(Music playing) - Welcome to the Aaron Harbor show this is part one of a special two-part series featuring Congresswoman Diana DeGette from the first congressional district, and Congresswoman Yadiro Caraveo.

From the eighth congressional district we are going to put up a map of each district.

You can see where the first is of course which is in the Denver area.

It's in Denver, and the eighth which is our newest congressional district which is more the northeastern part of Colorado.

And actually it's really kind of central North I guess going up to the border, and part of the northern Metro area as well.

Anyway I'm honored to have Diana DeGette here on the program.

She is the Dean of our entire 10 member federal delegation along with one of the two newest members of the house of our house delegation Dr. Caraveo.

Yadira and Diana, thank you for joining me today.

- Thank you.

- You know this is your first year in Congress and you were in the capital here, in the general assembly but tell me about your experience what surprised you the most about the U.S. Congress?

- You know I think the best thing is the camaraderie that I have found in the Democratic caucus.

You always wonder if I'm going into a profession with a lot of competitive people in it and how everyone's going to get along and I've had nothing but welcoming arms.

So many mentors including Congresswoman Dugette, and a lot of people who are constantly there telling you about what to expect, what you should be focusing on and really guiding you along the process.

- That's great.

Diana of course your predecessors served 26 years I think?

- 24.

- You have surpassed that record which is impressive, and so of course you also were in the general assembly here.

Give me your take on how you've seen politics change over the course.

I mean you've been in the political arena for over three decades.

- I came to Congress the session after Gingrich and the Republicans took over after 40 years of Democratic majority.

And so when I got to Congress, it was a very contentious time and then of course we had the September 11 terrorist attack which brought us together a little more time and what I've seen since then is that it sort of ebbs and flows, we have had times where we been able to put together some great bipartisan work.

But unfortunately right now, I think this is the most toxic time that we've seen.

The Republicans have a majority by only five votes.

And these are the folks farthest to the extreme and the Republican Party the MAGA Republicans and most of those 20 to 40 members they don't even think we should have a federal government and so for most of the rest of us, Democrats and Republicans most Republicans we find it difficult to try to get anything done in this Congress, I'm glad that Yadira is finding camaraderie in the Democratic caucus and I agree we have a wonderful caucus the last few years as well when we passed huge landmark legislation before this new Congress.

But I'm really hoping we can get back to more advocacy for the American people.

- I be interested in Yadira and Diana, both of your take on what's happening with technology and particularly generative artificial intelligence, so kind of maybe three thoughts if you jump into any one of them, one is how does it impact or does it or how should it impact the working of Congress number one, because you deal with information the volume of information which hits every congressperson and it's extraordinary.

So how can AI be used to make a better Congress?

Any thoughts on that?

- I also would like your thoughts on Congress's ability to manage or regulate artificial intelligence.

There's a lot of concern about the downsides, AI that hallucinates and gives you bad information or invented information.

Lord knows we have enough information out there anyways without AI.

And then last of all, any thoughts about AI and politics?

Because one of these concerns that I have is generative AI is at a point where it can pretty much create anything that's false that is real.

That looks real not is real but it's real in the sense that somebody has seen it and experienced that and thinks it's real.

In the political realm where you all run for reelection every two years, what are the implications for the-- for the American citizens and population if we are bombarded with things that are false, but appear to be true and then where does that lead, does that lead to an American population that no longer can trust or believe anything it sees?

So do you want to jump in?

I know three questions for the price of one.

- No worries.

What's interesting is that this is one of the few areas of bipartisanship that I see in Congress both speaker McCarthy and minority leader Jeffries have been leading different talks where they bring in experts in the field and we are getting to hear from these incredible people what the origins are, where it is right now and what they think technology is going to be doing so it's an incredible learning opportunity, both so that we can understand what could be the effects on governing on what the large information and large information that we have to deal with everyday and the ability to help manage that.

