Conference Call with Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Speaker of the House of Rep.s; Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), Senate Majority Leader; and Governor Kathleen Sebelius (D-KS) Subject: Tonight's State of the Union Address

Interview

Conference Call with Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Speaker of the House of Rep.s; Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), Senate Majority Leader; and Governor Kathleen Sebelius (D-KS) - Tonight's State of the Union Address

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OPERATOR: Senator Reid?

SEN. REID: Yes, thank you. And we have -- the speaker and I and the governor have till about 25 after the hour. So I hope that is adequate time for everyone.

I couldn't be happier than having Governor Sebelius give the response to the president's State of the Union on behalf of the party. She's a model of what we want to do in Washington to get things done, work across party lines, to do the good things this country needs.

I really recognize the challenges the governor has. She comes from a state much like my state, which is a conservative state. But she's been very far-sighted -- I admire so much her far-reaching abilities to accomplish compromise -- grows the economy, creates jobs, strengthens education, making health care an issue that we need to talk about, and promoting renewable energy.

And we saw that this good governor can handle adversity. We saw that when tragedy hit her state last May. A tornado wiped out an entire town. It's hard to comprehend, but when we had our levee break on the Truckee River a month ago, they talked about "This is bad, but we were -- we have -- we had been working in Kansas, where there was an entire town wiped out." That's what the FEMA people were telling us.

So we admire your strength and leadership in the face of crisis. She's led a government in Kansas that embraces ideas, not ideology, and embraces values. And these are progressive values, not partisanship. She advises and recommends and has moved forward not in partisanship but partnership.

The American people agree with what she has accomplished and what she works toward. They're tired of the status quo, and I count myself among them. And I'm one of those who are demanding change.

So I believe, Governor, your priorities are American priorities, and that's why we've asked you to speak tonight on our behalf.

Madame Speaker?

SPEAKER PELOSI: Thank you very much, Leader Reid. I completely associate myself with your comments about Governor Sebelius. We're all very proud of her. And tonight the American people will hear one of the Democratic Party's brightest stars and one our nation's leading governors. Her leadership was recognized by the governors when she was chairperson of Democratic Governors Association and again brought the spirit of getting the job done, working in a bipartisan way, to that group as it interacted with the National Governors Association as well.

We'll talk about the governor in a moment a little bit more, but I just wanted to say how important it is to have a governor make this response, because much of the work that we want to do in Congress and for the American people -- much of it begins at the state level.

And it is -- last week, you and I, Harry, had the opportunity to deliver our Democratic view of the State of the Union at the Press Club. And many of the issues that we talked about -- including the stimulus package, which we are going to pass in the House tomorrow -- was developed on a bipartisan basis. As successful as I hope it will be, it does not address the bigger issue of how we get an economy that is more dependable for the American people. And that depends, in a great way, on job creation.

And at the Press Club, we joined together to say how we could grow the economy in a way to create good-paying jobs in the U.S. through education, through providing health care for all Americans, by -- through building the infrastructure in America and doing so in an environmentally sound way to confront global warming. These green jobs, these high-tech jobs, the infrastructure jobs and the innovation for education initiatives that we have will all, again, be an entrepreneurial, new, fresh way to create good jobs in America. All of these issues are issues that have leadership at the state level. And hopefully that our country will benefit greatly from the leadership from the state. Again, with the -- also with the idea that what we're doing is physically sound, that it is living up to the highest ethical standard and with the highest amount of bipartisanship possible.

The issue of Iraq and our leadership role in the world is an important one, and decisions are being made about the status of our forces in Iraq that we'll -- hopefully can reach bipartisan consensus on. But we have to know that when the president tells us that we've turned a corner there, it really hasn't happened and we have to turn the page on Iraq.

Again, as we move forward, America's governors play the critical role -- in some cases, lead the way. Governor Sebelius's record of working together across party lines -- as you mentioned, Leader Reid -- creating jobs, strengthening middle class families, making her -- makes her one of the nation's leading governors. We are honored that she is with us today and very proud that she will present a vision tonight that is one that is shared by all of the American people.

Thank you, Governor Sebelius, for representing us so well, and I'm pleased to yield the floor to you.

GOV. SEBELIUS: Well, thank you, Madame Speaker, and good morning from Kansas, where we're experiencing a little of our own global warming. It's 60 degrees here today, and the sun is out. So who knew in January it could look like this in Kansas.

