Betty Bumpers

Transcription

THE DALE AND BETTY BUMPERS DISTINGUISHED LECTURE PROGRAM Offered by the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences Presented by THE HONORABLE WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON Forty-second President of the United States Sunday, April 15, 2012 University of Arkansas Fayetteville, Arkansas 2 1 (Applause.) 2 MR. CLINTON: Thank you very much. Thank 3 you. Thank you. Thank you, Dale, Betty, and 4 President Bobbitt, Dean Vayda, Attorney General 5 McDaniel, Trustee Waldrup. Thank you all for 6 being here. I also want to thank my long-time 7 friend, Frank Broyles for being here and for 8 his support of the national effort in another 9 aspect of healthcare, the fight against 10 Alhzeimer's, which my wife was involved in in 11 the Senate. Thank you for being here. 12 (Applause) 13 It's almost impossible for me to begin 14 this speech, because I have so many friends in 15 the audience. Everybody in this audience is 16 either too young to remember when I was 17 governor or old enough to have helped me when I 18 ran for congress 38 years ago. 19 But -- and I think you know how much I 20 love the University and Fayetteville. I first 21 came here 53 years ago, when I was 12 years 22 old, to go to music camp. Four years later, I 23 got out of school with an excused absence to 24 come here and spend two days, because I wrote 25 my junior thesis in high school on the Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 3 1 University of Arkansas. I am sure I was 2 sincere in my interest, but I really just 3 wanted to come back to Fayetteville for a 4 couple of days. So I'm glad to be here. 5 You're going to get an interesting talk 6 tonight, because right before I came out here, 7 my reading glasses broke. And so the 8 enterprising administration ran out and got me 9 another pair, too weak for me to see, so if I 10 hold my notes way out here (Indicating), you'll 11 know what's going on. 12 You noticed when Dave Gearhart went 13 through all my accomplishments, he saved the 14 best till last, that I was his teacher. He was 15 a very good student. I saw that he had 16 promise, so I gave him an even better grade. 17 And I reckon he's earned it. I'm very proud of 18 him and his brother, Vann and his family for 19 the contributions they've made to our state. 20 I want to say a few personal words too, 21 before we get into the more serious part of my 22 talk. Everything that was said about Betty 23 Bumpers this morning is true, but one of the 24 things that I think all of you should know is 25 the profound influence she had over people who Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 4 1 cared about the health and welfare of children 2 all across America, before it was the thing to 3 do, and the profound influence she had on the 4 people who cared about the cause of world peace 5 and what would be necessary to avoid the most 6 calamitous consequences of war when it was 7 actually still politically dangerous to say 8 what was factually obvious. 9 Hilary always said that it's a good thing 10 families work out the way they do, because 11 women always had the responsibility gene. And 12 Betty Bumpers has the responsibility gene on 13 steroids. 14 I'll never forget the day when the 15 secretary of health and human services when I 16 was president, Donna Shalala came to me and 17 said, "Well, we finally did it. We have 18 finally immunized more than 90 percent of all 19 the children in the United States." And the 20 first thing I thought was "That's because Betty 21 Bumpers put it in our heads to do so and told 22 us we had to do it years ago." 23 (Applause) 24 And our general concern for child heath is 25 really important. The most important thing my Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 5 1 Foundation does in America today -- and I'll 2 say a little more about it -- is the alliance 3 for a healthier generation, which is designed 4 to stem and reverse the tide of childhood 5 obesity in America which, if not done, could 6 give us the first generation of children to 7 have shorter life spans than their parents. 8 That too is something that grew out of a 9 sensitivity I developed in no small measure, 10 because at the beginning of my career, I got to 11 know Betty. 12 I first met Dale Bumpers nearly 40 years 13 ago, and I'm going to tell you a few stories. 14 There are some I wish I could tell, that I 15 can't. 16 Everybody knows he was a great orator. 17 Everybody knows he was a progressive senator. 18 Everybody knows he was a fiscal conservative. 19 And if you don't, you should. 20 When Ronald Reagan was elected and said 21 that we could cut spending in some areas, raise 22 it in others, and cut taxes across the board 23 and balance the budget, Dale Bumpers was the 24 loudest voice saying, "But what about 25 arithmetic?" And so he was one of only three Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 6 1 senators in the entire United States Senate, in 2 either party, to vote for most of the tax cuts 3 proposed by President Reagan because he hated 4 the fact we had a deficit and vote against -- 5 he voted for the spending cuts and voted 6 against the tax cuts. Only three senators did 7 so, because it was obviously more fun to spend 8 money and cut taxes; it's like eating all the 9 candy you want and never having to go to the 10 dentist. 11 When he ran for the senate, I knew he was 12 a great orator, and I knew he had been a great 13 governor. Dale loved nothing better, when I 14 was president, than to introduce me to people 15 as the second best governor Arkansas ever had. 16 But the thing that made him successful was that 17 he is one of the keenest judges of human nature 18 I ever met. 19 Now, the first time I met him, he was 20 running for the senate as a wildly popular 21 governor against Senator Fulbright. And the 22 truth is, just about all of us knew Senator 23 Fulbright could probably not win another term. 24 He had been in the senate 30 years. But I had 25 worked for him in college, and that job enabled Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 7 1 me to graduate from college. If I hadn't had 2 the job, I probably would have had to drop out. 3 So there -- and I was running for congress. 4 So I gave a two-minute speech or something 5 at the end, and it was a great night in 6 Russellville at the River Valley Political 7 Rally. The late Senator Robert Byrd was the 8 guest speaker, and he played the fiddle. And 9 he did it pretty well. 10 So after it was over, I went up to shake 11 hands with then Governor Bumpers. And he knew 12 I was 28 and just starting out, nervous as a 13 cat. And he knew I had worked for Senator 14 Fulbright. And he shook hands with me, a kid 15 he'd never met before, and he said, "Look, I 16 know that you may be mad at me, but I believe 17 Senator Fulbright will not be reelected. I 18 respect what he has done for Arkansas, but I 19 think I'd be the best person to replace him. 20 And sometimes politics is a tough business." 21 He said, "You're younger than I am, and someday 22 you may think you should run for the senate 23 against me. And if you think it's the right 24 thing to do, do it and remember that I told 25 you." And I thought, I'm not sure this guy Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 8 1 means it, but he sure is smart. That was in 2 April, this month, all those long years ago. 3 In December, after he had been elected to 4 the senate but when he was still governor, I 5 asked if I could come and see him. And he 6 agreed to see me. But I -- for reasons I don't 7 remember, we went to Governor's Mansion instead 8 of the office. And I said to him, "I didn't 9 vote for you, but I'm glad you won. It'll be 10 good for America. But two years from now we're 11 going to have another presidential election, 12 and somebody just like you is going to be 13 elected; it might as well be you. And if you 14 want to run, I'll tell you right now, I will 15 not be on the ballot in '76. I won't run for 16 anything. I will work for you." And he looked 17 at me and said, "I can't do that. I just got 18 elected to the senate. I gave my word I'd 19 serve my term, and I intend to keep it." He 20 loved Arkansas. 