 Hello everybody, it's really a pleasure to be here. My name is Michael Barr. I'm the Dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy It's my honor to be coasting this this conversation with our wonderful colleagues at the University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and In conjunction with the University of Michigan's Washington, DC Alumni Club. So it's a great event. I'm looking forward to the conversation. I've got three wonderful guests with me. I have Ambassador Susan Page Who is a professor of practice at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy? I Have professor Barry Raib Who's the Ira Harris professor of public policy at the University of Michigan and I have professor Betsy Stevenson? I'm really delighted to have all three of these wonderful Ford School colleagues with me today We're going to be talking about the early news from the Biden Harris administration. What have we learned? What kind of trends do we see? There's so many different topic areas that one could cover But we're going to try and focus mostly today on three really big areas One is economic policy the second is global affairs and foreign policy and the third is environmental policy and We'll be happy to weave in other issues as they come up, but those will be our three big areas of focus so far Betsy is coming to us from Australia today and Barry and Susan are joining us from Ann Arbor And I believe we probably have an audience from around the world for this Conversation so Betsy I'm going to start out with you since you've been up since 325 in the morning your time I figured I'd pick on you first Let's talk a little bit about economic policy. So The administration put forward a plan a $1.9 trillion stimulus plan that passed in record time Congress Came to the table And passed this plan now people are saying a lot of things about this. I want to get into a couple of them one thing people are wondering about is With all this new spending is there a risk of inflation and and how worried should we be about inflation in the economy today? I So that is I think the really big question and what I want to do is is break it down a little bit So people can understand where that risk of inflation could come from So 1.9 trillion is roughly eight and a half percent of GDP and If you think about Where are if we put together everything we're producing today and compare it to how much? We were producing prior to the pandemic when people thought we were sort of at our potential Maybe we could be doing a little bit more, but not a lot more, you know, we're you know Where we should be today is maybe about five percent bigger. Um, so, you know We're to put that really put the numbers on and we're two and a half percent smaller than we were Prior to the start of the pandemic, but you know, maybe you could think about us being Instead of two and a half percent bigger, maybe five percent bigger by the end of 2021 But well, we just saw the government try to expand by eight and a half percent It's just gonna cause a lot of dollars chasing up to chasing, you know, not enough goods and therefore putting upward pressure on your prices I'm gonna throw one more weird thing into the mix that I think a lot of people aren't aware of but This actually wasn't a bad year financially for the top end of the income distribution and the result is Like a large amount of what you might call excess savings Savings beyond what we would have expected people to have accumulated if we hadn't had the pandemic And that's actually another two trillion dollars. So roughly two trillion dollars in excess savings now two trillion dollars of government spending What if we all go out and have a big party with that four trillion dollars tomorrow? Well, we'd be in trouble, right? We wouldn't be there wouldn't be enough stuff being produced and that would push prices up So that's the fear of inflation, but I'm not that worried about it for a couple of reasons One is that I just don't think we're all gonna go out and try to spend that money tomorrow So even if we think about that one point nine trillion What we've seen is that when we send people money like we did with those economic impact payments People tend to save or pay down debt as much as they actually Tend to go out and spend it. So maybe only a third of that the money that goes directly to people get spent So that means that we can afford to be bigger because people are gonna just put some of that in the bank And I think a lot of that excess savings that has accumulated I don't think people are ready to rip off the Band-Aid empty their savings accounts and go out there and Explosively spend so that's where the anxiety comes from now The Fed is very confident right now that it can that it could Manage inflation if they were to see signs of it but one thing I want to say before I turn it back to you for another question or to Have this conversation is that we are probably going to see inflation rise in the short run And so I don't want you to see that and be like, oh Betsy was wrong or the Fed is messing up Because what we have is some supply problems right now plus we have this increase in demand and it's possible that That the demand moves faster than supply and if demand moves faster than supply That's gonna push prices up, but I am confident that supply is going to be responding to those Those higher prices very quickly and as supply increases that's gonna push the prices back down So we have some of these supply chain bottlenecks. I don't know if you heard but grape nuts has been you couldn't buy it for the last few months Right, so yeah, it's really hard to get. That's a popular cereal in our household But now grape nuts says it's shipping everything's fine. There's gonna be plenty of grape nuts So that's what I mean when I say the supply will come back And so for those of you who've been buying, you know, grape nuts on eBay have marked up prices You're gonna be able to get your grape nuts back at the lower prices very soon So we when supply expands that takes away some of that inflationary pressure So the Fed has been very clear that it's okay to run inflation a little above 2% for a while They see that as transient inflation as long as our long-run inflation Doesn't look like it's gonna get ahead of us and be above 2% so You know, we got it have some trust in our monetary policy authority the Federal Reserve to manage these inflationary pressures But also realize even though it's a lot of money, it's not all gonna hit the economy on the same day That's great Betsy. Thanks really helpful explanation. I'm gonna come back to you to ask some more questions about the Current state of the economy, but I want to turn now to bring in Barry Ray Barry There's been lots going on in the administration from the first days a slew of executive at orders a Rejoining of the Paris climate Accord Immense burst of activity at the start You know, where's this heading? Does this this signal that we're actually going to get something done on climate change How should we interpret these early steps by the Biden administration to? Rejoin the conversation on on climate policy Thanks, Michael and in your right these first weeks have been just stunning in terms of the sheer volume of activity And an administration is trying to do so many things at the same time To then try to reposition the US on environmental policy particularly climate issues I had no idea Joe Biden had so many executive orders that could link to some aspect of climate change and Reflects the kind of Resetting of the table an agenda and even repositioning almost every unit of the federal government to begin to think about their energy use and climate consequences and impacts across the board including as you mentioned the Reintroduction of the US into the Paris climate agreement that said this is a big step But it is only the first step and in political terms and even administrative terms is the easiest of the steps that The administration will want to take we will be looking at major new statutory engagement And this is going to follow it's been 31 years since any Congress and any president has come to an agreement through new legislation on clean air It has been 34 years since any Congress or president has agreed on water policy legislation And we've never passed a comprehensive climate bill in all of these decades of concern All of that is to come and the strategies as well as the fact that this is a two-level game There's the domestic politics, but then there's the international game and rejoining Paris is a step But it's partially symbolic and for the US to have any chance of being credible going forward in the next years and decades on climate They have to back that Reintroduction to Paris with some very real tangible achievements namely investments and reductions All of that is to come in the coming Congress and in the coming weeks and months There you've written a lot about the fragility of these steps that governments take to move forward on climate change or on carbon pricing They can get destabilized very quickly when a new administration comes in or when there's a change in politics How do you think the Biden administration is going to navigate this and do you think they have a chance of? Instituting lasting change on this issue. It's it's obviously it's a it's a 30 to 50 year problem Not a two-year problem or a four-year problem Is there an opportunity for lasting change in this space that you see based on what you've seen says thus far