I am, first of all, grateful to Senator Reid, the Senate majority leader, and Speaker Pelosi for the opportunity to deliver the response tonight, and have enjoyed the opportunity to work with them in their new leadership role. As most of you know, Congress -- the new congressional majority came back together in 2006; the Democrats regained the majority of the House and Senate, and also Democratic governors became the majority of governors once again across the country. We've got 28 Democratic governors; 14 of us in states that were won by President Bush in 2004. So there is a lot of evidence that there is really a new American majority coming together, people who don't see themselves necessarily as partisans but see themselves as citizens, and I think that's very encouraging.

I'm going to talk a little tonight about the hopefulness of the American people and their willingness, really, to step up and face the serious challenges that we have. I do think that some progress has been made with the new leaders in Congress bringing to the forefront critical issues on behalf of working families in America on energy independence with the new CAFE standards; addressing the cost of college, which we deal with every day, knowing that we need a trained workforce for the future; with national security issues; raising the minimum wage, which puts real dollars in people's pockets; and you know, ethics and lobby reform.

Unfortunately, too often some of those issues, even though the ones I've mentioned have gotten bipartisan support, we tend to break down on partisan lines.

And I think Americans are frustrated with the debates that they see having little to do with themselves and their lives. And so tonight, I think, is an opportunity, following the final State of the Union Address that the president will make, to, hopefully, call on the American people to stay engaged and involved and to understand that we have 357 days left in this administration, but those days can be used to address real problems, sustained attention on the economy.

While it's encouraging to see some bipartisan action with the president on a short-term stimulus, we need sustained attention for economic challenges. We need the CAFE standards to be not the end of the energy discussion but the first of a series of initiatives that deal with global warming and standards that governors across the country have been calling for for some time and I know Congress is eager to tackle.

We need a sustained discussion on health insurance. It's unfortunate that now for the second time the president has vetoed the children's health insurance, which is an enormously successful program operating in states across this country; lots of bipartisan support from governors and legislators.

So those are the kinds of underlying issues that really speak to the economic challenges of our families here in the heartland and across the country. And I'm just hopeful to be able to touch on some of those issues tonight.

REP. PELOSI: Thank you very much, Governor. Thank you.

Harry?

SEN. REID: We're happy to take some questions now (if ?), in fact, Regan (sp), we have some people that want to ask some.

Q Yes, hi. I would like to ask one.

SEN. REID: Would you just please identify yourself so it makes it easier for us?

Q Certainly. This is Susan Page at USA Today. And I wanted to ask.

GOV. SEBELIUS (?): Hi, Susan.

Q Hi.

GOV. SEBELIUS: Another Kansan.

REP. PELOSI (?): Oh, my gosh. They're all over the place.

Q I wanted to ask Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid if you could talk about what good the president can do himself in his speech tonight. And also, what are the limits of what he can do for himself in the State of the Union address?

SEN. REID: Nancy and I -- I should say the speaker and I -- last Friday gave a prebuttal. And I was very happy this morning, Madame Speaker, the press carried our prebuttal very well. It was up high on all the news stories today.

And what I did, and the speaker will tell you what she thought should happen but on a foreign policy level, I think the president has to recognize that Iraq has been a real down-drag on our economy and on our military.

We have a military that is being, costing us about a billion dollars a month, and worn-out equipment. We have a foreign policy that's really being neglected. We need to have a surge with our foreign policy, including increasing the size of our foreign service staff.

We have to do something about the Peace Corps. The president said he would double the size of the Peace Corps. He said that five years ago and he's basically done nothing. And we also have to recognize that there's development aid that we have to give throughout the world, compete with some of the bad folks who are out there doing that, including Castro and Chavez. So that was the direction of my remarks.

Madame Speaker.

SPEAKER PELOSI: Yes, tonight, Susan, I believe the president should abandon his usual defense of the status quo and speak as a statesman to the American people about what we need to do for the future. Yes, we worked in a bipartisan way in the House and with the president to develop a stimulus package that we think will put money in the hands of working families in America, who will spend it, inject demand into the economy to create jobs.

