got some opportunities with this new administration, and particularly with scott pruitt as nominee for epa. a lot of people, "new york times" headlines denialists, they used to get after president bush for making up words like denialist is not a word either.

it really not about the science. in terms of policy, we should pursue the science. okay. from where we sit, it's really about the process, the constitutional process. i've told people that i think it's legitimate for congress to debate climate change and things like that, but we've got to follow the science. more fundamentally we've got to follow the constitution. that's really what's happened here is particularly in the last eight years and really preceding that to a much more limited degree, we're losing constitutional government. i introduced a bill hr 3880, strong epa overreach act. that bill said congress never gave epa authority to limit greenhouse gases. i love quoting liberals to liberals but john dingell, who was the longest serving member of the house i believe in history, tim, i think he got

elected right after i was born. he retired in 2014. he was a member of the energy and commerce committee when supreme court said epa had the authority. the decision was basically based on ambiguity of the clean air act. john dingell, a liberal democrat from michigan, said in an energy and commerce committee hearing that he and other members of that hearing were there when the clean air act was written and that it was never the intention of congress to give epa that authority. he said, in fact, it never occurred to us that we needed to inform the supreme court of that fact because we thought even they weren't so stupid they wouldn't know that. that's one of my favorite liberal quotes. the point is, and the point of the bill is, it's not about the issue of climate change or greenhouse gases, the issue is who makes law. jonathan turley, liberal law professor at george washington university, voted for obama both times, testified before the

house judiciary committee and made this point. he said unless congress uses its authority to reign in, we're in danger. when we talk about the issue of climate change and epa is two discussions here. one is a policy discussion. it's a science discussion. we should pursue the science. i think chairman smith mentioned the fact we had subpoenaed records from the epa, because we want to look at the scientific data they are using to justify policies and try to impose on the people. they refuse to provide those documents. that makes the science suspect. i'm not saying it makes the scientists suspect i'm saying the data, the science suspect. when have you a situation like that and the epa then is making a law, for all intents and purposes that's what they are doing, making law, bypassing

congress, it really becomes problematic. so i think what we wan to do in congress is, first of all, make sure that we're evaluating all the science, and then we've got to regain our lawmaker authority. that's why i introduced 3880. there's another issue that seems unrelated, but it is totally connected is the agency accountability act. senator lee, i think you're on board with that in the senate. but it will require all unappropriated funds go directly to treasury identified with the agency where they originated subject to being appropriated by congress. why is that important? it's important because fines and fees and court settlements and disbursing money without congress. consequently when we tell an agency they can't do something like we did with the department of homeland security when the president issued his executive

amnesty order and we said we're not going to fund that, dhs came back and said we'll pay for it with fees. last year, i think office management budget reported that we collected somewhere over $520 billion in fees. we have identified $83 billion in fines over the last five years and we don't know how much has been awarded through court awards. for instance, the epa got a judgment against volkswagen, 100 and something million dollars and directed volkswagen make contributions to four of their favorite left wing charities. all that money to congress. i love -- i carry my constitution on the floor of the house. you really ought to. says, no money shall be drawn in

treasury consequences of appropriations made by law. if you've got agencies spending money congress didn't appropriate, that's outside constitutional authority. regular account expenditures of all public money published from time to time. i think we've got to restore constitutional authority. i think it's the single most important thing we do in regards to climate change and everything else. we've got to have the sound science but we've got to restore constitutional government. we cannot circumvent congress and basically turb us into

elected bystanders. i'm very optimistic we're able to do that. i'm tremendously excited about scott putin. i had a meeting with scott before i got elected. i had won the runoff. to talk about how the attorneys general can work with congress to restore constitutional authority. i think scott was one of the attorneys general who filed suit against epa claiming that they were in violation of the clean air act, acting outside their legislative authority. so going forward, i think that's what we've got to look forward to in this administration. having a guy like general prewitt of epa i'm quite sure he won't send out 6,000 texts. we won't have that issue.

