At the Capitol

Tequida & Gutierrez political consultant John Loredo, a former state legislator, debates issues preoccupying state government with Bret Mecum, communications director of the Arizona Republican Party.

Transcript:

>>José Cárdenas:
Tonight on "Horizon", we begin a three-part series looking at the politics and science of global Climate Change. We have our weekly "at the capitol" segment, and local disaster preparedness groups contemplate a flu pandemic. Next on "Horizon".

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"Horizon" is made possible by contributions from the Friends of Eight, members of your Arizona PBS Station. Thank you.

>>José Cárdenas:
Good evening, and thanks for joining us tonight on "Horizon". I'm José Cárdenas. We begin our three-part series this evening with a look at politics and Global Warming regulation. Arguably, the aim of the currently most contentious environmental policy is to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions. But at what point is environmental policy overly federalized? While many environmental laws flow from Washington to the States, when should ecological rules and procedures be left in the hands of state and local authorities and private citizens? Merry Lucero looks at one politician's quest for environmental policy change.

>>Merry Lucero:
The widely viewed documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" is about Former Vice President Al Gore, and his research and presentation on Global Warming. The film won an Oscar this year, which boosted its standing, as well as rentals and sales of the Eco-Friendly packaged DVD. In it, Gore warns that the Earth's future is in danger because of a climate crisis. Gore continues to travel with his slide show lecture, and recently came to Arizona to speak to ASU students at Gammage Auditorium.

>>Liz Simonhoff:
About 11 months ago, some of our staff members were kind of joking around and how phenomenal it would be to bring Al Gore to campus. And then, couple months later, we were sitting here, bringing him here. So, it's a great -- it's really exciting opportunity for us because as a Student Representatives, it's important to educate our youth and make them aware of Global Warming, recycling, sustainability, these initiatives. Just because -- I mean, the more savvy the better. And we'll make better leaders in the long run if we're knowledgeable about these issues.

>>Merry Lucero:
Roughly 3,000 attended the event. 80% were students. Media was not allowed inside, nor did Gore do interviews. He was paid $100,000 plus expenses for appearing at ASU. Offsetting that cost, ticket sales and a donation from environmental public interest organization Valley Forward.

>>Diane Brossart:
It's a great learning experience for them, especially the organizers. It was really students who recruited Al Gore to come here and talk about the issues. So, from learning how to present a program of that magnitude, on the one hand, to learning about Global Warming, and what the impacts are locally and on the planet over all.

>>Merry Lucero:
In addition to the global effects of a climate crisis featured in the Documentary, it looks at related issues, such as drought and the Bark Beetle infestation that hit hard here at home.

>>Diane Brossart:
Climate Change is particularly relevant to this area, to Arizona and Western States because of the potential for prolonged drought, for hotter temperatures, and other impacts like that. So, it really is a serious issue that we should all take note of.

>>Merry Lucero:
Gore has long been a champion of environmental issues, serving as both a Congressman and Senator for Tennessee before being elected Vice President. He recently testified in Congress to the Energy Committee, asking for a freeze on carbon emissions.

>>Al Gore (News Hour with Jim Lehrer):
What we're facing now is a crisis that is, by far, the most serious we have ever faced, and the way we're going to solve it is by asking you, on both sides of the aisle, to do what some people have, as you know, begun to fear we don't have the capacity to do anymore. I know they are wrong.

>>Merry Lucero:
Democrats praised Gore's education work on Global Warming, while Republicans in Congress challenged the science he presents. In the documentary, Gore stresses that saving the planet should not be political.

>>Al Gore (Documentary):
Ultimately this is really not a political issue so much as a moral issue. If we allow that to happen, it is deeply unethical.

>>Merry Lucero:
the DVD cover has a film critic quote, saying, "It doesn't matter whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, a Liberal or Conservative, your mind will be changed in a nanosecond." But the film does include the political drama of the 2000 Election, Gore's loss and Bush's win. That loss ultimately led to Gore taking his Global Warming presentation back on the road and the making of "An Inconvenient Truth". Meantime, political quagmires and successes affecting change are likely to continue, as are the politics behind policy decisions on Global Warming.

>>José Cárdenas:
Joining me now to talk about politics and environmental policy is Daniel Sarewitz, Director of the Consortium for Science Policy and Outcomes at ASU. Professor Sarewitz, there seems to be consensus there is a problem, but not much consensus on what to do about it. What are the issues that are preventing us from reaching an agreement?