21 And I can tell you with all my heart I 22 believe if he had run in '76 instead of Jimmy 23 Carter, he would have been elected president. 24 He chose to honor his commitment to you. And 25 it was very -- Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 9 1 (Applause) 2 So I got to where I'd call him for advice. 3 And so 1976 comes along and I'm running for 4 Attorney General which, as I told Attorney 5 General McDaniel when he got the job, it's the 6 best job I ever had in politics, because if 7 you're attorney general, unlike the governor or 8 the president, you don't have to hire or fire 9 much. You don't appoint or disappoint. And 10 when you do something wildly unpopular, you 11 just blame it on the Constitution. 12 But 1976 marked the real rise in Arkansas 13 of Jerry Falwell and the moral majority. And 14 he had all these followers who were watching 15 him on television, and they got little 16 questionnaires. And there was like 10 or 15 17 questions that they were supposed to ask every 18 candidate. And so one day, I was in the 19 Faulkner County Courthouse, and I walked in the 20 county clerk's office, you know, where the 21 absentee ballots were cast. And this lady 22 whipped out the questionnaire and she started 23 asking me questions. And the first question 24 was, "Are you a Christian?" The second 25 question was, "Are you a born again Christian?" Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 10 1 But then there were like 13 questions. I 2 flunked question six, and before I got out of 3 the courthouse, she had cost me four votes. 4 And I was despondent, so I called the 5 smartest politician I know, and I said, "Dale, 6 here's what happened to me. What should I do?" 7 He said, "I'll tell you what I do." He said, 8 "The first time they ask me am I a Christian," 9 the former Sunday school teacher said, "I say, 10 you know, I hope so, and I've always tried to 11 be. But I believe that that's a question only 12 God can judge." He said, "They never get to 13 question two." And I laughed and I said, 14 "That's why you're a senator, and I'm running 15 for attorney general." 16 We've had a lot of laughs over the years. 17 We were laughing before we came in about one of 18 my two seminal experiences with agriculture. 19 Although, as Governor of Arkansas, I had a lot. 20 The first was when I was seven years old, and 21 we moved from Hope to Hot Springs, and my uncle 22 went -- my dad went to work for my uncle, and 23 my mother was a nurse anesthetist, and we lived 24 the first year out on a farm. And I'll tell 25 you how old I am; our farm had goats and sheep Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 11 1 as well as cattle, and you had to feed them 2 all. 3 We had a particularly mean ram, a 4 ferocious ram. So I was telling my cousin, who 5 was out with me -- and she was nine and I was 6 seven, and I thought she was cool, being older 7 and all. And she was a head taller than me and 8 much faster. And I said, "Let's go see the 9 ram." And she said, "You want to walk out in 10 the middle of the field -- you just told me how 11 mean this ram was -- and see him?" And I said 12 "Yeah." 13 So this farm field was not picked clean. 14 It had a lot of big rocks on it. And we walked 15 to see the ram, and the ram starting coming at 16 us. She, being older and smarter, turned 17 around and ran like crazy. I was young, 18 little, and fat and slow. So I decided to run 19 up to a tree and try to let the ram chase me 20 around the tree. The problem was, the tree was 21 only about that big around. (Indicating) This 22 is a true story. 23 The ram caught me and knocked me on the 24 ground and head-butted me in the skull and the 25 gut 23 times before my uncle got there. Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 12 1 Twenty-three times, I counted. Blood was 2 gushing from my head. My uncle picked up one 3 of these huge rocks, hit the ram smack in the 4 middle of the skull. He shrugged and walked 5 off, didn't run off, didn't squeal, didn't 6 whine. I was lucky not to be killed. I 7 concluded two things from that experience; one 8 is that I was too hardheaded for my own good; 9 two is I didn't think I wanted to be a farmer. 10 But when you're a governor, you've got to 11 support the farmers. And one of the things you 12 have to do as governor is, every year, go to 13 Gillett, in the middle of rice country, to the 14 Gillett Coon Supper. Now, Gillett has about 15 800 people. It's the smallest town in Arkansas 16 that fields 12 or 11-man football team. And 17 very often they win in their district, because 18 they raised enough money to support the team 19 with this coon supper that has 1,500 people 20 every year, twice the population of the town. 21 And if you want to be elected to something in 22 Arkansas, you've got to show up. 23 So one night, the weather was bad and 24 David Pryor didn't even want to go. And Dale 25 did, so we got an airplane and we flew down Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 13 1 there. And it was snowing. And it was kind of 2 icy snow and messy, you know. And Gillett has 3 a -- just a one-lane airport. So this guy 4 comes and cleans it off. There's lights on the 5 side. And, you know, every airstrip has a big 6 white paint and then the angle is written in 7 numbers on the end. So the guy that cleans the 8 strip cleaned it and stopped right at the end 9 of the white line -- over the white line. The 10 pilot, wanting to give us the maximum amount of 11 distance to stop the plane, thinking that, you 12 know, there might be some ice on the runway, 13 tried to land exactly on the white line. He 14 landed about a foot short of it, hits four feet 15 of ice. The nose crashed down on the runway. 16 Both the propellers were mangled. And we went 17 into a spin out into a rice field. And Dale is 18 kind of a white-knuckled flyer anyway. And we 19 were sitting there and he said, "Let's get out, 20 get out, get out." So we finally got out and I 21 said, "We'll never lose Gillett again." And 22 then I looked at him and I said, "Do you 23 realize how many politicians we almost made 24 happy?" 25 About two years ago, after all these long Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 14 1 years, Dale Bumpers found and sent to me a copy 2 of a picture of the plane we crashed, sitting 3 out in the rice field, with the nose busted and 4 the propellers mangled, and said, "Dear Bill, a 5 happy reminder of the night we almost bought 6 the farm." 7 I thank you for your friendship and for 8 your leadership, for everything you ever did 9 for me, for Arkansas, and for America. 