when we ask for documents to back up the position epa takes we'll get them. i also know this, if we're able to pass agency accountability act and we have the power of the purse again, we can hold agencies accountable. we'll be able to restore the authority of congress and make law appropriately. tim, appreciate the opportunity to come speak. i think i'm going to have to head over to the capital and vote in a few minutes, and i assume my colleague pete olson electric texas -- this is -- i know my dad was born in texas but how did i get invited? thank you. thanks, tim. [ applause ] >> thank you, congressman palmer. congressman olson, have you voted? >> i will stay here on this vote. >> okay. we can keep the order. >> good. great, thank you. thank you. i just want to make sure we're all coordinated here. now i have the distinct honor of

introducing mike lee to all of you. mike lee is somebody you know well. he would make a great supreme court justice. my goodness that would be a terrible loss in united states senate. has he become in the united states senate a think tank unto himself. the man is a kind of entrepreneurial conservative who is trying to think ahead of where we are right now, trying to tap into what we need to tap into as conservatives. he's putting together right now an agenda that's centered around federalism or subsidiary, localism, describe it a lot of different ways. what i like about what he's doing, i think he's identified the major force that needs to drive conservative movement over the next decade. we have an opportunity right now as conservatives to bring a lot of these new voters who came into coalition in our last election in for good, keep them there. the only way you keep them there is having an agenda that

empowers localities, states, deescalates the game of federal poll sitics and makes the gain local politics important. mike lee gets that. that's why he's putting the agenda together. number one guy to look to. please join me in welcoming mike lee to the podium. [ applause ] >> thanks so much, tim. this is such a great place to be. i love coming here to heritage. especially like it when i heard gary palmer say executive branch agencies violate constitution? someone said on "saturday night live" once, guess what, professional wrestling is fixed. deal with it. i want to thank heritage and

texas public policy foundation putting this event together. this is a very necessary discussion to have. it's always good to be at heritage but especially for an occasion like this to discuss something so important. we've got a government that will soon be under the unified control of the republican party. in the house and senate and in the white house. i, for one, can't wait. today we're almost as tar away from inauguration day as election day. it's coming out as quickly. i wish we could fast forward it in the same way as tablets and iphones changed the way we watched television or what we used to call television. my wife has this show she really likes to watch called "suits." she loves "suits."

i can't understand it. partly because as a recovering lawyer, i find it insulting to my profession. it portrays us as lawyers as sniffling back biting, bottom dwelling parasites of society. fair point, i guess. whenever she watches suits, i watch that little ticker at the bottom. we frequently watch it on a tablet and i touch the screen so it will tell me however away from the end we are. you couldn't do that with regular television. you can with this. reminds me of the moment i feel like i'm experiencing right now. we're getting closer and closer to inauguration day. i can't wait for this obama show to come to an end. now, we should do this. in so many areas we have been doing this thanks to organizations like heritage and texas public policy foundation. we've been doing this in so many different areas of public policy. but looking at the crossroads we

face today, specifically in the field of energy policy, seems to be of special importance. it's exciting because america's energy renaissance is under way. it's moving forward in a way that we haven't seen in decades. despite the obama administration's best efforts, and despite the chicken little predictions of so many doom and gloom environmentalists out there, oil and natural gas production has boomed over the last decade. largely because of the shale revolution. this is taking place as a result of technological innovation. i'm still reminded of this annoying commercial that used to come on television when i was 5 years old. i think it was right after gillig"gilligan's island" and b brady bunch. an environmental group, a little boy older than i was at the time

walking along the beach and there was a lighthouse in the background. and i don't remember the exact words but he was basically saying by the time i'm an adult, we're going to be out of oil and gas and we won't have anymore, so we should all be very scared. i was sometimes scared by that, but i was mostly annoyed because i wanted "brady bunch" to start. our own innovation has proven that wrong. what we've seen is we're able to produce energy in a more efficient and environmental responsible manner than ever. the something we have much more of than we anticipated at the time. advancing public policies that support and strengthen this kind of revival of energy production in our country is important for all americans. it's especially important for citizens living in rural communities and those struggling

to get ahead in today's highly competitive and knowledge-based economy. it's especially important for america's poor and middle class who are hit more harshly in a time of energy crisis strike. every year it becomes harder to earn a decent living and stable work. if you haven't completed some kind of formal education, some kind of formal higher education. interesting, though, some of the most important exceptions to this rule involve the producing and refining and transporting of our nation's energy resources. jobs involving construction, rig and drill operation and mining were upwards of 90% of the workers don't have and perhaps don't need in order to succeed in that particular industry, a college degree.

