♪ opening music ♪ <Gavin Jackson> Welcome to This Week in South Carolina.

I'm Gavin Jackson.

Climate change is an issue that affects us all, and was the focus of the COP26 that wrapped up this week in Glasgow.

While at the same time king tide flooding gave Charleston a preview of how sea level rise will change the area.

We talked with Dr. Lori Ziolkowski from the University of South Carolina on how climate change is affecting the state.

But first with the passage of President Joe Biden's bipartisan infrastructure bill, what does it mean for South Carolina, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn joins us now.

Congressman Jim Clyburn, thanks for joining me.

>> Thanks for having me.

<Gavin> Well, Congressman, let's talk about this $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that sends money to all the states including South Carolina to fix roads, bridges, broadband ports, airports, South Carolina is receiving about 6 billion over the next five years as a result.

Why was this bill so important getting passed?

<James Clyburn> Well, I think that the American people have been crying out for infrastructure fixes for a long, long time.

Here in South Carolina, thousands of bridges have been determined to be substandard.

We've had a big problem, trying to get our port deep enough and wide enough for ships to go to and fro, so that we can get all these automobiles and automobile tires and other things that will make an interstate to get them out, out of here.

We have been hearing talk about the poisonous water tables that we have, most especially in the Low Country, the flooding that take place all over Charleston, if you visit Charleston, when it's raining, you want help, if you can't get a boat, down the middle of the street.

So these things have been going on for a long, long time.

Then we had a president, prior to this one, who every week talk about infrastructure week, infrastructure month, and people had all those pent up expectations, that were dashed, time and time again.

And so President Biden ran on getting this done.

And he has now gotten it done.

And I'm glad that we are talking about what's in this bill, because I'm still hearing from people about what we have not done.

You know, John West, when I was on his staff, John West, and I had a discussion one time and during that discussion.

He referred to a glass, a water glass that was on his desk and he asked me to take note of it.

When I did.

He said, that glass is half full of water, because of your experiences, when you look at it, it's half empty, because of my experiences, it's half full.

And we always got to work on filling up the glass.

So,I think about that often.

And when people tell me about what did not get in the bill, I tell them, let's spend a little time talking about what did get in the bill.

$65 billion dollars for broadband.

How big is our broadband problem in South Carolina?

How many South Carolina kids lost a year of school?

Some, more than a year, because they were not connected to the Internet and couldn't continue their education during COVID-19?

How many patients in hospitals could not get telehealth and tele-medicine?

I know what it is to watch a spouse battle with diabetes, and need telehealth.

And because we had good insurance, she had it.

So, these things are big in our state.

And I would hope that we will stop talking about the things that we have not gotten done yet.

And like you're doing here today, let's talk about the things that are in this bill.

<Gavin> Well, Congressman, when you pair that with what we saw pass with the American Rescue Plan money too, and that has a lot of discretionary funds in there too for the legislature to approve.

It sounds like a lot of those will be going towards infrastructure will be going towards broadband too.

So, you have a lot of...potential here.

What does that mean for South Carolina?

<James Clyburn> That means Joe Biden has been great for South Carolina.

The American Rescue Plan is Joe Biden's plan.

And this is Joe Biden's plan.

And we've got another Joe Biden plan on the horizon.

And it means that we can now get Malfunction Junction fixed here in South Carolina here in the Midlands of South Carolina, it means that the flooding all over Charleston, that they're still complaining about, we can now address the flooding.

It means our children can get online learning of senior citizens and our rural hospitals.

Four rural hospitals will be closed in South Carolina and many experts tell me that if these hospitals could be connected to the teaching hospitals via the Internet, they might still be open.

And so these are very important things that we'll have to concentrate on doing.

Now.

I don't understand why people think that we can build highways and fix bridges, and do water systems, by clipping coupons out the Sunday papers, that ain't going to happen.

We've got to have a massive commitment of federal dollars to get this done.

You can't even do it with state money - and I'm glad you brought up the rescue plan, because the governor, Governor McMaster told me just before he did the State of the State address this year, which was just after January 6th he told me that he was getting ready to request some of the kids money to be allocated by the state for broadband.