But that's not the issue. The issue is the larger issue of, why do we have this downturn in the economy? Why does the president have the worst record for job creation, or I think it's the second-worst job creation record in history? Because we haven't, and he hasn't in his presidency, joined us in talking about how we can create good- paying jobs in America, through education of our people, through providing health care.

Just even thinking of SCHIP, doubling SCHIP: what that means in terms of jobs in America. You have to have health care personnel if you're going to have health care and good health. How we do this with infrastructure, which he has had no plan, and how we do this through global warming and meeting the challenges of the global crisis.

We think these are the areas that we can act in an entrepreneurial way, take some risk, public-private partnership. That's the spirit we would like the president to bring to the podium tonight, not a defense of the status quo, the tired, warmed-over defense of the status quo. So hopefully in friendship and in optimism, we all hope that he will bring that spirit.

Because as the governor said, there's -- what is it, 350, Governor -- 350 days left. There's a lot that needs to be done for the American people. We simply -- families that are living paycheck to paycheck cannot afford for us to have another year of this, again as the governor said, debate that is irrelevant to the lives of the American people.

Q Senator Reid, this is Emily Pierce at Roll Call.

SEN. REID: Hi, Emily.

SPEAKER PELOSI: Hi, Emily.

Q Hi. I wanted to ask --

SEN. REID: You're not from Kansas, are you?

Q I'm sorry?

SEN. REID: You're not from Kansas, are you? (Laughter.)

Q No, I'm from Georgia.

SEN. REID: Okay.

Q So, I'm not sure I'm represented on this call. (Laughs.) But in any event, I wanted to ask you -- and Speaker Pelosi, if you could speak to this, too -- the president most likely and -- has been sort of hitting Congress over not passing a new FISA law. You're having a key vote today in the Senate, also voting in the House today. What is going to happen? What do you expect to happen today in the Senate? Are you going to pull the bill if it doesn't get cloture, and where does the debate go from here?

SEN. REID: Emily, it is up to the president. The only thing the president does well is frighten the American people. And that's -- I can't imagine that -- everything we've tried to do with FISA, he's stood in our way. How about a 30-day extension? No. How about a 14- month extension? No. And over here there is a valid debate over whether or not there should be immunity, retroactive immunity. Shouldn't we be able to vote on that? The Republicans have said no, we don't want your vote on that.

I mean, that's -- as I said on the floor the other day, this is a perfect Catch-22. No matter what we do, we can't satisfy the president. We hear over here continually from McConnell, we want an up-or-down vote, we want an up-or-down vote, we want an up-or-down vote. Suddenly, they've changed that tone. They don't want an up-or- down vote. So we're -- we recognize there is no one that has a better record of protecting the American people than the Democrats, and we have done everything we can to protect the American people.

We know there are bad people out there. We believe that there should be the ability to eavesdrop on these bad people, but there should be this -- this thing that always gets in the way of what the president wants is this Constitution. It's there, and we believe there should be some compliance with that. That's all we want.

SPEAKER PELOSI: If I just may add to that, yes, we will take up in the next 24 hours or so the 30-day extension of the FISA law. That is our plan at the present time.

This is my area. You know, I've served on Intelligence longer than anyone has in the Congress, and I've brought that experience to the speakership, where I serve ex officio in terms of Intelligence.

We all want our president to have and our policymakers in the Congress as well to have the best possible intelligence available to them and have the strongest measures available to obtain that. We don't want any -- any president to be able to do that outside of the law. The legislation that Democrats in the House have up forth and that we've worked with our counterparts in the Senate to support does just that. Why the president would want to use the scare tactics on this legislation is something you'll have to ask him.

But whether we pass the 30-day extension or not, the president has existing authority from the bill that is in existence now and from the underlying FISA law. So we can take a deep breath, calm down, have a discussion about what we need to do to protect the American people. The head of the DNI, the director of National Intelligence, told us what his requirements were, we put them into law, and then the president rejected that legislation, even though it was the prescription that was given to us by his own director of National Intelligence.

So again, we have to do what is right for the American people to keep them safe, but not to give any president, Democratic or Republican, the ability to collect on the American people in a way that the law does not allow.

Q Senator Reid --

Q One quick follow-up --

Q -- this is Scott Rothschild with Lawrence Journal-World. And Governor --

GOV. SEBELIUS: He is a Kansan, Senator --

Q Yeah, that's correct.