10 When you left the senate, it was a poorer 11 place. If it hadn't been for you and David 12 Pryor, my economic plan in 1993, which gave 13 this country the longest economic expansion in 14 history, and four of my eight budgets, running 15 surpluses, would not have passed. We proved 16 that invest-and-pay-for-it economics is better 17 than trickle-down economics. We did too good a 18 job. The country was so prosperous that they 19 forgot how it got there and they went back to 20 the old way with the same results. and I hope 21 one day we will be on a more disciplined path 22 to investing in our common future and paying 23 for whatever we decide to do and cutting 24 whatever we decide we don't want to pay for. 25 And when it happens, whether anybody knows it Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 15 1 or not, you, Dale Bumpers, will deserve a lot 2 of the credit, and I thank you for that. 3 (Applause) 4 When I was president, I spent a lot of 5 time on agriculture, and I was -- I shouldn't 6 have been, but I was shocked to realize how 7 little people in Washington, in both parties, 8 knew about agriculture, I mean not the first 9 thing. And as a consequence, at least back 10 then, most of the urban democrats wanted to cut 11 all the farm support programs in an 12 indiscriminate way, because they just thought 13 it was a bunch of money and the food would be 14 there. And most of the Republicans were for 15 any kind of subsidy whether it made sense or 16 not. And so they didn't understand how the 17 conservation reserve, for example, might be 18 better for America long term than just doing 19 things the way we had always done it. 20 And I never will forget, in one of our 21 budget meetings, one of my more senior, older, 22 seasoned, and brilliant advisors made some 23 remark about how, "Well, this ought to be easy. 24 You know, it's just corporate welfare." And I 25 looked at her and I said, "You know, I come Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 16 1 from a state that doesn't have many corporate 2 farms. And I know people that have a hard time 3 if they have two bad years in a row. And 4 they're good people and they love the land. 5 They're trying to do the right thing. We may 6 have to cut this spending to get the budget 7 balanced, but I don't want you ever to look 8 like you enjoy it. Never, when you're cutting 9 somebody that's a good, decent person, should 10 you ever look like you're enjoying it." And 11 five years later, that same person came up to 12 me and said, "After you said that, I spent a 13 lot of time studying it, and thank you." 14 So I've thought a lot about this. And we 15 did a lot of things to try to increase farm 16 markets. We had a huge increase in 17 agricultural exports to Mexico. We cut the 18 tariffs on American farm products into China by 19 more than 50 percent. And we did a lot of 20 other things to try and help move food more 21 efficiently from farm to market, but also to 22 protect the environment, to promote the 23 conservation reserve, to let the farm support 24 programs go to setting aside land and 25 protecting watersheds as well producing food, Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 17 1 to try to help farmers who grow things that 2 aren't subject to farm support programs but we 3 need, like local fruits and vegetables, to try 4 and redress some of the injuries done to 5 African-American farmers. We did a lot of 6 those things and learned a lot. And since I 7 have been out of office, I have spent most of 8 my time with farmers who do things those of you 9 who are students here wouldn't recognize, in 10 places where people often live on a dollar a 11 day or less. 12 But here is what I want to say, if you're 13 interested in food production, we have two big 14 challenges; the first is that there are now 15 seven billion people in the world and there 16 will be nine billion by 2050, and we've got to 17 figure out how to feed them all, because it is 18 morally unacceptable to let children starve to 19 death because of where they were born by 20 accident. The second thing we -- and that's in 21 the poor countries. 22 The second thing we have to do is figure 23 out how, in the rich countries, to feed them 24 all so the way they eat doesn't kill them soon, 25 which is what is happening with this rising Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 18 1 rate of diabetes to breathtaking proportions 2 among our young people. And it will require 3 changes in how we deal with both agriculture in 4 poor countries and agriculture in rich 5 countries. 6 To deal with the poor countries first, the 7 problem of agriculture is illustrative of the 8 problems I have faced in Haiti and Africa and 9 East Asia, the poorest parts of Latin America. 10 Poor people are just as smart as we are and 11 probably work harder to keep body and soul 12 together. But they do not have the systems we 13 have and take for granted. Just, for example, 14 think of all the systems you're taking for 15 granted today. You haven't even thought about 16 it, but you'd be surprised if the microphone 17 failed, if the lights went out, if the air 18 conditioning didn't work. If you get bored 19 with my speech, you can get out of here and go 20 to the bathroom. I spend lots of time in 21 places where none of that can be taken for 22 granted. 23 In a cruel metaphor, during the inaugural 24 speech of the president of Haiti, the 25 microphone failed, because the only one cord Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 19 1 that was there got severed, and it took us 15 2 minutes to re-rig everything so the guy could 3 give a speech. They don't have systems. 4 Systems make life predictable and give 5 predictable positive consequences to good 6 conduct. 7 That's what you're doing here. You're 8 going to get an education. You're going to 9 learn things. You'll put your skills to work 10 and you will have a rewarding life, and you 11 will at least get rewarded enough for it that 12 you'll be able to keep body and soul together 13 and establish a family, have your own kids, and 14 keep the role of life going on. That's what 15 systems do. 16 Now I'll tell you a story. We work with 17 farmers in Rwanda, Malawi, Tanzania, Columbia, 18 and I find they're incredibly smart. In 19 Columbia, the people I work with are all women. 20 They were blown out of their villages by the 21 narco-traffickers and the violence. They 22 figured out -- I had nothing to do with this. 23 They figured out that the Tana River in 24 Northern Columbia was maybe the best place in 25 the world to grow organic spices. And they Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 20 1 figured out how to get enough to plant and 2 start growing, but they had no clue how to 3 package or market the stuff. So we helped them 4 now to more than quadruple their income of 5 organic spices, selling them all over Latin 6 America and increasingly into other markets. 7 All we did was give them a system that you 8 could take for granted here. 9 In Rwanda and all of Africa -- this is 10 amazing -- the average farmer farms an acre or 11 less, pays a ridiculous amount of money for 12 seed and fertilizer and then, having brought in 13 a crop, since they don't have any cars or 14 trucks and the roads are rough, have to give up 15 half their income -- half -- just to get the 16 food from the farm to the market, because 17 otherwise they would have nothing. 18 So we went in and bought fertilizer and 19 seed in bulk at much lower prices, and we made 20 them good financing arrangements, but they 21 always pay back. We didn't give them away. 22 And the worst any farmers have done working 23 with us is to double their income, but usually 24 they triple it or more. 25 And to give you an idea of the practical Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 21 1 consequences in poor countries to agriculture, 2 a couple of years ago, I went to South Africa 3 to the World Cup when I was trying to help 4 America get the World Cup in soccer. And after 5 I went to see Mr. Mandela, I went up to Malawi 6 to check on one of our farm programs. And they 7 were growing soybeans and several other crops, 8 but I asked to meet some of the farmers we work 9 with, so they picked about a dozen and then the 10 dozen picked one person to be the spokesperson. 11 There were 11 men and one woman. They picked 12 the woman. 13 All the guys had farms of between one and 14 two acres. The woman, who was a widow with one 15 child, sole asset in life was a quarter-acre of 16 land. The year before we went to work there, 17 she earned $80 for a year. Somehow, she and 18 her child were still alive on $80 for a year. 19 So we gave her the seed, the fertilizer, we got 20 rid of her pests, and we took her food to 21 market for free. The second year, she earned 22 $400, a fivefold increase and, believe it or 23 not, much higher than the per-capita income of 24 rural Malawi. And she looked at me with tears 25 in her eyes, and she said, "This is the first Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 22 1 year my child has ever been able to go to 2 school," because in the poorest countries of 3 the world, very often they have to pay tuition, 4 because there is no government tax base. Those 5 people need systems. 