saw in iowa. a lot of things people aren't talking about, you totally realize the system is truly broken and connecting the dots of oh, wait, this system is broken but there's a chance for a populism thing here where it makes no sense that farmers get 38 cents on the dollar, now they get 15. >> how did that happen. in the '80s, farmers were getting 38 cents on the dollar? >> yeah, every dollar you spend in the grocery store. >> now, how much do farmers get? >> 15 cents. >> how did that happen? >> policy choices. deliberate policy choices. >> i should also say, you have farmers on that one end, food workers on the other end haven't seen a wage increase. you have slaughterhouse workers who have had less than a $3 wage

increase the last few years. where as the ceo of smithfield made millions last year. >> when you say food workers, who are you referring to? >> i'm susan i represent washington state's first congressional district. i serve as the new democrat coalition's vice chair for policy. we have a dynamic set of speakers from the new dem coalition and outside experts on the range of important issues. before i do around overview of the agenda, i want to spend a few minutes telling you why i'm excited about the new dems the new democrat coalition is made up of forward thinking democrats who are committed to proeconomic growth, proinnovation and fiscally responsible policies.

democrats are a solutions oriented coalition, seeking to bridge the gap between left and right. we don't say that government is the problem, nor the government is the solution to all problems. our approach is to say let's make government work better. let's reinvent it for the 21st century. we believe every american should have the opportunity to succeed. the 2018 elections brought us a wave of freshman democrats 33 of the 40 seats house democrats picked up were led by new dems. this congress, swelling our ranks to the highest levels ever at 101 members this makes us the largest ideological house democratic caucus.

we make up 40% of the democratic house caucus. we have mickey cheryl and chrissy houlihan who serves on the leadership team. all-stars like my neighbor and the great state of washington. and many more who are responsible for democrats getting the majority in the house. our strength is not just in our numbers, but also our ideas. many of which you're going to hear about later today. to promote these ideas, we launched eight new policy task forces this congress. we're working to offer bold ideas and inning know vative solutions to many issues on topics like technology, climate change health care, infrastructure, trade, housing

the future of work, national security and more. in addition to our task forces, we're well represented on key congressional companies. the new democrat coalition worked hard for key committee assignment assignments greater representation of many of the national security committees like services and intelligence. we're excited to work with all members in these committees to advance a forward looking agenda for our country. the american people gave democrats the majority with the expectation we'd get some work done to make their lives better that's what we're going to talk about today, and we have an exciting agenda. in a few minutes, jared helmer will give remarks on the state of the new democrat coalition. then leading health care policy experts on how we achieve the

goal of universal coverage. following that panel, we'll hear presentations from new dem leaders on housing, trade and future of work policy followed by another panel discussion moderated by scott peters on climate change. and after the climate change panel, we'll hear a series on national security, infrastructure and technology policy. that will lead into a panel discussion that i'm moderate on digital privacy. joining us after that discussion to include our program will be senator michael bennet who will participate in a fire side chat about how we build durable policy solutions. we hope all of you on the audience and watching around the world will enjoy and participate in the conversation today. there are many pressing issues that demand leaders in washington to work together to solve. new dems are here to make a

difference and get things done with that, i have the distinct honor to introduce my colleague and neighbor back home, the chairman of the new democrat coalition, derek kilmer. he took over the lead as democrats took over the house. we have made a significant impact on the agenda and the priorities for the democratic majority. returning legislation to a robust committee process as a member of the weighs and means committee, i can tell you our process has been robust. building consensus among democrats and republicans, asked derek to lead the select committee that was established in the rules reforms. >> she asked me to keep around eye on him and appointed me as a member of the committee as well.

when he isn't thinking before how to make the housework better, he's thinking of ways to make our economy work better and keep our nation secure around lifelong learning and countless other efforts without further ado, let's cue the nickel back and welcome our chairman. ♪ >> i am told with the mike that is not in my ear that in an attempt to boost congress's popularity, one of the first acts derek took as chairman of the committee is to ban nickel back to be played in washington. please join me in welcoming our chairman derek hilmer. ♪ >> let's give it up for susan.

>> good afternoon, everybody, thanks for joining us for our second annual policy conference. i have the honor of chairing the new dems this congress, we're excited you decided to spend the day with us, for those participating on facebook, hello, facebook viewers. we're excited to hear more about our innovative solutions and bold ideas. a lot has changed since i stood here a year ago addressing this crowd at our first ever new dem policy conference. most notably, democrats are now in the majority in the house of representatives today i'm proud that the new democratic coalition put us there. we are now 101 members strong, including 40 freshmen members. the last cycle alone, 33 of the 40 freshmen who flipped

districts were new dem endorsed candidates. we're the largest coalition in the house, and it's the largest our coalition has ever been. it's safe to say that the state of the new democratic coalition is strong, we have an amazing team on the field, ready to tackle issues and get things done to make people's lives better. to be clear, i quite literally mean tackle. one of our new members is a former nfl linebacker. in smit of the excitement around our new majority, we have big challenges facing our country. i want to talk about our efforts to create more opportunities for the american people. we're in the midst of rapid economic change. the combination of automation and globe ilization. these are extraordinary opportunities to make lives better and concur big problems. they are massively destructive.

my first job was at west side video. we used to have these things called video stores, that store no longer exists. the words be kind please rewind mean nothing to my daughters because they live in this amazing on demand world. for me, on demand was being able to pull a individual you out of the return bin before it was put back on the shelf. we would go to kits camera, my dad would buy a lot of kodak supplies. at its peak, kodak employed 160,000 people in this country. that economic transformation has changed our lives, made things more convenient.

opened up new avenues for information. >> it's certainly made things more productive. and there are certainly some cities that are thriving in this changing economy. the economy is working in some places for some people. these forces are enormously disruptive, and they created some challenges too. that leads me to a second trend. that is the geographic institution of the economy. seattle is cooking to the point where it has a growth challenge there are some 35r9s of my state where the recovery has not come the way it wanted to. and those areas, we still have a jobs challenge. in too many areas, including parts of the district i represent, our top export is young people our state's not unique in that regard.

the country was broken down by zip codes, they found from 2011 to 2015, the 20% most prosperous zip codes saw half of our nation's new jobs, and 57% of net new businesses. the 20% least prosperous zip codes where one in six americans live, contain fewer jobs and fewer businesses. since 2000. what does that mean for us? >> the new dems believe we're at a sput nick moment. we must focus on a new initiative, ensuring no matter what zip code you live in, you have the opportunity to earn a good living. we believe our job is to create more economic opportunity for more people in more places how do we get that done.

if you've got a challenge, they've got a bumper sticker, from demonizing trade or demonizing immigrants to suggests that the solution either rests in eliminating government entirely or relying entirely on government some suggest this should be a debate about redistribution of our economic pie rather than how we grow the pie. everyone has a shot at getting a slice as a recovering economic development professional, i wish i could say there's a silver bullet to economic growth. i don't think that's true, there's a bunch of stuff we have to do. and what excites me is that we are engaging on those challenges. we are stepping up with innovative solutions, we want people to be able to navigate economic change rather than to be victims of it. it's why the new democrats have a task force focused on the future of work. we have a bunch of new dems that

are expanding access to post secondary -- we have new dems focused on developing a new system of portable benefits. given the disruption i spoke of earlier, the days of someone graduating school, getting a job and having that job for 30 to 40 years are probably over. and we've got to empower workers to navigate that. it's why i introduced a bill called lifelong learning accounts that would be optional, portable. beyond that, the new dems know that when we make smart investments it doesn't just put people to work now, it lays the foundation for economic growth over the long haul. i'm admittedly receipt sent to doing a deep dive into infrastructure. infrastructure stems from a latin word, structure meaning

structure. it really matters, according to the american society of civil engineers our nation's infrastructure graded out last year at a d plus. how many of you drove here today on a highway where there was traffic congestion or on roads where there were potholes. there are parts of the district i represent where the speed limit signs are only there for nostalgic purposes. and the new dems are pushing for congress to get to work on this i represent a district that's not far from microsoft and amazon and amazing technology countries, and yet the district i represent ranks in the bottom 20% when it comes to high speed internet. how are you doing, chairman? you want the good news or the bad news? >> every one of our high school seniors graduated this year, that's fantastic, what's the bad

news? >> for the first time the state of washington is going to require our students take the state mandated exam on the internet. we did a sample test. we timed it, it took 1:44 to get to the next page. not baeg able to watch the next season of "stranger things" on netflix. imagine if you're trying to start a new business. marge if you just want to see if the kids on stranger things make it out of the upside down, you should be able to access the internet. the new dems understand that there are global forces where the united states can either take the lead or as we've seen too often with this current administration, sit on the sidelines, take climate change. the dems understand this is an

existential threat that requires action. we believe the u.s. should join the community of nations and take bold action to address climate change. if we address this challenge we can create new opportunities, new industries and new jobs it's why we have a task force driving innovative ideas on this. take trade, the new dems want to make sure that trade policies enable us to export american products not american jobs. we understand that trade is going to happen. it can happen with no rules, rules that are set by china or the united states can be active and engaged in setting high standard standards we want these rules to protect america's interest so prosperity can happen here rather than some place else. they're not focused on protecting people. we're ensuring americans can defeat foreign competition.

we want americans to embrace the effort. we are competing with everyone everywhere, every day for ever. now, finally, the new dems understand that our capacity to address these challenges is ham strung by the current state of our applications. our nation can't continue this dysfunction. our competitors overseas are not messing around with government shutdowns and sequestration and frivolity that you see in this town. we believe our country is more competitive and more capable of progress, when all others are in the water. rather than having the oar 1 out of the water beating each other over the head. it's not cat nip for cable news. if i had a new demerolly on the steps of the united states capital, i would yell, what do

we sfwhant a comprehensive approach to job creation and then i'd yell, when do we want it? famous faith leader once said, optimism is the bleefrp that things will get better, hope is the belief that together we can make things better. this past year, the new dems were there to support candidates from the beginning, so they could come here to make things better for the american people. we saw some extraordinary people win and enjoy our coalition. the common denominator, they're here to get things done, that gives me hope. the new dems are already making a difference in the new majority. our coalition is active and engaged and provided content for hr-1. just last week in response to a letter that was sent by the new

democrat coalition leaders. and reverse attacks on our health care system. that gives me hope. let me end with this, last week i ran into someone from my state who has been vocal about exploring an independent run for the presidency. here's whey told him. i told him that we have a coalition in congress, 101 members strong, that have the courageous onnesty to say we are for private sector job growth, we are supportive of getting a handle on our nation's challenges. we are willing to work across the aisle and we are democrats we are new democrats because we are a group trying to look at old problems through a new lens. we don't say government is the problem, let's make government work better, let's reinvent it for the 21st century.

we know that the anti-dote to chaos and dysfunction is competence and results. that's our focus, and that gives me hope. i'm hoping i got you excited for the rest of this day, and you're going to hear from some amazing people. thank you again for joining us, and don't forget to tweet along using the #newdemsnext. i'd like to invite up someone who always gives me hope someone who now chairs the new dem action fund and is working every day to ensure we hold on to these amazing members and give them some company in 2020. let's give it up to ommi barra and his panel. ♪

6. >> health care is an exciting topic. we're coming up on the ten-year anniversary of the affordable care act. a bill that was debated intensely passed roughly 10 years ago, and continues to this day to be debated, pretty intensely. with the president's announcement last week. it was their kind of frame, the new democratic coalition is really looking for solutions here. when we think about how you move forward, we don't think you take a piece of legislation, but rather, look for those places where you can make adjustments, save lives in the marketplace. we also, as a core value, hold this value that every american if they got sick, ought to be

able to go see a doctor. if they get really sick, they shouldn't have that fear of going bankrupt and losing everything. we think you ought to get everyone into the system. we've also taken the approach that there are a lot of good ideas out there that are being introduced all the time. we haven't said this is a bad idea, that's a bad idea, we just think in a legislative body like congress, you should have regular order. you should go through the committee structure, through the committee process and evaluate all these ideas. what is it going to cost? is it going to displace folks? how would you implement it? we're taking that approach in a thoughtful way, with that, let me introduce our panel today, and they'll take us through a lot of different ideas.

>> we have jim kessler, the executive vice president for policy at third way. as third way's executive vice president for policy, jim brings his wealth of knowledge, enthusiasm and incites to bear on issues across this background. as he sees his job is to imagine the world as it's going to be, and figure out how most americans can -- thank you for being here jim. >> we have nera tangen. president and ceo for the center of american progress. she's the president and ceo for the center for american action fund where she focuses on how organizations can fulfill their missions to expand opportunities for all americans. nera has served in the obama and clinton administrations and she's known as a health care

expert. we also have chris generjenning. he's a health policy veteran of the white house, the congress and the private sector. in 2014, he departed from his second tour of duty in the white house, where he served president obama as deputy assistant for health policy. he served in a similar capacity in the clinton white house for eight years. >> as you get older, you have to start wearing these glasses and taking them on and off. >> lit's start with you, chris. with your intimate knowledge of affordable care act, and the work on it, as we approach this ten-year anniversary. where do we go next with the affordable care act? where would you like to see

congo? >> i want you to feel good, because i have my own glasses too. i was asked to lay the predicate for where we are, where we're going, and i'll turn it over to the people who know much better than i do. i often say i'm jealous of neera, she gets to pick the times -- >> he rarely says that. >> she gets to pick other issues in addition to health care, i'm always just labelled health care, this last election was the first election, the last five elections that i wasn't treated like a helper in most contexts. and so we're -- health care is making a comeback, it's a pleasure to be here with you. and it's great to have a doctor by the way on our side of the aisle. and i want to thank you for your leadership. >> three democratic doctors, they're all democratic coalition members. >> that's a huge huge asset. and i think the republicans have taken a lead so we're happy to have you.

i guess i want to say that health care now, you look at the last cycle it really was one of the difference maker issues for why the democrats took over the house. i think it was predominantly driven -- you have to have an honest evaluation of where that was -- it's primarily driven by a fear of takeaway, fear of losing something that people value. health care is sort of like relationships, you never value it more than when it's threat threatened to lose it, and this definitely was the case, it was a very very realistic threat that we could lose some of those protections, and that led to the house takeover. i think the other thing we need to recognize is the issue that drives health policy in this country is focused around theer eyes of cost and complexity. the public is extremely frustrated with their out of pocket costs. they're frustrated with how

difficult it is to navigate the health care system, and from where i sit, whether it's the private sector or the public sector, they're going to be far more responsive to this challenge. clearly the trump administration actions legislatively didn't go as far as they wanted. largely driven by a very strong unified democratic party and very key republicans who oppose the repeal. and all except for the repeal of the individual mandate penalty, the legislation and the statute remains, but, of course, the threats also remain. the doj, has been very aggressive, we certainly follow the texas case serious ly. it's a threat and we have to take it seriously, i don't know why the president decided to do what he did. but he's unified the democrats. that's not the only thing they're doing to the regulatory

process, we know what they're doing on junk plans, defending health care. really undermining the work that many members have done to this date. and in have been -- there's no doubt incredible successes with the affordable care act, we have 20 million more people insured. more people who have have been medically eliminated. we have cautionary protections for prevention. we have the buy-in for the kids up to 26 years old, that's helped millions of people. many people in this room have children that are benefiting. these are real benefits that americans value. so let me just say this, the aca today does continue to face real challenges. lack of competition particularly in rural areas. we don't have enough of it, you still have over 27 million people in this country who don't have health insurance.