Well, that's right. We've actually lost a lot of time in Launching initiatives that then get dialed back. That's certainly true of many states But it's been the story of the federal government along with the fact that we've never passed any kind of credible climate legislation Or retrofitted clean area legislation to really be applicable through through legislation It's put all of the activity that is not handled at the sub-federal level on presidents and we've seen in presidency after presidency and Executive-based strategies and the grand champion of that was the two-term Obama administration Looking aggressively at every corner and tool of the Clean Air Act for the transportation sector Vehicle emissions oil and gas methane landfill every possible way you could kind of reconfigure that statute and apply it to carbon dioxide methane and other greenhouse gases and After that administration and four years of the succeeding Trump administration a whole series of actions. There's an essentially nothing left There's nothing to show for it. Almost all of those administered steps have not proven durable and one of the main challenges Or one of the many challenges for for team Biden is sort of what to do with that package and how try how far to push I'm purely administrative action one of the things that's clearly in play in all of these areas and My colleagues have been arguing this for some time now that as you move into a system dominated by the presidency When Congress's largely do not function which has been true of environment and climate for some time Regardless of partisan control that also shifts the balance of opposition power to the party in the states That's led by the party opposite opposite the president and so already we've begun to see Republican attorneys general file suit and challenge some of the very early steps of the Biden administration Just as we saw the reverse Republican attorneys general challenge almost everything president Obama did and ultimately create a kind of administrative gridlock And that's I think that the durability issue that that you're you're identifying and one for which the the legislative path However, that is struck through Congress in my thinking is going to be absolutely essential if we are going to begin a more Systematic and sustained approach to this issue after all of these years and decades where we've just been fumbling Well, the great many other countries have made some significant advances Barry we're going to come back to that question on the legislative front in just a moment I want to bring ambassador page Susan page into the conversation and Susan it's it's been also a very active time on the foreign policy front again just in the first couple months of the administration one of the areas that The administration seems to be trying to begin to set a new tone on is on democracy and human rights And I'm wondering How you view the early steps. What are the signs of it the same policy or different policies? What direction do you see the Biden Harris administration going in on key issues in human rights and democracy? Well, I think first of all, thank you very much and thanks also to the U of M club This is great. I just want to say that they are making a lot of positive moves With these executive actions rejoining the Paris climate agreement on the Human rights side. They have rejoined. Well, they have made the steps to Become again a member of the Human Rights Council, which is excellent So they're they're they're saying the right things and the approach which which is focusing very much on a return to normal and A focus on diplomacy Multilateralism working again with our allies. I think all of that is really very positive we do have to remember however that there are some steps that they have not taken and It's unclear exactly why for instance the Trump administration had placed the Chief prosecutor and one of her deputies under sanctions the most egregious kinds of sanctions that are Have in the past only been reserved for human rights abusers not people trying to prosecute the abusers of the most horrific times kinds of of International crimes against humanity So the ICC prosecutor and one of her deputies Both Africans remain under sanctions. This is something that's actually pretty easy to do He could actually just lift the sanctions. It's an executive order And these are really far-reaching sanctions It it remains to be seen exactly what they will do on this front, but One thing that could be a possibility is as they review Their stance on some of these international agreements Which is what they have said that they are doing The chief prosecutor will be leaving the court in June her term will be finished and the incoming prosecutor is not under sanctions and That could provide the opportunity new start and new prosecutor Perhaps that will be the time and in June. They have to reevaluate the sanctions anyway as per normal business And so that might provide the opportunity But it would have been nice to see them along with repealing the Muslim ban and other executive orders doing away with this one and demonstrating our Complete Even though we're not a member a state party to the Rome statute that founded the the international criminal court It would still really signify that we are serious about human rights and human rights abuses So a question mark at least for now about how that's how that's going and we're gonna I want to return to this question of human rights when we talk about China in just a little bit, but I'm gonna I'm gonna spin us back to the domestic economy for a moment Betsy another big thing people are worried about with $1.9 trillion bill and and and maybe future spending is How much is too much in terms of debt? We've been talking about inflation But the ratio of debt to GDP which is a commonly used metric is Rising rapidly Other people say no, that's the wrong metric. You should look at debt service to GDP which is Much much lower, of course How do you think about where we are with the debt overall where we should be going? What's the right analytic frame to have on the question? So, um, I think you've got to start your analytic frame by asking whether government spending is crowding out private sector spending and if government spending is Getting in the way of business spending because there's not enough workers left. There's not enough factories There's not enough land. There's not enough Savings for them to borrow if interest rates are going really high Then our government spending is starting to crowd out things in the real economy. None of those things are happening right now So if you go back to look back to the 1990s when the clinton admin is Betsy, I think you may be frozen. Can other folks hear her? Okay, sorry, I think it just I had a little glitch So I was thinking I was saying when this hand if you go back to the 1990s When the clinton administration wanted to get a handle on the debt What was going on? Well, we actually had pretty high interest rates and you did see businesses that weren't borrowing To make investments that might have made them if they could borrow cheaper And but that's not the situation we're in right now We've spent really now almost two decades with very low inflation and very low interest rates interest rates near zero And trying to induce Businesses to borrow it makes it very cheap for governments to borrow So larry summers has talked a lot about this concept of secular stagnation And and that really is about the idea that businesses are just not investing as much as we would want them to To get the kind of economic growth and full resource utilization That would make our economy thrive When they're not doing that it's a good time for government to step in borrow money and do public infrastructure projects I think that's the next step you're going to see out of the biden administration I don't think we worry about the debt if what they're doing is borrowing To invest in building a stronger economy because that debt becomes easier to service So you mentioned the debt service ratio. It's going to be a function of interest rates It's also going to be a function of the size of gdp So if we borrow we grow the economy and interest rates are low It's really easy to manage that debt if we don't grow Interest rates are high it becomes harder to manage the debt right now I think our eyes need to be on the prize of getting gdp growth going again and using the full potential of the american economy So basically to sum up we've got low interest rates and we got the potential for more gdp growth. Let's invest now Exactly and that's why I said you just start by thinking about is government crowding out other stuff and right now it's not So bet see that brings me to I think another interesting area that that links What you were just talking about with also environmental policy, which is what what the next bill might be There's been some discussion of a major infrastructure investment a major push on green jobs work on climate change And the number people are throwing around is a bill that might be a three trillion dollar price tag Over the next 10 years. So not 1.9 trillion in one year, but three trillion over 10 years Still a very large investment in the economy Barry, how do you see this bill? helping not helping The broader goal of worrying about climate change and is there any possibility of finding some common ground in such a bill on climate change issues You're right in the phrase that you used a little just a moment No