who much of his life was pro-choice give the most impassioned voice for life they have never heard remarkable and 15 days earlier followed his running mate do the same. i think that shows a great deal of contrast also to put up the specific list of 20 men and women he would consider nominating to the supreme court because it was specific or from what we were releasing from the website. fractionally judges on the list. >> i cannot speak for a overhaul but they have three

signs that they can hold up. thanks for your time. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> i am pleased to welcome to our stage, scott pruitt. [applause] i routinely entered the means to destroy the epa i wish that were true but a quick question pennsylvania, texas, all the states to a pretty good job to regulate the oil and gas

industry on their rounds are looking these what is the point? i am sure there is one. [laughter] >> so we had a little conversation we have a day in october when we are not friends. [laughter] but as far as the epa is concerned there are air quality issues and but we have seen the last several years is the of displacement that the epa has used and to go back to the inception of the epa when the statutes were passed there was a very important prescriptive model was federalism to be

enforcers and partners with the federal government that has been pushed to decide and the states have started to develop a distrust of their partner here in washington d.c.. i am so faithful to be working with and for president trump will be restoring that trust to leave in the partnership with respect to the environmental issues to be pro-growth and pro environment. >> if they say that you cannot have your cake and eat it too does not like take. and i reject that.

with the puddles around town >> and not any more. >> on february 28 on the day of his address to congress that the previous administration ruled that the dry creek beds and puddles were going to be treated as waters of the united states. just to go back to the history of the clean water act. and clearly with the jurisdiction of the epa to say we will regulate the waters to have a connection to traditional navigable streams and waters.

that is not an overstatement to give us the direction and within eight minutes i was sad to the signing and prepare the advance notice of rulemaking and then to be kicking off the process within eight minutes and that is wrong. [inaudible] give us an example the way that is interpreted. >> and what is very important is regulatory certainty looking at that economic growth is very discouraging with the gdp

and economic growth in the finance sector and energy and environmental sector is the greatest impediment. talking to those in industry they say that the epa has engaged in regulatory pancake or they will issue a rule one year that applies to another situation then to were three years pass another that undermines the previous ones of those investments made to meet the standard are undone within a short amount of time. so you need a more long-term view that i believe those in industry care about the environment and want to allocate resources for a we should celebrate the progress we have made since

1980 the reduction of air -- pollutants we have had over 63 persons reduction we should celebrate that. are at the same time so we have in the short run for those in in the marketplace one said redondo the definition statute says one thing regulation says another then there is case law with confusion we don't know how to allocate the resources and that is the best thing we can do. >> with the dry creek bed and all of those rules that

affected me. >> and to seek permission from the epa. so historic plea and presently from local cities and towns. so what this rule did was say that with respect to farming and ranching and oil and gas production in the use of land to impact bat water of the united states as a dry creek bed you had to get a permit from the epa extensive power issue to try to assert federal jurisdiction in ways that are not consistent with the history of the clean water act. the impact is delay and wait talking about the infrastructure package we

have something in his of planning process and i have heard stories and anecdotes taking between eight and 10 years to get certainty to even get decisions of those things that is just obstructionism that we will not build toward do infrastructure these aren't important matters with that process. >> what do you drive? >> i drive a truck mostly and gets good gas mileage. [applause] i was kidding this morning i come from a tent to along place the likes to drive from oklahoma city but was

with him on wednesday and he announced the decision with the cafe standards human not be familiar with the process but to say we will set these emission standards but over a longer period of time to over 30 years there was a window if there is a midterm review in april 2018. the last demonstration in december finalize the of processing and within 10 days rendered a decision those standards were insufficient. so as i share with people in detroit and being told you will take a test but that is

not the issue of fairness we address that on wednesday across the globe that keep working toward these standards process matters we will keep our word to make sure we don't accelerate that and that is what we did wednesday this week. >> where the standards actually heading? >> that is yet to be determined why you have a midterm review. what should be the goal? with respect to mobile sources is to take cars that people want to buy to make them more efficient. that sounds novel but over the last several years the government will go to industry but nobody wants to

buy a against the portfolio bent. that into the mix with the emission control all come. but it should be the r&d sector with manufacturers take the trucks and do all they can to meet the outcome with the car the people want to buy while providing safety there is a dot partnership on the safety side the ready collaborating together intergovernmental and industry to benefit consumers. those are some principles i think we should live by. >> talk about the question of certainty and uncertainty. whether a certain tax is 38% and we can guarantee would

