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Michigan House Approves Right-To-Work Bill; Air Force Launches Secret Plane; Fiscal Cliff And What Each Side Wants; Sides of Fiscal Cliff; Global Warning Predictions True

Aired December 11, 2012 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: They got probably as high as a few thousand. The numbers have certainly dwindled ever since that first vote came through. But this means so much to the folks who live here in Michigan, because unions were practically born here. The United Autoworkers Union was born here in 1935. Seventeen and a half percent of the people who work in the state belong to unions. It's one of the top of the highest rates in the country.

So, to see the union undercut by the right-to-work legislation that is being discussed right now inside the Capitol building here in Michigan, it's tough -- it's tough for them to take because what this legislation will essentially do if it is passed is it will mean that if you're looking for a job here in Michigan, you will not be forced to join a union. You would not have to pay union fees in order to have a job or to keep a job in this state -- Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Alison, how likely is this going to be passed, that this is actually going to happen, the government -- the governor, rather, signing this? And how divided is this community over this issue?

KOSIK: It's extremely divided. Well, first of all, it is expected to pass. For one, as you said, the first part of the bill just passed -- just passed the House. And, by the way, after that happened, protesters who are inside the Capitol building right now started shouting, veto, veto, veto, and they started a sit-in. Even Reverend Jesse Jackson walked into the area and sat down with them and said a prayer. And this is very divisive. To give you an idea of just how divisive it is, see that tent over here over my shoulder? That is a --

MALVEAUX: Sure.

KOSIK: -- tent for one of the groups in favor of the right-to-work law. Guess who tore it down? Those against the law. They're not happy about it. The divisiveness you can see right there on the ground -- Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: Alison, what happens next here? I understand there were even some schools that were closed because so many teachers were walking out of the classrooms to protest there. How do they heal? I mean, how do they come together? Where do they go from here? KOSIK: Where they go from here, they -- it's sort of the reason why you're seeing these demonstrations come out in mass today. Although they know that this bill is most likely going to make it to the governor's desk today for his signature, they realize that this is an effort that is sort of now past. But what they --

MALVEAUX: OK.

KOSIK: -- are looking for now is the next election. In two years, they want to change the landscape --

MALVEAUX: All right.

KOSIK: -- in the state Capitol -- Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: All right. Alison, thank you. I want to go to another story. It is being called a secret mission. The U.S. Air Force now set to launch an unmanned mini shuttle into space. I want to bring in our John Zarrella who is live in Miami. I understand that the countdown is happening. Tell us about this mystery mission.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's about less than 30 seconds, Atlas V rocket sitting on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force station, and you can see it in the video the helicopters -- military helicopters. This vehicle the X-37B. It is one of the most secret projects the U.S. military has, that we know of, and bottom line is that this vehicle, the X-37B, is about the quarter of the size of the shuttle. And --

MALVEAUX: All right, let's listen in.

ZARRELLA: -- we've got lift-off.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lift off of the united launch alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the third mission for the United States Air Force.

ZARRELLA: Yes, so that mini -- yes, that mini-spacecraft, the X-37B, is up in that top third encased in that fairing of the Atlas V rocket. And, again, I was -- as I was say, this is, and as they mentioned in the launch commentary, see it climbing through the blue cloud in the sky there? But pretty much good weather. That the X-30 -- this is the third flight of this -- these vehicles. There are two of them that the Air Force owns.

The last one, Suzanne, flew for 469 days. There has been all kinds of speculation as to what this thing does up there. There's been speculation that it is a satellite killer. There's been speculation it is a spy satellite that can, on command, be moved to locations where it's needed. But the Air Force has said, absolutely not, it's none of those things. It's basically a test bed for future technologies, things like navigation and control, avionics, guidance, thermal protection, because this X-37B, which does look like a space shuttle, actually has thermal tiles on it.

So, the Air Force is saying, it's a test bed for future technologies that will help the military, but there are a lot of folks out there who think that the X-37 might be a lot more than that. And again, absolutely so far, picture perfect, blue sky there as that Atlas V rocket with the X-37B inside. Heads up, about 200 miles. It orbits about the same distance that the space shuttle's orbited the earth -- Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: John, two questions. Where is it going?

ZARRELLA: Sure.

MALVEAUX: And secondly, why is it so secret?

ZARRELLA: Well, that's just it. It's going 200 miles up. It will go into orbit. We have no idea how many -- how long it will be in orbit. The last one, as I said, was 15 months in orbit. It can land back on earth just like a space shuttle did. The last one landed out in Vandenberg in California. And, you know, what is it doing? What is it carrying? There are probably just very, very few people in the military who know, although we do know the cost, probably well over a billion dollars so far with this vehicle -- Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: And what could they potentially be using this for, all these little baby shuttles, so to speak?

ZARRELLA: Well, you know, it's not -- the Air Force has no plans, at least that we know of, to put humans on this. So, it's a totally autonomous vehicle. They insisted it's just a test bed to work on new technologies that will, you know, help the military down the road. As I mentioned, things like thermal protection systems, advanced avionics systems. You know, but there are those out there, the conspiracy theorists, who think it's a lot more sinister than that, that it is a spy killing satellite -- kill spy satellites or is itself a spy satellite? But we don't know.