clearly applies to the energy sector and actually would use the energy and climate arena As a vessel for much of that three trillion or whatever ultimately the bill would look like The idea here represents a pivot from some traditional thinking on climate change, which is one of the core strategies Is actually putting a price on carbon emissions through a tax or a cap and trade scheme Working away from that direction and a massive investment strategy Along with a cap on overall emissions or fossil fuel energy use which we can discuss separately The idea here is to look across all dimensions of the economy The transportation sector the housing sector thinking about energy efficiency You name it. What is every way conceivable that you could bring down some level of Emission agricultural sector and the like and invest through a combination of Tax preferences credits subsidies and the like just run through all the ways we use energy And think about ways there could be some adjustment changes in how we purchase our vehicles And what might get more people to purchase electric vehicles Put charging stations in their home and on and on it goes So it's really a kind of a cap on emissions, but a massive investment strategy and project Some aspects of what the europeans are doing with what they're calling the green deal Although the mix in europe is looking as if it's going to be very very different You asked about the bipartisan issues and of course When you create a massive spending project and talk about every conceivable way one could reduce carbon That may get the ears of lots of lots of legislators if you're from a fossil fuel producing district or state And you like the idea of carbon sequestration or storage, which is a very expensive Largely untested strategy to use fossil fuels in the production of energy but store that underground If government would cover those costs Carbon sequestration and storage might pick you up a few votes in the house and certainly a number of votes in the senate And on it goes Another piece that may come into play here and we don't know the particulars yet Is what happens if we are going to be looking at a major major pivot away from fossil fuels The current the latest we're hearing is that the administration is going to try to reduce american greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels Which is a fairly high year by 50 by the end of the current decade. That's a staggering pivot and ship It would mean far-reaching decline of certainly what's left of coal But much more significantly oil and natural gas With just massive dislocations particularly in high production in high use states places like texas north dakota in oklahoma So another piece of this is what's being called the just transition package How do you make all of these kinds of adjustments and transitions to allow people who might have been trained in petroleum engineering Or drive a truck that moves energy supplies across the panhandle of texas Into other kinds of fields and works. That's not an easy economic kind of transition And so this whole notion of just transition is really just beginning to warm up What would that look like? What would that cost? How much of any kind of energy or climate related stimulus be Focused on that aspect of the transition that's to come and so the list here is potentially long I would expect any initial proposal to get longer and longer as every proponent of almost every technology and alternative imaginable Comes to the table and thinking about how that might play in their senate race or you know legislative district And then seeing at the end what the the total looks like and really even how far two trillion dollars could go to satisfy Every constituency that might want some role to play in this process Barry let's talk a little bit more about this concept of just transition. I'll bring Betsy into this conversation too so It had been long been kind of dogma of international economists That free trade on net is good for the united states, but That there'll be required adjustments internally workers need to be supported in transition industries and oftentimes what's happened in the last Well, I think many many many decades is that We get the dislocation, but there's not the support behind it and then you undermine support for trade In the environmental area, are we going to face a similar kind of thing where people say there's going to be dislocation? Yeah, we promise to take care of you, but but then we don't and then it creates a political backlash that makes Environmental change more difficult. I'd be interested both Barry and Betsy on your perspectives on that Sure. I do think that this is an enormous coming challenge If you go back to the trump campaign in 2016 Wrapping himself around those iconic coal miners Making all kinds of promises about bringing coal back Didn't happen the pace of coal plant retirements doubled from The trump administration to the second obama term And even there after lots of interest and effort in dealing with a much much smaller population base number of workers in coal Those are issues and challenges But when we talk about all aspects of oil and natural gas and the uses of those in Transportation as well as the electricity sector We are talking about much longer supply chains Far more individuals and especially 15 years since the invention of fracking hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling Which has spread out the sheer amount of oil and gas production in oklahoma. There are 72 77 counties 72 produce oil and gas You can look at a great many states that 15 years ago thought they were getting out of oil and gas Colorado new mexico And because of fracking being able to penetrate that shale and the fact that now the u.s Is producing such prodigious amounts of oil and gas that would have been unthinkable 15 or 20 years ago These have been big growth sectors particularly for certain regions And certain states including states that are probably among those with legislators least likely to be supportive of major climate legislation So this is going to be a significant test and challenge, especially if we are beginning to talk about Really radical far-reaching transition and with it a pivot to Most of our transportation energy source Not from liquid oil and oil oil but rather from electricity and all that that might mean for distribution distribution of costs as well as jobs so and You know, I think the thing is I grew that everything that the berry said and but I just wanted to put in there that There are other changes coming That are going to impact jobs. So, um, you know, we're seeing technological change We're seeing, you know, artificial intelligence coming very very rapidly You know, we haven't really talked about this much in the last year because the pandemic has focused us away from Things like, you know, will the robots take our jobs? But the robots are still coming and in fact, we just had About the fastest adoption pace of technology I've ever seen Because of the pandemic and we are going the repercussions from that are and The benefits as well as potential costs from that are still going to play out over the next few years But, you know, if you think about the number one job in every state That a man with only a high school degree has it's driving a truck as the number one job in every state for men with, uh, With only a high school degree and we know that Self-driving is coming It's not going to be overnight. So people often give that example and then they're like one day We have self-driving trucks and we need zero truck drivers You know, I I have a car that has some self-driving technology Features and what I find is I can do longer distances with less exhaustion And what that's going to mean is some truck drivers are going to become more productive They're going to do longer distances with less exhaustion But that's going to mean you need fewer truck drivers And so it will still be a somewhat gradual process But it's still going to decimate an industry that a lot of men have relied on And that's one small example But we've got to start thinking about how we transition people You did see Trump campaign on this idea of I'm going to restore the old We're going to assemble iPhones in the United States This is a terrible economic strategy because either iPhones become out of reach in terms of cost for most Americans Or we're paying people extremely low wages to assemble iPhones in the United States The idea that we're going to rebuild coal We're going to rebuild our manufacturing base We're a service sector based economy and we have to figure out how we're going to transition people to good Respectable well paying service sector jobs with dignity And that's got to be true for the environmental reasons Barry mentioned It's got to be true for technological change. It's got to be due for trade We've got to stop thinking about compensating workers based on why they lost their job Right, we had all this trade adjustment assistance. What about technology adjustment assistance? What about green job adjustment assistance? Let's stop thinking about why people are losing their jobs and just focus on the fact That their jobs are going away and they need a dress adjust transition And if I might add there really might be some intriguing opportunities here because in some of the very areas Where oil and gas jobs are greatest That's where we're actually seeing some of the biggest growth in wind and solar Where there's less political opposition