stay there the next 30 years. there are other similar dynamics if industry once this water the chances for developing long-term political consensus? review have the group that is ideological because they are anti-capitalism that has a different set of views from those of understand there are better and worse ways. how do you deal with the broader politics? especially your nomination was met with panic? terror? enjoy a quiet celebration? [applause] >> i meant the people we

have to convince not those other already on board. >> and this process over the last seven years we put on jerseys we allow ourselves to buy into a belief if your. environment your anti-energy that is something we have to reject as the country may know better as far as balancing our economy wealthy countries take better care of their environment banon help the country's there is a direct correlation between those incentives and economic growth and those countries taking care of their environment and natural resources. so we should dispel the

notion that is the big picture but long-term view is very wise. not just the auto industry as we deliver electricity government should not be in the business to force the outcomes on the utility sector. what is the most stable and reliable form of energy and the most cost-effective blacks and with the cafeteria of options. and should be making business decisions the government has been trying to force upon the industry those decisions picking winners and losers. the job of regulator is to make the regular. [applause]

what that mean is to give expectation where we're heading from all the people impacted and then to make a decision to allow the industry to go about the business to empower them the states are good burners with the regulatory regime. we have across this country that have significant resources and will work with the epa to achieve good outcomes. adobe epa is received better than the irs to be that kind of partner to send a message about compliance, assistance

and not punishment. >> more popular than the irs [laughter] >> and bigotry of low expectations. [laughter] >> doolittle you will get a lot done. >>. >> bell lot of people are making progress. . .

that to be respected. a lot of the problems we have this country today is that were not living within the framework that the founders established and in congress has been very good. they've delegated authority and an unconstitutional way, a violation of separation of powers. the executive branch says we like clean air, so gourmet clean air. that's not how you do business. congress should be directing agencies and executive branch in every area, finance, healthcare, healthcare, environment and say here's the framework you have. any co2 issue is a great example of that. when you look at the carbon issue you have a supreme court case in 2007 where they were sued the federal government for regulating co2 from mobile sources. the us supreme court didn't say that it should be regulated.

it said make a decision. you have to determine whether co2 is something that should be regulated or not. you can't simply fail to make a decision. in 2009, and endangerment finding by the epa. then you had two responses since , you had the taylor rule that was struck down by the supreme court and that you are division and you have the clean power plant. to bite the apple that the epa engaged in and both times the court that you didn't get it right. what does that tell you? congress hasn't dealt with this issue. congress is not actually through the clean air act addressed the issue called carbon. as you look at the clean air act, if anything, it want to deal with the local air pollutants. not the global phenomenon. this is an important issue that

you raised on where the balance is between delegation and agencies at the federal level acting, the executive branch exist to do enforce the law passed by the legislative branch. if the legislative branch is not doing it it will create uncertainty and we need to correct it. >> we do have an executive who seems to be focused on doing executive orders and you e executive action. at what.do you go to congress and say we have to revisit? >> i would take issue with this. the executive orders that are being issued are to fix the executive orders that were reached before. i don't think qualitatively at the same. the past administrations at how many times, we've only issued so many executive orders and president bush did this many and we haven't done nearly as many of the previous administration. it's not the quantity is what they do it's the quality tate of

aspect. there are a whole host of executive orders overreached, extended their authority. president trump is fixing that and keeping his promises. were going to use our executive powers to undo what the previous administration address. what comes next is an. >> somewhere it is a broad reform that is brewing in congress? >> not that i am aware of. that's not to say that there's not going to be discussion and dialogue through the confirmation process i've had several meetings privately with senators both democrat and republican that was an expression of interest at the clean air act was updated in 1990, so it's been 27 years. some of these issues that were talking about i think it's meritorious to revisit and say do we need to update.