SEN. REID: I figured that; Lawrence was a dead give-away.

GOV. SEBELIUS: (Laughs.)

SPEAKER PELOSI: Welcome, Scott.

Q Well, thanks a lot. And you were speaking earlier about global warming, and this is kind of a local issue. Governor, there's been a lot of reports here lately that the -- that there's some kind of deal being made on the coal plant out in western Kansas. Is that something you can speak to? Do you have any comment on that?

GOV. SEBELIUS: Well, Scott, as I've told you before, there is certainly a conversation about the plant denials and how to make sure we have base-load power for western Kansas and have -- make smart decisions for the future. I would say there is no deal about anything at this point, but a lot of Kansans are becoming engaged in a very critical issue for the future of our country, and I think that's very good news.

SEN. REID: If I -- I know this isn't my business, but I -- if I could just make this comment.

The coal industry around the country is spending tens of millions of dollars to give false and misleading information to people around the country, saying all we want to do is have clean coal; why won't they let us do the clean coal. And my answer to that: It doesn't exist. There is no clean-coal technology. There's cleaner coal, but there's no clean-coal technology. And I think the coal companies should be upfront with the American people that coal is one of the things that is ruining our world, and I just -- I think until we have clean coal -- (inaudible) -- even the most avid supporter of coal recognizes won't be for another 20 years, we should just back off and stick with natural gas and look to renewables.

You don't have to live in the desert southwest to produce a lot of energy with renewables.

Speaker --

SPEAKER PELOSI: If just may speak to the issue of coal, coal is an industry in our country. Many workers are affected by decisions that affect the coal industry, and I don't think that the industry is a monolith. As many leaders of the industry coming in and saying, we want to lead the way in how we can make this a system that works. We'd have to do -- we have to capture and sequester the by-products of the use of coal, and we have to put the money there to develop the technology to make that possible as soon as possible. But coal exists. It'll be there another century at least. It is cheap, and many workers are affected by it.

So again, I don't disagree with the senator's assessment of its impact on the environment, but it's a decision that our country will make to say that we'll take this resource and with the -- infusing -- it'll take a few billion dollars, several billion dollars into the research on how we can capture and sequester and in doing so push up more gas, push up more oil. I mean it has a benefit in many ways. But we have to go to a place where coal is not only cheaper and reduces our dependence on foreign fuel and oil, but it also comes down in terms of the damage that it does to the environment.

But I think there is an opportunity -- there are many enlightened people in the industry and some of their representatives in Congress understand what the challenges, and I think we have to go into the future in a much more entrepreneurial and enlightened way.

(Cross talk.)

Q Could I ask you all about earmarks?

GOV. SEBELIUS: (Inaudible) -- I would also say that --

Q (Inaudible) -- Congress Daily. I wanted to ask --

Q This is Jim Angle from Fox. Could I ask you about the president's proposal on earmarks?

(Cross talk.)

GOV. SEBELIUS: (Inaudible) -- Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid are very much -- (inaudible) -- engaging in a national discussion on global warming and the impact, and developing some national standards. What's happening right now, Scott, as you well know, in Kansas and states around the country is, absent the national standards, states are really left to try and figure out a pathway on our own, so governors are joining together in regional alliances to try and make standards.

We have now a national governors' initiative on a clean energy future, but I think Americans and the majority of Congress are ready to go and say we really need some national standards. Then states have operating rules, we can figure out how to be economically competitive and move ahead and as well as protect our environment. And that's a big missing piece that I know the speaker and the leader are eager to have established in this country.

(Cross talk.)

SPEAKER PELOSI: (Inaudible) -- thank the governors for their leadership on this, because the governors have been great. Thank you.

Q Governor -- (inaudible) -- question for Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi.

Q (Inaudible) -- Davis of ABC.

(Cross talk.)

Q (Inaudible) -- about earmarks?

Q For Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi. If you had known that Governor Sebelius was going to endorse Senator Obama for president, would you have still given her this platform of allowing her to respond to the State of the Union?

And for Governor Sebelius, are you going for Obama over Clinton out of a concern that Clinton would be a drag on red-state Democrats?