to siting turbines and farms other kinds of things. So that is not an easy automatic match You don't you're not a petroleum engineer one day and then a wind turbine expert the next and yet There are some really interesting opportunities. And I think we're even beginning to see in some states and wyoming and it's governor One of the you know, the red estates in the country is really beginning to talk about every possible energy source and the wind production in Wyoming is just Staggering as they're beginning to think about these transitions if you can begin to stitch this together creatively I think this is a great opportunity to think outside the box On all of these issues and areas The challenge is not just dividing politically dividing the country in terms of who the winners and losers are going to be Because the politics in each state or district and that's going to be a huge challenge for our process Particularly when it comes to allocating any money from this from this from this big pot But it does suggest there might be a path forward if we can find ways to genuinely invest in these technologies and genuinely take care of the communities that That may suffer as there's this transition happening. There is a potential path for a bipartisan approach maybe Never easy But it can happen. We've actually seen a few instances I actually think one of the most remarkable things that I saw over the last five years in climate policy Was in the last weeks of donald trump's presidency And it was a legislation piece of legislation that passed with bipartisan support to phase out hfcs A chemical substance that we all have access to and use in our refrigerators and air conditioning systems It was a transition strategy. It was structured together through exactly as you're suggesting michael Abroad bipartisan compromise And it actually sets up the possibility that the us might finally ratify a separate treaty Which would be the first time we've ratified an environmental treaty in almost 40 years So that's not an easy proxy for carbon just given sheer scale But there are moments even in our recent troubled past where it has happened and as you said this just happened and it happened for You know a major part of potential contributors or past contributors to climate change. So There is a there is some hope Let's talk about another another topic here that Is extremely difficult facing the biden administration straight out of the gate is china Where the relationship has been quite difficult for a number of years for many years Um during the obama administration during the trump administration and now during the biden harris administration The relationship with china has been difficult already even in the first couple months It is such a critical relationship for the future of the global economy for The united states and for many countries around the world the first Foreign to this was the alaska summit And there were a lot of sparks flying at that summit. It was not a not a moment of Of the two countries coming together and susan one area that Seemed right off the bat to cause friction was on democracy and human rights And i'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit about that and and how you see The role of democracy and human rights debate in in the context of the us-china relationship Yeah, well, you know, it's it's been interesting actually following the discussion But one of the emphases that um, the biden administration has placed is working with our allies and that includes working with our allies on china um, and so, you know, one of the things that um secretary blinken even highlighted was that um in working with the eu And other allies For the first time as a block The eu, uh has imposed sanctions on china for human rights violations This is for the first time since the 1980s that the block has done that on china Um, and at the same time Um, it was the eu canada The uk and the us together imposing sanctions on china Uh for in response to their alleged abuses Um in jingjiang So, you know, I think that there is at least some commonality The challenge is always that We're selective. I mean all countries are selective in how we roll these things out and so At times when our interests outweigh other interests We are not always consistent across the board and that's why we have diplomacy. That's why we have relations that You know, it's it's easy if you're looking at things on paper It's not always easy when you actually have to deal with them in in practice and in reality But I think that that is an area that they are trying to work with other allies And I would say that the same is holding true even with respect to trade Coming to at least some sort of an understanding That other countries have relations with china that are very nuanced That are not just a blanket one size fits all and we have to Respect that and and understand that they are also making Decisions that are based on what they see is in their own best interests So, um, I think it's still a work in progress and and it will continue to be challenging Um, but it's also a little bit more of the way things used to be Where the us became this global power because of world war two But it hadn't been that way before and so it's also a recalibration Rebalancing and trying to figure out where we fit in and where other countries have a choice Thanks, who's not I think that um, you know, the relationship is Is super nuanced and complicated in economics too and bet see I wonder if you could Give us a little bit of guidance about how to think about the issues facing the us-china relationship from economic perspective. It's trade Of course issues of intellectual property We're having kind of a race on 5g tech and other tech issues. Who's going to who's going to put in place the infrastructure for the modern on Internet and communications age How do you see the us-china economic relationship evolving in the biden-harris administration? Uh, so I I think it's thorny to say the least you know, we saw uh, you know trump put in some trade barriers that Maybe the biden administration doesn't want to take out. Um, it may be difficult for him to take out um at the same time, you know, if we're not Um facilitating our trade with china, you know, china is a big country The rest of the world is pretty big and they're sort of moving on without us Some of the things we're seeing in china Now that we haven't really seen before is a lot of trust In of chinese consumers and chinese made goods Um that they used to rely on imports. So things like baby formula or cosmetics Even the chinese consumer was afraid of chinese cosmetics and chinese baby formula But that's less true today. So you have you know, if we are our You know, us companies want to be able to keep selling to china And what we saw is some of the protecting of us jobs actually hurt more jobs Than it actually helped because it made In inputs in some companies the price is going up um, it made it hard for them to access uh, chinese markets I I think that We've got to figure out how to facilitate trade in a friendly way I think there's still a lot of fear that china's somehow, you know, manipulating markets, you know, they're They you know china had a strategy perhaps of Trying to sell us things cheaply by manipulating its currency. I don't think it's doing that anymore but it's kind of a Even that is sort of a funny situation for the us because as consumers If china's selling us things cheap, we're getting to buy things cheap. That's great When was the last time you went in a store and complained because I had things on sale Well, you don't complain as the consumer, but you do complain if you're the store next door And so the us is both the consumer and the store next door And as the store next door we're complaining But a lot of our consumers are are benefiting and so that's part of how to think about this is being like a really sticky situation You know when it when it comes to things like, you know, big technology investments I think that um, we do have to be really careful that you know We don't get left behind but also realizing that some of our restrictions end up backfiring on us and You know, if you look at Like the ways in which we had restrictions on encryption technology Uh, you know decades ago and ended up actually facilitating the development of encryption technology outside of the us so You know, I I do think that there's a lot to wrestle with there Barry it it strikes me that one area there might be the possibility For significant cooperation with china is on climate change in the environment And i'm wondering whether you see any possibilities in that space that are worth Exploring that you hope that biden heritage administration will take up or or maybe even are there any early signs that that might That might take hold Clearly despite the challenges In alaska that have been discussed and these other questions This is one that has been seen as potentially Unifying the us in china Perhaps these two great carbon emitters would see some Common cause and common benefit And I would not rule that out The president is going to try to put together a zoom-based Global summit for first day coming up relatively soon But the climate international piece that's most important is what happens in glaska the next Conference of parties meeting Later this year in november that's when the countries will really begin talking even more about Their commitments and pledges what canon cannot be reconciled You know, we're seeing