what is the role of the american people ? how to be addressed in the framework ? all important policy decisions that congress would speak to. >> we ever get to a.you don't have to get the president permission to build a pipeline? >> you look at the authority back in 1968 with president nixon, got involved in that process and saying as part of a national security concern. what did the constitution say about interstate excuse me for an commerce ? it's a very good question. we ought to get back in the business not having administrations i've been flow about whether it should be complied with but it should be the constitutional brands that's dealing with providing certainties. i'm thankful that the president has addressed the to coto access

pipe loan and the keystone pipeline. it should have been approved year ago. you don't want the state apartment involved in this. >> it doesn't make sense to me. >> what are the good political news on this front. >> don't just do a couple. there's many. >> one that comes to mind is that while we do have an implacable environment lobbyist that will be happy with anything you do there's a much larger group of people they care about things like economic growth and jobs. there are things that we can do in the short term to get this moving. what are some of those things that we might be able to do? >> and innovation and technology test make and we mentioned the auto sector, i was just meeting

with the ceo of bmw and he was sharing the things they're looking out over the next ten or 15 years with respect to some of these emissions levels that they're seeking to meet both in europe and here. it's exciting to hear from them. industries are investing whether the utility utilitarian or energy or cars were pre-1994 levels 94 levels with respect to co2 footprint. why is mark because of horizontal drilling. people think that something we discovered years. oklahoma has been regulating a process since 1948 approximately. it's been around a few years the difference is now we have horizontal drilling combined with the fracking process that allows an extraction of natural gas that we could reach before. innovation has helped before in respect to what? the co2 footprint.

the conversion from coal to gas is better. as we look out over the years ahead, auto, utility, et cetera working with works in the long term. >> especially as quickly as things move on this front i was reading a book and the foreign powers would conspire to cut the united states off from its energy supply and import. now we've become the next that's not producing enough energy to meet our needs and things are moving quickly that way. what are our chances going through environmental regulations and switching to reforms to letting this like i'm from the one city when gas is $4 a year, everyone cheers. we look around at other countries in the world like norway which is a very environmentally regular we've

got a lot more things that we could be doing than we are, like places like new york, that have petroleum resources they can get to because of politics at the state level, not a federal issue. there are even more potential for growth and the people would appreciate you being from oklahoma you had a closer view of this. >> i think that markets have been flow. to go into your.about regulatory and government response, in the 70s 70s the view was similar to what you describe. our access to energy resources was declining and creating quite a problem domestically. i think what we know now based upon technology and innovation, we have reserves that are substantial both in coal, natural gas, oil and i think the best thing we can do from a governmental perspective is provide certainty so that they can invest over the long-term to

meet the standards that we want to achieve but also allow them to use technology and innovation to meet those standards. there are exciting things going on with respect to clean coal technology across the globe. there's exciting things going on but not here. most of that is happening in europe because of the disincentives that we put into play in this country. if you really care about some of these environmental concerns, we should be in the mix. it should be a major part of our discussion. this is in just a matter of regularly saying we don't like copperfield, we don't like, we need to have truly a commitment and attitude for our markets to make the certainty investment and have the markets determine how do we best provide electricity, how do we best provide outcomes on a mission measures and stationary sources. >> i first got interested in nuclear fan because it terrified

and annoyed hippies. [laughter] >> in texas, you have a lot of those. >> then i looked into the reality of the environmental economic aspects and it makes sense. as i understand it, the main economic barrier to a nuclear plant is compliance and licensure approved makes it undoable for getting it approved. what we do on that? >> you hit on something important. we've accepted this long term that you take ten to 15 years to do the things. let's just say no. it's a matter of attitude. as a matter of attitude. what's key here is saying, look, what is important to our portfolio and if nuclear is important important to our

portfolio then let's have a commitment to it. senator alexander in a wall street journal piece in last december on this very issue. i believe the american people are interested in this. they see this as an opportunity to explore and we should allow government indifference or delay dictate to us and say that it will take 15 years to do that. to that end, when when i was in detroit on wednesday with the president, we went to the facility there where they built planes for world war ii. they put out a plane a day. in that facility. why did they do that? because they had to. when are we as a nation going to say, look look we could do anything that we set our minds to and let's get back to doing that. [applause] you talk about nuclear and global warming. the people who are most concerned about global warming

are the most opposed to nuclear power. i don't get that do you ? >> what are you to do about that. >> i'm not a good question or but what you thing about that? >> there's always a corporal punishment that maybe we could bring back the stock or something like that. there's not a good answer on that. one of the problems that are difficult to get into that long-term sustainable policy reform requires political consensus across the board. but we have an element in the environmental group that will make it very difficult to do. they don't want to see new sources of energy because they think industry is a bad thing as such. there's some more extreme ends that are opposed to economic growth. you've got a reasonably large part of it that is going to stand in the way of everything. you're trying to build coal