so what these unique kinds of challenges in mind, i'd like to spend a few minutes looking back at energy policy under the obama administration and then thinking about what it might look like and what i hope it will be like under the administration of president-elect trump. if there's one word that can describe the obama administration's approach to energy, it would be centralization. for eight years, president obama and his allies in congress and his foot soldiers within the federal beaurocracy have feverishly worked to centralize energy regulatory power right here in washington. empowering bureaucrats to micromanage how energy producers operate facilities and how they run their businesses. how they fuel and power the united states of america. the question isn't whether we

protect the environment and regulate energy producers. the question really that i think needs to be asked is who decides? is it going to be state officials or federal officials? to the extent it's going to be federal officials, is it going to be elected senators and representatives who stand accountable to their constituents every two years and six years or is it going to be unaccountable bureaucrats to whom congress can regulate a vast amount of authority and then disclaim any kind of responsibility when they overreach. the fundamental problem with centralized regulatory authority is the the tendency of bureaucrats to be ignorant of and often entirely indifferent to the interests of the people who live and work in the communities affected by the laws they make. now, this is not a knock on the men and women who work in our federal beaurocracies. those are people who are well

educated and well intentioned much of the time and highly specialized. a lot of them work hard. there's no doubt a regulator in washington, d.c., knows less about a coal mine in utah and cares less about the fate of the people who work here than a regulator in salt lake city or a regulator even closer to utah. a perfect case study in this phenomenon involves the extreme buffer zone rule, a regulation that was recently finalized by department of interior. an independent economic analysis estimates this new rule alone would eliminate between 44,000 and 77,000 in the coal industry nationwide. think about that. one regulation. 77,000 jobs destroyed, eliminated, gone forever. many of those jobs are in utah

where one operator estimates that the new regulation will cause all thee mines to shut down completely. these are real people affected in a serious way by one rule never approved by any democratically elected body. part of the story here is u.s. department of interior essentially wrote the rule to address extreme pollution in one single state. that is west virginia. then it enforces that same rule on the entire country, on producers everywhere, whether they are in west virginia or not. this one size fits all approach with regulations runs roughshod over our regulations that ha got to stop. mountain top mining in west

virginia is vastly different than long wall mining in utah, even though federal regulators in some instances tend to crete them as if they were an exact same thing. a bigger problem washington bureaucrats are insulated. not just geographically but electoral from having to erase any consequences from those regulations. it doesn't affect them. they are detached. they claim extreme buffer rule will have a net positive impact on the economy. we're doing this to you because it will help you. you need it. despite the fact it's destroying tens of thousands of jobs. according to interior it's going to create this abundance of compliance related jobs. you're not going to improve

anything. those jobs that remain will regulate people producing energy. the report says, i kid you not, these additional work requirements conducting inspections, other tasks that require employment of highly trained professionals, close quote. how comforting. if you live in a community where most neighbors are well credentialed workers, this kind of planning probably sounds feasible and might even sound fair. but if you live in a community where some of your neighbors work in a coal mine or oil rig or on a construction site, you probably know people aren't widgets. they can't just be moved around fungibley going from mining operator one day to bureaucratic compliance officer the next. every sate in the entire union has suffered under obama's march to centralize energy in

washington. but the coal miners and rig operators and construction workers in my home state in utah have been hit particularly hard because of where they happen to live. utah, you see, is what we call a federal lands state. a term described, significant portion of the land, anywhere from 20% to 80%, a little under 70% in my state is owned and managed, or we could say mismanaged by federal government. utah's share of this amounts to a whopping two-thirds. this matters for two reasons. first federal lands contain a whole lot of energy resources. coal, oil, natural gas not to mention oilshale. it's not going to run out any time soon. second energy producers and refiners that operate on federal

lands are subject to a whole host of regulations that simply don't apply, don't exist with regard to energy on private land. or state-owned land for that matter. because it's the federal government we're talking about, many of the regulations never go through the normal rule making process but are put in place simply by executive edict. will not issue any more until it can complete a systematic review of federal leasing. how long will that take? rumor is it will be as long as a few years. but with this kind of regulation by decree, there is no knowing for sure. it's unknown and unknowable. they will simply bother to tell us when they get around to it.