in both countries Tremendous development of technology tremendous skills The chinese approach this somewhat differently The chinese has been very active in moving toward electric vehicles in ways that are now beginning to catch the eyes of Not only elan musk, but a lot of the major vehicle manufacturers in the us who want access to that market So the trade possibilities and technological shifts and changes are are certainly possible China's also moving forward with a series of pilot programs to do Cap and trade a version of carbon pricing in their largest urban areas May actually be ahead ironically of the us in terms of developing this kind of market based policy How exactly these puzzle pieces fit together or even pledges that might be made Later this year is a little bit hard to see and yet I think you're right And this is an area where we've still begun to see some early signs that both both sides Us and china see some interest in possibly working together And it's also the one where many of our other trade allies Canada the european union Some of our other asian allies very much want for this to happen and are on their own Really stepping up. I mean the real leadership in the world on climate is not in the united states and not in china It's in the european union other asian countries And to some extent north of some of them are north american activity that we're seeing in canada Can can can basically the us and china who have the biggest Contribution to this in terms of emissions can they begin to catch up with these other parts of the world and find ways to Create a win out of this situation. So very possible But not a smooth clear path in terms of what that's going to look like yet I think you've seen some subnational cooperation right between Subnational entities in china and in in canada and in other parts of the world Are those strategies that you think might build towards a national collaboration? I think that this question of how These different affiliations work is really intriguing I think it's fascinating to note the state of california Under both republican and democratic governors for over 20 years has actively saw it partnerships alliances Hello climate change summits. This is actually preceding arnold schwarzenegger's rival in sacramento I would also note that california's only trading partner in its own carbon pricing scheme Is the canadian province of kebek? There's active exploration and discussion of this and of course one of the things that makes President biden's job a lot easier going into these discussions is the mixture of state and and and Local policies that are already in place That to the extent we actually have already begun to reduce a fair amount of our emissions Particularly in the electricity sector Part of that is the transition from coal to natural gas But it's also a kind of summing of what all of these sub federal policies and activities might be There's already been some exploration amongst some of these state and even regional groups Of really turning to the biden administration and advocating for that kind of link in partnership because to this point If an american state is talking to another government even out of technology transfer or mutual recognition on methane emissions That's hard to arrange and there's some thinking that the emerging biden team and especially gena mccarthy The kind of domestic climate policies are who's worked for two governors Worked closely with states when she was head of epa and the obama administration Is kind of the the grand expert on how you put these things together including the really unique northeastern partnership the national the regional greenhouse gas initiative which is Probably a model approach for how you would do any kind of multi jurisdictional cooperation in the world And has clearly influenced how china has gone about this this this very policy tool. So yes If I could add one thing too, I think Just as as betsy and barry are talking also about technology Um, one of the things that I think is happening and and could possibly be sped up to help with both climate change and Other aspects is on the technology transfer Which would be moving things off of the arms export control act And the military list of equipment and technology to the commerce controlled Dual use application or strictly civilian use application and that would make It much easier also for us to export goods and for receiving countries But that's another way that we can operate together with other countries and also Promote and protect our own technology So that that's you know, again, I think that's sort of technology transfer and exports, it's not really trade but exports can be another way to um to develop both on the Environmental side, but also on the economic side Actually, and let me just add to that like just a circle back michael to your question on debt I mean, it's exactly why we need to see an increase in government spending on research and development So that you know, we we have some of this being funded outside, you know From the u.s. Government making it easier to do that kind of technology transfer You know, we've seen spending over all in the united states on research and development going down over time companies are spending Even if you know, it's both companies are spending less on r&d But also they're shifting their r&d spending from r to d meaning They're not spending as much on primary research. They're spending more on developing getting it out to market And so we we really if we want to continue to see long-run economic growth Then we need to keep developing And we need new research. We need new insights And that's got to come from some, you know, an increasing government spending on that Thanks. Thanks Betsy. We're gonna start to take audience questions in a few minutes. I've got a couple more Questions to ask of our panelists and then we're gonna Take audience questions start to take audience questions in a little bit. I'll mix them into the to the conversation I wonder if we could talk about africa so The trump administration was not super keen on investing in the u.s. Relationship with africa Susan do you see signs that the new administration will take a different approach or do you have hopes about the direction that we'll see in the african continent in terms of us relations and then Very in bed. So i'm interested in the role you see for africa on on issues of environmental Control or climate change and and the broader Prospects for africa and the global economic scene. So maybe i'll ask susan to start us off Yeah, well, you know, they have held a number of conversations and hearings with africa experts or africanists and There does seem to be a much greater commitment Which can be sort of double-edged sword You know, we like to think that Everyone believes the way that we whoever we individually are But some african countries were quite fine with The last administration Kind of having a hands-off approach They don't necessarily want so much involvement and engagement in their affairs And you know historically we have We have called out You know bad behavior against african nations, latin-american nations At the you know without doing the same to our big countries that we have Financial arrangements with or we you know want their oil or some other aspect But so I think that yeah, I do believe that there is a a greater commitment To being engaged I know that the president's first call to An african head of state was to president kenyatta They have been working on a trade deal a bilateral trade agreement with kenya There have been calls from congressman meeks To support the african continental free trade agreement Which has been signed and ratified by 54 of the 55 states in africa all but eritrea And you know In terms of the other aspects of the relationship, there are A number of elections that are being held Some that have just recently been held another set that are coming up and As we saw president biden just dispatched Senator coons out to ethiopia with that brewing conflict. It's not just the conflict within Ethiopia in t gray, but also They're having border skirmishes with sudan. They're discussing and debating The gird the grand Ethiopian renaissance dam and that has an impact further afield It looks like the administration is going to appoint former career diplomat Feltman to be the new horn of africa envoy And that's great because he has experience on the middle east As well as more broadly including at the united nations and so That's what we need because there are so many different players involved in africa right now um, you know, obviously china is has overtaken us in terms of investments and and trade but They're their turkey is big the ua e israel. I mean Everybody is on The african continent So we would be wise that I believe to continue our engagement There are ways to support the continental free trade agreement with technical support and advising if wanted desired And also another aspect is agoa the african growth and opportunities act Which will be expiring in 2025 so Yeah, I think there's a real commitment to working with african nations and leaders But also a recognition that A lot of states on the continent are fragile and that our country is fragile too as a democracy as we have all seen quite recently Something that most other states had recognized about the united states Even if we did not Thanks, susan Barry do you see what do you see Happening in terms of the environmental debate on the african continent