6 The first time I went to Rwanda to look at 7 the farms, it had been probably five years 8 since the genocide -- no, eight, nine then. 9 And I saw the soil was red clay, kind of like 10 Georgia. And I got down and started digging in 11 the soil, and this African farmer starting 12 howling, laughing. I said, "What are you 13 laughing at?" He said, "We have all these 14 other people come here and they promise us 15 this; they promise us that." He said, "You are 16 the only person in the world who has ever come 17 here to check the soil." I said, "It's a bad 18 habit," and I told him about growing up in 19 Arkansas, and we talked. 20 Anyway, all of the Rwandan farmers are 21 doing fine. So then we brought back their 22 coffee industry. Then we got them coffee 23 roasting operation. We brought back their 24 soybean growing; then we got them a processing 25 operation, and always taking the food from farm Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 23 1 to market. 2 I read the other day they're predicting 3 another famine in the horn of Africa, you know, 4 that's Eastern Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, 5 Northern Kenya. Now here's what I want you to 6 know. About five years ago, I went to 7 Ethiopia, where I don't do any farmwork yet, to 8 visit some of the solar villages we had helped 9 to establish and to look at our efforts to 10 build clinics in the country, because Ethiopia 11 has good healthcare in their cities, a health 12 minister you would be proud if he were the 13 director of the Department of Health in 14 Arkansas. But it's a country of 80 million 15 people, and 58 million of them live in 60,000 16 villages, a fewer than a thousand people. And 17 when we started, there were only 700 clinics in 18 the whole country for 60,000 villages. 19 So I said, "Well, let's come up with a 20 plan." They said, "We've got a plan. We just 21 don't know how to do it." I said, "What's the 22 plan?" They said, "First 3,500 clinics." I 23 said, "That's not many." He said, "Oh, Yes, 24 but if we put them in the right place, every 25 person will be within a day's walk of a clinic. Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 24 1 Then at least no one will die alone with no one 2 knowing whether they lived or died. And then 3 we'll go to 16,000 and everybody will be within 4 three-hours' walk of a clinic. 5 Meanwhile, we're having a famine over 6 there, right? Every two or three years, 7 America has to pony up money or food to deal 8 with the famine. I was there before the 9 harvest, and they had the darndest crops you 10 ever saw. In the southern and western part of 11 the country, the fields were thick with corn 12 and beans and other crops. And I said to the 13 guy I was with, I said, "This is nuts. You're 14 growing more than the people here can consume." 15 He said "Yes, but we have no storage facility, 16 no distribution system, no way to deliver the 17 food even to the eastern part of our country, 18 much less to Somalia or Djibouti." 19 Why am I telling you this? Because if you 20 go to a poor place and you care about 21 agriculture -- keep in mind, these people are 22 not buying rice from Arkansas or soybeans. 23 This is not costing us anything to try to help 24 them. But it may cost us a great deal if we 25 don't help them, and they can't feed Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 25 1 themselves, in terms of future disruptions that 2 the young people here will have to face. And 3 just remember this, whenever you go to a poor 4 place, look first for the systems. They need 5 systems. 6 Now, if you're a rising country, you may 7 have both problems. For example, China still 8 has lots of poor folks that can't feed 9 themselves because they have not been able to 10 figure out how to create economic opportunity, 11 so they just let everybody "whoosh" into the 12 cities, where they are now developing 13 inordinate rates of heart attack, strokes, and 14 diabetes, because they're chunking their 15 healthy diet for fast food that's heavy in 16 calories and carbs and low in nutritional 17 value. 18 India is worse than China in being able to 19 aggregate capital. They're not good at that. 20 So they don't have any kind of national 21 infrastructure. They are very good farmers, 22 but they don't have a good infrastructure. So 23 they have the largest middle class in the world 24 and the largest number of really poor people. 25 So even in the rural areas, which are totally Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 26 1 self-sufficient in agriculture, they can't 2 figure out a way to get the food to market, so 3 people keep going into the cities. Same thing 4 happens in China. India had, arguably, the 5 healthiest diet in the world by some 6 measurements, and now they have huge amounts of 7 heart attacks and strokes. More people die of 8 heart attacks and strokes by far now than die 9 of AIDS in India and rising rates of diabetes. 10 So those places need systems and management. 11 Now, rich countries, we have systems. 12 That's how we all got here, right? I copped a 13 grade for Gearhart and, before you know it, 14 he's running a university here today. I mean 15 it took systems, right? 16 I drove all over the campus today, trying 17 to remember what it looked like when I first 18 saw it 50 years ago. It was thrilling. When 19 you named this college for Dale Bumpers, to me 20 it was thrilling. When I saw the Tyson 21 building, it was thrilling. I raised standards 22 on food processors through the agriculture 23 department, my first year as president, to 24 ensure safer food. And the late Don Tyson 25 supported me in raising the standards on food Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 27 1 processors. And I will never forget it, 2 because he understood that as long as the same 3 rules applied to him and all his competitors, 4 we'd all be better off and nobody got sick 5 eating what they were supposed to eat. 6 Systems. 7 The problem with all systems is they're 8 like people; they get long in the tooth and you 9 reach a point where people running the systems 10 become more interested in holding onto what 11 they got than creating tomorrow, more 12 interested in the present position than the 13 purpose for which they were set up. 14 And America -- and we're not alone in 15 this -- has a food distribution system that has 16 to had to deal with a phenomenal rise of both 17 parents working, our children being raised in 18 single-parent homes, where people have just 19 enough income not to be hungry and below the 20 poverty line, but not enough to be secure, 21 where there are enough hours of the day for the 22 parent to work and earn a living to support the 23 children, but not enough to be free to cook a 24 nutritious meal or monitor a child's eating, 25 where school children sometimes get 40 to 50 Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 28 1 percent of their calories from drinks in school 2 that have too much sugar for them to safely 3 avoid the risks of diabetes. 4 And so I think as American agriculture, 5 we're going to have new markets. There are 6 countries all over the world -- the Saudi's 7 know they're growing fast and they can't grow 8 food in the desert past a certain point. The 9 Chinese are already so worried about 10 water-supply problems, because Beijing has 27 11 million people, for example, and it's draining 12 their water that their southernmost river, the 13 Yellow River is dry parts of the year, and the 14 Yang Sea -- the two being the basic backbone of 15 the Chinese civilization -- they have built 16 these two huge gravity-driven canals from the 17 Yang Sea to the Yellow to fill up the Yellow 18 when it's dry. And some Chinese engineers -- 19 not American environmentalists -- Chinese 20 engineers believe that the result of this 21 experiment may be to dry up both rivers for 22 significant parts of the year. You should not 23 want that to happen. You should not wish them 24 ill. You should hope that we can build a 25 common future. Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 29 1 Meanwhile, how are we going to feed all 2 those people in the cities? There will be lots 3 of markets for American exports if we continue 4 to do what we know to do. What we have to do 5 is to reexamine every aspect of the food 6 distribution system in America to try to make 7 sure that we drastically cut the rate of 8 childhood obesity and the likelihood of 9 diabetes. 10 We already spend seventeen-and-a-half 11 percent of our income on healthcare. No other 12 country spends more than 12. That's 850 13 billion to a trillion dollars a year we're 14 spending, not to be healthier, but because of 15 the system we have. And I -- and 150 billion 16 dollars of that is directly caused by the 17 excess rates of diabetes we have, not Type 1 18 diabetes, the kind you're born with; Type 2 19 diabetes, the kind you get from living, how you 20 eat or don't, how you exercise or don't. 21 Therefore, when somebody tells you they 22 want to cut agricultural research, say no, and 23 say, not because you're trying to find a way 24 for any of our great agricultural companies to 25 make more money, but because we have to find a Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 30 1 way to feed our people and save the next 2 generation of children. And everybody ought to 3 be a part of this. 4 I don't believe there is a devil in this 5 story. I don't believe anybody set out to 6 create this problem. And when I started 7 working on this, the first thing I said was, 8 "We got to do something about these drinks in 9 school, because it's killing kids. And I 10 believe I can make a deal with the soft-drink 11 companies." And all the people who had been 12 laboring in these vineyards, they looked at me 13 like I was three bricks shy of a full load. 14 They said, "Oh, that poor man, he's past his 15 prime and he's become demented and he doesn't 16 understand that the only way we can do this is 17 to whack a 25-cent-a-bottle attack on soft 18 drinks, which had about as much chance of 19 passing as me developing a four-foot vertical 20 jump at 65. 21 So I got together Coke and Pepsico and 22 Cadbury Schweppes and all the big Coke people, 23 and I said, "Look" -- all the big soft-drink 24 people, and I said, "Look, here's the deal; do 25 you want these kids that are in our schools to Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 31 1 be healthy, finally successful customers of 2 yours when they're in middle age, or would you 3 like them to become diabetics in their 30's and 4 start going blind or losing their legs or 5 otherwise become an enormous burden?" They 6 made a deal. People said, "Oh, they'll never 7 keep the deal." Within four years, there had 8 been an 88-percent reduction in the total 9 volume of calories served to children in 10 cafeterias and vending machines in the 90-plus 11 percent of America's schools that were 12 participating, because they understood that 13 food has to be good for us; it can't be a 14 source of our own demise. And the universities 15 are going to have to figure out how to do this 16 where people can all win. 17 This is an exciting time to be interested 18 in food production because of what's going on 19 in the poor countries, what's going on in the 20 rising countries, and what's going on in your 21 country. And I urge you to remember that the 22 important thing about a university is it 23 remains vital, just as exciting to me to be 24 here as it was 53 years ago, the first time I 25 walked on campus, because they're always Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 32 1 learning, always looking for the truth, always 2 pushing back barriers, and nobody thinks they 3 know everything. 4 The thing that frustrates me so much about 5 American political life today is that to 6 express doubt is a sign of weakness, to violate 7 a predetermined ideological position is a 8 recipe for defeat. The whole essence of 9 university life is that life is a constant 10 process of learning and nobody is right all the 11 time. And even a broken clock is right twice a 12 day. And virtually 100 percent of us are stuck 13 somewhere in between. So I ask you to think 14 about that. We have to learn how to feed the 15 poor countries, and we have to learn how to 16 feed our country and the other wealthy 17 countries better. 18 Thank you very much. 19 (Applause) 20 MR. GEARHART: Thank you so much, 21 Mr. President. It's a marvelous talk, and we 22 are so grateful to have you here to honor the 23 Bumpers. 24 For the question-and-answer session, we 25 have two students who will present questions to Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 33 1 President Clinton. First is Cody Gallagher 2 from Foreman, Arkansas. Cody, raise your hand 3 there. I think we probably know you're Cody, 4 but just in case. Cody is the lead ambassador 5 of the Bumpers College Student Ambassadors. He 6 is a senior, double majoring in poultry science 7 and agricultural education in communication and 8 technology. 9 Our second student is Katie McGee -- raise 10 your hand there, Katie, so everybody can see 11 you -- of Fort Smith. Katie is chair of the 12 Bumpers College Honors Program and a junior. 13 She is double majoring in poultry science and 14 environment and soil and water science. 15 And I believe that Cody is going to ask 16 the first question. Mr. President, Cody. 17 MR. CODY GALLAGHER: Our first question 18 today is from Nathan Tompkins. He is a junior 19 in horticulture, landscape and turf sciences 20 from Edmond, Oklahoma. "President Clinton, 21 according to Yahoo Education, our college holds 22 four out of the five most useless majors, with 23 agriculture and horticulture ranking in the top 24 five. Some of your Foundation's focus includes 25 climate control, climate change in regards to Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 34 1 forestry practices, and sustainable development 2 in foreign countries. What is your reaction to 3 this claim?" 4 PRESIDENT CLINTON: My reaction is the 5 same thing that I said when my aide in 1993 6 thought it was just the greatest thing in the 7 world to cut the agriculture funding. I mean 8 it's nutty. I'll give you -- but let me give 9 you a specific example. There was an article 10 in the press this week, saying that Mexico 11 City, long one of the most polluted cities and 12 one of the largest cities in the world, now has 13 ambient air quality no worse than Los Angeles 14 and getting better. You know why? Because 15 they are basically growing vertical gardens on 16 all their buildings. They're running vines and 17 other vegetation up and down on all of their 18 walls, and it is sucking up the carbon dioxide 19 and the other pollutants in the atmosphere and 20 cleaning the air. And they did it on a massive 21 scale. And it seems to me that falls within 22 your jurisdiction. 23 I can also -- I can give you a hundred 24 examples like the ones I already gave you in 25 agriculture. You just think of the problems we Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 35 1 wouldn't have if people everywhere had the 2 access to the things that we take for granted 3 in Arkansas. If we had an agricultural 4 extension service like the one that saved the 5 farmers in the Great Depression in a lot of 6 these poor countries, God only knows what it 7 would do to help people, so I just don't agree. 8 And the people that are saying that are the 9 people that never give a second thought to any 10 plant they see or any meal they eat. They 11 think it just "poof" happens. 