>>Daniel Sarewitz:
Well, it's intrinsically an incredibly difficult problem. Part of the problem has to do with the fact that modern, industrialized society is entirely dependent on Fossil Fuels. Fossil Fuels are the main contributor to Global Warming, and we just simply can't shut down economies in awareness of the fact that we've got a significant global environmental problem on our hands. So, part of it is the technological problem of how do we wean ourselves off fossil fuels that are essentially the fuels that run modern industrial society. The second problem is we're highly vulnerable to climate impact, and this would be true whether or not we had Climate Change to worry about. We have hundreds of millions of people living on coasts, living in urbanizing areas on coasts, especially in the Developing World. They are exposed to storms, to floods, to other types of hazards like Earthquakes and Tsunamis as we have seen in recent years. And reducing this vulnerability is just an extremely difficult problem. So, we have two problems that are just hard to solve. And the fact that we recognize it as a problem doesn't make it easier to solve.

>>José Cárdenas:
Are they interrelated? For example, [Hurricane] Katrina. I gather from what you're saying, that's something we would have to deal with anyway, but there are those who suggested that's a consequence of Global Warming.

>>Daniel Sarewitz:
Yea, and I actually think it's an error to try to connect the two issues. Katrina, the vulnerability of New Orleans to devastating hurricanes, as it actually unfolded. It is something we've known about for decades, long before Climate Change was on the public agenda. Here was a city built to some extent below Sea Level, environmental buffers like the wetlands around it progressively destroyed. Socioeconomically deprived people living in substandard housing in areas that were particularly vulnerable. And engineered systems, the levy systems, that were not well maintained. So, these sorts of problems are independent of the Climate Change problem. Climate Change magnifies them, makes them worse, but Katrina really, to me, illustrated, and I think the right lesson from Katrina is that we have to take preparation for climate impact very seriously, independent of the question of what we do about Climate Change.

>>José Cárdenas:
So, what do we do about Climate Change? How do we deal with the Fossil Fuel dependency that you talked about?

>>Daniel Sarewitz:
Yea, Climate Change from the Fossil Fuel perspective is largely a long-term technological change problem, and it's a kind of problem that we know how to solve, [but] we don't know how to solve quickly. It involves aggressive research and development that can lead us towards more economically viable energy sources. It involves the government creating the right incentives so that the innovation we need actually occurs. It involves competition among nations. Competition's gonna be very important as different nations look at energy innovation not just as a way to reduce carbon emissions, but as a way to increase their economic success. So, there's all sorts of elements here, and the problem is we haven't taken them sufficiently seriously. For example, in the last 30 years or so, the rich countries of the world have actually been reducing their investments in energy research and development, rather than increasing their investments, which is a totally inappropriate way to be addressing this problem. So, just one very simple thing we're gonna need to do is take seriously the need for new knowledge, new technology that's gonna help us move away from our addiction to carbons.

>>José Cárdenas:
Dr. Sarewitz, thank you for joining us on "Horizon" to discuss this issue. It's obviously a very complicated one. Hopefully, we'll have you back to talk further about it.

>>Daniel Sarewitz:
Look forward to it.

>>José Cárdenas:
Every Monday evening, we feature two politicos going head-to-head on issues that affect Arizona. Tonight, John Loredo, Political Consultant for Tequida and Gutierrez, and Brett Mecum, Director of Communications of the Arizona Republican Party, have a few words.

>>John Loredo:
Today at the State Capitol, budget negotiations are taking place. In the Senate, you have the Senate Republicans negotiating with the Senate Democrats and the Governor's Office in the house. You have Republicans negotiating amongst themselves. How do you think it will turn out?

>>Brett Mecum:
John, I don't know how you feel, but look at it, Governor Napolitano has signed budgets for the last couple of years basically with 15 to 22% increases as far as spending goes. Now, for those of you at home who don't know how spending is calculated, basically you have personal income plus inflation, and that's how it's set at 7%. Now, the Governor's budgets have, like I said, have gone 15 to 22%. Well, this year, amazing enough, there are proposals out there for a merely 4% in increase in spending, which is amazing, which means we can actually get away from the Liberal philosophy of spend, spend, spend, spend, spend on big government programs, and go back to the days of, basically, government doing more with less. And I think it's great that these negotiations going on, I think it's great that we're heading in this direction. We can actually go back to the days of Governor Fife Symington, whose tax cuts during the mid 90's really spurred the economic growth of Arizona.

