Monday Morning Politics with Rep. Frank Pallone

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Yes, we will mention the Chris Rock joke and the Will Smith slap on today's show a bit later. Also in that segment, we'll ask if you care about movie theaters anymore. The film that won best picture, CODA, was the first one released by a streaming service that I think hasn't shown in movie theaters at all. Do the movies as the world knew them for more than a century matter anymore to you as someone who enjoys a good film? That's coming up.
Also, you heard about the Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham moments at the Ketanji Brown Jackson Supreme Court confirmation hearings, but did you see that Cory Booker had a moment? Really a good few moments that went viral for the connections he made with many Black Americans watching this hearing through certain kinds of life experiences. We'll replay some of those Cory Booker moments and invite your calls.
The forgotten history of why New York City always has so many trash bags on the street and some proposals for what to do about it. Are you ready to pay as you throw? That's all coming up. We'll start here today. Two weeks ago, just after we changed a few clocks and most clocks changed themselves to daylight saving time, the United States Senate voted unanimously, in a voice vote, to stop the back and forth time changes that we do twice a year and just say where we are now, daylight saving time, have that year-round. The bill was introduced by Florida Republican, Marco Rubio.
Marco Rubio: One has to ask themselves after a while, why do we keep doing it? Why are we doing this?
Brian Lehrer: The vote in the Senate was unanimous in that it was a voice vote and nobody spoke up to object, but there was also no debate before the bill was passed. There's been plenty of debate ever since. Apparently, most health experts, what they call sleep scientists who study the topic, say if we're going to stop changing the clocks at all, it would be better to land on the other side that is standard time all year with the extra light in the morning, not at night for a few reasons that we'll get into.
Maybe you saw a Wall Street Journal article about this yesterday. There was an NPR piece this morning. Remember, the bill passed the Senate, but it would still have to get through the House. Joining us to talk about that and a few other issues, if we have time, is the Congressman leading the process of evaluating the idea in the House, New Jersey Democrat, Frank Pallone, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
He represents New Jersey's sixth congressional district, roughly Edison to Long Branch or Edison to the top part of the Jersey Shore if you prefer. Congressman, always good to have you on. Welcome back to WNYC.
Frank Pallone: Thank you, Brian.
Brian Lehrer: First, do you have a position today on what to do with the clocks or are you just studying the idea so far in your committee?
Frank Pallone: Well, our committee actually had a hearing on it before the Senate voted, and we were rather surprised by the Senate vote because as you know the Senate usually takes a long time to do anything.
Generally, [inaudible 00:03:24] think that the switch, it doesn't make sense because it does create a lot of problems both for health reasons for people having to change, there's a lot of stress involved, and there are more accidents and all kinds of things that you can show factually.
The real problem, Brian, is what do you do instead? As you suggested, it seems to be there's a big split as to whether we should go permanent to daylight savings time, which I think people from tourism areas like the Jersey Shore that I represent, in part, or in Florida because Marco Rubio is in Florida, where there's a tourism season, and they want the light to be later in the day.
Then you have the west and the Midwest where you have farmers that don't like it, a lot of parents don't like it because then it's dark in the morning when their kids go to school. I think it may be difficult to come to a consensus on what to do if we don't switch, if we stop the switch, so to speak.
Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take some calls on this, which would you prefer, permanent daylight saving time, permanent standard time, or change the clocks twice a year to adjust the sunrise and sunset times like we do now? 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692 for Frank Pallone, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is looking into this.
I read that the country tried permanent daylight saving time once before in the 1970s during another time of rising energy prices, but a lot of people didn't like it, and the government quickly reversed it. Are you familiar with what happened in the '70s and whatever lessons may have been learned from then?
Frank Pallone: Well, it's very similar. It was during the OPEC oil crisis, as you say, where gas prices had gone up, and it's just what we are discussing now. The consensus was, "Let's get rid of this switch because it creates all kinds of problems," but then when they switched to daylight savings time as the permanent alternative, a lot of people started to object. Then they eventually went back to switching back and forth twice a year.
Now, I don't know if it's a joke or what, but I've had some people say to me, "Well, why don't we just split the difference and have a permanent time half an hour between the two. I thought about that. Yes.
Brian Lehrer: No, we have callers like that when we brought this up a few weeks ago, and they were serious, split the difference and have it on half-hour.
Frank Pallone: I guess there's no reason [unintelligible 00:05:56]
Brian Lehrer: Some places do it apparently.
Frank Pallone: Yes. I guess you could do that too, so that might be a compromise. Right now, what we did is we asked the Department of Transportation to give us an analysis of what this might mean factually in terms of affecting people's lives. We expect that to be back within the next few weeks, so we'll see.