we have many, many states who haven't expanded the medicaid program as they should, and we have a very hostile federal government who are implementing junk plans to undermine the marketability of these plans. so what i'm pleased about is the leadership of the house democrats just recently this last week in the heals of a justice department submission. actually unveiled unifying democratic legislation to provide additional tax credits for people above and below poverty, we have this huge population of people which in this country is $50,000 for an individual who cannot afford health care in many parts of this country. and those tax credits will go a long way to addressing it. and there's a host of other provisions in this legislation that deals with affordability. i won't go through all the details, but very important

initiative. the last message i want to make is this, it would be a mistake as my opening remarks reference to solely focus on the affordable care act. as the issue that people think of when they think of health care. they're very frustrated with the employer base coverage too. they're frustrated with their experiences of surprise medical bills. very frustrated with high out of pocket costs driven by prescription drug prices. if there's not a response to that, people are going to go looking for the candidates and the policy makers that can achieve those outcomes, and until we do, though. and we're going to find a dynamic where we have polarization in the congress, not moving afford, we have an executive branch continuing to be hostile. we'll have states continuing to be frustrated because the federal government is not acting. and a tie breaker in the judiciary, which is not where we

want to have health care legislation being done. last bit of good news for the democrats and i'll shut up and turn this over, which is the democrats are not as divided on health care as many people seem to want to -- the media really wants to talk about this, one is that all support regarding the affordable care acts and affordability provisions, all support efforts to contain prescription drug costs. most support additional tax credits to help make coverage more affordable. most supports protections options for people to retain their employer based health coverage. that continues to be a very strong approach for most democrats. all democrats in terms of the bigger debate around health policy, recognize it will be the democratic primary that resolves any differences. and so what we should be doing in the interim, is doing the

things we can do, whether it's bipartisan or partisan to show where we can get things done in the short term. with that, that is my quick overview. >> thanks for that. that was a pretty broad overview. you've been working on health care for a long time. and the center for american progress came out with bold ideas. looking back at your career, what are some of the successes that we had, but more importantly, outside of the aca, where would you like us to start focusing this congress? >> thank you, and thank you so much for having me, it's a great honor to be here. particularly with chris jennings, who i've learned so much about health care from over many years, we worked together on -- i think it was my first event when i was a white house staffer, was on a chip expansion event. it was actually a chip enrollment event. and i would like to say that there's so many people who have health care today, because of

chris jennings, decades of experience in trying to ensure that we get to a place where everyone is covered and he's worked on chip and also aca and a whole range of issues that have made people better off. it's great to be here and it's always a pleasure to be here with jim kessler who i always learned many things from over several decades, that started with lots of detailed information on the state of new york, but -- that's sort of an inside joke about. a certain first lady running for senate. so i will say -- i would just emphasize a few points chris made, and talk about where i think the conversation is going. i think it has been a core argument of the democratic party for decades that americans should have health care, and one of the features of the 1990s

into the 2000s, and into the current moment is how to fulfill that promise during the 1990s after the health security act, the clinton administration never gave up on health care and worked tirelessly to create the chip program which covered millions of kids. i see the aca as a fulfillment of the idea that everyone should have health care coverage and we've gotten 20 million more people covered and a country as large as ours, and this is a huge success, and i have gone through as many cycles as chris jennings and it wasn't always something people were bragging about, but it is an important step that we are here. where health care is an issue in which so many people saw a big cleve average between the parties. that is because the parties are so far away from each other.

you have the trump administration trying to gut the affordable care act. and despite the commentary to the contrary, they have no plan. in the absence of the affordable care act. the truth is, they didn't really have a plan for years that they certainly don't have a plan now. and democrats who are mostly on the presidential level talking about the next -- how to -- various ways to get to universal coverage. i don't want to take away from the important work. and chris talked about this, really vital work in the house that's happening right now, shoring up the aca. we remind people all the time that we need to walk and chew gum, the aca is under attack daily from the trump administration, they're doing things overtly and covertly to undermine the legislation. and democrats have to be vigilant. it's not unanimous, it's near unanimous.

i think that's important for all of us to keep moving forward. which is that this is an important piece of legislation that has protected millions of people, the idea that you rip it out from its sockets is unacceptable. having said that, i think in the democratic primary, there will be various ways to -- there will be a robust discussion about what the path is, and the path is to get to universal coverage over some period of time. now, i lived through as did chris, where health care was the central issue in a primary debate. in fact, it was amazing how many layers of discussion you could have about the policy differences between candidates back in 2008 when hillary clinton was running against barack obama and john edwards and even after john edwards left that campaign, there was almost

ad infinitum discussion on the issue. i agree with chris, we will have a robust debate about what the next step on health care is, and i do think a lot of people recognize it, what's really animating concern is in the democratic primary, is both universal coverage and lower cost. it's not just one of those issues, it's both of those issues, and my expectation is, we've already seen candidates differentiate themselves, some candidates are embracing multiple paths, starting with an option like jan jukowski has put forward. medicare for america which is loosely based on the medicare extra plan all the way to medicare for all single pair. and i personally expect a broad

debate on the merits of maintaining the private insurance system. the merits of zero co pays, there are big differences in a variety of these plans, we are proud of the medicare for america version of universal health care, which is universal. essentially maintains private insurance within the medicare program and also maintains it -- employee's ability to choose. everyone else is in a juiced up medicare plan. our plan is universal, is very bold. but i also think it gets to the twin concerns, which is how to lower costs for people in the system, but also ensures that we get to universal coverage. i imagine there will be candidates that support just a medicare option. there are those who support single parent. i expect this to be a robust debate. as we have this debate, we should be vigilant.

that this is a debate that in some ways is happening in just one side of the political debate, because the other side of the political debate is engaged in just trying to get rid of the aca with no -- so far plan to replace it, and so we remind people every day that have you to be able to talk about both of those concerns, because if the democratic primary debate is the only conversation we're having, people may lose sight of the fact of what the aca is under. >> thank you for that. and thank you for your years of service trying to get every american coverage. health care was a winning issue for democrats in 2018. as you look at the 2020 presidential primary and general election. and you've been around politics for a long time, why don't you

give us the perspective from the political side. >> great, thank you. and just want to say about this panel, this is an amazing panel of health care experts, and then you have one person on there who -- these are hall of famers, and i have a really cool record collection. so in the -- on the expertise on health care, i'm a little bit more of a laymen. on the politics i'm not so much of a layman. i want to build on something that chris said on this, chris jennings has done more on health care than just about everybody in washington, d.c., said that for the first time in 10 years, he wasn't a helper. what that means is, democrats can win on health care and they can lose on health care. in 2018 we won on health care and i'll go so far as to say we won the house on the health

care. my team at third way, they watched every single ad that was run in red to blue districts. 92 red to blue districts betwee labor day and election day. 967 ads, 59% of them mentioned health care. only two ads mentioned medicare for all, by the way and those two candidates host. so you can win on this issue, and you can lose on this issue. i think 2020, it is very possible that this election will be decided on health care. we know it's not going to be decided on the mueller report. so this election is going to be decided on more traditional topics. the economy. health care. immigration. but health care, this's a very good chance it is going to be number one. and you have a situation where donald trump gave us this gift, a very, very dangerous gift, he

really wants to repeal the affordable care act. he really does, as mira, said, like pull it out from the roots. he wants to use the courts to do it. but if you look from the republican point of view on this, they feel the democrats are giving them a gift. and i'll give you an example. one of the people who works for third way was at the american enterprise institute last week, which is a conservative think tank. was this on a meeting. she was there on a meeting on cyber security and ate lunch there. they have a marvelous cafeteria, apparently. listens. >> really nice. >> it is actually a pantry. we have healthy snacks which i'm opposed to. so this is a big screen this apparently at aei, and there is a, it's like a montage that goes across, and she's eating lunch and there she cease a montage

about medicare for all. and it's all the talking points on how you get support for this idea from the 56% where it starts at, to the 30% where it ends at when people, you know, hear criticisms of it. so my fear is, i agree with you, i think there is going to be a very, very robust debate in the primary, and this was in 2008. i wasn't involved in the 2008 primary except as an observer. the health care debate between obama and clinton was so narrow, the differences were such a small calibration of differences that it was like they are real i had talking about the same plan with these slight differences. the differences in the plans out this now i think are much, much larger. my hope is that in this robust debate, we make sure that we say everything should be on the

table. this are some fantastic plans out this to cover every single person and to make sure they don't pay too much. caps medicare extra is a terrific plan. we have a plan, universal caps costs in coverage, caps cost covers everybody. michael bennet's got a plan, with tim kaine, on medicare s. there's other plans out there. ours builds on yours, congressman berra, on automatic enrollment. but i do feel that this is going to be dicey for us. we can win or lose on this issue. and whether we win or lose on health care, i think will determine whether donald trump is a one-term president or a two-term president. >> jim, thank you for that. and thanks for giving the pledge to auto enrollment as well. >> can i say one thing in response and i really agree with a lot of what jim has said, i think we do need to navigate two

things, in the primary, to say these things out loud, i think this is an impulse and a healthy impulse to get to universal coverage and the way i think of that, the aca contributed to that, why should you throw out the aca, that's not the way i think about it, it is a reasonable impulse for people to think that in the industrialized problem, it is a problem that people in the united states still, there are many millions of people who still don't have coverage. i completely hear what you're saying about the potency of this issue, and truly the potency is, as chris said, people fear what they lose, you know, and health care is not like energy policy, or even financial regulatory reform. every human being is in some way a health care expert and they think of the health care system, they are thinking of the most personal decisions you're make, the care of a child, the care of

a parent, so it is much more engrossing, to people. i do think we have to navigate these two issues, which is to try to get a system where people are covered. that lowers health care costs. i also think it is important that this will be people who are kind of attacking the motives, of people who have a different plan than say medicare for all plan, and we have to guard again that as well. so i agree with jim, who i'm reading into, when you say the debate was pretty narrow, the debate was pretty narrow, and pretty policy-based in 2008, in part because there was a lot of energy about making sure that the candidates stayed on policy, instead of personal attacks and i think we have to think of all of those issues. but i'm hoping the primary can navigate a bold idea that produces universal coverage that still doesn't fall into, you

know, the two-year campaign that's going to be run against certain versions of the health care plan. >> you know, chris, i'm going to toss a question to you. mira framed something, there is a democratic side to this debate, where we're debating the policy, but there is that republican piece that's missing. from your perspective, and some would argue that the affordable care act was actually based on a lot of conservative principles, from your perspective, how do you engage that republican side? what can we do? where is the republican thought on health care? >> well, first of all, i noted today that, which is ironic, that mitt romney is now joining the gang of ex-senators who are going to be developing the republican alternative bill which is sort of an interesting

dynamic which was it was the foundation of the affordable care act, came out of massachusetts, and governor romney. so what goes around, comes around. maybe that's encouraging. we'll see. i'm a little bit dubious. you know, president trump seems to look at everything sort of a personal thing and number one, if it was obama, it must be bad. that's point one. and point two, i campaigned against this, and he feels that he has to do something, and he has a republican party who is pretty much still fairly aligned with him. i will tell you, where they're not aligned is what he just did. they don't want to reengage the health care debate. there is not one issue they would like to talk less in health care other than to jim's point, for good or for bad, what they want to apply to the democrat, their vision of the democratic's vision, which is they want to scare people into

thinking socialism is around the country, and rationing, and the ushl rhetoric that we have heard by the way, for every single point. you could have an incremental plan and they would call it that. okay? one thing i do want to say is if they're smart, they will understand, they may not care as much as about coverage as the democratic party does, they do care about cost and complexity, because if you're human being, you're frustrated with the health care system. so that is probably an area where there's some, places where one can go if you can show them why it makes some sense. and the last thing i'll say and i just want to talk about the democratic party, which is yes, unfortunately, we have the primary, and people are going to be trying to define differences, and there are going to be more differences this time around than 2008, but i think fundamentally, where there is a great deal of agreement, is

they're frustrated with the private sector's inability to constrain costs, and there has been a failure, and we have to be left, right, indifferent, we can't pretend that that's not the case, so i think generally what people are looking at is looking at medicare as a leverage tool for negotiating better prices. now, it may be an option. not mandate. not medicare for all. it may be a choice. and that's what nira's plan does, that's what your plan does, it is all about choices and options but it is about looking at ways we can leverage costs and more affordability, because i think there is another thing that new democrats stand for, they don't want to address all affordability issues through the approach of just provide more subsidies and tax credits. they will want to have to deal with affordability issues and interventions and there is one way to do that. >> can i just say one additional answer to chris's great answer, mine this is always a hard issue, with health care, which

is it is always hard to divorce from politics, because this were, cap put out a report, in the summer of 2017, about actual bipartisan ideas, this were some actual ideas, and the senate version around reinsurance and other things, and essentially the republicans were willing to stabilize the insurance markets under their version of a bill, and then senator collins talked about taking those steps themselves, separate and apart, and then that's just gone away from the republican argument, because even though they had ideas, that would stabilize and essentially lower the prices of, lower cost notice exchanges, they adopted those ideas for their own plan, to basically, you know, mostly get the aca, when it came to people reaching out to them, democratic senators reaching out saying let's do those ideas, you just voted for them, there hasn't been that receptivity which is the same basic argument of what happened with the aca itself.

it was the aca, that mitt romney supported and then ran for president and then atalked it. i think that has been what is frustrated and a one of the reasons that is fueling the push to go bold ner some ways because the attempt in health care to work, with in a bipartisan way, has been met mostly with brushback or silence on the republican side. so that is why a lot of people are saying let's not, that this is a fool's gold, let's come up with our plan that makes the most sense, and then move it to the country. >> i'm going to ask jim a quick question, but for the audience, we're going to take some questions from the audience, so think about what questions you might have for these three health care experts. jim, i didn't really hear from chris or nera, the republican idea for how we move forward on health care. based on your opening comments then, it looks like on the political side in the campaign, it is going to be a negative campaign saying here is what the democrats are going to do.

do you frame what their arguments are going to be on the ffb? >> think there is a narrow way that donald trump gets re-elected. but it's not an impossible way to get re-elected. and health care would be a part of it. the argument would go something like this. the economy's going fine. we're not at war. you know, we haven't invaded venezuela. or north korea. yet. but you know, we haven't. and boy, those democrats look really, really far left, especially on health care. that's the argument that they make, and they say like, you know, i don't like the tweets, i don't like the way he acts, i don't like his behavior, but the sky doesnidn't fall, and i'm wod about that gal or that guy who is the democratic nominee, they seem to have gone off the rails.