Also what the implications are going to be in politics because you are absolutely right, I mean I think we are both used to ads where people misconstrue things that we say and take clips out of context, well you know that's something that actually came out of your mouth that perhaps was not quoted correctly but with AI the ability to generate that is going to be very concerning and we are really looking at the whole scope of what AI is going to be able to do whether it's in medicine or I'm particularly interested in or other fields Congress is really trying to wrap its head around what AI is and what it could be, so that we can take on the ability to regulate it.

- I'm going to ask you on the medical side, as a doctor, as you are a pediatrician, are we going to get to the point soon where a diagnosis and AI generated diagnosis is going to be more accurate than human diagnosis?

- I think it's going to be able to aid in diagnosis, we know that with things like mammography readings, if the computer is able to learn from seeing thousands and thousands of images, it is able to pick up much smaller cancers that the human eye cannot, interestingly it's being used by some doctors in their ability to communicate with patients there such a onslaught of information and emails to return every day, that some of them have actually been using AI to generate responses and it's doing them in a very empathic way which is very interesting so I think the goal is to be able to augment what the doctor is doing but not replace it.

- Diana, what is your take on all this?

- Like she says, I agree with everything she said, I am a senior member of the energy and commerce committee and we have jurisdiction over all of the telecommunications and we've been going through this with the Internet, ever since we had actual members of Congress who called the Internet a series of tubes I know you remember that, and Congress we have a difficult time figuring out the appropriate regulation of a lot of these new advances including AI because we don't want to over regulate and we also don't want to pass laws that are not going to work.

So as Yadira said we are now in the process in a bipartisan way and including my committee, of really diving down to see what can we do from a regulatory standpoint, to make sure that AI is used as a positive help like Yadira says with medical practices and so on but that's not weaponized in a false way.

The European Union is actually a few steps ahead of us on regulation.

So I've been meeting with representatives of the EU technology committees to talk about how they've been legislating and then I think Congress will be working closely because of course this is a worldwide issue.

- So why does the EU seem to always be ahead of us when regulating technology?

- They are not always ahead of us, but I think they have a different way that they promulgate regulations there, so that it seems to be more advanced and I would say at least with the biomedical research and other areas, I think the two methods that we have for assessing and regulating actually work quite well together.

- So speaking in the medical and healthcare arena you have provided leadership in those fields for years, you've had a lot of successes, and I'm sure some failures as well.

Tell me about some of the advances you've been able to shepherd through and what's needed when it comes to those fields especially medical research, but also healthcare and my sense is you have been able to really find a lot of bipartisan solutions.

- As I like to say to people, disease does not just hit Democrats or Republicans, it impacts all of our families.

So I have worked for many years on bipartisan solutions, one thing I'm really excited about right now.

Many years ago I worked with a Republican Mike Castle from Delaware, and with the Obama administration to expand ethical embryonic stem cell research.

And the reason I'm excited about this, it shows how Congress needs to stay out of the way of researchers.

There's a researcher from Harvard Dr. Melton and way back when in the late 1990s he was doing research on making insulin producing cells out of [indiscerninble] embryonic stem cells and so that's one way I got working on this.

We expanded this research in 2009 just last year finally Doug Melton was able to make those cells into the insulin producing cells and they did a one person clinical trial.

And this gentleman was cured from type I diabetes overnight and so when you can work on legislation that helps to forward things this may be a cure for diabetes down the road, it's very exciting.

- I'm going to ask you each kind of a big picture question and then jump into some specifics.

But as you look at the country today, what would you consider the biggest challenge to the United States today?

What is the biggest challenge to the United States today?

What would your response be?

- What I'm hearing from my constituents every day and really the reason I decided to run for office in the first place and leave the clinic as a pediatrician because of the difficulty the people are having every single day just getting through life and providing for their families.

I grew up the daughter of a construction worker who on one salary was able to raise a family of six and put four of us through college and once I became a doctor I was seeing people work to do three jobs, each parent to provide that same dream to their family.

I hear about the cost of living, every single day in Colorado.