12 But I think it should -- instead of just 13 being angry about it, I think first you ought 14 to respond to it in a nice way; and second, you 15 ought to think of ways to educate people about 16 what they can do to take advantage of the 17 practical knowledge you're acquiring here. 18 I mean the first thing I did when I saw 19 that Mexico City article was to send it to all 20 our folks and see how many other places we 21 could be doing this in. But I noticed that the 22 last time I was in Mexico City, I was -- we're 23 talking anything from like simple homes to 24 fancy restaurant with extra money to doll them 25 up; they're like in contest to see who can have Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 36 1 the most beautiful garden running down their 2 walls and, I might say, also on flat rooftops. 3 A rooftop garden can cut your electric bill in 4 America in the summertime by as much as 25 5 percent. But you can't just do it; you've got 6 to know you've got the roof sealed; you've got 7 to know that the roof will support the weight 8 of the sod you have to put on it. You've got 9 to know a lot of stuff. You've got to know the 10 kinds of things you learn here. So that's what 11 I -- that's my reaction to it. 12 MS. MCGHEE: Our next question is my own, 13 and it deals with your time in office. Last 14 summer, I spent 11 weeks interning on a 15 commercial Ag farm in Rwanda, and every time 16 someone found out I was an American, they said, 17 "Bill Clinton," because they love you. They 18 say it just like that. They love you so much 19 after the responsibility you took after the 20 genocide. So my question is what was the 21 mental and emotion process leading up to your 22 public apology and financial commitment in 23 Kigali in 1998? 24 PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, first of all, I 25 have to say this about Rwanda, most of the Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 37 1 credit for what they've done belongs to them, 2 because they have the best organized country in 3 Africa, the smallest geographically, and one of 4 the most densely populated. But when I went to 5 Rwanda the first time four years after the 6 genocide in 1998, the per-capita income in 7 Rwanda was $268 a year, under a dollar a day. 8 By 2010, when our programs and a lot of other 9 things were in full gear, their per-capita 10 income was $1,150 a day. (sic) They had 11 quadrupled their income in 12 years. Shows you 12 what you can do if you're really well 13 organized. And since people who do what I did, 14 and what you were doing, people that work in 15 the non-governmental movement -- we always do 16 better in countries where we can work with both 17 the government and the private sector. In 18 other words, if they have an organized and 19 effective private economy and an organized and 20 effective government, then you can go and fill 21 in the blanks in a much more powerful way. 22 The process I went through was simple. 23 First of all, let's -- let me remind you of 24 what happened in the Rwanda genocide. What 25 happened in -- it happened in '94, and 10 Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 38 1 percent of the country was killed in 90 days. 2 They killed 800,000 people in 90 days. Most of 3 them were killed out in the Bush with machetes. 4 Some were killed by necklacing, having tires 5 put around your neck and set afire. A handful 6 were shot. But most were killed in a national 7 orgy of destruction. 8 And what I -- what happened in the White 9 House was this; probably 20 percent of those 10 people were already dead before people even 11 started talking about it, for two reasons, one 12 is I was trying to get into Bosnia and it took 13 me two years to convince the Europeans that 14 they had to go help me in Bosnia, because 15 America couldn't run Bosnia. Bosnia was part 16 of Europe. We had to have NATO support, and 17 they had to go in. Second, we had already been 18 burned in Somalia. And third, we were just 19 slow on the uptake. And we never even had a 20 meeting on it. My Africa team, who was 21 otherwise fabulous on Africa, they didn't want 22 to talk about it. I think they were afraid I'd 23 go in. 24 But here's what you need to know, if we 25 had just -- if we had just sent a few soldiers Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 39 1 there, four or five thousand, and we got the 2 British and two or three others to go with us, 3 we could at least have saved all the urban 4 lives with probably zero to minimal casualties. 5 These people were not killing people with 6 AK-47's. They were cutting them to pieces. 7 And so I concluded that it was a terrible 8 mistake, and all I could do was say I was 9 sorry. 10 So fast-forward to 2001. I went back when 11 I got out, because I became friends with the 12 president, Paul Kugame, who basically put an 13 end to the violence by coming out of the Bush 14 with his army. And a reporter went with our 15 group. We were trying to see what we could do. 16 And he went to -- and bless his heart, he did 17 what he was supposed to do. He went around 18 determined to find some Rwandan who would say, 19 I wish Bill Clinton would stay the hell out of 20 here, because he didn't help us when we were 21 doing this. And he couldn't find anybody to 22 say this. And this is not about me. This is 23 about them. This shows you their character and 24 the impact the president had on them. So he's 25 talking to this cab driver and he writes a Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 40 1 story. And the cab driver (sic) said, "Well, 2 aren't you mad that Bill Clinton is here doing 3 this, because America didn't come help you stop 4 the genocide?" -- as a practical matter, I 5 believe we, to come back, could have saved a 6 third of the lives. It happened so fast, and 7 it takes time to deploy and all of that. But I 8 think we could have saved a third of the lives 9 probably -- and the cab driver said, "No, I'm 10 not mad. I'm glad he's here. We need help." 11 He said, "Why aren't you mad?" And the guy 12 said, "In the first place, he didn't make us 13 kill each other. We did that. And in the 14 second place, he is the only person who ever 15 said he was sorry." He said "You know, the 16 French used to be here. The Belgians were 17 around here, a lot of people who had a lot more 18 experience with Rwanda than America did. 19 Nobody ever -- nobody else ever said he was 20 sorry." 21 You should remember that today when this 22 is debated. When people tell you they're 23 sorry, you respect them. It is not always a 24 sign of weakness if a country, especially a 25 great country, says I'm sorry. If you make a Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 41 1 mistake and you're trying to do the right 2 thing, sometimes it's a sign of character, and 3 not weakness, to say you were wrong. And look, 4 I love the country. The first thing I did was 5 help them finish their genocide memorial. 6 Here are the kinds of things that Rwanda 7 did; first of all, they set aside this genocide 8 memorial. They had no -- it's a -- was a poor 9 country. They had no embalming services, so 10 people just died out there. And the genocide 11 memorial in Rwanda, outside Kigali on a 12 hillside, is a huge crypt in three layers, 13 which you've seen, right? 14 MS. KATIE MCGEE: (Moves head up and down) 15 PRESIDENT CLINTON: And in it are the 16 bones of 300,000 people. And their loved ones 17 have come and enrolled them in a role of honor. 18 And then you've seen the museum where you walk 19 in, and there is this huge, almost like 20 plexiglass, cylinder filled with bones as you 21 enter it and then -- it's a standard museum -- 22 it says here's how the thing started, here's 23 what happened when the presidents of Rwanda and 24 Burundi got shot down, here's what happened as 25 we're going all through this, but -- I did it, Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 42 1 but the Rwandans deserve a lot of credit and 2 I -- we could all learn a lot from them. 3 The president once said, "You know, we're 4 a poor country, and people think poor people 5 can't be trusted and we're not proud and we 6 can't grow." So he said, "From now on, one 7 Saturday every month, every adult will clean 8 the streets." And that's what they do. And if 9 you go into Kigali tomorrow, you will be 10 shocked at how clean and upbeat the place 11 seems. 