and they'll use health care as one of the proof points. if they can. i don't think the republicans are going to have a plan that will be sellable to the american people. i can't remember the last time they had a health care plan that was really, that you could sell to the american people. they basically, they only win by scaring you about democrats. and by basically looking out there and saying well, the economy is going well enough, things are going okay. so i think that's their strategy. they will have a figufig leaf p some kind of a catastrophic type thing, and and maybe a few patches that they'll keep from the affordable care act, but i think it is basically trying to win this game by defining democrats as too far off the mainstream. >> i will say, i mean i think

the challenge we have in this is that, and i, you know, i think we may agree on a lot of things on health care, but think one of the challenges we have in the primary with it is that republicans ran against barack obama as a socialist. even though he -- and i take the point udyou'd make, or imagine e point you would make, it is very different in a campaign when you have proof points or don't have proof points but i think what we may all experience or challenge in a primary, given they ran, mine the argument goes, whatever you say, they're going to say you're a socialist, and raising taxes on the middle class, and et cetera, et cetera. so regardless, you're going to get the attack. so you should have a bold plan. that's a little bit the argument i think that's actually going on amongst candidates and you see it in the approaches of some candidates and the approaches of other candidates and i think

these issues are basically all a way to talk about what the electoral path to victory is. and they will get debated as others will as well. >> let me ask you this. don't you think medicare ex dra is a bold plan? >> i would absolutely agree medicare extra is a bold plan. >> i read your plan. it is a bold plan. and i will do some bragging. there are ways, cost cap, and universal coverage, it is a bold man. >> yes. >> this are lots of bold, interesting, pragmatic, progressive, doable ways to get to universal coverage, and to cap costs, you've got a great idea, i think we've got a great idea, we build off of your great idea. so i worry that in these debates, these ideas that we have are shunted off as not being really bold for something that i think really can't, has kind of a glass jar, medicare

for all to me, like, you know, i understand why people like it, but i also feel like, you hit it with one blow and it is like mike tyson knocking you out. >> i hear. that a that, i hear that and again, it is much more fun for the media to talk about the extraordinary differences between the parties. but if you look at most of the candidates they're all embracing bold vision, but their actual execution i would tell you is much closer to your two approaches. many of them, when they ask question, what are the implications, maybe we could phase, in maybe we could do, this maybe we could do a buy-in first. i guess i really counsel democrats not to play into this divisive dynamic, because my view is this will be taken care of, the primary, these member, elected leaders, they hear the context of what they can market and what they can't market. they're not going to be dumb. i think in the end of the day,

we will find a democratic primary winner that is, that proposes a very bold vision that is something we all can be behind, and will not be as vulnerable as you fear. that's my view. >> and i would say most candidates have said, basically, i mean this are difference, but most candidates are said, multiple paths, to get this, we want to get to universal coverage, multiple paths, start with the medicare option and then move to medicare for all. >> any questions from the audience? go ahead. there are some mic's out this. a question over here on the right. >> so jim sort of established that the republican argument will be, and i think you all agreed, democrats are socialists. and that that could lose the election, democrats. and we've established that

democrats have a lot of, you know, great bold plans, and great policy, robust debate, maybe they'll come out in a good place, maybe not, i think you're more optimistic that it will have a smart plan than i am, but what is going to be our political argument, and i tend to think we need a one-line thing, to match the simplicity of trump's one line argument. do you agree? and what would that argument be? >> i think it is going to be, i mean given the lawsuit, i think democrats will and should campaign on trump trying to take 20 million people's health care away. and raise costs for, and take pre-existing conditions away. we did run a campaign, i shouldn't say we, democratic house members, democratic senate candidates, democratic governors, ran campaigns across the country on health care, and pre-existing conditioning. and had an argument that the republicans party wanted to take away protections and

pre-existing condition, raise your health care costs and drop 20 million people of coverage, and truthfully, like health care people voted, people's views of the parties were a 20% advantage for democrats. and when people were voting on health care, they were voting for democrats. so i 100% agree with jim, that this is, and chris, that this has been an opening. and it is very simple. donald trump has tried to get rid of the aca. tried to take people's health care away. and is trying to take protections of pre-existing conditions away. which are protections for over 100 million people. >> which by the way is the primary threat right now to health care. right? i mean we have a court case, it is real, it could occur, and it will be live throughout next year, most likely, and it will be part of the election cycle, and the media will play that as more real than the next debate on big health reform. so yes, i'm a little bit more confident that we'll be able to carry that off.

>> i will call it and say they are sabotage, we are stability, security, and savings on health care. >> this you go. there's the political messaging. we've got time for one more question from the audience. and short of that, maybe we'll give each of you a question then from me. we touched on coverage a lot, and had a conference on coverage and cost is a big issue and maybe one or two ideas on something that you think could be done on costs in this congress. >> this this congress? >> well, maybe the next congress. >> well, in this house? >> we could do this house. if you want like, i mean you just did mark up a prescription drug cost containment set of policies, it was unanimous, by unanimous vote, it was on this issue called create, and pay for delay, which eliminates barriers to competition. which shows you that you can have a pathway. i will tell you, i wouldn't

overpromise the impact of those policies. but they do illustrate the possibility to work collaboratively on that, and i would also also the issue of pay for, excuse me, surprise medical bills is another one. but and i would work on those two. i think you have a possibility to get something done, and pass and enact into law. i would also be a little bit more aggressive though on cost containment, particularly on drugs, because the truth is, that we're going to face a dynamic, i mean this might be not completely everyone agrees with this in this ruoom, i don' know, but the future of pharmacological interventions will be single source drugs with little or no competition, and we can, we can eliminate barriers but this is no competition, this is no competition, and if they're pricing the products too much, we're going to have to find different ways to intervene, and i would certainly, know the speaker is working with you and others to look at creative ways to do

that. >> i will be real i had quick. i would agree that pharma is a big challenge and if you actually look at what is increasing costs for everyone in the system, pharmaceutical costs are a driving force of that. it is not the only cost. but it is a driving force of that. and i do think pharma was a big issue in the midterm elections also. and it real i had crossed two issues. what you're paying in your health care costs but it was also a critique of 9 political system in washington in which we do seem to have a system that works pretty well for the companies, and less well for the consumers. we do live in a very upside down world, where the united states consumer is paying for both the national institutes of health, which are a big financial boon in some ways, a research boon, and financial boon, to the global pharmaceutical system, and experiencing the highest costs as consumers. and i just don't think that's sustain able. and one of the rines why

candidate trump used pharma as a way to differentiate himself from everyone else and i think we might need to recognize that candidates and president trump unite. >> all great suggestions. i would just add more value-based health care, pay for performance, and trying to institute out-of-pocket cost caps across the board no matter where you get your insurance, whether you get it from your employer, whether you get it from the exchange. >> well, great. i want to thank the panel if wond we can give chris and nera and greg a great round of applause. >> and let me go ahead and introduce the next moderator. who is our chair emeritus jim hims from the great state of connecticut, jim, if you want to

come up. >> thank you. thank you, everybody. it is a delight for me to see such a great turnout to this policy conference. we move now to presentations by members of the new democratic task forces, and i'll just tell you very quickly, a lot of the work, a lot of the policy work that happens with the new democrats happens through these task forces, looking back when i was chairman, just in the last congress, it was these task forces that developed the policy ideas, that ultimately found their way into legislation. so i'm delighted you are going to have a chance to hear from these three members. as well as by the way, provide feedback. part of the point of today is to make sure you have an opportunity as experts in a variety of different fields, to offer feedback, not just on the substance of what we're talking about but, and i don't know if this has come up today but it is one of my personal bug-a-boos

but on how we convey these ideas which are the right ideas and the good ideas but sometimes challenging to convey to the public in a political context because they're often techno crattic ideas so one of the challenges we face in the new democratic coalition, those of us who migrate to the center, is how do we compete with messaging that in some cases is much more emotional, and much more black and white, and much more good/evil, so you're going to hear from some real subject matter experts today who do as good of a job as any in terms of con vague the ideas we. have we want to hear you both on those ideas how to best convey, so they take on the kind of political momentum that they deserve. let me start with a couple of introductions. they are going to come up here as a group and present for roughly three minutes each. let me start with my friend denny heck of washington who organized and co-chaired the coalition's housing task force in the last congress, and is leading it again in this congress. he did wonderful work in diagnosing what the challenges

are around our housing environment, in this country, in the last congress, and you i know now he is working very hard in coming up with the solutions. and i used to be an affordable housing guy and les, one of the ways to create opportunity is to make sure people can move to places of opportunity and of course that's a huge challenge today. denny, thanks for joining us. representative lizzy fletcher is new to the congress and the new democratic coalition but already making a big impact on a number of issues including trade because she serves as co-chair of the coalition's trade task force. i don't need to tell you that trade policy has always been a difficult subject, not just in the congress, but within the democratic caucus. and so we're delighted to have lizzy here to talk about what she sees happening on that, in this context, on that task force. and then finally, bill foster, need no real introduction but he helped me organize the future of work tsa task force in the last

congress and continues to co-chair in this congress. a skrooif scientific and a businessman professionally and we're fortunate to have his intellect applied to this, probably one of the bigger of all of the problems we face in the coming decades. i'm excited to hear from each of these co-chair, for roughly three minutes, update on what it is they're thinking about and doing. and then we'll have an opportunity to, i hope for some discussion prior to moving on to the digital privacy panel. zenny, let's start with you. >> well, thank you, jim. first i want to acknowledge i have two outstanding co-chairs of the house task force, ben mcadams who of course was the mayor of salt lake county and worked a great deal in this space and katie hill, who was the executive director of a very large nonprofit. so what we're going to be doing is building on the work as jim indicated, that we conducted in the last two years. and the principle thesis, or conclusion of our work, is that prices and rents are rising faster than wages, and

construction is not keeping up with demand. thus yielding approximately 1.5 million or more shortage in the housing space. this is a problem. this is a problem for households. this is a problem for america's economy. it is a problem for america's households and families, because the truth of the matter is, in the last 50 years, the single largest increase in household expenses is not health care, as you might conclude. it is housing. that's marched by those of us who are in the same house for a long period of time but in fact, in the last a years that's the largest increase. secondly home ownership is declining. that is a problem. home ownership is the number one way the average american builds network and provides for the rye tirement security. it is a problem for the american economy because there is a huge multiplier effect of housing construction and we aren't just optimizing this in any way shape or form. we are holding back the growth of the economy. now, our conclusion,

additionally, was that there are three or four reasons that this is happening. one is that zoning and land use restrictions are inhibiting the provision of housing adequate to meet demand. second is, construction financing, kind of fell off the table, after the great recession. and has never fully recovered. thirdly, we believe that there is a labor shortage, either now, or into the future, and it is not keeping up with demand. so this are a lot of reasons that we are getting into this problem. now, i'm one that happens to believe that we're entering a two-year period of time during which we are going to be able to have some serious policy discussions about creating more housing units. there's lots of stuff flying around. gse reform. the administration's made very clear they want to do gse reform. efforts to help the 40e78lessness. last week in the financial services committee on which jim and i sit, and bill, we passed a $13 billion massible moonshot in

homelessness bill. this week we have hearings on rural housing. we will in this two year period of time have lots of conversations about infrastructure which you cannot have without bringing into it the issue of housing. and lastly, we may be very well revisiting the tax reform legislation that passed, several provisions of which actually hurts the creation of housing units. the state and local tax provision. limit, capping the value of your home. no longer making home equity loans tax deductible, the interest on them. lots of ways we might get back to the issue of housing creation. so i'm optimistic. i think it is important and i'm excited because we're actually finally going to be taking this issue up in some degree reflecting the importance that is to all of us. >> great. >> thanks, jim. and thanks, denny. it is so interesting, one of the

things, all of these task forces are interesting and of course i was listening because i'm in houston, the city of no zoning to hear about your conclusions of about no zoning but houston is a history with no zoning and haz city that is very dependent on trade, so i'm very excited to be co-chairing the trade task force and i too have co-chairs as well, representative ron k ine, rick larson and gregory meeks my co-chairs along with five other members on the task force, and of course, trade is a big topic right now, certainly as we look at what is happen welcome the usmca and the tariffs, those are discussions that are constant, in my own district, and really kind of looking at the trump administration's effect on what has been kind of the order for a long time. and of course, we didn't get here by accident. we've had really seven decades of trade policy after world war two, that have led us to a position where we really have an international economic system

that is framed around american institutions, priorities, and values, and right now, we're seeing a new reality in the trump administration, with protectionist trade strategy, as it unwinds our position in the global economy. so we believe that seeding our leadership in the global economy will negatively impact job, agriculture, manufacturing, and our economic and geopolitical standing for years to come. so we are very interested in crafting policy that maintains our position as a global leader. and of course, the new dem coalition, even though i'm new to it, i know that the new demes have been really the center of gravity and leadership on trade for a long time. and that this is the group that people have come to, of both parties, for policy ideas, looking at trade issues, and certainly, where i'm from, i think it is a great place for working together, across the aisles, and i can think of no

more bipartisan issue in my district right now than the threat of not being able to import avocados in houston. you can make sure that democrats and republicans agree that we all want guacamole. so it is a great opportunity, i think, for all of us to work together, and to address these. but the biggest issue is that the task force is committed to focusing on, is maintaining our position as a global leader, and supporting smart trade policy that benefits american workers, businesses, farmers, and consumers, learning the lessons from past trade deals, and making sure that we are updating, outdated agreements, and that we are strengthening our global relationships, and that we're promoting a competitive work force. and those things really need to be our priorities. at the same time, we're very focused on reining in the tariffs. that is something that i hear about more than just about anything when i go home and talk to folks in the district that there is a huge impact from the tariffs, so trying to come up

with e approaches that will rein in some of the unilateral actions that the gation has been taking in terms of tariff policy and really continuing to set the rules for the global economy and making sure their that we're championing the economy of the future. >> well, thank you, jim, for your introduction, and thank you also for your work as the chair of the new dems last congress, to bring the future work to the forefront of the discussion and showcase the leadership of the new democratic coalition on this issue. i'm excited that we're going to be building on the work from last year. including our economic opportunity agenda, a future that works, together with my three other co-chairs, reps lisa blunt rochester, haily stevens and chris papas and our 17 additional task force members which is maybe an indication of how this issue has moved to the forefront. we live in a period of innovation and economic disruption that's created enormous opportunities for some.

but a great deal of uncertainty and anxiety for others. the future of work and technological job displacement has been gone if sort of a fringe issue for few of us to one of a plain stream issue that is on the lips of virtually every presidential candidate. we often discuss the future of work and that future is happening now. we are her experiencing the pressures and the changing nature of work in our daily lives. we see the economic strain from automation, globalization, the widening skills and opportunity gap, and outdated institutions and regulation, and uneven economic opportunity. but automation and artificial intelligence are rapidly rising to the top of the list. we're starting to see the first mass deployments of ai and robotics and food service. hospitality industry. health care. and financial services. and many other areas. job displacement is moving rapidly up market as well. that's one of the things we're going to be looking at this session of congress. it is no secret that technology

is advancing at a rate far, that is far outpaced congress's ability to keep up just in the last two years, the number of adversarial networks to have photo realistic avatars, video you cannot tell from a hooun has allowed company does deploy photo realistic avzs for people with financial advice bull also allowed people to, but also allowed people to develop deep fakes that threaten to disrupt our micks. the way we nt ainteract with th world today will be unrecognizable for many of us who have begun our careers and it is not going to slow down. through the future of work task force, new demes have explored ways to expand our educational opportunities and reform hiring practices to shows the skills and opportunity gaps and make learning a lifelong enterprise. we also explored ways to expand and modernize the social safety

net to catch all workers and help them adapt to the changing nature of work. and we are keenly interested in exploring options to empower workers and spur innovation and entrepreneurship. as flew dems, our members are uniquely positioned to tackle this problem. this congress, amongst the future of work co-chairs as well, we have a restaurant enentrepreneur, the former delaware secretary hhs, and obama administration alum who helped save the auto industry and ran a work force development initiative and bringing under the rear, a stage lighting manufacturer and ph.d. physicist. we represent districts and accompanying large cities and suburbs and rural areas, former manufacturing boom towns. our constituents are on the front lichbts changing nature of work and to tackle this problem we are going to need to bring everyone to the cage, labor, business community, educators and colleges across the aisle, to search for solution and to seize the opportunity from change, rather than to allow it

to flatten us. it is an important thing. and i'm happy that, to be one of the co-chairs leading the work on it. thank you. >> bill, thank you. and because my colleagues are as disciplined as they, are it is four to five minutes before we start the privacy panel, and this isn't actually on the agenda but i feel very strongly about it. in the house, requesting permission to do one minute speech, the chair will now entertain feedback, thoughts, ideas, questions, that don't go longer than 45 seconds. got a few minutes before the privacy panel. yes, in the back. >> first off, thank you for your leadership on trade and specifically on the issue of rolling back tariffs. i think i speak for most folks and saying we really appreciate it. as far as the overlooking trade agenda, we get the white house back, do you think this is any potential for new trade agreements that include aspects like exporting green policies

abroad, helping lock in environmental protections in other countries? >> well, i do think that, that's something that we will talk about on the task force, and what sort of, right now, there is a lot of focus on what is currently happening and the rollback but looking forward, i do think with the united states to be positioned as a net exporter of energy, and of course, being from houston, and from texas, i'm keenly aware of that. but understand that our trade agreements have the potential to really have environmental impac and in courage policies and practices and oons bring us in line with the rest of the planet and the paris climate accord, there are a lot of things that we can and should be doing to look and how to make sure that our energy future is something we are also sharing those value through our trade agreements. >> other feedback, question, comments? two minutes before the privacy panel. okay. people need to get some coffee. nothing else?