imagine you're a coal miner and you're trying to support a family. one day you hear you'll be out of a job once your company's lease expires. on top of it, you have no way of knowing when or whether you might ever be hired for another job. for far too many of our citizens today, they don't need to imagine this. this doesn't require any kind of stretch of the imagination. it's how they are living. it's their own reality. it's their own living nightmare. but starting in january 2017, we can begin to change that. that's why i'm so happy today. that's why this is such a great time to be alive as an american. the incoming congress and new administration give us the best opportunity in recent memory, perhaps in our lifetimes to put washington, and especially

federal energy policy back on the side of hardworking americans. as i see it, this is going to require a dual track approach, one that simultaneously reigns in hyper active federal beaurocracy and takes positive steps to return policy back to them for the states. you see, because most of our problems in washington stem from the fact we have completely neglected this document whose central, most important feature is that it separates, limits power. it protects us against accumulation of hour in the hands of a few. by separating power out among two axis. first among vertical axis close to peel along state level. horizontal axis, sprats betweep between three co-equal branches of the federal government. we've drifted from those first by removing power from the people, to washington and then

handing power to people's representatives whose sole job is to give it to unaccountable democrats. we can and must and will start to restore this system of checks and balances and start the process of and start the process of repealing some of the most hostile right away. president-elect trump it means undoing many of his predecessors executive orders like the moratorium on coal leasing i mentioned a moment ago and on capitol hill get to work immediately after the new congress is sworn in by using the congressional review act to rescind the laws and adopt new reforms like the ranes act which will make sure these powers are not delegated out to unelected unaccountable bureaucrats in the first place. i'm sure, in and fact i know that my friends from texas and from alabama have a few items on

their cra wish list that they'd like to share with us. some regulations that i'll mention here include the extreme buffer rule i discussed earlier and the interior department's new methane emissions rule, which unnecessarily conflicts with new and very effective methane reduction methods put in place by the state of utah. both of these rules are ripe for review and i plan to work tirelessly to make sure we do exactly that. much of this importantly could be accomplished within the first 100 days of the new administration but we also have to have a long-term vision to rein in this centralization problem. it has to begin with a much needed and fundamental attitude adjustment within administrative agencies which is one reason i'm so encouraged by the nomination of scott pruitt to be the head

of the epa. this is a man who understands federalism and separation of powers and has been a warrior, a champion to restore those things. he understands the dangers of consolidated power. as attorney general of oklahoma, scott pruitt has spent years being ignored and being pushed around by washington, so he know s the dangerous bureaucratic mind-set he's up against. i'm confident he's not going to shy away from the battle, from the task of shaking things up and moving things forward in washington and reminding epa regulators that their job is to work with, not condescend to the states and those they regulate. finally, congress should work to pass and get signed into law legislation that empowers the

states to resume their rightful role in regulating energy producers. for federal landscapes the solution would involve significant transfer of all noncontroversial land back to the states. interest is no reason why the federal government needs to own two-thirds of the land in my state, even more in some other states. this is a long-term goal and in the meantime we can develop solutions that encourage comanagement of public lands. these are just a few of the ideas from one senator meant to help kick up this morning's discussion, and i know my friend

from texas has other ideas and my friend from alabama who we heard from moments ago has other ideas he proposed that i respect greatly and support. i thank you for letting me speak to you and encourage you to join in the fight to restore limited government. this is the time to make it happen. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you, senator. that was great, exciting stuff. okay, we have one more speaker, congressman pete olsen is joining us here for our final talk. pete olsen is a navy veteran. he kind of cut his teeth in politics when he worked for the great texas senator phil graham,

who i came to d.c. in 2000 and met him and was absolutely in awe the took the oath of office january 6, 2009, his first term in congress. since then he has served on multiple committees and most recently has been appointed by the leadership in the house to be on the energy and commerce committee, and obviously that's a great committee for all of the things we're talking about today, allows him to advocate for all the issues that we care about. he has been a, in particular a champion in congress and we very much appreciated this at heritage, in fighting against ozone regulations and really has kind of made that his, one of his major rallying cries and we look forward to helping him on it. we are excited to have him here today. please join me in welcoming congressman pete olsen. [ applause ]