And now I'm told that our share South Carolina's share of this $65 billion is going to be enough to build out 100% of our broadband needs in South Carolina.

But when you take the money from the kids' package.

You take the money from the rescue plan, you take the money from the FCC's rule of digital program - and the money from this one, it adds up to a nature of $600 million dollars and South Carolina says that he can build out 100% of broadband with rent under $600 million dollars.

In the next four to six years, if we spend the money wisely, it's one thing for the money to get allocated.

And something else for us to spend it wisely.

If we spent this money wisely, South Carolina can show the way in broadband deployment.

And we've got a good first step, because we have the best maps.

The mapping for South Carolina already done.

Jim 'Swishinger'...however you pronounce that last name.

<Gavin> Stritzinger has done a great job.

I brought him up to Washington to meet with legislators from 30 other states.

I'm sorry, 30 other legislators from various rural states.

He came up and he drawed out to help many of those states do their mapping.

So, South Carolina can do for broadband, what it did for Educational Television during the Fritz Hollings days <Gavin> Nice point.

>> Absolutely.

South Carolina paved the way in educational TV.

<Gavin> Sure did.

>> ...so we can do the same thing with broadband.

>> - to jump in >> - Thanks to ETV towers, those towers that you guys put up, we've been using those towers to get broadband into places like Allendale county.

<Gavin> I just want to jump in and move on.

We have so much to talk about.

But I know Jim, we did talk to him.

He did say that was about a $400 and... $90 million problem, maybe upwards of $600 million dollars for that broadband that they are working to get rolled out.

Now you're saying that we're going to pretty much effectively fix this problem with all this funding going forward.

But I want to ask you also about just why it took so long for this bill to get passed.

You know, we saw it pass in August we even saw 19 Republican senators join in to pass it, including Senator Lindsey Graham, but then it pretty much you know, there was so much back and forth in the House.

Then we saw what happened in Virginia with the governor's race there too.

And then just days later, after that election day, we saw this get passed.

How much of a role do you think that Virginia race kind of played in spurring action in the House for Democrats?

<James Clyburn> Well, let me tell you about the House of Representatives There's 435 people in that House.

I come from one congressional district.

I'm the only one in the House that voted for it in South Carolina.

Think about that.

We got seven members of the House, one voted for it.

The other six voted against it.

Maybe they don't think it's important.

So that's the kind of problem we have.

You asked me why it was so difficult.

You have to ask those six people.

Why it's so difficult for them to want to fix the bridges?

Why it's so difficult for them to want to put in water systems?

Why they don't want people to have broadband?

They voted no.

That's why it's so difficult.

Only 13 of the 109, some odd, Republicans voted for this bill.

And now they're talking about punishing the 13 people who voted for it.

<Gavin> - of course, you have a majority in the House, too, and you had six Democrats who didn't vote for the bill, too.

So there's a lot of infighting there as well.

<James Clyburn> Well, remember, those six Democrats, if you look at their district, you look at what they had to say about it.

Those six people got very upset, because they wanted us to vote on Build, Back, Better, first, because they didn't trust the moderates to be there for Build, Back, Better, if we voted on their bill first.

Now, I took the bull by the horns, because I'm a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

I don't know why, but I am a member.

And so I got them, the Congressional Black Caucus, to step out of their comfort zone.

They wanted that bill...to be voted on first, also, I got them to step back from that.

and I got to moderates to step up to a commitment on Build, Back, Better.

and that's how he passed it, but those six people still did not trust.

And if you looked at the records, those of us - that's why they six of them voted against it.

Because they thought, and you remember, we've been talking about voting on that bill first, and then vote on the other bill, we'll reverse that.

and they got, they didn't like that.

and I understand that.

<Gavin> But going into Virginia, >> I didn't bother with it.

>> Sir, do you think Virginia played a big role in spurring a lot of this too?

I mean, you saw that blowout in Virginia?

Did - was that a wake up call?

I mean, before the election, you were even saying that Democrats didn't even see that they?

It's not clear if they have developed the will to win in 2022.

So, do you think now that Democrats have passed this, maybe that things have changed?