okay. we will move on. i will thank the task force. thank you very much. and as you guys go down, i will welcome to the stage, the moderator, for our privacy panel, my good friend and colleague susan dell benny, there is probably nobody in the coalition better equipped to moderate this subject of digital privacy, susan as many of you know, had an extensive career with a large technology company, and since she has come to washington, has really spent a lot of time about, working to find that balance between protect can the privacy rights of individuals, and of course, allowing for an innovative digital future. so susan, welcome to the stage. ♪ >> we need a washington state music representation. so thank you, jim. thanks everyone. we are starting early. i'm so excited.

i want to ask my panelists, will come up, and take a seat. and i want to really talk about how important i think it is for us to talk about digital privacy, data privacy, today. it is a concern that americans face every day. we know we've seen people's expectations for privacy really be impacted by what companies have decided to do, from what has happened with facebook and cambridge analytica, all the way through people are really concerned about what happens to their data, and how they get to be in charge of it. and so this is a critical moment we're facing. this is a global issue. something that we've seen others kind of start to take a lead on, with the general data protection regulation in europe, gdpr. but we need to be moving here, in the united states, on policy. i recently introduced the information transparency and

personal data control act. really to make sure that we have policy that gives people control over their most sensitive information. and making sure also that we have an enforcement mechanism in the u.s. government for enforcing those rules. and under my legislation, privacy would be the default. but we also need to be a leader from a federal standpoint, in the global community, so that we are really helping drive global standards. and if we don't figure out kind of what our policy is going to be, it is going to be harder for us to set those global standards. so we are an undeniable leader in technology innovation and we should be on policy as well. so that's why i think this conversation is so important, and so timely right now. so first, i'd like to briefly introduce our panelists. i will go slightly out of order, wince we have you set up this

way erin cooper, erin serves a the vice president of global policy, the software alliance, in his role, he leads bsa's global policy team and contributes to the advancement of bsa member policies, around the world that affect the development of emerging policies including data privacy, cyber security, intellectual property and trade. mr. cooper joined bsa in february 2016 as vice president of strategic policy initiatives. he previously served as the chief counsel for intellectual property and anti-trust law. for chairman patrick leahy, on the u.s. senate judiciary committee. and most recently, mr. cooper was of counsel at covington and burling. where he provided strategic counseling and policy advice on a broad range of technology issues. he has testified before congress and is a frequent speaker on data privacy and security, intellectual property, trade, and other issues important to the software industry. and m cooper, thank you for being here with us today next,

right here on my left is gigi sewn, distinguished fellow at georgetown law institute for law and policy, and benton senior fellow. she is one of the nation's leading public advocates for open, affordable and democratic communications networks. for 30 years, gigi has worked across the country to defend and preserve the fundamental competition and innovative policies that have made broadband internet access more ubiquitous, competitive, affordable, open, and protective for user privacy. most recently, she was on open society foundations leadership and government fellow, and a mosilla fellow. >> from 2013 to 2016, she was counselor to the former chairman of the fcc, tom wheeler. she advised the chairman on a wide range of issues of internet, telecommunication and media, representing the chairman and the fcc in a variety of public forums around the country as well as serving as the primary liaison between the

chairman's office and outside stakeholders so thank you you for being with us here today. >> and dan am castro, who is vice president of the information technology and innovation foundation. known as itif. and director of itif's center for data innovation. mr. kes kester writes and speaks on a variety of issues related to information technology and net policy including privacy, security, intellectual property, internet governance, e-government and accessibility for people with disabilities. in 2013, mr. castro was named to fed scoop's list of the top 25 most influential people under 40, in government and tech. and in 2015, u.s. secretary of commerce ken pritzker appointed cass stroh to the commerce data advisory council. castro previously worked as an i.t. analyst as the government accountability office where he audited i.t. security and management controls at various government agencies. in addition, m castro was a

visiting scientist at the software engineers institute in pittsburgh, pennsylvania, where he developed virtual training simulations to provide clients with hands-on training of the latest information security tools. thank you for being here us with today, daniel. so with such knowledgeable panelists, i know this will be interesting conversation. and we have a lot of work to do so let me kick it off with you aaron, what protections do you think need to be included in a federal privacy law? >> well, first of all, thank you very much for having me and i apologize my ceo, victoria espinosa was wanting to be here, she had a family emergency so i appreciate you taking me as a substitute. we, if the software industry's perspective, we think it is really important, that this be a strong comprehensive federal privacy law that's clear, that's enforceable, and that helps regain customer trust. i think it has to be strong enough that it is worthy of a national standard, and i think it is important that the debate around federal privacy law not

be about pre-emption but be about establishing the right level of privacy protection across the country. thank you for your legislation, which i think starts that dialogue in a really positive, constructive, direction. i think what you said at the yote set here today, about making sure that the u.s. is taking a leadership position on privacy is really important. and your legislation sets that out. we think that there are three things that are really important for federal privacy legislation. first of all, it is important that consumers have the right to know what data is being collected about them, and they have the right to control it. that begins with companies, providing consumers with information about what categories of information is being collected. who it is being shared with, how it is being used, so that consumers can then have real effective control over how that data is used, and they can say no when they don't want that to be used. it also means that in some areas, such as financial information, medical information, it might be appropriate to have opt-in consent as your legislation does

and i think that is a really important aspect as well. and third, it means that customers have a federal right to access their data, to correct their data, to delete their data, to get a copy of their data, and i think that's, those are important customer rights that should be set at the federal level. second, it means that there need to be strong obligations on companies. companies need to act responsibly. they need to safeguard against privacy risks. that includes data breach, it includes inappropriate use of data, data being used for inappropriate purposes. and we think it is important that congress provide clarity about what companies obligations are, had is a distinction between controlling data and processing data. your legislation sets that out. as different standards, and it is important for them there to be high obligations but there needs to be clarity what those are and third we think it is important that there is strong ftc enforcement. your legs lution called for mour funding for the 23678d tc and better enforcement. i think the ftc should have the

ability to issue fines in the first instance to republicans real i had respect and understand that it is important to comply with what the new federal privacy standard is. and i think this is a good opportunity, this congress, taking your legislation, as a lead, and a really important first step, to enacting strong federal privacy legs lution this year. >> thank you. i have a question for you. you've been a long-time consumer advocate and obviously ftc staffer who had a share in shaping the 2016 broadband privacy rules, so from a consumer perspective, what do you think is important for congress to include in a comprehensive privacy bill? to address consumer needs. >> sure. and i also want to thank you and thank your staff, sasha bernhard, who is wonderful for inviting me too here today. it is a great opportunity. and i also want to say we agree on an awful lot and that is a pretty good start when you have industry and public policy folks

agreeing. i think the 2016 fcc broadband privacy rules provide a really good template. these rulgs were adopted toward the end of 2016. the administration kmanged. congress repealed the rules under the congressional review act. it is quite unfortunate. and barely, by the way. by only five votes in the house. and people were really outraged about that. even though the rules had never gone into effect. because it was the first aggressive, now, it would have just abelieve plied to internet service providers bit i think the template could apply across the board around not only to edge companies but companies of all kinds and people were outraged because this is a sort of thought that people don't cashe about their privacy. and and in fact, polls show the opposite. people care deeply about their privacy. they just don't know how to protect it. so aaron used a word, control. and i think consumer control has got to be sort of the primary part of any bill that's out there. so i agree with aaron 100%. consumers should be able to

having a ses to all of the information that's collected about them, that is shared with other, and the ability to edit and delete it. and in addition, companies that collect this information should have an affirmative duty to tell consumers through very, very clear and persistent notice what they collect, and who they share it with, and what's done with their data. you know, there's starting to be a, you know, a negative about a notice and con segment agreement. i'm not quite sure i understand. it it is a little bit paternalistic, people can't protect their own data so we need to ban certain uses of data. i don't think i'm there yet and certainly the fcc rules did not do that. they had a very similar structure to what your bill does, and thank you for that by the way. where if it is sensitive information and you had even a longer list than we had at the fcc, then it is opt-in and for other things it is opt-out. and i still believe that if you give people clear notice, and real transparency about what is

being collected, and give them the opportunity, a real opportunity, meaningful opportunity to opt out, if they want to, then they should have that choice. i don't think we necessarily need to ban certain kinds of collection and use of data, so long as people have meaningful choice. i also think it is important that, take it our leave it deals need to be prohibited. so in other words, since i know a lot about telecom, your internet service provider shouldn't be able to say to you, well, either you give me access to all your data and let me allow, allow me to do whatever i want to do with it or you can't have my service. that should be prehibberted, i think. i think that's important. second, aaron mentioned security. that's the second part. it needs to be an affirmative duty that those who that hold data protect it. and sanders shot in the senate has a duet yeah of care building which i think is very, very interesting and deserves a good look at. those that hold data should only use data for as much as they

need it. something called data plin mization. and data retention needs to be limited as well. of course, it is going to be different based on context. the example i like to use is the starwood preferred data breach where starwood kept the passport numbers of people who had long left their hotel, there's got to be some sort of limit based on context for data retention. you don't have to keep that kind of data forever. and it just increases the chances that it will be used in the wrong way. this also needs to be data breach notification. right? so if there is a major data breach, consumers need to know about it and in certain instances law enforcement needs to flow about it as well. finally, this is something that is also in sandra shots' bill, to the extent an entity is selling data to data brokers or sharing in some way, the responsibilities of the affirmative duty of care need to go to those third parties as well. and i can give examples of, that

but i will hold for now. finally, accountability. so pre-emption obviously is a big issue. i think you have to be careful, if the pre-emption is too broad, then you're going to be pre-empting state laws that, you know, protect the privacy with regard to medical personnel, accountants, and insurance companies, and so i think pre-emption really has to be only for those laws that really conflict with the federal law. secondly, there needs to be some sort of private redress for harms that are done if data is misused. and thirdly, again, i will agree with aaron, i like the idea of empowering the ftc with rule making authority and other things they need to enforce these rules because section five is not good enough. it is not clear enough. it is constantly challenged in the courts. this is the law part of the federal trade commission act that prohibits unfair or deceptive trade practices.

that's what the ftc has been using over the years to try to protect people's privacy and every time they try to do something strong, it gets taken to court. so really clear rule making authority for the ftc i think is real i had important. >> thank you. thanks for that fide back. we talked about consumers, about federal policy, and daniel, for you, i want to kind of get your feeling of how you think we need to look at both protecting consumers' privacy, and innovation, and how we balance those, or is did, is it a question of balance, how we make sure we do a good job at both? >> a great question. and thanks so much for having me here and your leadership on this issue. i think the innovation question is sort of critical, because if you ask how can you protect consumer privacy, that question itself is actually really easy. you just prohibit data collection. you prohibit data sharing. we know how to do. that the question is how can you do it in a way that doesn't impact all of the innovation that we're seeing around data and that's where it gets really hard and it gets hard for a few

reasons. first of all, it is difficult because a lot of times we're talking about privacy, we're often thinking about this in the digital space. and we're thinking about facebook and google, and we talk about privacy legislation, this actually impacts every business in america. this impacts the grocery stores. it affects the local florist. it affects your day care provider. it affects your home real estate agent. all of these people that really depend on data. and their livelihood depends on access to data. and so we have to think about what the impact of regulation and compliance with all of this regulation will be on the small businesses, the medium businesses, and the large businesses, in every sector of the economy. second, this really matters, because we actually want to encourage data sharing. so much of the innovation we've seen over the last decade has been from data sharing. and even when you ask consumers today, are you willing to share sensitive information like bio metric and location data, we did

a survey in december asking consumers about this, the majority were willing to share under certain conditions. they wanted to have really good flav gation services. they wanted to be able to log in quickly to their accounts using bio metrics. they saw the advantages of these technologies and we can't have privacy rules that make it too difficult for them and companies shy away from them. the third thing is we have to recognize any regulations on privacy in the space will have a significant impact on the digital economy. especially the advertising ecosystem that we see for the internet. and when you ask consumers again, do you want privacy, everyone says yes. if you ask them, are you willing to pay for privacy. everyone says no. they don't want to pay for privacy. they don't want to have any free service that is currently free, something they have to pay for in the future. they don't want to see more ads. if a company starts showing more ads because ads are more less effective. they don't want to see less relevant ads. this he want the services today

but more privacy guarantees. and a delicate balancing act for congress moving forward. i think three things, one can we streamline regulations to empower consumers and right now we have over a dozen privacy laws and it is confusing for businesses and consumers. if you try to ask the consumer, how does the federal government protect your data today, they can't name half of those privacy laws and that's a problem. it is a problem because those privacy laws all work differently. and so it is very hard, you know, one way requires a paper notice to be sent out every year. another law requires data to be protected a certain way and data a certain way. and it is really hard for companies to comply with. the second issue is we should get temperatures to really focus on protecting the most sensitive data, the data that people are really concerned about, and that when it is released, actual i had harms consumers. so that can be, you know, very personal information, that you just want private, like your health information, it could be information that can cause financial fraud, like your bank information, or any kind of

identifiers that can in used to open accounts. we need to make sure that companies are focused on securing that data and not wasting their time securing what is your favorite type of shoe, other do you like to watch football games on the weekend, and you're seeing ads for that. that's not where companies should be focused. and the third is of course, getzing to strengthen enforcement and this is where i think we all agree that this is something that your bill does great and that we want to see more of. we want to see the ftc empowered to make more rule making and empowered to go after any bad actors in these narrow areas. >> thanks. i think this is part of the challenge of addressing this issue, is the world keeps changing and we aren't necessarily quick when it comes to policy. so making sure that there is policy in place that is current and maybe forward-looking, to make sure that there is a good foundation that can be built upon, is going to be very important. so kind of for each of you, whoever wants to answer, what are the, what are the next steps

that we think we need to take to get policy in place, federal policy in place, and what are some of the challenges you think that we face? >> well, i'll start with an i'l optimistic note. as gigi said we agree about 90% from a public interest perspective, an industry perspective. the other 10% we could probably figu figure. from that perspective, then i'm confident on capitol hill -- this does not need to be a partisan issue. >> that's one of the interesting things. it's a complicated issue but not necessarily partisan. >> because it's complicated, it takes time and it's been a couple of years since it's been heavily discussed and debated. it's also a good reason for optimism. it doesn't matter whether it's an election year or not. it's the kind of issue where everybody can work together because everybody cares about privacy.