>> wow! thank you, tim. now i'm 53 years old, so bear with me. my glasses. but thank you, tim, for that very kind introduction and of course thank you the texas policy foundation, public policy foundation, and the heritage foundation for hosting this important forum on new administration and new energy policy. it's an honor to be with here to talk with y'all about the critically important issues especially with a group of people who understand my texas accent without having a translator. howdy y'all! i'm much obliged to be here. i reckon we must get on down the road and while it's not news to anyone here, the last few years

have seen the most positive change in american energy in our lifetimes. american shale plays have brought america from a nation of energy beggars to a country that has the largest proven reserves of oil in the entire world. more oil than saudi arabia, more oil than russia. i call this liquid american f e freed freedom. if we handle this right it could be a game changer for our economy, and our national securi security. we are seeing tremendous changes to our electronic grid, electric grid. president obama's 2008 promise to bankrupt coal has largely

been kept, because what happened six years ago and 7,000 miles away in japan, nuclear power is stagnant. natural gas is quickly becoming the keystone because as a baseload and help accommodate the new wind and solar that's coming online. man, that is a lot of change. and with an imperial white house the last eight years, congress has been forced to spend time playing defense against the tidal wave of executive orders coming out, as white house tries to twist the market forces to meet their liberal ends, but we have a new opportunity.

we will have president trump in a few short weeks, and he'll have strong majorities in both the house and the senate. greg walden, his new chairman of energy and commerce and i hold the reins of the energy and power subcommittee, and as greg knows, i want that gavel for a full term in the 115th congress. as we close out the books of the 114th congress, we need to determine how we use this bounty of new american energy. our first priority must be to stop the bleeding on energy development coming out of d.c. that means no more arbitrary

decisions to block resources from safe development. we need to go back to days when we worked with local communities that wanted to safely develop their resources. our federal government deciding that alaskan or atlantic or pacific or federal land that's untouchable, that is not sound policy. texans like me say "that ain't very smart." it hurts american energy and is an abuse of federal power. that sinks! local communities that need energy for economic growth. likewise, blocking safe pipeline development in protest is not rational governance.

we must rein in what i call the enterprise prevention agency, the epa, and i'm thrilled, president trump announced his new administratoror epa, our tern general from the north, scott pruitt. my friends we have a horse to ride. get this thing turned around. though cheap northerly gas been a factor, the obama white house worked from day one to find creative new ways to change the clean air act to close down coal plants. their clean power plan/climate change rule didn't stretch the law. it smashed the law. and no surprise, the supreme court agreed.

despite those liberal attacks, coal is still a big part of our power grid. in texas, my home state, coal is just a bit behind natural gas for power production. in the last eight years we've seen obama, epa misuse the clean air act to shut down an industry and states rights on retail electricity policy. going forward, rules must be written with a balance between public health benefits, real technology, and economic impacts, jobs, and i know y'all's blood boils like mine when liberals who support epa's drastic actions claim republicans don't care about our

children or our environment. that's a load of texas bull. that's where i'll stop on that. we are the party through teddy roosevelt that made our national parks. we are the party, medieval sportsmen who loved the open space and the outdoors. we are the party that cleaned up the smog i breathed as a child in houston, in 1972, so my daughter and son, our kids can breathe clean air that hits epa standards today. we have to have rational common sense regulations and sensible law laws and we will not pass the country on tooooo our kids and