>>John Loredo:
And the Governor signed the last budget that included quite a few tax cuts as well. It's my understanding there's talk this time about including cuts for businesses on the tax assessment ratio. That's an idea kicked along for a very long time. There haven't really been any legislators dumb enough to do that specifically, because if you lower the property tax assessment ratio for businesses, what it means is an increase in property taxes for homeowners.

>>Brett Mecum:
Well, there's actually been, John, as you well know, actually some proposals, especially from Senator -- Representative Russell Pearce, actually, on lowering income tax, which I think all Arizonans can agree that we need some relief on income taxes. But aside from that, getting back to what you were talking about, cut taxes on business, that's also a great thing for Arizona as well, and the reason being is basically, in order to continue to spur our economic growth, we are the fastest growing state in the nation, we need to provide the types of jobs and the types of opportunity for people to come all over from the country like California, like New York, Illinois, Florida, to come here to Arizona. We need to continue to do that. The tax and spend philosophies of the past just haven't worked, and getting back to a leaner, meaner government is really the way to go.

>>John Loredo:
Well, there's an old saying, "I'm in favor of tax cuts, just like everybody else, right after we pay our bills," like public education, public health, those kinds of things.

>>Brett Mecum:
And we have--

>>John Loredo:
Investments in Biotechnology, and those types of things, for the earth, for Downtown, for the campuses. Those types of things were really great investments in the Medical School that will spur even more economic growth in our state.

>>Brett Mecum:
And, like I said, that's the great thing about this budget. We're paying the bills, we're paying everything down, and aside from that, we're also reducing the amount of growth of government, and we're reducing the amount of personal income people have to spend on government. So, it's a win-win situation for everyone. Now, under that, let's talk about Charter Schools for a second. That's one of my favorite topics. Now, basically, we saw that Mesa is complaining a little bit that the House passed legislation saying that credits from Charter Schools are transferable to any Public School now. Now, personally, I think that's a great thing. I think that needs to happen. We've seen, across the board, nationally, Charter Schools can spend about $5,000 per student, whereas Public Schools have to spend about $8,000 per student. And also, Charter Schools are high performing. We saw last year in Maricopa County alone, the Charter Schools in Maricopa County outpaced Public Schools in the reading requirement levels. So, I think this is a great - I think it's great the House took this initiative. I don't think that Mesa is a little bit out of line, I think, in whining a little bit about this.

>>John Loredo:
Well, but the issue isn't Charter Schools and whether or not they are good. The issue is there's one specific Charter School, an unaccredited Charter School, that is very upset that Mesa Public Schools is forcing their students to take tests to determine where they are at academically in each subject. They are very upset because students who are coming from this unaccredited school are not passing the tests. And so, the High School is saying, "look, you can go ahead and transfer into our school, but you've got to take an Algebra class because you didn't pass the test. Now, the charter school is very upset about that because it makes them look bad, so they've gone to the State Legislature. In a classic move, the Legislature is going to change the law for everybody to appease one specific group of people. Now, it seems to me that the real issue here is that it's in the best interests of the students in order to pass the test, if they need an extra class, get an extra class, graduate from High School.

>>Brett Mecum:
Let's talk about -- there was a great win for Arizonans the other day with Proposition 200. The 9th Circuit Court ruled that basically, it is a legal requirement to ask for a driver's license when anybody -- a legal driver's license when anyone registers to vote. Now this - like I said, Proposition 200 passed overwhelmingly in Arizona. It's basically an idea so every vote when people register to vote, every vote is counted. We know that we want to see things like making sure that everyone who is a legal citizen can vote. It's their right. And aside from that, it basically adds integrity to the process, and makes sure that everything is done fairly and legitimately and doesn't disenfranchise legal voters.

>>John Loredo:
The opposition to this basically came because this was a solution in search of a problem. At the Legislature for years, Republican County Recorders from around the State came and testified that they have no problem, that there hasn't been any indication of illegal immigrants voting in elections. They have testified this over and over and over again. The fact of the matter is there hasn't been. And so, the opposition here is not so much that you have to show ID as much as it is that the whole initiative was built on a false - it was built on false information. There was no problem to begin with, and all it does is reinforce a very false stereotype that illegal immigrants are voting, when they're not.