i think building trust within industry and public interest and capitol hill can really all come around trying to make sure we have strong briprivacy protecti and let innovation continue. >> we're veterans of the copy right wars. i feel old. one of the things they did well at the time is they brought stakeholders in to have conversations about what should be in legislation. i don't think i've seen that happening here. i know that, you know, there are like groups like center for democracy and technology and mild organization of public knowledge or having their own kind of separate confab. sometimes just ngo community, sometimes with industry included. i do think, you know, if the hill actually brought folks together, you could start to hammer out these things. i agree with aaron 100%, i think

the basic, the type of stuff we talked about, control, security, enforcement, accountability, everybody agrees upon, right? it's about getting the details. the devil is always in the details. it's something perhaps you might think about, just bringing in the various parties and see if we can hammer out an agreement. we want to be a leader but, boy, there should be a comprehensive bill by now that's a consensus bill. perhaps it will be your bill. one can only hope. but you know, it seems to me it's tape so long with all the concerns and all the many hearings last year and this year, we still don't have a bill that's kind of moving forward with bipartisan consensus, i think it's pastime. >> i agree. >> i was going to say, one of the things i think is really interesting is we're trying to pass federal privacy legislation right after europe has already passed their massive general data protection regulation, their big privacy framework, that they went through this big

process of let's bring everybody together in the very european tradition of getting the stakeholders in the room and going through the review prods. what they came up with is really bad. they are recognizing it hasn't worked well. it's a really good lesson for the united states and how we can do better, can we show leadership in this area. we've led the world in the digital economy for two decades and we did it through light touch regulation. we've done it through smart regulation. we've done it through focused enforcement. we've also recognized we can do it better the next time. it's our chance to do it better the next time and not copy europe. there's big lessons from europe. one, there was a massive compliance cost. we saw upward $150 billion global for companies that were just trying to figure out how to deal with this law. they are still trying to figure out how to deal with the law. even though they responsibility billions they are spending billions to comply with it.

that's one problem. the second is locked in with the incumbent. a lot of people thought privacy would increase competition in the space. that would be good for consumers. it turned out because of the high cost of compliance, coupled with the fact, that you know, you saw these companies that basically said not only can we not afford to comply, we had to block out consumers sometimes. you see companies in the united states saying if you're a european consumer, you can't access their website anymore because we don't want to deal with the regulations. you've seen the cost to consumers. third, there's all these intended consequences. because of the fact the policymakers at the time, even though the bill was passed this past year, they started writing it three years ago. three years ago they weren't thinking about artificial intelligence, blockchain. it turns out they were things they should have been thinking about. they passed a law with certain provisions that said you have to be able to delete something, which is a great provision in theory. turns out in blockchain that's a

permanent record. you can't delete things very easily. they created this law that was fundamentally incompatible with emerging technology. they recognize with artificial intelligence and machine learning, you want large data sets to learn from them. they released wait a second. they don't have large access to data sets, they held back, the core economy. on the u.s. side, we can look at what europe did and say there's a lot of good lessons about how to not make those mistakes, what worked well in the united states as we move forward with strong consumer friendly and regulation friendly legislation. >> doesn't dpr become a global standard in the absence of any leadership on this issue? >> that's a huge problem. in the sense there's this vacuum, other countries look to europe. they say europe seems to be doing something in this space and the united states doesn't do anything so we're going to copy

these rules. one of the brilliant policy decisions europe had with the gdpr, they developed something called inadequacy requirement. you are not allowed to send data to the another country unless it meets the same standards we have here. it's a way of basically forcing their laws on the rest of the world. that's something that's hugely problematic from the u.s. perspective and the u.s. should be pushing back on it saying, wait a second, this is bad for our consumers and bad for our companies. we believe in privacy, too, but we think there's a better way to do it and let's show you how to do it. >> japan just had an adequacy decision from the eu. they are creating a big data trading area. that's another place where without privacy policy on our side, it's harder for us to be engaged there. but also we have in the absence of federal legislation, we also have states moving forward. california, my home state of washington. what do you see -- you talked about this a little bit about

states moving forward. but also a need for federal law so that people understand in businesses and consumers understand what's happening versus 50 different policies. >> i'm less uncomfortable he with the notion of states having their own privacy laws. as i mentioned before in certain instances, when it comes to other professionals, there are state privacy laws. that's why i do emphasize, you know, if there is to be a preempti preemption, as your bill has the provision, you've got to be careful you don't wipe out every single state privacy law that is been out there. i think that could be a recipe for disaster for consumers. however, i do think it's important to make sure that whatever federal privacy law we come up with, that state laws don't conflict with it. i think that's really, really important. look, companies have 50 different tax -- state tax laws.

they deal with the patchwork. but certainly what you don't want are state laws that undermine what we eventually pass. if i could just make one other comment about some of the stuff dan said, smart stuff you said. i do think the lack of flexibility in the gdpr demonstrates why you've got to give ftc rule making authority. you get the expert agency, even though they don't move quickly, they can be more nimble catching their rules up to changes in technology and changes in the economy. >> let me just pick up a little bit on the data issue. it's important to make sure if you're a consumer in the state of washington or in california or in new jersey where i'm from, you should have essentially the same rights. i think that's really important. the potential for conflict of laws is an important issue and for confusion. both for businesses, small bitses as you'bits businesses with regulatory

compliance matters, for consumers, making sure they know what their clear rights are. think about the data retention issue that gigi was talking about at the beginning. if you have one state that requires certain data to be retained and another that says it's not allowed to be retained, it's probably not a great system for consumers or businesses. i think instead of talking about federal legislation in terms of preemption, i think we should be looking at it from another direction. we should be establishing, congress should be establishing the high standard for customer privacy protection and control. a lot of the rights that are in the gdpr come from a u.s.-led process oecd, the right user controls that we should permit. of course different jurisdictions would make sense, a different way of implementing that. i think making sure we have good strong consumer controls at the federal level is important. >> if i can just chime in, i think one of the interesting lessons from the gdpr, the

motivation for gdpr wasn't proprietarisey, 20 members states with different privacy laws. it was basically the patchwork we had here. they said, wait a second, this isn't working well for digital. that's why it's so onimportant to emphasize. a lot have to deal with a lot of states. if you're a retailer in r50 different states, you have to deal with 50 different state laws. digit tal economy, what's innovative and powerful you can scale up. create onedey, put it on the website, and you can serve the world. but that runs into problem when you can't serve the entire united states because you have to go and change how you work in every different state. that's where i think the offline rules of the past, you have 50 different state laws, that was acceptable. but in the digital space, that really doesn't work. you see this problem come up again and again, especially in a lot of these emerging areas where you see new businesses, for example, businesses trying to provide, uno, hr services.

they realize they can't scale because there's all these state-based rules that prevent them from scaling. that's the challenge we see in the digital economy today. that's where congress and fkc and state lawmakers should be, woing on erasing those barriers. that's how we're going to get more innovation in this country, more jobs, better opportunities for consumers. >> i helped co-found digit tal trade caucus, because when we talk about trade, talked about it a little earlier, when we talk about trade, we forget the issues of digital trade. these are newer issues. but this really is a digital trade issue, how we deal with privacy. you talked about it with gdpr. you talk about a federal policy here but do you think this is also something we've got to think about with respect to trade policy going forward. >> i definitely do. i think digit tal trade caucus has been a really good way of kmupg to u fch-- communicating

importance. trade with pz gentleman, u.s. negotiating a free trade agreement with japan. we think one of the things that should be easy and on the table is makings sure digital trade is included, data can flow through the countries freely. two countries that value innovation, value digital trade, making sure that there's a strong digital trade chapter there i think is really important. >> i'm going to open it up for questions in just a second just to give folks a chance to think about questions they might want to ask for our panel. one of the things i talk about in my legislation is making sure consumers know for our purposes, plain english, what's happening. how do you think we do a good job of explaining consumers what will happen to their data and making sure when they check a box they really understand. how do we make sure that we have a strong -- we have strong policy for consumers there? >> look, i think the duty has

got to be on the companies. again, this is where the enforcement comes in. if the law is not enforceable, you're going to have the situation you have now, where basically, you know, some of the top privacy experts in this town and this country couldn't figure out and opt out of data collection and facebook. so that's just not acceptable. so we talked -- at the ftc we talked about clear, persistent notice. you used -- i can't recite the exact words, affirmative, clear, that sort of thing. you let the ftc, rule making fill in the blanks and have strong enforcement. but it's got to be with the guidance of rules. it's got to be on the companies to make sure that consumers actually know what they are doing. i would also, you know, sort of throw out a challenge to my friends in the privacy community that it's also their duty to teach consumers how to protect their privacy. let's have tool kits. i'm on the board of electronic frontier foundation. i believe they actually have a

toolkit that shows people how to protect their privacy. the mozilla foundation where i used to have a fellowship -- i'm very good at collecting fellowships, by the way. i'm a professional fellow. has a data detox kit. it says so in plain english. it should be on the companies. we have a nunlg ngo working on privacy and they have a duty to educate consumers about privacy. >> at the end of the day it's not consumer control if the consumer doesn't know what it is they are signing up for. >> i think one of the challenges for companies in this space is they are often caught between two competing requirements. one, to be clear and transparent to consumers. two, to be comprehensive in details data arrangements. the reality is, a lot of companies are doing a lot of different things with data. they are not necessarily bad things. but they are doing a lot of things and trying to detail that at one page is really difficult. what i really like about your

legislation, it lays out specific guidelines for how the ftc should be setting rules for telling companies how they can be transparent. and then companies have guidelines to follow. that's what they need. i think most companies want to do the right thing if they can. what they don't want to do is tried to do the right thing and get in trouble for doing, which is the challenge there right now. >> questions? we have a quiet crowd today. yes. right back there. in audib . inaudible question.

yeah. i call it notice of consent, notice of choice. i guess it's pretty much the same thing. i think the main critique, consumers -- companies will make it difference to exercise that choice, as i discussed before. i think that's why having, you know, clear roles and having enforcement might change that. i think that's the main critique. its ineffective because people don't exercise their rights. again, at a certain point, you know, there's got to be a little bit of personal responsibility there. obviously if the companies make it difficult then you can't do it. the alternative that i've seen is just, you know -- this is a viable alternative, a reasonable alternative, you no, i just haven't quite endorsed it yet is the idea these are the things we never want to happen. so the data collector can never

collect, the company can never collect such data. so one of the examples is geo location data. but the problem is if you're a cell phone company, a mobile company, you're going to need that if somebody wants to make a 911 call. you want public safety to be able to find you. so i worry about flat-out banning collection of certain data entirely, because there may be a use somewhere that, a, is necessary to provide the service. in fact, i don't think there should be any notice of consent. if you're the cable company, they have got to have the name and address. there's certain categories if that's what you need to provide the service, i don't think you need consent. i also think that banning certain categories of data from usage forever i think could be a pretty inflexible way of dealing with the problem. if you make a broad category, like your bill does, we did the fcc opt in, then, you know, this

the sensitive stuff that you're not likely to opt into. so you're protected. i worry about flat-out bans on collection. >> we also should work on kind of the basics of a warrant standard for digit tal infoal information. strong bipartisan make sure warrant standard just like you would for a piece of paper in your file drawer. not all digital information is subject to that same warrant standard and we could update laws there, too, that could be helpful. >> yes, definitely. >> i was going to say, if i could give a specific example of how europe got that exactly wrong, europe passed a privacy law focused specifically on automatic notifications. the idea is when your car is in an accident what data is sent to emergency responders so they would be able to respond quickly. we have location information, have some other information. they basically looked at this information. there's all these different data points, we're only going to

allow this set. a year later there was some really interesting studies around the different data points in the car and the types of predictions they could make about the types of injuries and accident victim might have. it turned out that some of the data points they prohibited from being collected were the ones they would actually need to be able to respond in a more timely way to say this person has this type of injury. send that type of emt to the scene. i think that's the kind of risk we have especially in this fast moving environment where there's a lot of data we don't basically yet know it's value. we know it might have value. so we're still in the space, i think, where we want to say allow data to be collected. make sure consumers have choice, know what's happening, they can opt out of it in they want to. allow data to be collected, allow exploration around data. maybe 10, 15 years down the line, there's this huge swath of data nobody needs. maybe then we say we have the rules, but right now i think

it's way too early. >> other questions? >> i could just clarify, i do think forceps tiff information for your bill should be opt in. again, pretty broad, and then everything else opt out. but the unintended consequences, i think dan gave a great example, are pretty clear. >> then we have the work to make sure we define sensitive information clearly. >> when you start talking about being able to access, view, edit, potentially delete your information, you're immediately faced with the information of how you authenticate yourself to know it is really you and not someone impersonating and stealing your information. other countries are well ahead of the united states. companies like estonia, korea and so on. in the absence of that, industry groups are coming together like better identity coalition and so on. but there is an essential government role in this. i was wondering what your attitude or thoughts on the way forward of the u.s. provide secure digital id to citizens

that want one. >> if i can take that. we've done a lot of work looking at electronic ids globally and the reasons countries -- i even had -- anyone can become digital estonian, 100 euros down at the embassy on dupont. i recommend you do it. it's powerful, have you a way to securely identify yourself online. united states has only slightly funding trust identity for cyberspace. we need to do so much more in that space. this is an area of privacy legislation where we're kind of not focusing on some of the right problems. if we focus on let's say social security numbers and replacing it with a secure digital id, that would be a huge step forward and getting rid of fraud. if there is a data breach, it doesn't matter anymore. doesn't matter if they know my social security, my date of birth. weather watch can solve so many problems going down that route. some other issues we're

concerned about, strengthen civil rights law, that gets to concerns of discrimination people are concerned about. i think we can trackel concerns about data privacy and data breach by getting to the heart of the problem. government is going to have to lead there. you can't do that with industry alone. >> i think you're also right. at the beginning of the question talk about what consumer controls should be. we have to be careful how they apply. we agree there needs to be exceptions for the first amendment, identity control. there need to be exceptions for cyber security purposes. with the appropriately tailored exceptions and those consumer control rights work really well. on the identification and authentication piece, i think it's also important that u.s. industry does have some of the best authentication tools out there. i think we're still trying to figure out how do we make them all work together. >> well, thank you. we're just finishing -- are

there any other questions? we could probably do one more quick one. yeah. >> just real quick, thank you guys. i had a real quick question abo about, it's interesting for me to think about this problem without thinking about big five. last year big five made $150 billion off consumer data. how do you all feel about working with them. frankly as a tech entrepreneur that stifles innovation to create a better version of facebook or linkedin or apple. how do we think about data portability in this situation and working with the big if i have to make data portability front and center issue. >> i love it. i didn't talk about it because to me it's more a competition issue than privacy issue, although it obviously crosses bounds. the big five are not monolithic, neither is the tech industry. that's really, really important.

there's really maybe two, three companies whose entire business model is based on selling ads. microsoft and amtz have a very different take -- i'm not sure who you're including in the big five, i'm just guessing. a very, very different take on privacy than perhaps google and facebook and maybe throw amazon in there as well. look, i think we could bring two or three of those companies to the table around all the principles that we just talked about. maybe now you saw mark zuckerberg put out a piece in the post that got mixed reviews. i thought it was a good, thoughtful -- it pushed them firth than where they have been before, particularly on data portability. the issue with data portability is how do you allow consumers to port their data in a way that -- in a read/write way.