I do think that the lesson of that I think that was in 1973 is that everybody says, "This is great. We don't like to switch," but then when you choose one, the other side doesn't like it, then you end up going back. We are taking it seriously. We're, at some point, going to have to make a decision whether to move the Senate bill.
Brian Lehrer: I've been reading that sleep scientists say the act of changing the clocks at all, even just by the one hour, increases car crashes and heart attacks, and other adverse health events. I guess it surprises me that one hour one time or one time every six months has that effect. Is that your understanding?
Frank Pallone: Yes. Oh, absolutely. We had testimony before the committee when we had the hearing that showed very dramatically there are major health effects in terms strokes, heart attacks, and that it's very disruptive to children. There are a lot of health and safety aspects that if you didn't switch back and forth, you would not have those problems. It is a serious problem.
Of course, a lot of attention focused on it because the Senate vote happened every time that we made the switch, and then people started to get adjusted again. The problem is what do you do if you don't have a switch? Which one do you go to? That's where there isn't a consensus at this point.
Brian Lehrer: I guess either system we land on creates a kind of extreme light or dark condition at one end of the day at sometimes of the year. It's different in different places, but just to take the New Jersey area that you represent, I looked it up this morning. In the winter on daylight saving time, the sun may not come up until after eight o'clock, which a lot of people would really hate like you say parents with school-age children and others.
If we go to permanent standard time, it'll start getting light around three-thirty or four o'clock in the morning in June and July, official sunrise will be in the four o'clock hour. You have to figure out which is worse.
Frank Pallone: Exactly, or would you keep it the same because ultimately the switch absent the negative impact on your health and safety maybe does make sense? The problem is the impact on health and safety. That's why it would be nice just to have one permanent rather than going back and forth.
Brian Lehrer: Again, on health effects on the question of which time system to land on if we go to a year-round system, the Senate chose daylight saving time, Sleep experts, I keep seeing quoted, say standard time would be better. For example, an article in The Journal yesterday says there's more cancer and more metabolic disorders in areas with permanent daylight saving time because our natural biological relationship to the light and darkness cycles gets forced to be permanently a little off.
Again, it's a little counterintuitive to me, but because it's different at different times of the year and in different places on the globe. Do you have a reason to believe that's the scientific consensus?
Frank Pallone: It is true that given your body and your natural system, whatever you want to call it, that standard time makes more sense in that respect. I think that there's also, as we have suggested, an age factor. In other words, people who are older, people or as you say if you're at the Jersey Shore, you'd like businesses to be lighter later because, in tourism areas, Florida, people tend to get up later and stay out later and a lot of them are older and so they like it to be light later. There's also that factor, it depends on not only what part of the country you're in, but maybe how old you are, whether you're retired.
All these things come into play, but it's no surprise that the Floridians are for permanent daylight savings time and they think about it. The state is it's a sunshine state and it's highly dependent on tourism.
Brian Lehrer: Looks like everybody's for it, though if you take that Senate voice vote, which it's a creaky way to vote.
Frank Pallone: Don't go by that Brian. Within an hour of it passing the Senate, I had House members from some of those states saying my senator wasn't there, otherwise, he would've objected. I think there was a bit of a surprise there that there would've been objections.
Brian Lehrer: It's sort of a unanimous consent parliamentary move, "Does anybody object to this?" If nobody speaks up, then it's considered a unanimous vote?
Frank Pallone: Usually what happens in the House because we have more members, if you want to have unanimous consent and a voice vote, both sides have to agree on it and they pass it by almost every member and alert them to the fact that this is coming up. I don't think that happened in the new senate. I think it was just brought up without necessarily notifying others. There were definitely some that would've been there if they had known, at least that's what I'm told.
Brian Lehrer: They were grumpy because they lost an hour of sleep two nights before. Craig in Westchester is going to bring up a really important point that I was just about to bring up. Craig, I'm going to let you do it. You're on WNYC with Congressman Frank Pallone, Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Hi.
Craig: Hi. Thank you so much, Brian. I think this is an important topic. I'm a bit shocked global warming is not being discussed here. What if we pick a choice that results in heating up the environment. I don't know what the science says, but opinions are purely subjective and the discussion should not be made because some people just say they like it. I think and I imagine the energy usage data by hour is available for us to analyze and to help us make a scientific decision. I hope that your guest can help address that.
Brian Lehrer: Craig, thank you. The conversation we've been having has not been just about people's preferences, it's been about the adverse health effects, science, and what it means psychologically for kids to go to school in the dark and things like that, but climate is another issue. I would imagine, Congressman, if we're on daylight saving time, more light later in the day that means less energy use, which is good for the climate. Is that data established?