>>Brett Mecum:
So, you don't think it's fair process to ask somebody for a legal ID to say they are legally here in this country, so they can vote?

>>John Loredo:
Sure, I do, but--

>>Brett Mecum:
You don't think we are clamping a future problem?

>>John Loredo:
but I think on Native American Reservations, where they may not have that type of identification, there needs to be a process by which their vote can count, not simply put it in a separate pile and we'll get to it at some point. It was an initiative in search of a problem that simply didn't exist.

>>Brett Mecum:
There are all sorts of provisions out there to help these people too. I mean, if you can't provide the legal form of ID, you can -- you essentially have the ability to basically vote by paper, which the County Reporters have said you can sign, you -- the signature comparison is plenty amount of time. There's also a lot of other areas in there to prevent disenfranchisement from happening. I mean, this is just -- this is, again --

>>John Loredo:
This is a country that has a long, ugly history of disenfranchising, and so, for the opposition, you know, they want their day in court to prove that this is just not a good thing.

>>Brett Mecum:
You know what, there's been widespread problems nationally. We saw what happened in Florida in 2000. I've also known of instances in Ohio where --

>>John Loredo:
We'll see what happens in the court cases. On my final thought, recently we saw the horrific shooting at Virginia Tech. Prior to that, horrific shooting at Columbine. The Legislature is still in session, and they have an opportunity to really do something to prevent this from happening again. The budget negotiations are taking place. There should be money in that budget put aside to hire School Resource Officers to make sure that our campuses, our high schools and our grade schools are safe. We need to hire more counselors to identify problem students like this who have the potential to commit crime and hurt themselves and others. We need to get ahead of this game and prevent it from happening again. I hope the Legislature takes the ball and runs with it.

>>Brett Mecum:
Well, that was great. For my final thought, I want to talk about something that happened today. Harry Reid, Senator Harry Reid, the Leader of the Democrats in the Senate, basically said they are going to come back in session and re-pass the Troop Withdrawal Bill, basically forcing the timetable on our troops in Iraq to get out. Now, this is wrong for a variety of reasons, not to mention the first time this happened, they had to buy off members of their own caucus with outrageous pork spending items such as supplements for Peanut farmers, supplements for tropical fish and supplements for Capitol Hill tours. Now, it's also egregious we be taking away the decision making from our Generals on the ground in Iraq, and taking away the command authority from the President. So, this is wrong, and you're gonna see us Republicans in the State hold Gabrielle Gifford and Harry Mitchell's feet to the fire on this vote.

>>José Cárdenas:
This year's "Coyote Crisis" Campaign is now underway. The five-day Disaster Preparedness drill is a regional crisis response exercise. It involves various local entities. What follows is an excerpt from a campaign video describing the focus of this year's exercise, Pandemic Flu.

>>Maurice Ramirez:
All of our avian influenza start out in bird species. Approximately every 91 years plus or minus seven years, we get totally novel viruses. One of the totally novel virus that we're seeing right now is the H5N1 that began in the Far East, and will move slowly just like all avian flus, towards the European continent, and then ultimately, into Africa, Australia and North America. One of the key issues is the fact that right now, it has an over 50% death rate. And one virus's attack healthy immune systems cause what John Barry is referred to as an immune storm. A high death rate.

>>Wendy Lyons:
Where we probably have our greatest risk is in really trying to execute the plan, because we haven't tested it yet. And that really is part of what "Coyote Crisis" is designed to do. It's designed to test those inter-rrelationships, test those policies and procedures, to really refine what you think is going to work on paper, and make it really work in real life situations.

>>José Cárdenas:
Here now to talk about the campaign this year, the Director of the Maricopa County Public Health Department Dr. Bob England, and the Homeland Security Director for the City of Scottsdale, Lorenzo Jones. Gentlemen, thanks for joining us on "Horizon".

>>Lorenzo Jones:
Thank you.

>>Bob England:
Thank you.

>>José Cárdenas:
Dr. England, what is the likelihood of a Flu Pandemic similar to the one in the early part of the 20th century that killed, what, millions of people?

>>Bob England:
Yes, another pandemic is absolutely certain, and another one after that and another one after that. We have had two or three pandemics per century for hundreds and hundreds of years. The real question is: how bad will that next pandemic be? In the 20th century, we had three pandemics. Two o them weren't really that bad. The third one you referred to killed at least 600,000 people just in the United States and did a terrible number on all sorts of aspects of social functioning, not just in terms of killing people.