12 When I went there the first time -- I 13 could tell you Rwanda stories until tomorrow 14 morning, but I'll just tell you these, because 15 this is very important; This is about them. 16 I've helped them a lot, but only because they 17 could take help. 18 Hilary and I asked to meet with survivors 19 of the genocide. So they all had great 20 stories, one real handsome guy that had his arm 21 cut off with a machete below his elbow, he 22 claimed he was a one-armed man for peace, 23 laughing about it; a Catholic priest who had 24 risked his life to try to shelter people from 25 the genocide; and the last speaker was this Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 43 1 beautiful woman in a bright-colored dress on 2 the lakeside -- lake country in Africa, who 3 said -- and she had no marks on her. Everybody 4 else had been defaced in some way except for 5 the priest. And she said, "You don't see any 6 marks on me, because I was cut badly across my 7 back with a machete." And she said, "We were 8 betrayed by our next-door neighbor." They were 9 in the Hutu ethnic group and she said, "Our 10 children have played together. We had eaten 11 together on every holiday. We thought we were 12 friends, but they were so frightened that when 13 they came to our village, our neighbors gave us 14 up. And they hacked me across the back, and I 15 bled profusely and they thought I was dead. I 16 awoke in a pool of my own blood to see my 17 husband and six children lying dead around me. 18 And I screamed out to God in anger that I had 19 been spared. And then I realized that I must 20 have been spared for a reason, and it could be 21 nothing as small as vengeance." So I do what I 22 can to help her start again. Do you know what 23 she did? She organized a foster home and an 24 adoption agency for children of both ethnic 25 groups. Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 44 1 Okay, fast forward, we finally -- I helped 2 them raise two or three-hundred thousand 3 dollars for this memorial, and they got a 4 plaque up there and put it in. So they want me 5 to take a tour. So this good looking Rwandan 6 guy gives me a tour. He's like 25 years old, 7 in a beautiful suit. He looked like he was a 8 Hollywood actor. God, he was a good looking 9 guy, and very articulate. And he's taking me 10 through and we're talking and I said, "Did you 11 lose anybody?" He said, "Yeah, my mother, my 12 father, my brother, my sister-in-law" and then 13 he stops and said, "Well, if you stop at my 14 uncles, aunts, and first cousins, I lost 73 15 people in my family." And I said, "Is this 16 hard for you?" And he said, "No, it's 17 therapeutic." He said, "The president says we 18 must face what happened so we can let it go." 19 And I said, "You know, you remind me of a woman 20 that I met here the first time I was here." 21 And I told him the story of the woman. He gets 22 this incredible smile on his face, and he said, 23 "I should. She is my aunt." And those six 24 were part of my 73. 25 There is a woman who runs a basket-weaving Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 45 1 operation in Rwanda, who lost seven of her ten 2 children -- the three oldest were boys who were 3 in the military, and they were away -- and her 4 husband. So she's a 50-year-old widow with 5 seven dead kids, and she has to start again. 6 So she goes and finds a woman from the other 7 ethnic group who, like her, was good at basket 8 weaving, and they start weaving baskets. 9 Pretty soon, other women start showing up, 10 without regard to their ethnic group, and they 11 need help, so she trains them to weave baskets. 12 Pretty soon they are not selling them on the 13 roadside; they are set up in stores in Kigali. 14 Pretty soon they're in Macy's in New York City. 15 Pretty soon young men come up and say, "Teach 16 us how to do this. We need some way to make a 17 living." 18 So about four years into this project, 19 this 26-year-old guy that had been there a year 20 came to see this woman, asked her if he could 21 see her and she said yes. He said, "You have 22 been wonderful to me and I cannot live with 23 myself any longer. I murdered one of your 24 children." And he said, "I know you have older 25 sons who are in the military and you should Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 46 1 send for one of them to come and kill me. It 2 is just. And I will work for you every day 3 until he comes." And she looked at him and 4 said, "What good would that do? I forgive you. 5 Get up and go back to work." Think you could 6 do that? 7 So yes, I helped Rwanda and yes, I 8 apologized. They made it easy, because they 9 did the only thing you could do in the face of 10 the inexplicable madness. They wanted the 11 people that ordered it tried before an 12 international criminal tribunal. Everybody 13 else, and I mean everybody else, goes back to 14 their local village and faces a village counsel 15 and gets some version of a community duty for 16 up to three years. And everybody tells the 17 truth about what happens, and then they let it 18 go. We could all learn something from them. 19 Go ahead. 20 MR. GALLAGHER: This is going to be our 21 last question, and it's from from Jana Hineman. 22 She is a biological agricultural engineer from 23 Fort Smith. "What are your thoughts on some 24 ways our current government could cut back on 25 our need for oil and increase the availability Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 47 1 of renewable resources?" 2 PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, first of all, we 3 are, for the first time in a long time -- we 4 have reached a high of oil imports of 62 5 percent of our daily usage in 2005. We are now 6 down to 47-and-a-half percent for -- 7 essentially, for three reasons; one is the 8 explosion of natural gas production because of 9 fracking and some more oil production, but 10 mostly gas; two is the greater efficiency of 11 cars leading us to use less; and three is other 12 sources like biofuels and other things. These 13 new auto-emission standards, which were agreed 14 to the in the last year, one of the great 15 achievements of the last year, and it's to show 16 you what solves problems as opposed to what 17 gets votes, because a lot of people don't know 18 what happened, because there was no fight about 19 it. The automobile companies -- the automobile 20 unions, the government, and all of the 21 environmental groups all agreed on a schedule 22 to dramatically increase automobile mileage 23 standards, making higher mileage cars will 24 create 150,000 new high-tech jobs in America 25 and will use a lot less oil. So -- and in a Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 48 1 recession, we use less in a recession. 2 I think, going forward, we should continue 3 to try to minimize our need for oil for 4 transportation. We need more cars driven by 5 natural gas and more electric cars. This Chevy 6 Volt deal is a bum rap. They got a bum rap. 7 If I were buying a car tomorrow, I'd go out and 8 buy it and never give it a second thought. 