kids that assemble days where the cuyahoga river was on fire or smog filled the air across houston, texas. i believe we can find that balance and that has to be our mission for the 115th congress. y'all asked me to address climate change. well, there is climate change since the book of genesis. i don't believe that humans are about to destroy our earth. you won't see the commerce committee advance a sweeping cap and tax bill. i think it's the wrong policy that would give grave consequences to local communities from main street to wall street. to quote a free loving texan my first boss on capitol hill, united states senator phil

graham a cap and tax bill is deader than elvis. however, our carbon emissions, the free market approaches which are worth talking about. one rock solid approach is to produce more american natural gas. those who protest more natural gas are raging hypocrites. they forget, forget the same pipes they fear are the ones that help get clean gas to the market and dramatically cut our carbon emissions in the last few years. there are also the renewables. the wind industry talks about how they are cost competitive. really? really?

to this day wind and sew lorre often are located far from population centers. they won't work unless we have reasonable transmission lines and permitting at the federal level. in my home state of texas, we are number one in america for wind production because as a state, we've improved how we get that energy to market. in fact we have one day recently where over half of our power production came from wind power, but there has to be a free market and those subsildies hav to end, and that is a conservative response to liberals who want to throw with no end. i do not support like y'all d.c.

picking winners and losers, especially on energy policy. we need to get the feds out of the way, let the free market take over. we should look at combining transmission line permitting reform with gas pipeline reform, at the same time. it shouldn't be so darned costly to have energy all across our country, all forms of energy be it pipeline or electrons on a power line, should be able to get to market without the federal government throwing up road blocks. let's also make sure that nuclear power has a way forward. we have to give that industry long-term storage and reuse of spent fuel options.

they need to know, the people do, that the nrc will keep the public safe without adding layer upon layer of new costs that make those plants uncompetitive. and we also need to make sure the nrc is nimble in approving new reactor designs. get the government out of the way, and let's have what i call an energy cage match! may the best man win. and while we're improving the flow of gas at home, we have to open up the markets to american natural gas and american oil. we keep getting on the cusp of the natural gas act but fail to cross the finish line. it's time to get that done. exploring natural gas creates

good paying american jobs and helps our allies abroad. expensive, expensive russian gas from vladimir putin strangles our eastern european nato allies, and sinopec still control the global market and that control hurts beacons of freedom in bad neighborhoods, pi co beacons like japan, like south korea, like india, who need our low-cost energy for their security and ours. on electricity issues, congressional oversight doesn't end at the clean air act. for too long we've ignored the federal power act. the furc is a sleepy sounding

group but its impact on our electricity is tremendous. they oversee the markets. the modernized electricity sector, we start oversight hearings but that has to continue in the 115th congress. congress does not have all the answers nor should it. if it did, i'd be very, very scared but i hope that new conservative majorities in congress can partner with the new trump administration to get these energy questions done right. american democracy and american

free trade have given more freedom to more people in the world's history than all of our wars combined. free market principles guide us in a way that preserves our way of life, keeps the lights on, and passes a booming economy on to our kids and grandkids with an environment we could be ploud of. in closing, thank you very much, go navy, beat army, and merry christmas to y'all. thank you. [ applause ] questionsifies? missed some votes so no big deal. >> i wanted you to react to this.

this is dan pleifer the millenial speechwriter for president obama and he says "at the risk of being dramatic, scott pruitt at epa is an existential threat to the planet." the left pretty upset. what is a scott pruitt appointment mean for the future? >> well it's common sense again. it basically means as senator lee said d.c. loses power, it goes back to the state. he fought for that in oklahoma, fought, fought, fought, with our governor greg abbott as our attorney general, current attorney general ken paxton, and i'm excited. i mean, again i hate to quote phil graham over and over, while i do that, but the fact those guys are attacking mr. pruitt, phil would say hey, my friend scott, if people ain't saying bad things about you, you doing something wrong so guess what,

my friends, he's doing something right. i'm excited to have him come before our committee and say things that i want him to say, like let's develop american energy. let's have a clean water, clean air. let's not stagnate. let's grow, make the world a better place, help allies hurt bad guys. we can do a lot of good things with trump and the majorities in the house and senate. >> great. sir? >> we've heard some talk today by senator lee and others about the ranes act requiring the congress to approve regulations. the problem with the act it will be repealed by the next pro-liberal congress when they want to do dodd frank two or whatever other things they have in mind. have you thought at all about supporting the regulation freedom amendment which is the constitutional version of the ranes act endorsed by the rnc