or its role in climate change mitigation you know climate change poses Pretty scary concerns for every continent But certainly when you think of the african consequences on top of all the other challenges And I really do think going back susan to your earlier point on technology transfer thinking about that broadly And creatively Is an enormous opportunity This would be very different than a chinese belton road strategy 2.0 coming in for massive infrastructure It would be moving across all of the areas Agriculture and how you plant crops How petro states like nigeria might transition away from decades of abuse In their energy sector toward alternatives that might be very viable and appropriate Under a very decentralized energy production system that we could see in africa Contrast to the what we've had thus far in industrialized countries across the board We've not had that thus far and I think certainly we see in the african context But other places around the world the issue may not be exactly how many tons of carbon we reduce in a given year But do we begin to be generous partners? Not just with money and advice and cajoling in terms of what you should do But some of the very kinds of technology issues to go back to our very first point I think this is where the way that the by administration has structured this is an all of government approach Forcing units that are either purely domestic or more international to begin to talk with one another Having experience leadership to weigh those considerations could be very very significant Especially if there is going to be this massive investment on you know Betsy puts it well Both you know the research and then the development side of all of these technologies that could position america for a very very unique leadership role to play And and I think you know just adding on to that. Um, one of the things that has has plagued africa and I mean it's long also because of the legacy of uh, colonialism and whatnot With restructuring their economies to benefit the west, whichever that country might have been So we disrupted the way that they did business so coming up with the african continental free trade agreement and Other opportunities has been really important so that they can trade within their own within the continent as well as Just a recognition that what they need and want they don't want to continue exporting raw materials That benefits us so going back to betsy's point of being both, you know, the consumer and the store next door So sure, but they need to be in a position have that technology Have the actual industry to make the finished product and not only Exporting the raw material which obviously doesn't make as much money. And so if Investments were really done in that way Um, that's what would benefit the african nations So I just want to jump in with two points and um one is that people sometimes think like oh economic Growth is going to mean like it's even worse for the environment because you know People get richer and they consume more stuff But actually economic growth typically comes with more efficiency um And some of that efficiency actually can be used to improve the environment So I think it's really important that we continue to push for economic growth Um in africa and and around the globe frankly where we think about how do we you know Do more with less we may even choose It but not you know, we may choose to think about distribution as well And so that's my second point Which is as much as we spend time thinking about um within country inequality most of the inequality is uh between countries Um and across country, you know across countries and so trying to think about these issues of Environmental justice economic justice has to start thinking about you know, how we interact with other countries You know to to put ambassador pages point on it right like It you know, what's good for them? They need to be able to pursue what is good for them Um, and we need to make sure that we aren't artificially Getting them to do something that's bad for them Uh in the long run in order to suit our needs by using you know our current economic power In a way that's kind of bullying Um and getting them to make um, you know myopic decisions things that are good In the short run, but then going to be long in the long bad in the long run Thanks all three of you. I'm going to start turning to audience questions and the first one is about the minimum wage The question i'll maybe turn to betsy for this Do you think that the minimum wage measure will put additional inflationary pressure to the american economy? How can it be sustainable in small states that have adopted the 725 wage such as utah? Would that lead to a massive unemployment wave? um Okay, so There are actually sort of three questions there. So let me break it down. Um, the first is Would it lead to a massive unemployment wave and the answer to that is a clear? No economists have studied Rises in the minimum wage and what we see Is that there are not massive changes in employment. So it's massive. What is the clear? No The debate is around are there small losses in employment or zero losses in employment? So sort of the worst case scenario is There is some loss of employment, but again, it's it's not massive What we tend to see is teenagers have that harder time getting that you know weekend or after school minimum wage job And we tend to see that the more skilled workers Among minimum wage workers who tend to be older parents Etc. Are able continue to be able to get jobs and now they get it at a living wage. So They're you know, if what you're worried about is trade off Right, the trade off is some people earn a living wage and other people can't get access to work That may even be a trade off you're willing to take So I'm not even going to tell you don't think about it in trade off terms But that's but what we know for sure from the data is it's not massive Um, and it it's unlikely to even be big that doesn't necessarily mean that's zero And so how is it sustainable in small states? Uh, That um that that do have people working at 725 is how I interpret the question So lots of states have raised their state or local minimum wage above that So it wouldn't impact them the same way Other states even though their minimum wage They may not have a minimum wage Uh, they might just might not find that there are very many people willing to work for 725 So 725 it's sort of become irrelevant. So you might think of those states as not even really having a minimum wage Um, or because there's not one that's binding Um, I you know and and that sort of gets to the would it put additional inflationary pressure So if we're pushing up wages at the bottom Um, what what happens? It does the research does show that tends to go through to consumers So that's the inflationary pressure that you're talking about now realize that it's not dollar for dollar And so it's not agreeing of this massive increase in inflation And I want to put this in another context, which is what we have seen Um really over the last two decades has been a decrease in what economists call the labor share of income So let's take all the income in the country and think of it as a pie And we're going to divide it into the part that workers get and the part that people who own machines capital Etc. Get and what's been happening is the labor is getting a smaller and smaller and smaller share of that pie Um, and and that balance isn't working out really well. That's why I think we got a lot of political arguments over this It just and we need to adjust to it. There's a lot of reasons why it's happening partially because we're becoming efficient at doing things with with fewer workers Um, and so people, you know, you get a company like amazon that's making a lot of money But it's not giving a lot of that money to its workers What happens if we force amazon to get more of those money the money to the workers Some of that's going to just mean there's less profits for the shareholders There's less profits for the owners of the capital. So some of what can happen is just that readjusting of the share and that won't show up necessarily in prices So some of it's going to go through to the consumer in prices and some of it is going to mean that, you know That investment in the amazon you made isn't going to be worth quite as much Thanks betsy, uh, really comprehensive and helpful clear answer to that um, the second question from the audience is immigration touches economics foreign affairs the environment How do you think the administration will manage what is now becoming a potential crisis on the border? and I guess by implication not just the the crisis with the border with mexico but issues of migration around the world or Have been front and central in many countries around the world, uh and uh dealing with immigration has led to some I think quite anti-democratic movements around the world decline of openness to social welfare policies And as the question suggests Migration is a huge impact on environmental sustainability So i'm wondering which of you want to start this question. It might be a multi-part Engagement and i'll just see who wants to dig in first on the question of the role of migration in the current world I'll start um, so I I would say that on the one hand, um people are fleeing countries in Some cases because of the effects of climate change Um, they can no longer, you know, if they're uh agriculturalists, they don't have water They don't have