| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
No one's been held accountable. | |
| Good for Attorney General Pamboni for pursuing that. | ||
| And the most important thing I can tell you, if people are not held accountable for the Russia hoax, they will do it again. | ||
| If people are not held accountable, they will do it again. | ||
| And that's what I'm most concerned about. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| A secondary sanction is still going into place tomorrow. | ||
| What's the latest decision on that? | ||
| Because we had heard yes, but then there was some confusion. | ||
| Going to check it. | ||
| Yeah, I had to say what I had to say. | ||
| What I do, Caitlin, is I never, I think you know this, I never get ahead of the boss. | ||
| What I try to do is when news is done, that'll come out and tell you what I think it means. | ||
| So not clear of the potential. | ||
| I asked an answer. | ||
| Okay, thanks. | ||
| You would like countries that are buying refined oil. | ||
| I didn't say that. | ||
| I didn't say that. | ||
| Do you ask me a question whether you were looking at the chessboard? | ||
| I can assure you we are. | ||
| Okay, thanks for being civil today. | ||
| We'll continue on on our discussion, taking a look at efforts by the Trump administration when it comes to energy and climate issues. | ||
| Joining us to continue is Brigham McCowan. | ||
| He's with the Hudson Institute. | ||
| He serves as their initiative on American Energy Security Director. | ||
| Mr. McCowan, thanks for joining us. | ||
| Welcome to Washington Journal. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely. | |
| Pedro, thanks for having me back on the program. | ||
| It's good to see you. | ||
| We started our discussion with our last guest taking a look at this recent EPA decision on the rollback. | ||
| What did you think of the decision overall and what do you think are the impacts from it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thanks very much. | |
| Yeah, on the endangerment finding itself, the EPA's 2009 endangerment finding found that six greenhouse gases were important for public health. | ||
| But when you actually look at them and we strip CO2 away, we're talking about nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocardines, hydrogen hexafluoride, things that affect public health on a day-to-day basis. | ||
| The endangerment finding itself means it endangers public health and welfare. | ||
| And, you know, while the previous guest is correct, the Supreme Court decision didn't say the EPA couldn't consider them. | ||
| It didn't say the EPA had to regulate them. | ||
| And I think that's where we're really getting into a difference of policy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is Congress's turf. | |
| Congress can mandate what should be regulated. | ||
| And we have a policy difference between two administrations. | ||
| That's all. | ||
| If the rollback does happen and there's a reversal, what do you think overall then is the impact on climate overall? | ||
| That's a big question I know, but the previous guest seemed to think removing those actions would contribute more to what's happening with climate. | ||
| What do you think? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't think it will at all. | |
| Let's step back a second. | ||
| Despite the rhetoric, despite the doom and gloom, if we look at China and India together, that's 40% of global GHG emissions. | ||
| The rest, far more. | ||
| China pollutes more than the Western world combined. | ||
| Is it important that we all do our part? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Is it important that we all want clean air, clean water? | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Do we want to roll back the clock where you can't have air conditioning as one European parliamentarian from France suggested a couple weeks ago? | ||
| Absolutely not. | ||
| And I think the issue is we have to be rational. | ||
| We have to look at this from a realistic perspective. | ||
| United Kingdom got rid of coal. | ||
| Congratulations. | ||
| They have the highest energy prices in the entire area of Europe. | ||
| We have to be smart about this. | ||
| We need a longer lead time, a longer glide slope to net zero. | ||
| And if we really think this is such a big deal, well, then all these folks should be over in China. | ||
| They should be over in India. | ||
| They should be in the global south talking about people who are the real polluters. | ||
| You probably heard the previous guests talking about the U.S., how the U.S. should take leadership, say, when it comes to China, but he also said China's making its own strides on clean energy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, well, China's building a new coal-powered plant every other week. | |
| Here's the deal with China. | ||
| The previous administration said, well, we agree on climate policy and we can work with them. | ||
| I think that was naive at best. | ||
| China is concerned about global energy dominance. | ||
| China is concerned about traditional notions of energy security. | ||
| China wants every molecule of energy they can get and they don't care where it comes from. | ||
| China isn't serious about Paris Climate Change Accords, or they wouldn't have an unlimited pass to pollute as much as they want through the end of the decade. | ||
| That's just not realistic. | ||
| And I think we have to understand that we're in a great power competition with China. | ||
| Yes, we want energy security. | ||
| That means we have to have affordable, available, and resilient forms of energy that we can use on a day-to-day basis. | ||
| And yeah, that energy mix is going to change over time. | ||
| But let's not be fooled. | ||
| China is not a leader in renewable energy. | ||
| It's a leader in pollution. | ||
| A little bit about the Hudson Institute and particularly its stance when it comes on these environmental climate issues. | ||
| Can you describe that for our guest? | ||
| Also, how are you funded? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, thank you very much. | |
| Well, I lead the initiative as a senior fellow and director of the Initiative on American Energy Security. | ||
| That's the program I lead. | ||
| And so my research and scholarly work is focused on ensuring American security through its energy. | ||
| And you can watch this program in its entirety on our website. | ||
| It gets to be available. | ||
| C-SPAN.org. |