>> Well, other things have changed.

When I said that Democrats had not developed the will you may remember I also said, when I was asked what, they have to do to develop the will.

I said they have to get outside of their comfort zone.

That's what I said and that's what I meant.

And that's what they did.

The black Demo- the Black Caucus, got beyond this comfort zone, the moderates got beyond their comfort zone.

We found common ground, each group giving up something.

and that's how we got here.

Now, till we have done that earlier.

I guess we could have - No, let me put it this way.

We should have done that earlier.

<Gavin> Would it have made a difference in Virginia?

<Clyburn> But we can not do it early.

I'm sorry?

>> Would it have made a difference in Virginia, do you think?

<James Clyburn> I don't think it would have made a difference in the outcome of the election, because I don't think the election turned on that.

If you look at fully 25% of the people in Virginia said they voted solely on another big lie.

They voted on a big lie.

There's something called racial something <Gavin> Critical race theory.

Critical race theory.

Yes.

>> Yes.

That's a theory.

That's a theory.

No high school teaches that.

I used to teach.

Nobody teaches that stuff.

We history teachers, we teach facts.

We don't teach theory.

Those are college labs where theory is taught.

And over 25% of Virginians said they voted primarily on that issue.

And if that's the issue that's going to drive you, no bridge, no water, no broadband, none of that is going to matter.

>> Congressman, we have a few minutes left, I want to ask you about just some disturbing activity that's been happening up in the Congress recently when we were talking about, you mentioned Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Green who tweeted out the contact information for those 13 Republicans who voted for the infrastructure bill.

You know, they joined Democrats with that bill.

It's also been 10 months since the attack on the Capitol.

You were there.

You were shuffling out of the Capitol during that situation.

Now you have a colleague up there Paul Gosar, who's tweeting out videos of members being attacked, killed, even the President being assaulted in this video that's been tweeted out and viewed millions of times.

What's going on up in Congress right now?

What's been done to stop this kind of activity before it gets even more dangerous than it already is?

<James Clyburn> We, the Congress can't stop it.

It has to be stopped by the voters.

I would hope that the voters in Gosar's state will reject him, but I don't think they will.

For some strange reason, people seem to be comfortable with the big lies.

There's a big lie floating around about the election last year.

And people are voting for the guy who's spreading the big lie.

Gosar is doing what he thinks will attract basic Republican voters.

And it's time for the Republicans of goodwill.

Martin Luther King used to tell us, he told us in his letter from the Birmingham City Jail, that he thought that the people of ill will in our society was making a much better use of time than the people of goodwill.

The only way we're going to stop this is for the good people of goodwill in our society, to stop voting for these crazy people.

Stop in the name of partisan politics, let's think about the country.

Do we want an autocracy?

Do we want to do what is necessary to further this democracy?

We are in pursuit of a more perfect union.

But you aren't going to do that by destroying the union and that's what they're doing.

<Gavin> How big of a threat do you feel like that is to national security?

>> Well, you know, I can only go in history, and I think it's a great big threat to national security.

I said to a neighbor of mine, who sent me a text, asked me about some foolishness that's out there on the Internet.

And I asked him well, I really told him that the people of Germany had no warning.

You do?

You got a warning.

So if you want an autocracy, keep reading that foolishness and reacting to it.

If you want a democracy, to continue to move forward, then why don't you join the people of goodwill?

How can there be any goodwill in a guy that's tweeting about murdering somebody on the floor of the House of Representatives?

That ain't no good by nobody's stretch of the imagination.

<Gavin> And Congressman Clyburn, we have 30 seconds left, and I have a big question for you.

But what did the next few weeks hold for the Congress?

We're talking about the Build, Back, Better plan that $1.85 trillion dollar social safety net bill with climate change funding, and also you have to look at funding the government, keeping it going, and also with the debt ceiling raise.

How's this all going to play out in the next few weeks?

>> Well, let me tell you something about the Build, Back, Better program, The Build, Back, Better program, is talking about continuing remember $65 billion dollars, only two thirds of what we need to build out in broadband, South Carolina is in a good place, but a lot of other states aren't.

So, they need Build, Back, Better.