not an xcel spreadsheet. i think those five companies could figure out a way i could take my data with me to competitors if i want. >> to be quick, we represent basically enterprise software community, microsoft, apple. the ability -- we think the ability to be able to get your data and move it somewhere else is something that should be -- it should be a right. part privacy, part competition. increasingly our industry is about inner operability. increasingly you'll see most of those companies move towards a place where they want to be able to share data provided the consumers know about how the data would be shared and ported, consumer right. >> i can just end with saying i am a huge proponent of data portability. i think we should focus on sectors like banking where there's clear value to consumers. also flip side.

data portability was the cause of the cambridge analytica problem. that was the action. we have to make sure it's done in a way i don't think we're going to regret later. i think focusing on those areas like banking or other areas where we can have a defined set of data and clear competitive value is how we move forward. >> we have gone over our time, so i want to ask you to please join me in thanking our panelists today. [ applause ] >> and i get the honor of introducing kathleen rice, who is part of our new dem leadership team from new york here to moderate our next panel. >> thank you so much, susan. let's give a great hand to susan and the wonderful panel we just had up here. so i am kathleen rice, i represent fourth congressional

district in new york and i'm incredibly to be part of the new dem leadership team. i am going to be introducing three other new dem members within the coalition to talk about our work on national to talk about national security, infrastructure, if the panel wants to come up now. first we have to my far left representative brad schneider, co-chairing coalition national security task force this congress. new democrats have long been strong advocates of tough and smart national security strategy and brad is going to tell you what we have planned this year. next to brad we have representative darren soto, who is becoming a leading voice in the coalition and congress on technology issue.

he's co-chairing the technology task force and he's going to tell you some areas of focus for the coalition. to my immediate left we have representative slotkin, one of our fabulous new members of congress. new to the coalition but already making an exact on many issues including infrastructure, where she serves as co-chair of the coalition's infrastructure task force. there are a few issues where president trump and congress are in alignment and infrastructure is one of them. so alisa is going to share with us how new dems are approaching the discussion. so let's start first with brad to give us an overview of the national security task force. >> thanks, kathleen. welcome, everybody, to the new dem conference. either an honor to be here. the new dem task force. i'm one of four co-chairs, brian boyle, anthony brown and abigail spam berger, eight other members on the task force.

how do we make sure we keep our message and focus front and center on the issue of protecting united states strategic interest, national interest around the world and keeping people safe. what we've seen from this administration is a lot of talk. a lot of strong talk, embrace of strong men as well. but the actions have been very different. in particular what we've been seeing across the board is diminishing of capabilities. i think this is true if you look at what's happened to the state department. our refrenching from supporting u.s. aid efforts around the globe as well as pulling back from our alliances and coalitions. particularly the conversation and threats against nato make a perfect example. other institutions. what we're looking for or what we see from the administration is a strategy that is at best

rudderless. not real clear where we're going. at worst, what we've seen is a strategy that is against our own national interest. this is a grave concern. it's a ceding of american leadership. it's contrary to what new dems would say are our interest, values, security goals. here in new dems, we're more than ready to step forward and rise up to this challenge. in particular what you see among the new dems is a group that brings a diversity of perspective, a broad range of expertise. in fact, within the new dems we have experience on the committees of jurisdiction on national security. we have veterans of our armed services of the different branches as well as national security organizations. it's that we're looking to bring forward to put together a statement of strategy that defines our interest, lays out our strategic goals and develops a plan to move us forward. i think that's what we're

looking for from this group that we'll deal with, not just expanding and strengthening our international relationships. but from the standpoint of congress, making sure we continue to invest in those institutions, in diplomacy, essentially the three pillars of national security which are diplomacy, development, and defense. if you recall secretary mattis in testimony last year was very clear. he said if you cut back on diplomacy and development, you'll have to invest more -- he said give me more money for bullets. we need to make sure we're maintaining proper balance of diploma diplomacy, insurance and ensuring united states national security. >> thank you, broad. darren. >> thanks so much. i'm pleased to be part of the technology committee along with sharice davids, kendra horn and harley rudea on three great

members. when we look at the speed of technology, for those in my lifetime. for those checking, born in 1978, just amazing the changes we've seen from the rise of personal computers to cell phones to gaming consoles. i started out on a nintendo, my brother had a commodore. he was a few years older than me. sharing music and movies, to social media accounts, things that did not exist when i was first growing up. then we saw those changes. they are all these different verbs that came bought to google it or tweet it or facebook it or i anything. put i in front of anything nowadays. or i need that in realtime. our whole even vernacular has changed. i come from a district where we are right next temperature busiest base port in the world, cape canaveral. we're home to a huge simulation and virtual reality cluster over at university of central florida

where we develop a lot of training exercises for the military as well as working on video games and even our theme parks take advantage of that technology. we have centers, aerospace, cyber security, cloud storage. all that got me interested in looking into this area. but it was when we had the founder of facebook mark zuckerberg at a hearing during house and senate hearings that really piqued my interest. i was watching a lot of those. i got home and my wife was like congress doesn't really under technology. it seemed so obvious at the time. when you see senators using cue cards developed from interns and house members asking questions that didn't have context, it was clear we needed folks, some of the younger members from new dems and other caucuses to really start delving into these things, which was the main reason why it was important to

get on energy and commercial. you just heard a discussion of internet privacy going through our committee as well as issues related to net neutrality and others. we're working on establishing first definitions and jurisdiction for cryptocurrency. some of you may be following that. we should have that out over the next couple of weeks, because right now it's kind of like the wild west. we're working with the educational work forward committee on artificial intelligence bill to not only see where we could help out private companies but also get in front of it. we saw the internet be both a boo boon and big disrupter of job. it's helpful to retrain folk who may see their jobs lost so they can go into new jobs in technologies and help where we can with tech companies. quantum computing is another thing we've been encouraging through budget amendments, through other various means,

knowing that this it's going to be able to help with everything from agriculture to marketing to defense to you name it. and then spaceflight. we're really laser focused on that. we'll finally have human spaceflight. spacex will be launching this summer. boeing may as well. we'll see how their launch goes. when you think about the future of the economy and tech, think about how a lot of the economy over the next 20, 30 years will literally be out of this world and how we need to continue to have a long-term vision to make sure in all these different areas that the united states maintains a dominant edge on both research, on market share, and on making sure that we have trade that will advance a lot of these key technologies without them being stolen. we're really excited about a lot of the work we're doing on the tech task force and look forward to talking with all of you about that. >> thanks, darren.

alisa. >> thanks. hi, everyone. alisa slotkin. i'm from michigan, and i'm really excited to be the co-chair of the infrastructure task force. jason crow, sue, stacy are also co-chairs with me. i'm from michigan, so we literally had a governor that was elected on a slogan that said fix the damn roads. it just gives a sense of how desperately in michigan and i know people across the country feel about infrastructure. one of the things that surprised me as a new freshmen when i got to washington and you meet all your new peers, it didn't matter if you were from iowa, new jersey, michigan, everyone was talking about infrastructure at home and everyone feels like we need once in a generation investment in our infrastructure. so i was very happy to be involved in this. i think when we talk about infrastructure, we all know we talk about roads. in michigan we literally name our potholes. we have a whole cat goresation.

alcatraz is the worst one. because once you go in, you never come out. you pop a tire, you're done. i live 15 minutes from flint, michigan. so water infrastructure, our bridges, our tunnels. broadband, i have a rural district in areas. i'm broadening up the definition of infrastructure is very important. now, the president has said the right things about infrastructure. he's gotten a lot of play out of that. i think one of the thing the new dems can do well is have an honest conversation how we pay for it. we know last year, a year and a half ago the president put together a package that said the right thing but relied on private industry and infrastructure to fund the projects, so it didn't he said up happening. one of the things the new dems is particularly good about is having practical ideas to really problematic issues. we all know it costs money to invest in our infrastructure.

i'm really glad to be part of it. i think we have a great team. we will not move forward unless we're face front about the fact that there will be a cost and we will address it. thank you very much. >> please join me in thanking broad and darren and ellisa on their presentations. the next discussion on climate change which will be great. my new friend and vice chair scott peters cocoa up. he's going to moderate the panel. there are very few members of congress, first of all, this coalition but congress at large, more experience at policy change. a former economist appear epa, environmental lawyer and serves as senior member of the energy an commercial committee. without any further ado, i'll hand the mic over to him and he will introduce the panel.

>> thanks, everyone. i'll ask the panel to come up and join me and have a seat. >> all right. thank you for joining us to discuss the most po' issue in the world, the need to combat climate change, both to slow climate change and prepare for the changes that are already happening or inevitable that climate change will bring. i come from california where progress has been strong. we long ago under a republican governor, governor schwarzenegger enacted statewide standards for renublt. an effort started bid reagan who thought the federal government wouldn't be tough enough so california'sability to set standards. now we require companies to

reduce carbon emission. last year enacted sb 100 that will require energy producers carbon neutrality by 2025. personally if we could do that in d.c., sign me up. but i know that's not the situation here. we all welcome the new energy around climate that's come to d.c. with new elected experience and articulate with ideas like the green new deal. but d.c. is not commentatosacra. when it comes to climate action, how to make a policy in a setting that lacks consensus about whether or how to act in california. science warns us we can't wait. we have to figure out how to act even in this context. on our panel we'll talk about that, have a conversation about what we can accomplish right now despite political head winds. introduce my panelists, thank you all for being here.

tirnen, senior vice president of league of conservation voters. focused on advancing meaningful policy combat climate change and mobilize 2 million members across the country. the reverend mitch, pastor and ceo of evangelical environmental network. i urge you all to follow them on twitter. he's co-authored a book and published articles creation, care and the impact of climate change on all of god's creation. he also serves on the national association of evangelicals board of directors. josh freed is the founder and senior vice president of third ways clean energy program. he's focused on promoting policies and new alliances that combat climate change through innovation, advanced nuclear and carbon capture technologies. i'll start with you teernen. let me ask you, so what do you think -- here we are. we have a majority in the house of democrats, a divided government once again. what do you think are the

biggest opportunities to make progress on climate change between now and january 2021. >> thanks for asking. thanks for the opportunity to be here. needless to say we are thrilled to have a pro n, pro climate action majority in the house of representatives. especially in the last eight years running the show. as you mentioned we're seeing devastating impact of climate change across the country. this change comes not a moment too soon. you noted there are so many members of this class, we actually put out a new member guide showing all the awesome new members that ran on climate change and new energy and are getting to work on that very hard with awesome returning members. 56 of the new democrats in the house have committed to 100 clean energy by 2050. that demonstrates what a priority it is. for us in terms of what are opportunities to make progress, we are focused on defending this pro environment majority

ensuring pro climate action majority in the senate and champion in the white house for 2021. we think we'll need to have all of that in place to have sweeping legislation signed into law, which is commensurate with the scale of the problem, which is obviously of epic proportions. but in the short-term we are really excited. we like to say election santa rosa consequences. just in the first couple of months the house of representatives has already held 20 years on the climate crisis, which is astounding which considering there were none in the years before that. we're excited to be calling attention to are have climate champions across the house calling attention to the p scope of the problem and the usualent need for action and so many win-win win solutions good for our economy, good for creating jobs, good for addressing climate justice and of course protecting the climate. we're very excited about the attention the climate is

garnering right now. we were delighted speaker pelosi of the climate crisis introduced hr 9, climate action now bill to reassert united states leadership in meeting our paris climate agreement goals. we're very eager to see the house continue moving forward on badly needed oversight of administration's rollback of common sense efforts to combat climate change. we really see major opportunities in an infrastructure package, a green climate smart infrastructure package. i guess by wrapping up on the first question you talked about progress in california but we're seeing progress all across the country. already since january 6, new governors who got elected in november have joined the u.s. climate alliance. former "aquama eer congress web signed the new bill into law to get mexico to 100% carbon free

by 2045. of course we are seeing a real race to the top in the 2020 presidential election where candidates are absolutely making climate change and climate shoo solutions a top geo priority. there are challenges but we're feeling very optimistic. >> so we'll get back to specific things we might be able to accomplish in this conference. but pastor mitch, teernen gives a blue sounding answer to that question. you hang out with a lot of republicans. i want to ask you about conservatives. why have conservatives and religious conservatives acted on climate and is there hope? >> there's a lot of hope. we represent 3.5 million pro-life christians. probably a bad word in this number but who want 100% clean energy by 2030. i can tell you now i'm working

with 18 republican senators who want to act on climate. they aren't ready to become public yet. they are working very closely. in fact one would make an announcement in the next two months who i never thought two months ago would do it. i think the reality is why climate change has not been embraced by especially conservative faith people like me. remember, let me give you some context of why this is so important. evangelicals represent 35% of the republican party. what's even more astounding is evangelicals in the past three presidential elections -- not just the last one -- represent about 28% of the people that cast votes. another 19% of the people that cast votes are white roman catholics who have demographically a lot of the same profile and characteristics. and so if we're going to act on climate but it's too late, and i

think that's one of the things we want to emphasize right now, is after we saw the last report coming out of the u.n. and our need to act, we have to come up with bipartisan action because it's the only way it's going to happen in time to save people on the earth. i don't know who said it first, katherine or me, but the earth will take care of itself. what we have to worry about are people. that's the problem we have to deal with. one of the things i really want to stress to this group is i can tell you one of the problems, and it's not the only problem, certainly money fed into this amplified it from the other side who wanted to get rid of it, there's no -- we're a long way from 2008 when nancy pelosi and newt gingrich sat down and did a commercial together. a lot of that was money. that money played into some of the basic fears that are happening. in fact, scott has heard me say this before but it's very true.

if we don't separate out climate change and clean energy and tackle them on their own without mixing in an awful lot of other progressive social values, or for that matter conservative social values, we're never going to get any place. my community thinks that everybody who is a democrat believes certain things, and that gets amplified. i can tell you i go to the green group ceo meetings and when they start out saying how can we get more progressives to vote for climate, i say that's not the question. the question is how do we make i a bipartisan deal. i could talk forever about this but i'll stop there. the thing we have to appeal to is allow people to come to act on climate change using the values that they most hold dearly. those values might be different for you than me.

and the analogy that i like to use is we're not going to bring up one big tent. we're going to bring up a lot of smaller tents that eventually will join together. that's how we have to start thinking about climate if we're going to act together. that's probably my three minutes. remember, i'm an evangelical preacher, so i don't get warmed up until a half hour into it, so i'll turn it back. >> thank you. that actually leads to josh. josh, that's fairly provocative for a democrat. what is third wave focused on when you look at the climate debate. >> i think the remarks by tie rna n and pastor mitch play into what we're seeing in the climate state of pray. we see there are two real positive developments over the last three years. one is there is broad and growing demand in the public for action. the second is there are more and more diversion people in the

political spectrum weighing in, making suggestion for action and recognizeing that we need to act now. those are setting the stage for potential for real action over next three, five years and even in this congress. the challenges we see, and this is a risk that does have significant downside, is that if we lean too far in one direction on the activism that has gotten us to the place in the debate we are today, we may miss our opportunity. as was alluded to, the science is very clear. we need to get to net zero emissions by 2050. and the earth may take care of itself but it won't take care of the rest of us, so we've got a very clear target of what we need though hit. the interesting things as we think about this is how far public opinion has shifted. it is in no small part thanks to the sunrise movement and

representative ocasio-cortez on the left and americans are experiencing the impact of climate-fueled disasters on a season by season basis. we all know the litany of those disasters. we're living with one in the midwest with the aftermath of the flooding. in 2018, by the end of the year, 73% of americans believe climate change is happening, which is a 10% increase since 2015. 70% of those between 18 and 35 and 56% of people over 55 believe that and 64% of republicans believe that climate change is real. now, we're seeing how this is manifesting itself when while the trump administration, and particularly the president unfortunately continues to deny the realities of climate change and does not embody the urgency any of the rest of us feel. others in the republican party, and this is a rare instance, are willing to take a break from the

administration. a congressman, fear defender of the president, pretty stark, i don't think there's a scientific debate to be had on whether climate change is happening. history will judge harshly climate change deniers and i don't want to be one of them. senators alexander and barrasso recognize clean energy and innovation, which we don't think is sufficient on its own but a big step in the right direction from where we are rast year. we've seen a lot of legislation. bills you were involved in, carbon capture, advance nuclear, tax credits all start to move as well as clean energy and renewable energy at the state level, california, mexico and others. there are opportunities for hope. the thing we're concerned about is the urgency of climate get turned into a grab bag for every

other social issue which we at third way believe need to be addressed. these are tough issues and they need to be formulated. there need to be serious policies behind it and they need to be tackled on their own because they are hard enough without jumbling all together. >> can i give you a high five on that? >> i want pastor mitch to follow up. i've heard you talk about things that scare evangelicals about the way democrats talk about this. can you share with us, what is their reaction? how should we be talking about a climate in a way that invite people into these small tents. >> a small thing we can all agree on is people need to know there's hope first off. that's the number one thing i talk about when i go out is hope. the number one story is it's not all about government action, it has to be kormt and individu.