We all know it around housing and we've seen the issues around inflation which luckily are getting better and have improved drastically but people are still really having a hard time, that squeezing of the middle class is something that I've seen in person and I'm hearing about constantly and it really limits the ability for people to focus on anything else when they are really just struggling to make a living.

- Yes I think one of the really interesting aspects of the inflation front is that while inflation is moderating and hopefully will continue to moderate, that does not mean prices are going down.

It means the prices that we've seen have skyrocketed, are still at those levels and I think a lot of people in government see this statistic and say oh we are now down to a 3% annual rate, but that's 3% on top of 20% in the past few years, and so I think that's why people continue to struggle because when you go to the store the price of everything especially groceries is so high so the base level has gone up so high it's really difficult for a lot of people.

- But you have to have wages go up, that's the key.

- We need them to go up more.

Anyways.

- Starting to catch up.

- Also when you look at a percentage for example, if wage increases match inflation increases that sounds good, but you have to break inflation increases down the specific things and housing is way above the rate of inflation and a lot of food items are way above the rate of inflation so even if the pay goes up at the same percentage, your buying power has gone down.

I am particularly upset that they reduced the amount of chinos they have in a package, for example today, and I'm paying a higher price.

- And now you're buying two packages.

- Right and that's terrible inflation, but anyways.

- I want to add to what Yadira is saying, the crisis that middle income families are facing is exasperated and getting worse because of the climate crisis.

And that's really what I'm focusing on.

We are seeing these terrible weather problems that are exacerbated by the weather crisis.

Everybody agrees that we need to act in an international capacity.

I am the ranking Democrat on the energy climate and grid subcommittee this year.

So I'm working really hard with some of my Republican and Democratic colleagues, to try to come up with a piece of legislation that we can pass in a bipartisan way to get us to the 0% carbon emissions that we need by 2050 that the scientists say we need and this is a very difficult issue politically to work on, but I mean if we think our economy is bad now, just wait until these climate emergencies continue to pound on us.

- Talk a little bit more about that, in the sense that Republicans have come out with a policy statement and proposal that saying really is not taking climate change seriously.

That is focused on if they maintain control of the house and either win or come close enough in the Senate and certainly if they win the White House, in 2024, their position is we are going to promote the development of fossil fuels and we are going to demote as it were for renewables but how do you in the context of what you just said which is trying to find a bipartisan solution how do you surmount that challenge?

- I think the horse is out of the barn on that issue, I was in Congress when you had people in these hearings, these hearings where you would say despite the unanimous opinion of all the scientists they would say climate change is not real and now almost all the Republicans realize that climate change is real and so still a substantial percentage as you say Aaron, they do not think that Congress needs to legislate but private business, and state and local governments are so far ahead that when we passed all that landmark legislation in the last Congress, which put hundreds of billions of dollars into incentives for renewable and clean energy, the private market jumped on it I was meeting with the head of the Solar Association and it's been the biggest boost for business and this creates jobs too.

So I think that this is moving along with or without Congress.

And I will also say while probably the majority of members and Republican members of the Congress think you need to drill baby drill, there is a caucus that has 50 or 60 members that is called the conservative climate caucus and I'm working closely with them to try to figure out ways where we can find common ground.

These folks are people from coal mine districts, their businesses are moving away from coal, and so they need to figure out ways that they can help retrain their workers in the coal industry into new industries so that they will have jobs in the district because those jobs are going away no matter what the government does.

- In that thing, one of the things that intrigues me is that it seems the reality is that we are going to be using fossil fuels for several more decades.

And ultimately our goal is to have renewables dominate our energy supply, we have almost 300 million vehicles on the road right now, the majority of which are powered by gasoline diesel, and we are asking for example the countries like Iran and Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, you know these are great countries and we are asking and sometimes seemingly begging them to produce more oil, more fossil fuel products, so that the economic impact of higher prices is not that great so it offsets Russia's, supply to the market.

Why when it comes to forging that coalition that bipartisan effort you're talking about, why isn't there an emphasis on developing our energy resources and fossil fuel resources where we know we can have strict environmental regulations as opposed to Nigeria or other countries or Venezuela where they do not have strict regulations.