>>José Cárdenas:
Lorenzo, Homeland Preparedness, how would your preparation for something like this differ from the kinds of disasters we normally associate with the work your agency is responsible for?

>>Lorenzo Jones:
Well, normal disasters, there's normally resources that you can rely on to come in an isolated incident. If we have a disaster that goes beyond the municipality, the border of the City of Scottsdale, we have the automatic aid system that helps that. And then, if it's greater than that, then we go to the county. If it gets greater than that, then we go to the state, and then federal funds and assistances as needed, are sent to the City of Scottsdale. In the case of pandemic, everybody's gonna be taxed to the max. The whole world is gonna have resource that are taxed and limited. So, there's really not help coming. From where? Because most of the people in the workforce is gonna have a 30 to 40% reduction across the globe.

>>José Cárdenas:
Are there plans then in place to deal with what we anticipate? Maybe the consequences?

>>Lorenzo Jones:
Correct. And what we do have at the City of Scottsdale, we have a Workforce Reduction Plan. And that Workforce Reduction Plan, what it does is we have identified essential City Services. What do we need to keep the Government going? We need police, fire, public safety group. We need sewage. We need our solid waste, we need our water department. And what do we do with the other non-essential services? We shut them down, and then we put those critical people to the essential services to keep the Government functioning.

>>Bob England:
And that's why an exercise like this is so important. Because a pandemic is bigger than any agency can handle, or any group of agencies. It won't just be City Governments and County Governments and even State Government that has to cope with fewer employees. It will be the people who deliver the groceries. It will be the grocery stores. It will be gasoline stations. Everybody has to think about how they will cope during a pandemic.

>>José Cárdenas:
And how do you do that? Because, for example, the border issues, if you anticipate a terrorist coming across, they can simulate that. At the airports, they have bodies, or people pretending to be dead lying down, and you get all the service out there. But for flu, Mr. Jones, what do you do?

>>Lorenzo Jones:
What we do is -- that's what we do. We identify what our critical essential services are for Government. And beyond that, for the City, this is going to be a community-wide thing, like Dr. England said. We have to get out in the neighborhoods for our businesses and make sure the businesses are prepared. Do they have a Contingency Plan in place? How are they gonna recover? This is going to happen. All we have to do is really the recovery phase. It's going to happen. We realize that. We don't know the severity. So, we're really thinking recovery, how do we get back on our feet as quickly as possible? And that's what we do with our Workforce Reduction Plan.

>>José Cárdenas:
Would we anticipate it would be as bad as in the 20th century? I mean, this the 21st Century, presumably, techniques and the weapons we have are much more advanced.

>>Bob England:
You bet, but there's a big difference between knowing how to take care of patient and having the resources necessary to take care of patients. For example, we can take care of somebody with Hantavirus very well, but if you had a whole community full of people with symptoms that bad, then you'd would run out of the resources you need to take care of that many folks. One of the key things we drill in this is how do we divvy up resources that are less than we need at the time during a situation that's this kind of crisis.

>>José Cárdenas:
And Dr. England, we've got about 30 seconds left. One of those resources that's been talked about is Flu Vaccine. What's the status of that?

>>Bob England:
You may have heard recently that the FDA has approved a H5N1 Vaccine. That's good news, but I caution, that's the same vaccine that's been here for a while that works against that particular strain that's out there. You know if you get a flu shot every year, you're getting a different one every year--

>>José Cárdenas:
So, maybe something else?

>>Bob England:
Because they are trying to make it fit the exact strain. With Avian Flu, we've not got vaccine that gets one strain, but that's not necessarily what we have.

>>José Cárdenas:
We're gonna have to end the discussion there. Thank you both for joining us to discuss this issue.

>>Reporter:
in the second part of our series on Climate Change, we focus on the science behind it and recent United Nations studies on the impacts of Global Warming. We unveil the latest Cronkite-Eight Poll. They will discuss the results. That's Tuesday at 7:00PM on "horizon."

>>José Cárdenas:
Wednesday, we'll continue our series, "Arizona's Climate Change", with a Green Summit at ASU. Thursday, an update on Light Rail. Friday, the Journalists' Roundtable. That's the Monday edition of "Horizon". I'm José Cárdenas. Thank you for spending your Monday evening with us.

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