and the american farm bureau and it's in the republican platform? >> i thought about that but we've talked about the ranes act because we want mr. trump in there. he told us in late july that comes to my desk, i'll sign it. and that means now the senate has to act. we passed that employee times in the house. they'll get that done, we'll sign that bill. once we do that like you said let's make this permanent, because we won't have the white house forever. make sure that a democrat gets in there, a liberal, that thing stays on forever, constitutional amendment, whatever, because that's really important. that gives d.c. a voice, executive crosses the threshold in terms of jobs or costs we can say yea or nay, it dies unless we approve it. opt out, that's awesome. hey, that's the constitution. now senator lee broke his out, mine's much more worn than his, and mine's very special because who signed my constitution?

>> john hancock. >> john hancock signed my declaration. that's not the john hancock from revolutions, it's john hancock who lives in great wood in ft. bend county but he signed my constitution. >> that's great. we have a question right down here. >> yes, ma'am? >> hi, what can congress and the trump administration do about the keystone pipeline? >> i'm going to talk to mr. trump and say let's pass keystone asap. the whole federal an ta pparatu wanted that passed, mrs. clinton twice, kerry once, all the states along the pipeline route said we're good to go. people forget, that's a keystone xl pipeline that caused the problems. there's a keystone, keystone pipeline that's been flowing off from the tar sands to our country since 2007, 500,000

barrels per day coming along that same route basically and going to illinois. the keystone pipeline creates good-paying american jobs, we all know that, it makes us less dependent upon oil we can't control from opec or russia, helps out an ally. one thing i'm going to propose, too, instead of opec, how about napec, north american petroleum exporting countries? three of us. our neighbor to the north, us, and mexico, and don't forget about mexico. exciting new president there wants to go private. he's got our guys down there working, they will be the dominant player and they've got a lot of oil and gas down there, offshore in the gulf of mexico, onshore, you guys heard of the eagleford shale in my home state

it goes all the way down to the border. guess what? it's low in natural gas so it doesn't have to have a visa to cross the rio grande. it's there in mexico. let's help them tap that because we can trust them and right now you guys know what's happened in north dakota with that pipeline, i'm sorry, those same guys who got that thing sort of stopped right now pipe lin from mexico to west texas, spread their will in my home state. they won't be successful. these guys are going to come and come and come for the new administrator, you got a real ride, guy is going to be an ally as opposed to an opponent. >> maybe we have time for one more question. [ inaudible ] >> -- take some of the pressure

off of [ inaudible ]? >> that's a big bear because as you guys know, that's just a real bear to kill because the coal lobby, sorry the corn lobby is very powerful. it comes down to ethanol. great colleague from illinois, corn state, he supports it. we've had some talks about that. we can't come to agreement, but there's good news out there. again, another quote from phil graham, "facts are little persistent things." on that thought the facts are getting better and better. liberal groups who support climate change fear climate change, hydrocarbons are now saying ethanol makes it worse. it does. because the same data stream is all the same but upstream get that corn to market, man, you're driving tractors, having fer fertilizer, all these mission,

it's even worse so hopefully and that's a big hope, i know, because we don't have common sense, they'll say liberals will say we should support getting rid of ethanol. it's making the planet worse. and then on that flipside, hey guys, how about more nuclear power? if you care about climate change, guess what? zero hydrocarbon emissions from numbering cle nuclear power and it's really, really safe. but of course as i mentioned in my comments what happened in japan came across the pacific to the obama administration to wipe out new nuclear power. as phil graham said just feed people the facts, the facts. american people are smart, once they're armed with facts, they get it right every time. >> please join me in thanking congressman olson for his remarks today.

we're going to take a short break 20 minutes and the next panel will start at 11:00 a.m., thank you all. on it on the american history tv american artifacts, programs from visits to archives, museums and historic sites. tonight's line-up includes pearl harbor memorials, aircraft from world war i and