The Child Tax Credit law comes to an end December 31st We need to continue that for another year.

That's in Build, Back, Better.

South Carolina is one of the 12 states that did not expand Medicaid We've got 200,000 people in South Carolina with no health care at all, Build, Back, Better has health care in there for those people who are Medicaid eligible to get health care.

I don't know how much it's going to cost.

So I would hope that people will stop describing the bill by how much it costs, and talk about the bill, by how much it does.

<Gavin> ...So, a lot to watch along with that and the debt ceiling and the spending going forward this next few weeks, it will be very busy for you.

I'm sure.

We appreciate catching up with you, sir.

That's House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn.

Thank you so much.

>> Thank you.

>> Joining me now to discuss climate change and the United Nations Climate Change Conference is Dr. Lori Ziolkowski.

She's an earth sciences professor at the University of South Carolina.

Dr. Ziolkowski.

Thanks for joining me.

>> Thank you for having me.

<Gavin> Well, so, Dr. Z, let's just talk about this ...United Nations Climate Change Conference and start off because that's been dominating the news.

For the past two weeks, the UN has been working to combat climate change since the 90s.

We're talking about the Kyoto Protocol, Paris.

Now, we're talking about Glasgow.

We keep talking about these different ways to limit emissions, and therefore limiting the warming of the planet.

We're talking about 1.5 degrees Celsius, but it doesn't sound like that's going to be a target that we can actually meet.

Sounds like more like 2.7 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

If that's the case, and maybe you can elaborate a little bit more about those commitments.

But...what happens at that point?

How big of a deal is that at that point?

>> I think even just starting today, where we are, we've so far warmed by about 1.1 degrees Celsius and so when we talk about 1.5 or 2.7, that's just going to be amplifying what we're already seeing.

We know that we're already having more drought in certain places, more rain in other places.

We're having higher sea level, which is causing sunny day flooding say in Charleston.

And so there's wildfires out west.

There's lots of things that are starting to happen today, when we haven't even been to the targets that we're trying to get to.

So all of those damages are going to be happening with more intensity as we get even hotter.

So there's lots of work to be done.

And these political commitments, in terms of what are being discussed, are an important aspect to get us to being serious about our targets.

<Gavin> ...When we talk about this, Do think we are getting more serious.

I mean, if you track the way we've been talking about this over the decades, do you think we've gotten...to a point where we're taking this more seriously?

>> I think that there, there was something pretty pivotal that happened yesterday at the Glasgow agreement, in terms of the term fossil fuels was actually the first time ever used in a commitment in terms of talking about phasing out coal.

Before, we've always talked around the aspect of what was causing the warming and saying we have to decrease carbon emissions, but without really calling it the fossil fuel problem.

So, I'm optimistic that we're starting to take it more seriously.

However, I will note, up until now, we haven't tracked with every single one of these agreements, we have had a global decrease in carbon emissions.

So.

there's still lots of work to be done.

>> Is that just because, it takes time to catch up with these commitments?

Or... what's the catch there?

>> I think there's lots of factors.

There's who's making the commitments at these meetings, it's usually politicians, but who's doing the work to make these reductions in emissions and are the right people getting the right resources to make it happen.

...so, I think that there's a huge system that needs to be changed and it's going to take a lot of work.

...so I'm optimistic that there's more resources being put into it now today, especially with the infrastructure bill, and that will help with reducing emissions in the future.

<Gavin> We can also talk about the other Build, Back, Better plan too with a lot of money there for combating climate change, but I want to keep it with Glasgow for a moment, President Biden did announce last week about a new proposed rule to cut back on methane emissions.

And I didn't really know how bad methane really was until you read up on it.

It's about 80 times - heats the atmosphere 80 times faster than carbon dioxide in the short term.

So, tell me a little bit about how big of a deal this is when it comes to committing to, you know, really cracking down on... regulating these methane emissions in the country.

>> So methane, it doesn't last in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide.

So if we stop emitting now for the methane, that means we will bank in some cooling as we figure out how to do reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.

And so this is a really important factor.

We emit a lot of methane and how we're extracting natural gas right now.

And that's not really well regulated.