they can't feed their animals. Um, and this is their livelihood Uh lack of space lack of, you know, land Some of sometimes it's climate related. Sometimes it is the policies of the government um of their their governments and of course, you know crime and Violence and all the other reasons that people everywhere want to live in security so you know the um various immigrant various international organizations have come together and Have formed these sort of packs about migration. So the international organization of migration working internationally has tried to come up with a sort of platform for what would be considered, you know, stable migration um part of the problem with that though is There's this assumption that um, you know, Europeans have been turning people away as have other countries but the I think one of the failures at least in the case of Africa is that people often think that Africans are fleeing Africa and coming to Europe or North America When in fact in the case of Africa, there are of course exceptions Um, most Africans stay on the continent. So they might be migrating, but they're not migrating across a continent. They are going from a Conflictual situation in the drc and moving to Uganda or uh Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan, etc and so, um We also have to look at the impact of the hosting countries So you think about Jordan and how many refugees they're hosting from Syria um Turkey signing agreements that you know to take a certain number of refugees um There yeah, they're being paid to do that And the impact then on the communities that are hosting all of all of these people that also has an environmental impact And of course an economic impact So I will leave the border um the nearby borders to someone else, but um I see that president biden has uh made uh vice president Harris his point person on the crisis at the border Not an easy job Yeah, exactly. So, um, I mean it is a crisis and um I I I don't have the answer to that except that obviously people are fleeing real true problems um and uh um, you know in some cases being forced to wait in Mexico before they can have their asylum hearings held um, so I think there's some change on the way that that could at least facilitate Some of that and I know that there is a challenge before the court. So We'll see what happens with that Thank you, Susan. Uh barry. You've been leading a north american wide effort, uh, us, mexico and canada effort to understand migration And climate change and trade for the last several years. I'm wondering what your perspective is on the on the current situation Yeah, clearly climate is not The only factor driving people to move in north america But there's every reason to think in mexico and central america where we know climate effects are beginning to occur It's only going to contribute to those issues and challenges as people begin to move and of course one of the challenges with climate changes Knowing broadly what the future is going to look like but not knowing with exactitude What those local impacts are going to be how bad the wildfires are going to be how serious the droughts are going to be That's really hard to know and prepare for One of the issues that has emerged in some of our conversations The american frontier is can you know, the united states use this moment To think what its policies on immigration are At one level there are some parallels here with climate change that we have gone a quarter century or more without really clear definition by A legislature and a congress. What are the rules of the game for immigration? How do we set this up? And so to what extent? We rely on certainly we have in the climate and environment space for over a quarter century purely on what an administration wants to do while it's in office And then navigate pushback that it inevitably gets from states and local governments Is it possible to put this into more of a legislative framework And develop policies that are not only durable but functional and send clearer signals and Of the among the many things that we could do I still tend to think on the immigration front That is truly job one and strikes me a huge area for bipartisan potential and yet in all likelihood We continue to kick this down the road from one administration to the next and that doesn't serve anyone You know, I I think to to shift this to thinking a little bit about the economics um We're we're in just sort of a difficult situation which is we have You you you have the republicans who sort of shifted to this almost sort of closed borders perspective. They're Um, not very supportive of immigration and they also are now not as supportive as trade, right? They used to be uh pro trade and anti immigration and then we had democrats who were pro immigration and anti trade And yet these two policies are like this kind of schizophrenic, right? It's like, um, I don't Want the jobs to you know, I don't want the jobs to move to you, but I'm okay with you moving to the jobs I I don't want you moving to the jobs, but I'm okay with the jobs moving to you. Um I you know personally I already said I I think that you know inequality around the globe Uh is actually the biggest problem. And so the more we allow the free movement of people and goods The more we eradicate inequality by letting people move to uh a better Uh a place where they think they're going to be able to better thrive I think the challenge is this is coming at a time where we're seeing a real push Uh for more safety nets um for increased taxation and increased support and that just rubs people A lot of people the wrong way where they see these others coming in who are going to get some of their harder and money And so I think that's going to continue to be um a really thorny issue for the biden administration How do they prioritize their desire to build a much bigger safety net? Have more paid leave? Uh have greater child tax credits that are fully refundable all these things that they want to do To try to support families at the bottom while at the same time trying to bring in a lot more families Where a lot of people might see them as joining the families At the bottom of the income distribution and therefore getting what people think of as handouts I think it's a thorny place to be um and uh and of course, you know the biden administrations like You know right out the door with a immigration challenge on the border um that You know, they're going to have to figure out how they prioritize Like comprehensive immigration reform type policies with sort of pushing on other aspects of their economic agenda Um, and I agree with what you know, I was already said Which is that the environmental issues is just going to continue to put this pressure And so we're going to have to decide What and how we approach immigration. I should also say that you know, we just had a global pandemic That certainly raised a lot of questions about crossing borders and who's going to shut their border? What borders can shut who you shut them to? um And I I don't think this is our last global health crisis until I think that's also going to keep putting pressure on the immigration question Thanks, Betsy Let me um stick with you just for one one more uh question and then I'm going to loop back to our others our other guests Uh, you've been working on the area of Family justice of economic rights for women for many many years There's a lot embedded in the stimulus bills Under the end of the trump administration and the beginning of the biden administration that affects family policy in a pretty fundamental way How do you think we're doing so far on that front and Are we learning things in the last two years that could help Change our policies towards families in the in the next decade Well, I I think we are learning things and I sure hope we change You know, I I think we're at a point in time where we're realizing that you know, let's think about In 1938 we passed the Fair Labor Standards Act And that was really in response to the Great Depression where we realized we needed some rules around our labor market So that it could work better for workers But in that in those days the idea of a worker was a dad a man And it was bringing home Income to a family Now we need to think about two people working or just children who are in homes where all parents work And where all workers have some kind of caregiving responsibilities, you know for kids for parents for friends And then how do we design workplace policies to allow people to move seamlessly between Their work lives and their personal lives in a way where they can be as productive as possible at work while still taking care of their care Responsibilities for the last couple of decades. As you said, I've been working on this issue gathering up statistics We learned that you know, we see things like 50 percent of parents say that they think they could be more productive in their job If they had more uh Flexibility in their schedule, they could choose when to come and go And you know, we just had a massive experiment in workplace flexibility. And what did we find? We found those workers were more productive at home Thank god for that because you had a lot of managers distracted from their primary product and focused on Covid and keeping their customers and their workers safe So we would have had even bigger productivity declines in national statistics We hadn't had this big boost that came out of work from home So that's certainly not to be true. We have uh