what do you in central iowa except come out and hear the new preacher in town come to speak a little bit. the whole town comes out, 500 people fills the college auditorium. i said the first thing we can all do is be energy efficient in our own households. bl blah blah blah. do the hole thing. a man came up to me afterwards, with a genuine and sincere heart, said you are the first person who ever said i could do something about climate on my own. by the way, i farm 3,000 acres of corn. i'm going to be reducing my fert limplt, my pesticides and planting ground cover crops to restore the soil. that's one of the things. we have to make it about everybody. no, we're not going to solve climate without everybody. i'm not naive. but we have to encourage people to take those kind of steps that

will help them now be part of the solution. that's one of the places we can all start out and find common ground on. >> tie rnar nchl rchtierna n, t what do you think the policies are? where would you see us go 30 years and beyond that. we know we can't assume results of any election. if we got to work today, what are your priorities to work on. >> first i mentioned hr 9 to reassert united states leadership meeting and exceeding our goals under paris climate agreement. it's a very first step, a down payment on democrats showing they are now controlling, serious on climate change. we'd like to see early, swift action on that. as i mentioned broad support for 100% clean energy. we'd love to see legislation move on that front. lcv is supportive of the green deal. now is the time to challenge

ourselves on the green deal. congresswoman ocasio-cortez made it clear they welcome input. i think a the lo of solutions we're talking about can be part of that. we also have talked a little about infrastructure. i think that's a huge opportunity. i think there's a hot we can do in terms of renewables, in terms of efficiency. i think at this point, let 1,000 flowers bloom. the problem is so massive and the need for solutions is so great, i don't necessarily think some to have these are mutually exclusive. mitch o'connell pulled an absurd stunt, senator schumer day after day after day with so many colleagues calling out how it was. climate change is real, human activity burning fossil fuels, congress needs to act immediately. that's progress. maybe it back fired a bit for

him but we still have him on the senate, the most anti-environmental president we've ever had. now we continue to work on and envision bigger, more transformational legislation we need to move. >> let me ask josh as a pollster, how does that strike you? how is america going to take what tie rchrna n said. >> will we have seen a real shift. to the point that was made earlier. people are experiencing the impacts of climate change to them. it's real to them. not a theoretical problem anymore. it's harder to say they are going to wait and put off the solutions for another time. one of the things we found in looking also, the more you explain what people get for the policies or the money, whether it's impacts positively on their

time with infrastructure or cleaner air and cleaner water because of new policies that are implemented, the more they are likely to support it. if it is a theoretical or national policy that sounds like it's simply imposing cost, it becomes a much different challenge. >> the things happening now we could do, i think first off something we can all agree on, and the question is finding the money, we can talk about where to get the money at, we need to have a great investment in our national laboratories. that's something republicans can agree on and democrats can agree on. you guys in congress, men and women, have to find the money after the tax cut, which is a big problem. there's lots of things, nobody wants to give up any of their other items to have to pay for it. nobody is going to do anything without a new pay for. i think that's a starting point. i think something everybody can agree on, get cbo to lower the

score on it, the reclaim act put out by republican hal rogers last year and stymied in the senate with mitch mcconnell, even though he's -- he didn't want a certain democratic senator to get credit for it, to be honest, and i think everybody knows that. joe manchin put his bill out. it takes money out of the reclamation fund to retrain coal miners and put them to work reclaiming abandoned mine sites. those are two things very practical we can do right now. then certainly we have to work to building a national policy whether we believe in some type of market-based system. we can talk forever about various proposals but we like market-based systems because we want the market to work. that all has to be teed up. hopefully come 2021, we will

have new leadership and a new president that we can get something done. even with all of congress, it's not veto proof. believe me, i don't know if you can see this from back there, but i wear a tie that's it's to remind me when i'm on capitol hill and talking to the administration who i'm supposed to be representing i admit it is the worst administration ever. i'm fighting the mercury. you know, when the chamber of commerce says you can keep the role you know something funny is going on. i want to talk about it. sit very prominent. on one hand it is pretty general. it is not that objectionable. i think it's generality has a lot of people to define it

what's your impression? tell me how you think the right might react to it with their perceptions of it? >> i think there are very much parts as i understand it from the reading that people could get involved with. i think there's also an issue that i was talking in a meeting three weeks ago with the people and i asked him a really interesting question which we came to talk is that i represent, you know, three and a half pro-life christians. would they be part to be part of your coalition? they could not answer that question. i think that's something that we need to think about. also i think the idea of big government on its own is that. certainly having that and moving to clean energy, energy

investment they are all goals that i think we can all get around on. i think it's how we talk about them. i think, you know, one of the things that -- i'll admit, i pray for this every day. you and i are good personal friends. you know, it is a good personal friend. you and i on 99% of the issues probably disagree. we agree on climate. how about 90? something like that. we have more disagreement than commonality. i think the issue is that we have to do it.

josh, i'm going to ask you the same question. >> i think what we have seen today is a shift in the conversation from is climate change real? is it worth addressing to we need do something, what is it that we are doing? we weren't there in 2016 even.

>> it could be part of the flu deal. it could be completely separate from it. the moment we are debating this idea and not specifically how we are going to get there and what it means we are in trouble. >> can i add one quick thing? it is both on 100% clean energy and on the clean new deal and found support for both is extremely high. i think it's telling that most of the criticisms were actually based on a fact sheet that has been disavowed.

>> take you time. >> one thing we have not thought of are natural climate solutions. even if they don't want to talk act climate change they want to make their soil better. i think it's one thing we can work on.

>> i think most of it would be. there has to be things we have to address going forward. the first thing is we have to make sure at least the bottom third income people are not most adversely effected not more. then we have to potentially carve outs that live in extra oid nar circumstances, places like alaska. you have people paying $15 for gas or something. i think there's real clal lenha we have to look at. most of them as a way to go forward. whether we call it a fee or tax i mean quite honestly i would like to see it go back to the

poor and rest of it go to infrastructure. we are never going to rebuild until we get money and we don't have any place to get money. that's my idea. >> all right. write that up. one of the things we talk abis clean energy and renewables. what wasn't mentioned is a zero energy form. third has done a lot of work on next generation vision. it has put out a report on what they call plasma burning and others call fusion. if we think about the u.s. taking leadership in the development of these technologies rather than cutting emissions maybe the silver buck shot approach rather than the silver bullet how do you think vision infusion and other cutting edge technology plays into this and our budget is tiny compared to what we spend in the

1960s going to the moon. so imseems like there's a lot of room. >> let me ask him to respond to that. >> we are advocates for including it as part of the vision to climate change. one of the challenges we have is that in many instances the markets have failed in considering all of the zero carbon attributes of energy sources. it has a long life left to provide zero carbon energy and being misplaced by natural gas. with advanced and we have actually seen bipartisan success in that.

we have had two significant bills passed congress with significant bipartisan support there is another bill that was introduced by snarenator booker that would continue to accelerate the development of those technologies. >> voi grave concerns about really he is not an acceptable way to store it. >> i think the idea is it would not require subsidy and consume

so much more of the fuel. so i'm hopeful about that. you another question? the question for the reverend. you were talking we van jell kals. >> i'm a preacher here so don't get me wound up too much talking about the bible. it begins in genesis 2:15 god demanded us to for the garden. we are commanded by those of us that are christians to care for the least of these. we have a moral responsibility. i think it's 25.

says that we are but tenants in the earth. we don't own it. the view that nothing ever happens on the earth unless god allows it. i could talk more and come and see me. if you want to know i'll give you my book. it will be here. >> hi. can you talk a little bit about eat renewable energy or bio energy from wood.

this is something that kind of touches from another renewable energy and also touches on forest jobs but also in my home state of washington. it's something that now presidential candidate has spoken positively of. can you talk about that? >> i'm very interested in this particular topic. we have had a lot of wild fires in california. that's one thing i'll be working on on my committee. >> there's a lot more work that needs to be done on it. it is interesting when you look at the unipcc report one of the things they focused on was sbie owe energy an she quest ration.

it is not on the bio energy side but intended for carbon capture. we need to do more. >> i have a question for you. the pulled the country out, dismised the higher fuel standards. what's america doing right these days? >> that was such a subset of all of the terrible things we have done. so i would say at the federal level it's an absence of leadership. i think it's embarrassing to have the president representing the world in term of all of the atrocities. but the thing that's encouraging both having pro climate action

having so many senators that seemingly wake up every day asking what are they going to do? my colleagues that clearly people have woken up. they look outside the window. they see the devastating impacts, the fires, the hurricanes, the flooding. this is no longer some distant threat. it is our reality today. i think the fact that we have regular people who are outraged about the problem and want to be part of the solution we are seeing a ton of leadership at the municipal letter. testifying at one of the three climate hearings this week, the city or the town of georgetown, texas, we are seeing a lot of local progress. nine of them when they were running committed to 100% clean energy. we have januaet janet mills.

all of these governors are moving forward with whether it's renewable portfolio standards like we talked about or rekpliting to meeting the paris climate agreements. there's so much progress at the state and marketplace. it does make me encouraged. the fact that we are seeing i think he talked about the fact there wasn't even a debate in the general election, a question about climate change. we are seeing these that are bringing up climate change and clean energy and the studen opportunities and the solutions. all of that makes me optimistic. >> federal government not you much, right in. >> right now. >> i have another question about attitudes. we seem to have had a little bit of change in discussion. in california we have seen phenomenal growth despite portfolio answers requires a certain amount of clean energy

would slow us down. i think we are up to 50% goal now. when i plug in my appliances 40% is from renewables. there is another 10% in our county from distributed solar. it has always been the sort of false choice. have people come around on that? >> i think you're seeing it both because they are living with the opportunities that clean energy provide them. whether it's solar and wind or electric vehicles which are increasingly common on you are streets or education that's also made people more aware of the

fact that nuclear in the context of climate change is emissions. it is interesting we have seen polling amongst democrats where renewables are extremely popular. when you add it including carbon capture it jumps up even more. they are also recognizing the option to have not leading on addressing climate change is much worse, that the united states could lead and take advantage of the demand for clean energy or we are going to suffer the consequences both environmentally and losing out on the global market. it is not a choice anymore. >> let me just tell us a story. i think it's really happening. springfield, missouri, one that is the renewable headquarters of the world. the city pledged to be 100% renewable. they are already over 50%.

probably one of the reddest bible belt places in the country. last september over 500 people showed up to hear me speak and othe others speak about this. more importantly they are seeing neighbors make money on the solar industry big time. one young man mortgaged his house. so you see that in the midwest and people repairing and working on windmills, seeing lot os of people. it takes a lot of guts. it's a good paying job. the people are doing well. i think it's turning the corner. it's not completely there yet but it's a lot more than it was two or three years ago. >> i think we made huge progress. a lot has been perpetuated by the industries that want to have abilities to pollute but last

year i believe it was that there were 40 states that had more clean energy jobs. even going back to when i get the clean air in 1970 our economy has tripled. these are solutions that are good for the planet and good for our economy. >> let me close with one final question. with respect to people who are in the extraction industries, what's our responsibility to those folks like coal miners? there are a lot of reasons coal is going out mostly because it is too expensive to get out of the ground for market purposes. it will provide a lot of pain for folks whether it is driven by the market or by consumer

demand. what is our responsibility? >> i certainly believe even though i am a physical conservative that i also believe in justice. i think there are a lot of things we have to be cognizant to help people be motivated. west virginia for example has been trapped in a coal industry for the sakeov of not going to n or on their natural beauty. we have that responsibility to transition for all of those people. >> i'll jump in.

this is about the future for all people in this country. >> i have one quick question. one of the thins we need to do is have a just remediation for people that live in the areas where pollution has been dumped or existed upon that is still ranging. there's a lot of other things out there that influence a lot of people especially with low income that we have to take the responsibility as we do adjust transition. it captured the real challenge.

it was from high paying union jobs. that is a big deal that we need to grapple with. it will make it seem to them like we said no thank you we don't need you anymore. frankly that's the biggest danger for was losing the fight to address climate change in this country. >> i want to thank the panelists for their wisdom. the thing is we are sort of committed to actually get results on this stuff.

someone said in a washington post editorial that used the phrase progressive and constructive. i want to knowledge the need for bipartis bipartisanship. i think that's a new spot as well. we are cognizant for things to last that's really the best way to go. i look forward to working with you all. tha thanks everyone for coming. >> is it annie kuser? she is going to come on up. it was to convene the next

panel. i think i'm vice chair and that sort of sums up where we are and what our space is all about. we are the ones that want to tackle these challenges you have heard about today providing health care for all americans, y universal acts. we share the goals of our caucus. we are all about rolling up our sleeves and getting the job done. i'm here to introduce our next guest, michael bennett. i think the reason i have been clos

close chosen is i represent we do take the responsibility very veersly. it has been funny some of candidates have been surprised at the depth and breadth of the questions they are getting. we have been through this a number of times. it has been a very exciting experience. i think for democrats for americans you have heard a lot today about the challenges that our country faces under the current administration. we all feel very very strongly about replacing the president with someone that has bold ideas an innovative solutions to move our country forward.

what we are looking at is a broad range of candidates. it's very exciting. everyone will knowledge our bench is very deep and very strong. someone said to me recently el wednesday up with a fantastic presidential candidate, a great vice presidential candidate and an amazing cabinet. i think that's the way to look at it rather that the way they went about voting in their primary last time around. michael bennett is with us. a senator from colorado. we are going to be placing close attention to the discussion with him, our chairman is going to have a fire side chat. we are certainly looking forward to welcoming to new hampshire. with that i'll introduce and welcome senator michael bennett

and derrick kilmer. so i first got to work with him on budget and appropriation process reform. we should have known without a good acronym it was slated for failure. >> it was one of those safety valves to not make decisions. it did its work perfectly. >> it landed as expected.

in that endeavor i got to see really firsthand how he is a big thinker engaged on policy issues. if there's a big challenge facing our country most likely he has a solution ready to roll. i have been grateful for your work with members on the house side and i presume today you a big announcement to make that you're forming a new senate and democrat koe lcoalition as well. >> we have to get it done before they close the museum. >> i wanted to start off, there's new like you and like senators like you engage on big ideas. they don't -- that's not always a viral sensation. your most viral moment over the last year may have been during the government shutdown when in the words of dwayne the rock

johnson you laid the smackdown on ted cruz. i'm curious if you have thoughts on how we make some of these important policy issues reasonate with the american people. >> it is great to have you and i'm probably the last person you should be talking to about how to make something go viral.

what he got here is because our economy isn't treating 90% of americans well over the last 40 years. i think the american people need to know what the stakes really are and why elections matter. i think the fact that we spent 5 trillion mostly for wealthy people since 2001 and we spent 5.6 in the middle east. the president says it's 7 trillion. it's 11, 12, 13 trillion. we might as well -- we didn't do to address a single thing in

america that could have helped promote more broad based in the economy. it will also generate a sense among the american people that it's not enough just to be beat donald trump. we have to figure out how to govern the country again. we have completely forgotten how to do that. politics never ends around this place and the governing never starts. thank god you did what you did in the house. we either need the other chamber to also be democratic or we need to begin another era of bipartisan work. we haven't seen that around here far long time. >> you talked about the stakes and something that comes up a lot. it is fear that you'll see another four years of donald trump. what do you think it will take to beat donald trump?