Frank Pallone: I think that would be accurate, but I remind the person who just has the question that we have a lot of climate deniers. In other words, if you start talking about this in terms of climate action of course I'm a big supporter of climate action because I do believe it's the climate that it's human-induced and the global warming is human-induced. You remember, we have a majority of four in the house of representatives and the most Republicans will deny that climate is human-induced, the greenhouse gases and the warming of the environment is human-induced.
Brian Lehrer: Forget the head in the same crowd, those who acknowledge that climate change is real and we have to deal with it. Is the science-- This is something that's very measurable. We would presumably have this from the 1970s, whether energy was actually conserved by going to daylight saving time because people use less energy later in the day this way and it more than compensates for the extra energy we use in the morning?
Frank Pallone: I think that's probably true, but again a word of caution that I try not to make a lot of decisions. If you make decisions based on climate you overlay climate as an issue with this, then you may never get to a consensus because most of the Republicans will then just shut down completely. If you look at this from a climate point of view. I understand that that's important I don't deny it, but I just want to say politically if you overlay that you may never get to a point where you can make a decision. That's the problem.
Brian Lehrer: One more call Ronald in New Brunswick you're on WNYC. Hi, Ronald? Is it Ronald? Am I saying the name well?
Frank Pallone: He's my constituent. in New Brunswick?
Brian Lehrer: Yes, indeed. Hi there, you're on the air.
Ronald: I'm here.
Brian Lehrer: Go ahead. What would you like to say or ask? All right no Ronald, then before you go I know you got to go, Congressman--
Frank Pallone: That's a shame because New Brunswick is in my district, so that's unfortunate that we didn't get to talk to him.
Brian Lehrer: Our next segment will be about Congress being gridlocked on authorizing more money for universal COVID testing, treatment, and vaccines. I'm curious how you see the politics. I saw you tweeted about this and what can you to people with limited incomes who may need this help if the current bill actually expires?
Frank Pallone: The problem here is that we run out of money at the federal level to pay for dealing with the COVID pandemic. In other words, there's no money left to help the hospitals, there's no money left to continue with the vaccine program, this has to be done. The issue really, Brian, is how to pay for it, not so much whether it needs to be done, anybody who tells me that the federal government should get out of the business of dealing with the COVID crisis I think that makes no sense.
We have to come up with a funding source because as you know and maybe all everyone doesn't, you really can't do much in Congress unless you come up with a pay-for which means you either have to cut something else to pay for or where you have to raise taxes to pay for it. Right now I'm trying to find out a way of paying for this. Again, that where we can get a majority in the house and 60 votes in the Senate.
The problem with the previous effort was that the Republicans wanted to pay for it by cutting the money that the federal government sent to the states. It's counterproductive because a lot of that money was being used to deal with the COVID crisis. That really didn't make sense and that's what we're looking at now some pay-for, but I think it'll happen because it has to. We just have to do it.
Brian Lehrer: Let me throw in one last energy question before you go. There's pressure to suspend gasoline taxes at the state and federal level and also in New Jersey pressure to allow self serve fill-ups which are a little cheaper in response to the spike in prices generally and the additional spike from the embargo and Russia. The Republicans seem to be running for control of Congress largely by blaming Democrats for inflation. What's your defense and do you support either of those measures to give people relief?
Frank Pallone: We're having a hearing in my committee, the Energy and Commerce Committee on April 6th, basically hauling in the oil companies because we think they're price gouging. In other words, we think that they're taking advantage of the situation in Ukraine, which is really sad that they would do that to raise prices and that it's just become a profit for them and for their shareholders.
A lot of things have been talked about, some states have implemented a gas tax holiday. The problem at any level, including the federal level, is how do you guarantee that's passed on to the consumer? In other words, you'd have to pass a law that says that they have to pass on the savings to the consumer. I don't know if you can get the votes for that because then it's almost like this sort of price control.
We have to figure out a way to reduce prices and one of the ways is to get a lot of these leases. I think they're 9,000 that are out there that are not being pumped again. That's a way of keeping prices artificially high by not pumping more gasoline. Then, in the long run, this isn't the answer for now, but in the long run, we have to move towards renewables, but that's not going to help us right now Brian.
Brian Lehrer: Congressman Frank Pallone, Democrat from New Jersey's sixth district from New Brunswick, as you've heard down to Long Branch North part of the Jersey Shore, and Chairman of the Commerce and Energy Committee. Congressman thanks for going through these issues with us, we always appreciate when you come on.
Frank Pallone: Thank you, Brian Aways like to be on. Thanks again, take care.
Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC coming up next, more on Republicans and Congress declaring COVID over and funding for testing and vaccines and treatments for those who can't afford them currently stalled. Stay with us.
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