So that is something that we could do a lot better on.

So, this is a great short term gap, but that still means we need to start working on the carbon dioxide emissions as we go further.

<Gavin> ...then in August, we also heard him talk about, you know, pushing automakers to really move towards electric vehicles by 2030, asking to have about half the cars sold in the country be electric by 2030.

Do you see that also has been a big way to you know, obviously, get rid of these carbon dioxide emissions, even though there'll be relied on the electrical grid, which needs work there, too, and is now becoming more and more natural gas.

But natural gas is not as bad as you know, coal, coal fired plants as well.

>> Yeah, well, just even thinking about United States, we've decreased our carbon emissions since its peak in 2005.

And most of that is because we transitioned from coal power plants, to natural gas power plants.

And so that has helped.

It wasn't policy what happened, It was...economics.

Sorry.

and what we need to do essentially, it's a parallel path, where we need to be working on the transportation aspect and electrifying transportation, but the same time upgrading grid.

...so that's a lot of what was in the infrastructure bill actually, is working on both increasing the grid's resiliency, working on renewables, but also creating the infrastructure for electric vehicles, because we don't have that across the nation right now.

And that will really help because that the groundwork for that was put in the infrastructure bill.

<Gavin> And then I know we have...a couple minutes left.

...we're expecting a vote next week in Congress with the Build, Back, Better plan, which is that $1.85 trillion, dollar social safety net and Climate Change plan to really combat what's going on in the country, talking about half a trillion dollars for climate change.

You're talking about tax incentives.

You're talking about businesses being motivated by the money here.

Do you think that's going to be a big way to get people on board with actually making some big differences going forward?

>> Oh, totally.

People love carrots..in terms of is there going to be something that will help people be more incentivized to do better, because talking to people about why things aren't happening right now, often, it's the economics.

...so if we can get rid of those economic barriers, and make it such that they are able to see it as more advantageous, that will help a lot.

I will note, though, in terms of, if for some reason that the Build, Back, Better bill doesn't make it through what happened within the infrastructure bill?

Well, it doesn't have all those policies for in terms of reductions in carbon emissions, whatnot, Biden had a goal of 50% carbon reductions by 2030.

So 50% by 2030, and the infrastructure bill decreases the emissions by about 30%.

So, it didn't get us all the way there.

But it was good start if only one of the bills passed, So, it won't be horrible if only one passed, but it'll be super great.

and it'd be really inspirational if both bills passed.

<Gavin> So a lot things moving there on the national level, but at the state level, I want to ask you just what we're seeing when it comes to climate change.

...it's all around us too.

Can you point to some examples, whether it's intense hurricanes or flooding, that we've seen increase over the years, >> We know that the Hurricanes are becoming more intense, more quickly, because they gained their energy from storms.

Sorry.

They gain their energy from warmer oceans.

So if you have more ocean temperature, the hurricanes are going to become more intense.

...then when you couple that with higher sea level, in terms of what the sea level is, that will mean you're going to have more storm surge, we're starting to see that there is less real estate appreciation in the coastal areas So that's going to have some impacts on citizens.

and then we're seeing changes over time about when the rainfall is occurring and this might not seem like that big of a deal for the average person.

But if we start looking at who's doing the agricultural work in South Carolina, that commercial farmers who have the irrigation, they can sustain their crops over the summer because they have the irrigation, whereas the smaller farms can't because we're getting most of the rainfall in the fall.

And we know that in terms of the floods that we saw in 2015, that the intense rainfall is typically happening in the fall.

<Gavin> And then really quickly, doctor.

Anything to deal with, you know, words of encouragement, I know a lot of people are worried out there when it comes to climate change.

What are...your thoughts on the long term >> In the long term I just ask you to ask your politicians to be accountable?

What are they doing?

How are they helping you on this front?

Because I think that is really where we need to pressure to be at this point.

<Gavin> Very good.

That's Dr. Lori Ziolkowski.

She's an earth sciences professor at the University of South Carolina.

Thank you, Dr. Z.

>> Thank you.

For South Carolina ETV I'm Gavin Jackson.

Be well, South Carolina ♪ ♪