care prime age caregivers who say that they're care taking care of like an elderly parent half of those Prime age so prime age is when we think of working age in a sort of 25 to 55 half of the people who are taking care of uh adult And are not working say that their caregiving responsibilities are why they aren't working So if we could help solve that problem a lot of those people may come into the labor force So I think we're seeing That care has to be part of a modern economy And so I'm hoping for big change If you look though at the stimulus bill what we got was what I think of as a pilot program A pilot program in giving money to families giving money to children and uh In paid leave because these things are all temporary They're not going to last and I think we need to look at what they do And one of the things that I am hoping I can help shift the national dialogue a little bit on Is right now we're talking a lot about what a lack of caregiving means for women And I actually want to talk about what it means for children Um and what it means to not invest in our kids where kids are Where is the economy in 20 years if we failed to invest in the kids? And what do you thinking about children's rights? You know do do our politicians represent the children and and what do they have a right to And so when I think about something like the child tax credit I think we are moving in the direction and thinking about supporting kids because kids have independent rights Not just supporting their parents who are taking care of kids But actually what do kids need the child tax credit expansions mean we're putting money in 92 percent of kids households We lifted an enormous amount of kids out of poverty This is a massive experiment But what's going to take some effort a lot of effort from the biden administration to then You know propel that forward into the future Um, but I think we're going to see that a generation of kids who are financially supported are going to end up doing better as adults Could could I just add to that really quickly? I just wanted to say I think that's exactly right What betsy has has stated and although this is not my field of expertise by any means I think one of the issues goes right back to Barry's comments about legislation This is the reason why we need legislative responses to these temporary measures And one of the places to do that is in the tax code Which embeds exactly what what betsy started with which is you know, it looks at man married breadwinner And that's not the makeup of families most families these days for sure Let me um susan. Let me um, I keep it with you just for a moment We have a alumni in the audience and so I want to bring things back to the university of michigan itself You've recently made this big transition in your life from serving at the highest levels of the us state department as ambassador to south sudan and in the un and other senior postings and Now you've come into the ford school as a professor of practice. I'm wondering if you could tell our Audience our alumni what it's been like for you and how you're finding the experience Being back on the university of michigan campus Well, it's been wonderful. Um, I have to say even though I have not met a lot of my colleagues because of the pandemic Um, I have had the warmest welcome back Um, I have managed to meet a few people when it was you know previously when the weather was was still nice and warm And we're going back, you know into that spring phase now with the weather Warming up and being nice outside. So it's been really great. Um I had almost forgotten what it's like to be at a university and be stimulated all of the time with new ideas And learning and i'm learning even as I teach because I have to look up materials To provide for the students to read and review and so it's it's been a really nice Nice change then great to be back in Ann Arbor Thanks, Susan Barry let me ask you to also talk about a university of michigan topic And that's the work you've been doing. You've been a key participant in the president's initiative Moving the university towards carbon neutrality As part of this presidential commission. I'm wondering you you've just released a report I'm wondering if you could tell our community a little bit about it and and how you see things going from here Sure. In fact, we met with presidentialist. I'll just a week ago to hand off the report and Hand over the big challenge that he and other leaders of the university face and thinking about implementation challenges This whole question of how universities engage on environmental issues how they are in energy stewards and users Is an intriguing one and certainly on our Campus when you think not only of our immediate campus, but all the michigan clinics around the around the state The dearborn and flint campus is that larger partnership We could go to zero carbon emissions and we're not going to do it immediately wouldn't solve this problem But we felt that we've had both the responsibility But also a real opportunity to take advantage of the expertise technology Resources that we have here and we did indeed deliver a plan to the president Which lays out a series of timetables to achieve carbon neutrality It's a combination of standards or regulatory provisions if you will There are investment elements and there's also a provision for an internal carbon tax Which to our knowledge would make the university of michigan the first public research university in the country To establish a carbon price with some of those funds then used for Energy transition. So it was a remarkable opportunity for me I'm very very grateful for the chance to work with so many people across the campus And a particular thanks to to you know those folks who who contributed in our some of our ford colleagues and Looking forward to see with how the university decides to proceed Thanks, barry I'm going to um, ask each of you To just say take maybe one minute. Maybe a little less than a minute 30 seconds Final parting words for our wonderful audience in washington dc and around the world Because I need to leave a couple minutes at the end for our Our co-hosts the university of michigan Washington dc alumni club. So let me just ask bet see susan and then barry You know final thoughts you want to leave our wonderful audience with Uh, I think you know my final thoughts are to remember as you think about the damage that happened to the u.s. economy That was actually caused by kovat and not by any response to kovat And so as we start to vaccinate and actually eradicate kovat from our environment That's when we'll recover. Um, and you know, we're certainly making a lot of progress on that I have been thrilled to see those hundred million jabs happen On a much faster timeline So hopefully we'll all be seeing each other in person and not too long Thank you. Um, I'll be very brief. I I I'll just sort of say that I think that this new administration Is uh, is hopeful. Um, you know, he's giving us some hope both in terms of how they're responding to the pandemic But also rising to the many challenges that that face them. So, um, I'm I'm I'm hopeful that things will get better not just with the pandemic but also how the administration at all levels, um including at state level and Local level how the economy can get better how people can get better and what the future will look like Now that we have had this great experiment of working from home for those who have been able to do so Thank you. Barry final thoughts There have been moments in the last half century where the u.s Has led the world and innovated in air's issues of air and water other environmental arenas But in recent years decades that has not been how the world has viewed the u.s Climate change is an enormous challenge far greater than was originally anticipated And the problems are alive arriving much more much earlier and more aggressively than we thought This is truly a moment To begin to press that reset button and think anew about what the u.s might be able to accomplish in this arena through Public policy that cuts across the board and combines all of the areas that are engaged and It's been a remarkable first journey in these first weeks of the biden administration Thank you. Barry and thank you. Susan. Thank you. Betsy for this wonderful conversation I'm now going to turn it over for a message from uh, nicole taylor Who's the president of the washington dc? university of michigan alumni club And again, thank you our wonderful panelists for this great conversation this evening. Thank you. Thank you Hi everyone, my name is nicole taylor and i'm the president of the university of michigan alumni club in washington dc I'd like to take a minute to thank you all for attending the event tonight And I'd also like to thank the ford school for collaborating with our club on this event If you enjoyed this event, I encourage you to check out our website umdc.org Where you can find information on our 70th congressional breakfast For the first time ever our congressional breakfast is going virtual and we have a great slate of speakers lined up U of m alum congressman ted doige will be our keynote speaker And president mark schlissel will give remarks for me and arbor. We are also going to have special guest Coach joan howard So I encourage you to go to our website and register for the event if you enjoyed this one I'm sure you'll enjoy that one the event is on april 14th So we hope to see you there. Thank you all and have a great night