export terminals, because we want to sell: asia and china, it's a win-win proposition except that someone in the world is going to use coal to generate power in a don't want that to happen. the thing about the pipe link on it they don't care about indian burial grounds or the stuff that comes up, they don't want there to be more oil. this isn't a huge majority position but maybe ten to 20% of the population has a fairly strong environmental views that way. what is the argument we make? >> maybe with that category, with that small percentage, maybe we can be persuasive. it's important to involve all voices of the process. i'm optimistic in a sense that i've experienced this in my capacity as attorney general and as i served in other capacities, you bring people together and intellectual informed discussions to make decisions.

one of the very first things i did when i came into the office was confirmed on february 17 and i came in the tuesday after presidents' day and i dress the entire agency and talked about those across the country and said were going to deal with difficult issues but let's deal with this in a civil way. we lost the ability in this country -- and this troubles me -- we don't have political bylaws anymore. we don't have civil debate. that's across the spectrum. tax policy, debt, environmental issues, we have this approach that says you're against me, i'm against you. that has to change. i'm hopeful that maybe i'm too optimistic and naïve here but it's an attitude and a belief i have. as i'm at this agency i want to reach out to those, hear from them, make informed decisions and do so with a commitment to

progrowth, and proenvironment. again, we'll see. there is a number of individuals on both sides of the spectrum that have belief that don't want to have that discussion. will see. >> what's been interesting to me about that, is that industries seem more willing to compromise in the environmentalist. there's a lot of oil and gas companies that not only do what they're required to do but while go beyond their environmental regulations require. part of that is because they know if something goes wrong it'll cost them million dollars a day to be shut down and they don't want that but they do genuinely care about doing a good job in being good neighbors. are there ways to encourage industry groups to follow the way they've gone and go beyond what is literally required by the law and taking more a proactive stance that might

assuage some of the environmentalist was mark. >> you start out with the perspective as a regulator as a government that you'll have compliance and assistance. you're going to have partners. you'll have both industry and environment groups that have objectives that we can work together any partnership to achieve those things. i've artie seen that. you are spot on right. most, if not a large percentage, in the industries want to meet and exceed in some instances the regulations that have been put upon them. they have a tremendous amount of resources to that. they want to drink clean water, breathe clean air and let's start from a place whether it's a state perspective or industry. i don't want to be too general here but i think a lot of it is attitude. attitude goes a long way to how he approaches issues. if we start from a standpoint if

we say we can achieve both, and we work together, let's start a process to achieve both -- you mentioned earlier about congress not speaking but they've not been mindful of the process requirements that they been placed on them by congress. the administrative procedure act says comment, while do do you do that? because you want to sit and see how this will impact you across the country. take those comments and respond. finalize the rule. that's been disregarded a lot of late. in this process, the attitude, and ultimately partnership to achieve these things. i believe we can do better. i believe we can achieve good environmental ends. what he% of this country right now is nonattainment with respect to air quality standards that we've had tremendous success. 122 million people 2 million people live with nonattainment issues. a question rhetorically, why

wouldn't the epa work with those across the country those environmental agents that say that's not acceptable. how are we going to meet the current standards before we adopt new ones? there are 1300 and some of the most pristine areas of our country and some of the most key economically. the port of portland, chicago, dubuque montana all over the country that had been on that list that national quality list -- national priority list and some of these places have been on these lists for 30 to 40 years. i have a question for you. when we get it look at that? i've gone into the land portion of her office and said that's unacceptable. we need to develop a plan and its exciting things i look

forward to sharing with you about how were going to deal with the superfund fight. i get ahead of myself. and send these ideas out. let me tell you, i hope to announce something real soon about how bergen approached superfund sites those locations across the country and get them cleaned up and a quicker fasten and allow the communities to enjoy the court of portland. very very soon. lots of work to be done, kevin. good work that will provide good outcomes to citizens while at the same time for jobs. >> when you are nominated people made a stink about the fact that you sued the epa. >> they deserved it. >> my explanation of that is that the administrator is you're trying to get it to do its job in the right way and we wish you the best of luck. [applause]