SEN. REID: Well, let me just say this. Governor Sebelius is tonight giving our response to the president's address. This has nothing to do with the presidential race, only how people see her as being a governor that is setting the tone for the rest of this country. What she does following this address tonight, her response, is her business. And as far as I'm concerned, she -- I don't know how she feels about the presidential race in any detail whatsoever, and as long as she finishes the speech tonight and doesn't get dragged into that race tonight, I'm satisfied.

REP. PELOSI: And may I just say that we wanted Governor Sebelius to present an American view of how we go into the future, because of her great leadership.

Q Speaker Pelosi, can --

REP. PELOSI: (Inaudible) -- from the heartland of America and in a way that will be heard by many people in our country as very good news. Just because she is being a spokesperson tonight doesn't mean that her hands are tied as to what she may do after that.

But we're very proud, Governor, that you are doing this. We look forward to -- people are very eager to hear -- when we say response, it just means that it comes after, but the fact is, it's a very positive initiative about a vision for all Americans. And who better to deliver it than Governor Sebelius?

(Cross talk.)

Q Speaker Pelosi, could I ask you about the earmark proposal from the president?. It's Jim Angle from Fox. The president's --

SEN. REID: Okay. This will be the last question.

Q Okay. The president is obviously laying out a proposal to essentially try to get rid of all earmarks. What is your sense of that? And do you agree with him at all?

SPEAKER PELOSI: Well, first of all, I think the Republicans have pulled their punch on earmarks. When we came in, we said we would cut in half the earmarks, and we did, and we would make them transparent and no longer would the existing policy that exploded during the Republican control of Congress have this explosion of earmarks without identity. So we did that.

We received a letter from the Republicans. From their retreat last Friday night we -- they sent a letter. And it looked like a very lukewarm approach to the earmark situation.

I myself am personally not a supporter of earmarks. If the president wants to do away with earmarks, then we should do away with the presidential earmarks as well. Whatever we have in the legislation, though, should be transparent, closely identified to those who are proposing it, with all of the disclaimers as to any personal connection to them. That is what our policy is.

I see the president is even saying he's not going to touch the earmarks that are in the bill that he -- that passed already. So again, there's great ambiguity in the Republican Party on the subject. They want to beat a loud drum, but when it comes down to it, they want their earmarks.

SEN. REID: Let me -- and I want to say this. First of all, we should be getting a little credit for the most sweeping ethics and lobbying reform in the history of our country. We did that. That was the first bill we took up in the Senate. The House passed it thereafter, and that is now the law of this country. It makes earmarks transparent. It stopped bundling. If stopped flight on these private planes. Give us a little credit for that.

And finally, let me say this. I believe that Congress has an obligation -- not only the right but an obligation to make sure that members of Congress, as a separate and equal branch of government, the legislative branch of government, take care of their constituents.

There is no reason to have some bureaucrat down there with his green eye shades and his funny little hat determining what happens to money that goes for road building in northern Nevada, southern Nevada, rural Nevada; the same as water projects. Eighty-seven percent of the -- on land in the state of Nevada is owned by the federal government, but for congressional-directed appropriation monies, the federal government would just basically ignore that.

We have an obligation, and I will continue to exercise that. And I want everyone in the White House to understand that if they don't like these earmarks, let the president stop putting them in the bill.

So anyway, that's --

SPEAKER PELOSI: If I may just say, there's -- the discretion that they -- the legislative discretion that the leader talks about is a very important prerogative for Congress, and when does a spending decision become an earmark? Certainly you would not think that it was an earmark when we moved quickly to provide the aid to Kansas following the natural disaster there. So one person's earmark is another person's absolute necessity, and those are the kinds of distinctions that we're happy to make; because I believe that we have proposed will stand up in the light of day as opposed to the tens of thousands of earmarks that exploded during the Republican majority in the Congress without saying "boo" about changing that when they were in control. We did -- we cut them in half, we made them transparent, and we're willing to take the fight for our -- whether it was Katrina, whether it was Kansas, whether it's drought assistance in the Carolinas that the administration opposed -- we were willing to take the responsibility and, I might add, in some cases, the heat for bringing that assistance to the American people.

Thank you all very much for being on the call. Governor, thank you. Congratulations.

SEN. REID: Break a leg tonight. That's a term of reference. I don't really -- (off mike).

SPEAKER PELOSI: (Laughs.)

GOV. SEBELIUS: Appreciate that.

SPEAKER PELOSI: Thank you, Governor.

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