And face the reality that we need production but at the same time kind of with concessions there, come up with a plan where it really puts us on a true path towards renewables.

- I think you have identified the problem, the oil and gas industry is a global economy, we are not begging Iran and Venezuela to produce oil but it is a global economy.

So the global economy cannot just say we are going to produce that here.

There actually is a huge emphasis on domestic energy development across the board, and so this bill that I developed in the last Congress was a bill supported by Xcel energy and the Sierra Club, it took us to a 0% carbon emissions by 2050, and it was source neutral.

So if you can figure out how you're going to have a power plant that has scrubbers.

If you can figure out how you can have carbon capture, or renewable fuels, or anything like that, then that is allowed.

The main goal is to have 0% emissions but in order to do that, we are going to have to move away from the oil and gas economy.

Because it is a global economy and it's not just a domestic economy.

- So one of the things with a utility like Xcel, they are happy to close a coal plant, they're even just as happy to close a gas-fired plant because they get money for closing the plants, I mean if they invested X number of dollars in that plant, they still based on the rates approved by the Public Utilities Commission they still get all that money back.

They don't lose anything in fact sometimes they make more money by closing a plant and getting paid for it and building a new more expensive plant or facility renewable facility, and then getting paid for that at a rate of return of 8% or 10% that has historically been in the last two decades way above inflation.

So they don't lose no matter what policy we set.

- So it's a win win because the environment wins too.

- Yes but the consumer does not necessarily win.

- Prices have gone down.

But I think it's important to note that the pressure that we put on Xcel and others to really think about ratepayers.

You know I have a district where there are a lot of rural electric co-ops and the difference between how they operate in a bigger company operates in terms of I'm thinking about repairs is important, because when I have met with all of these entities, I talk about how the price of any kind of innovation or trouble always seems to end up at the pockets of the people that they serve, and that really is important for us to continue to talk to them about, is when there is an energy crisis in Texas or the summaries are particularly hot it's the consumer who ends up paying for that.

- Exactly and I think that's the big concern.

We only have a couple minutes left in the segment of the show, in our part one of two part series, but kind of talking about energy, I would like your take on Ukraine.

And what we should be doing to help Ukraine, there's a very significant segment of the Republican Party that thinks we should not be involved in Ukraine at all.

So what is your sense of what we should be or should not be doing?

- We need to continue to support Ukraine, and its conflict with Russia which was started by Russia, they invaded a democracy, we need to stand up for democracies whenever they are threatened, and it's important to think about not just the amount of money we're spending in Ukraine for its defense which is not just the United States, it's many other developed countries across the world.

But it's easy to look at that price tag right?

We also need to think about how it's affecting us in other ways, grain for example being on the agricultural committee, I've seen what the black seed grain market how it's been impacted, by the war in Ukraine and the fact that Russia has attacked those harbors and is actively impeding grain from leaving Ukraine which has great impacts for Africa and the rates of starvation there, and actually the price of grain is up 8% across the world.

So it's impacting us at our dinner tables, and then certainly the United States needs to be a protector of democracy across the world.

- You get the last 30 seconds and you get the last word on it.

- I think Yadira is absolutely right, this is an issue of protecting democracy and protecting our alliances, it's not just Ukraine, I mean Putin just went in there and he is attempting to reassemble the former Soviet Union so Ukraine, Poland, Moldova, Armenia, the whole region, we need to stand up for democracy in that region.

And by the way it's not a large percentage of the Republican Party, it's a few vocal people.

Most of Congress stands solidly behind Ukraine.

- I like hearing that.

I want to thank my guests Diana DeGette and Dr. Yadira Caraveo for taking the time to join me today this is part one of a two-part series so be sure to watch part two.

Remember you can see our programs on PBS 12 every Friday evening at 9 PM and Sunday at 12 noon.

You can see all our shows 24/7 at PBS12.org.

Thanks for watching, I will see you next time.

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