9 And I just helped Bogota, Columbia sign a 10 contract to replace all their taxicabs and all 11 their buses, and 100 percent of the cabs and 12 their buses will either be all electric or 13 electric and compressed natural gas. And keep 14 in mind, natural gas emits far fewer greenhouse 15 gases and also, parenthetically, is good for 16 the Arkansas economy, because our oil is gone 17 and we got plenty of gas, but it's a good 18 thing. We ought to -- the ten percent of the 19 coal-fired power plants in America, which are 20 the oldest, emit over a third of the greenhouse 21 gases we get from coal, but they don't 22 even -- they don't produce anywhere near even 23 ten percent of the electricity we get from 24 coal-fired plants. We ought to get rid of them 25 and substitute coal -- I mean get rid of the Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 49 1 coal and substitute gas, because they're just 2 too inefficient and they cause too much 3 trouble. 4 But I think America really could become 5 energy independent. If you look at the -- now, 6 there are challenges to fracking in some places 7 that don't happen in from Arkansas, let's say, 8 up to North Dakota, in the Northeast where we 9 found a lot of gas. You got to be careful 10 mostly with the quality of the wells. When you 11 hit a boom, you know, everybody wants to get in 12 it, and anybody that has ever drilled a gas 13 well will tell you that -- and knows anything 14 about this will tell you that the gas well is 15 much more likely to malfunction than the actual 16 pipes that go at angles underground. But there 17 need to be standards. And you have to worry 18 about the tailings and the wastewater that 19 comes up. And the geology of these states has 20 to be taken into account. 21 But I live in New York where we have some 22 natural gas now and in Pennsylvania where they 23 found a lot. And it's really interesting to 24 me, like if you come to Arkansas, because we're 25 more comfortable with gas, there's not much Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 50 1 difference between -- at least there wasn't 2 when I was here; maybe there is now -- but 3 there wasn't much difference between what a 4 conservative Republican and a Democrat would 5 say about how the well ought to be drilled and 6 where it ought to be sited and what was yes or 7 no, because it was something we were 8 comfortable with. Up there, they want the 9 money and they want the jobs, and they're 10 scared to death, because they've never done it 11 before. And so I think we've got to go get 12 this gas. It's the responsible thing to do. 13 It's a great bridge fuel and you just have to 14 take appropriate steps. 15 But let me give you another example. In 16 2005, President George W. Bush's energy 17 department, not mine, not President Obama's -- 18 the Bush energy department released a study 19 saying that North Dakota alone had enough wind 20 to electrify 25 percent of America and that the 21 wind that blows from North Dakota's border with 22 Canada to the West Texas border with Mexico was 23 sufficient to electrify America many times 24 over. The problem is -- and this no offshore 25 windmills and all the controversy they Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 51 1 generate. The problem is that in America the 2 wind blows where the people aren't. And so you 3 go by these little towns and they don't have 4 sufficient transmission capacity to do it, so 5 we need a different kind of grid. 6 The same thing, interestingly enough, is 7 true of solar power. Right now, solar panels 8 have dropped 50 percent in price. This is 9 really the Solyndra deal, by the way, you know, 10 all that controversy over Solyndra and the loan 11 they got. The average solar panel used be 15 12 percent efficient. The new panel is about 18 13 percent efficient; that is they only convert 18 14 percent of the sunlight that hits them into 15 usable energy. Solyndra was shaped like a 16 cylinder. It was supposed oscillate a little 17 like a fancy windmill. And it was going to get 18 efficiency up to 24 or 25 percent, but it was 19 way more expensive to build. And the loan was 20 supposed to get them through their early years 21 of losing money, because all electrical 22 products go down in price as they go up in 23 value -- I mean volume, your I-pad, your 24 I-phone, right, your I-pod; that's -- they're 25 all the same. Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 52 1 And what happened was, after this whole 2 deal was done, the Chinese put 32 billion 3 dollars more into solar subsidies, collapsed 4 the market, and the Solyndra price differential 5 was looking at a loan -- a loss ratio of nine 6 years instead of four. And it was not 7 sustainable. But the good news is the average 8 price of existing photovoltaic sales has gone 9 down 50 percent. 10 Every single scientific study that has 11 been done, ranks America first or second in the 12 world in the capacity to produce electricity 13 from both the sun and the wind. Today, most of 14 our solar is distributed, that it's not -- it 15 doesn't feed into the grid. California has got 16 people and sun. Arizona and Nevada do. By and 17 large, in the rest of the country, most of the 18 sun goes where the people aren't. So you could 19 build great solar thermal plants but not unless 20 you have a distribution system. That is, I 21 don't think it's just a matter of foreign oil. 22 I think we can generate a whole new American 23 economy. 24 This sector of the economy, by the way, 25 grew eight percent in the worst of the Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 53 1 recession. The jobs pay more than average and 2 we can export the technology. We could make a 3 killing exporting it to the Caribbean. Almost 4 every Caribbean island, our nearest neighbors, 5 could be completely energy self-efficient, and 6 they have the highest electric rates in the 7 world, because only Trinidad has any natural 8 gas or oil. So everybody else is bringing in 9 heavy oil or diesel. And in Haiti, for 10 example, the poorest country in the Caribbean, 11 the electricity cost 36 cents a kilowatt hour. 12 I don't know what you pay in Northwest 13 Arkansas, but I guess it would be somewhere 14 between four-and-a-half and six cents, if I 15 were guessing. Is that about right somebody? 16 More or less? So it's a goldmine for us in 17 terms of exports, so that's what I would do. 18 But I'm for taking the natural gas out. I 19 think a lot of the fears are overstated. There 20 are legitimate risks, but they're more in the 21 quality of the wells where you have people who 22 are inexperienced drilling them and in what's 23 done with the tailings and the wastewater that 24 comes up. You have to be really careful about 25 how you handle that, especially in agricultural Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 54 1 areas or where it's near a watertable. But if 2 you deal with that, I think it'll be fine. 3 Meanwhile, I'd do this other stuff, too. 4 Thank you. 5 (Applause) 6 ****************** 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342 55 CERTIFICATE STATE OF ARKANSAS ) )ss COUNTY OF POPE ) I, Tonia K. Ray, Certified Court Reporter #659, do hereby certify that the facts stated by me in the caption on the foregoing proceedings are true; and that the foregoing proceedings were reported verbatim through the use of the voice-writing method and thereafter transcribed by me or under my direct supervision to the best of my ability, taken at the time and place set out on the caption hereto. I FURTHER CERTIFY, that I am not a relative or employee of any attorney or employed by the parties hereto, nor financially interested or otherwise, in the outcome of this action, and that I have no contract with the parties, attorneys, or persons with an interest in the action that affects or has a substantial tendency to affect impartiality, that requires me to relinquish control of an original deposition transcript or copies of the transcript before it is certified and delivered to the custodial attorney, or that requires me to provide any service not made available to all parties to the action. WITNESS MY HAND AND SEAL this ___ day of April, 2012. _________________________ Tonia K. Ray, CCR Arkansas State Supreme Court Certified Court Reporter, #659 2345 West 4th Russellville, AR 72801 479-264-2006 [email protected] Pinnacle Court Reporting, Inc. 501-312-9342