? i think it's two things. first of all in my travels around new hampshire and iowa it is clear to me that democrats are unified in their desire to beat donald trump which is important and good. i think we will nominate the person we think can do that most effectively. we have to be focused on what people care about which is an issue i mentioned a minute ago which is 40 years 9d 0% of the american people haven't shared in economic growth when our economy is growing. don't you know china made it

impossible for us to build wealth here or people that want to get into the middle class? i don't think american people are willing to accept that. when they look at washington it doesn't look to them like anybody is focused on those challenges at all. i guess the first thing is to discipline them on that question. how are we beginning to think about health care in that context? infrastructure, all of that stuff put against an agenda put against that, our unwillingness to accept what most people can't share economic growth. the second issue is we can't disqualify ourselves. donald trump is on the look out for that. so when we make it easy to accuse of being socialists that's an act of disqualifying. that's what he is doing.

when he says we are for open borders. i mean it would reduce child hood poverty. it would end the most extreme childhood pofrerty and give a family of four making $60,000 32 hundred additional dollars. it doesn't sound like some moderate position. from my perspective it is a very

good thing that it does all of that without adding one more to administer the program. it will give people something worth cloozing between. >> in terps of big ideas you're about to introduce another big idea proposal, anything you want to share with the group about that? >> that's the best name for a bill i ever dacame up with. the center stole it and called their thinker medicare extra. yeah. this is a bill tim and i have had for several years now. it is a business that should have been done in the original affordable care act. many of us fought to have a public option as part of that legislation. we weren't able to get it then

and medicare has a true public option. it is a medicare-like plan administered by medicare. it is not medicare itself. this notion that seniors are not going to detect that they have worked their whole lives to get into medicare when they 65. now there are people here that want to put everyone else in the program with them, the idea they will accept that without a fight from -- disqualify from donald trump worries me. it uses medicare reimbursement of similar legislation and says it actually raises money for the treasury rather than raeuateses more deficit and more debt.

we have got to maintain quality. i think those should be our objectives, how we get there precisely is for legislators to figure out. i hope medicare will be part of that conversation. >> super. why don't we welcome others into the conversation. if you have a question for the senator raise your hand and we have roaming microphones to call on you. >> i'm conscious this is the very end of our day. both of you dedicated both of our careers to education and work force. to me a lot of those policy issues are geared towards an industrial economy. in your opinion what should we be doing to modernize our education system and work force

skills training to get more americans in all areas to participate? >> thank you. >> this is for you. >> all right. there's a lot we should do. i think it's the most important set of policy issues around how we lift that income line up. education is not sufficient but it is essential. lots of other countries are doing it. it is complicated because we have a federal system. we have to figure out how do it some how together. speaking as a former school superintendent i would say our k-12 system is about three centuries out of date for the economy we are in today.

not everybody will go to college. i say two things. i do know not everybody will go. 70% of americans don't go to college. i often hear people say that about other peoples kids, not their own kids. my view is that if you are a high school senior graduating and you make a decision not to go to college but to do something else that ought to be an affirmative choice not a choice that's been made for you because we have been unable to adapt our system of k-12 education to the 21st century. the third point is we have made college so expensive over the last 20 years that people in my state and i'm sure in other states are drowning in college debt which is one more thing that young people have to indict our generation for having failed on.

it's ridiculous if you go to the university of colorado it will take you on average 22 years to pay back your student loans. those are years you could have been starting a small baz or years not living with your mom and dad but off on your own. and that's the results of decigs we have failed to make that crowded out public investment. the prices continue to rise. there is an affordability issue there. it's not sufficient they should renegotiate student loans although athink they should. almost all of the money we have spent is wasted. it is billions and billions of dollars. i think if we thought about that work force training money and we thought about the way we fund community colleges around the

question of moving people from earning this wage to earning this wage and evaluating it based on that taking away money from people that can't make that jump, not americans but the people that are allegededly training the people to make that jump. there is an opportunity to make a massive difference to millions of american. >> i see one in the back.

>> i wanted to ask you about government and the very aggressive agenda democrats are throwing out there this year. there is a desire to be bold and go big. at the same time there is really deep mistrust of the instrument many of our friends have chosen. there is a minimum to high regard. the federal government's capacity of responsiveness. >> first of all i'm from western state colorado. it goes back a long way. we still have it today. i mentioned earlier the freedom caucus. they have acted as tyrants here.

their view is they were going to inflict their outside of the mainstream idealogical view. made it impossible for paul ryan to do anything. he left in the middle of a government shutdown because of what they were doing. i believe very strongly that they need to be closed over or beaten. there is not a way to reach a bipartisan agreement with that subset of people. that's not all republicans but that is that group of people. we have a bunch in the is that the that will make life challenging there. i have raised them because they have done such a good job of degrading the american peoples view of government and our institutions so much so that we

now have a reality tv show occupying 1,600 pennsylvania avenue. we should be open to ideas of how to do it differently. the most important point of all is people in my state are not going to respond well to something thaw think has been created by washington politic. they are just not. they are going to want to know they have been consulted, that somebody has bothered to wonder around in the middle of america saying tells how you're thinking about the policy or tax climate.

climate is a great example. i think it's generally true for everything that we shouldn't be deciding it in two-year incrimentes. regulations get pulled in and they get pulled out again. climate, you cannot deal with climate in a successful way, in an aspiration flal way unless t policy choices you make are durable and can be sustained from congress to congress to congress. the only way you can do that i think is by building a real constituency for change outside of washington. and they are not the same thing. we have forgotten how to do it.

we have almost done none of it in a decade. what's the result? we have a health care bill and now they have passed their tax bill largely on partisan terms. there are a few things here and in the stimulus package. in the ordinary course of business we are doing nothing here. i think it's because we don't take the time to build the kind of coalitions that need to be built. i think because there's a deep deep skepticism about the federal government's ability to do anything well. i think in many cases it's a well certained skepticism. the fact that the freedom caucus came here is a complicating and inconvenient fact that needs to be dealt with. it doesn't answer the entire question. >> just one person's opinion. >> thank you.

you did have a vie rat moment a couple of months ago. is there room in this race and what is the path for you? >> well, first of all i think we will have no idea who we are going to nominate. somebody that looks like a fighter like donald trump and there might be people who argue that need somebody who is the

opposite of donald trump and others become possibilities. it's my view that nobody including myself is ready win right now. you know, not necessarily ready to beat donald trump. that's what this process is about. we'll see who gets forged in this and is able to take him on. i do think there is room in this field to have candidates that want to speak the truth to the american people not just to democrats. as i said, the congressman, i think i feel as strongly about that as anybody in this room. it is not sufficient. we have to govern as i said earlier. it's not about the people in this room. it's about the kids and all over school districts just like them who aren't getting a chance to

actually participate in the economy or in the democracy from the very start and who feel and who are completely invisible to washington and often to our national candidates. this is going to be a long road. that's one thing i know. i'm not sure that the democrats stand for today. the only way to figure that out is with a vigorous nominating process. >> any questions? >> by the way on the question of viral and not viral i certainly accept it as a -- that we live in a world of social media and we have -- and all of us need to benefit from that and we all need to contend with that. we should think about the fact

that not even twitter runs itself with twitter. here in washington if you look at what dgoes on, how the agend get set it is set but what happens on the cable the night before and the americans that participate with politics on peoples twitter feed. i think that's probably 12 or 13 million americans, maybe 14 million american. there equities are very well represented, exceptionally well represented in washington. no one else's equities are including the kids i was talking about earlier. with respect to cspan3. but it's true. i mean it really is true. we have got -- if we are going to do our jobs as elected officials well and faithfully i think we have to understand

that. like be able to with stand the momenta momentary twitter storm until we get to the other side and continue to work on stuff like how do we lift working families incomes again in america? >> hi. my name is tizzy brown. you were talking earlier about my generation's debt. but another one of the major problems that my generation is facing is housing costs both rent and the cost of buying a home. so i was wondering if there are any solutions you see that could be implemented in the next generation for this cost to be dissipated. >> i think that by the way i will come back to other debts that you're incuring. look, colorado, we have one of the most vibrant economies in america. we have one of the most vibrant economies in the world. majority people in the united

states and young people in particular but everybody cannot afford some combination of housing, health care, higher education and early childhood education. those things share some characteristics which is that they are what is required if you will live a middle class life. the generation before you did not struggle in the same way the zwren rati generation is struggling with it now. i have been doing a lot of work around eviction policy to see what the federal government can do to insent ifrize other outcomes when people are behind on their rent. the cost of society has -- of course it is massive. the cost of society is huge when that's the only remedy. think we'll have to think durchtly about building in urban places, moredness density.

even in rural parts of the state we have got housing issues that i don't yet have a good answer on. the other debt that i would suggest is coming your way is the federal debt as well. it's become fashionable. i'm not sure why but would want to do that when they gave us this massive deficit during a moment of very low unemployment the last time that's happened. i think it was during the vietnam war. it has been exposed in ways that it should have happened earlier going back to when they squandered the $5 trillion projected surplus clinton left behind. now it is on clear display.

so what we are saying to you is -- i have lost you. what we are saying to you is not only are we going to inve st in you, not are we not going to find a way for you to find affordable housing or be able to go to college without incuring massive debt we are also going to borrow a bunch of money on our way to not investing in you, in our way to spending 5 trillion on tax cuts mostly for wealthy people. none of which is benefitting you. we will stick you with the bill. there is not an issue yet for young people in our country. i think it should be one because we are constraining your choices in bays i think that is deeply immoral and deeply unfair. from a generation flal point of view it is one more thing on the list of things you won't want to

thank us for when we are done. >> any other questions? we are not funding that either. think about education to tie these things together. i know you have got to go. like, you know, there are different proposals about what should happen with teachers. when we had a teacher strike when i was the superintendent one of the things everybody loved about denver public schools is if you were a teacher people loved to live there. they kpcommonly rented apartmen. today they can't do that. they are unable to afford it. teachers all over the country

can't afford to live that middle class life in the country. here is the reason why. the entire way we compensate teachers in america is based on a labor market that discriminated against women and said you two professional choices. one is being a teacher and one is being a nurse. if you don't like blood or being in the emergency room maybe you should come teach. by the way, we'll make you get a masters degree. we'll give you this low compensation no one else in your college class would accept. we'll give you a pension you know we are not funding. in the hold days it sounded good because your spouse was likely to die before you and that was

going to be your retirement. it subsidized our k-12 system. we very often got the best british literature student in her class to come teach because her only other offer was to be a nurse. that hasn't been true for decades. that is our entire system today of how we attract, retain and pay and compensate teachers in america. it is a great illustration i think for there is not an easy answer. the policy choices are challenging and profound, but we are going to continue to get the same results we were talking about earlier unless we are willing to confront it and figure out how to clang it. so many issues that we are facing now i think are along those lines that made sense a century or two ago. it is how we find our way through the bureaucracy of

washington and legislative log jams that we have to begin building building enduring policies. this is not childs play. it will be hard for us to do. if our starting point is that we can never find an agreement with the other side we are doomed. again, i'm not talking about splitting two parties on salute ideas. we do that all the time around here. it is called bipartisan ship in washington. it's like if we had gotten to something on the committee. i'm talking about a sort of the founding principal which was that not that we would have agreement it was that we would have disagreement. it was part of the whole reason to live there a democracy because you would disagree. there was no tyrant to tell you what to think. out of those disagreements and this is the way that congress is

supposed to work. it doesn't. out of those disagreements we would forge more durable and more imaginative solutions than any one person could ever come up with on their own. that's what we have to find a way to do around here. it is really hard between the goal lines that are established by the cable talk show hosts at night but it is something we are going to have to do. the elected leaders in this room i think are the ones that are going to have to be the ones to do it. >> i think you encapsulelated what it is all about. it seems like a great way to wrap things up. our focus has been figuring out how to get at some of these old problems through a fnew lens. >> i'm so grateful that's what you guys are doing. i don't want to lose the thoughts that it's about the imagination of people here and

tough coalition building in the country. i think that's the combination of things that put us, you know, on the path of actually being able to work again as afolk, if extending your gratitude to senator michael bennett. thank you, sir. and next time we'll get a fire and with that we'll get susan to close us out. >> well, this comes to the end of our next conference. i want to thank all of our speakers, our panelists, everyone who helped pull this together, all of the members of the new dem coalition that participated and all of you who engaged in this important discussion. we're going to take all the ideas and information from today

and move forward so we really can make a difference in this congress as well as going forward on these issues that are going to follow us well into the future. so thank you again for your time and have a great afternoon. ♪

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>> in case you missed any of this conference from the new dem action fund you can see it tonight starting at 8:00 eastern. and we have a couple of hearings tomorrow on capitol hill here on c-span 3. top army and air force officials will be testifying about their budget request for 2020. live coverage will start at 10:00 a.m. eastern. and later in the afternoon a house panel investigates how sexual assault cases are being handled by the military. they'll hear testimony from representatives of advocacy group and several military

justice officials. you can also follow both of these hearings at our website, c-span.org or listen with the free c-span radio app. this week on the communicators, michael powell. he's interviewed by "the washington post" reporter. >> i think it's in transition but its talk of demise is premature. i think the industry has nicely transitioned to the significance of broadband and helps compensate for the market competitive pressures on video. i think they've managed the video better than people would have imagined, so i think they're thriving as businesses, as consumer delivery systems. they recently announced a really bold initiative in which they

attempt to dramatically increase broadband speed to the american home every the next several years. >> watch tonight on c-span 2. >> once tv was simply three giant networks and a government supported service called pbs. then in 1979 a small network rolled out with a big idea. let viewers decide what was important to them. bringing you unfiltered content from congress and beyond. in the age of power to the people this was true people power. in the 40 years since the landscape has clearly changed. there's no monolithic media, youtube stars are a thing. but c-span's big idea is more relevant today than ever. no government money supports c-span. it's nonpartisan coverage of washington is fumded as a public

service by your cable or satellite provider. on television or online c-span is your unfiltered view of government so you can make up your own mind. the u.s. diplomat in charge of negotiations with north korea over its nuclear program sat down for an interview. he spoke at an event hosted by the carnegie endowment for international peace. >> thank you for being with us today. we have today steve beingen who was appointed in august 2018 to be the u.s. special representative for north korea. he's the tip of the spear of diplomatic -- the trump administration's diplomatic initiatives in north korea. and i'm very happy. and pentagon correspondent with "the new york times," and i'm very happy to be here and we're really excited to have steve, so