MALVEAUX: All right. John, thank you, appreciate it.

ZARRELLA: Sure.

MALVEAUX: Former president Jimmy Carter nudging President Obama to do more to take on global warming.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY CARTER, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That hasn't happened yet and my hope is that in President Obama's second term, he'll be the leader of the world and not lagging behind the other nations in doing something about global warming.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Crunch time, the fiscal cliff talks. Just 21 days left for the president and Congress to actually reach a deal. If there is no agreement, it's going to be higher taxes for all of us along with massive spending cuts. Well, over the weekend, president and House speaker, John Boehner, they met face-to-face for the first time since November 16th. But on the House floor today, Boehner and minority leader Nancy Pelosi back to finger pointing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BOEHNER (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: A lot of people know that the president and I met on Sunday. It was a nice meeting. It was cordial. But we're still waiting for the White House to identify what spending cuts the president is willing to make as part of the balanced approach that he promised the American people. You know, where are the president's spending cuts? The longer the White House walks this process, the closer our economy gets to the fiscal cliff.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), MINORITY LEADER: What I would do to respond to what the speaker has said, though, is to set the record straight. The fact is that the president has and Democrats agree with him, agreed to over $1.5 -- to around $1.5-- $1.6 trillion in cuts and the budget control act and other acts of Congress in this -- in this particular Congress. $1.6 trillion in cuts. Where are the cuts? They're in bills that you, Mr. Speaker, have voted for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: So, it all comes down to tax revenues and spending cuts. Tom Foreman gives us a virtual view of what is involved in negotiations. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What you're looking at in this room is everything the federal government spends money on. And that scoreboard back there shows you the problem. Last year, we spent $3.6 trillion on all of the stuff, but we only took in 2.3 trillion in taxes or revenue.

Now, Democrats tend to like to talk more in these talks about the revenue side of the equation. They say, if we can find a way to gin up more taxes and lean on the rich harder, that's how we can deal with this deficit. But Republicans, while agreeing we may need more revenue, we want to talk a lot more about all this stuff and whether or not they can cut some things down.

One of the first things you may notice is that not all spending is equal. You could have dramatic cuts in things like homeland security, in the energy department, in the interior department. If you cut those programs out entirely, yes, you would save $80 billion, but that's only a small fraction of the deficit. That's why the talk is largely about this back row where the big ticket items reside such as Social Security, health and human services, home to Medicare and Medicaid, and defense. Each one of these accounts for more than $70 billion in spending.

So, yes, if you can find a way to somehow chop about 25 percent out of each program here, you'd get real savings, about a half trillion dollars. But doing that would be unbelievably tough. The simple truth is some of them are protected from cuts. Social Security is something that Democrats and Republicans alike have been very afraid to go after. The social programs are very much protected by Democrats. And the Republicans are equally protected of defense. That's why these talks are so tough. The simple truth is every program in this room has constituents who will fight tooth and nail to hold on to the funding.

But there is this. If no deal is struck and the fiscal cliff comes, then $600 billion in automatic tax increases and spending cuts will kick in. That could affect a lot of programs in this room and that will absolutely leave an awful lot of voters, Democratic and Republican, unhappy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: I want to take a closer look at what each side wants in the fiscal cliff and negotiations, where they stand on taxes as well as savings. Our Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger joining us live. Boy, that was pretty cool what Tom did. I have to check out that --

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I love that virtual studio.

MALVEAUX: -- virtual room.

BORGER: Right.

MALVEAUX: That's unbelievable. Tell us a little bit about the sticking point here. Obviously, it's about the taxes on the wealthiest two percent of Americans, and the president really sticking to that. The Republicans, it looks like some of them at least willing to move or budge on that. Where do we stand?

BORGER: A little bit. You know, we're kind of in that "Alfonse Gaston" part of this where each side's waiting for the other side to go first, Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: Yes.

BORGER: And, of course, the big sticking point, as you point out, is revenues. They have to figure out what to do about revenues before they figure out what to do about anything else. So, let's take a look at this. There is a big difference on the revenue point. The White House says, let's raise $1.4 trillion from taxes and the Republicans are saying, not so fast, not so fast, $800 billion.

Now, on the revenue front, the big sticking point, as you know, Suzanne, is those personal tax rates. What the White House is saying, let's go back to the Clinton years, maybe raise rates as high as that 39.6 percent. And the Republicans right now are saying, no way, I say right now, because I believe there could be some room for compromise in there. And -- but both sides -- Suzanne, what's really interesting to me is that both sides in the long term agree that there has to be a way to cap deductions and close loopholes.

MALVEAUX: Right, sure.

BORGER: You see that, and that will be a part of tax reform, because if you do that in tax reform, you're going to end up lowering that tax rate anyway. But before they can get to tax reform, they have to get over this speed bump, right?

MALVEAUX: Yes.

BORGER: -- on what to do about those personal rates.

MALVEAUX: Yes. It's a big speed bump.

BORGER: Sure.

MALVEAUX: Tell us also about the differences, the big differences, in health care savings. Because I don't know, is that something that can actually be bridged, these two sides can come together on that?

BORGER: Well, it might be -- and you just -- you know, you just played a bite from Speaker Boehner saying, look, you've got to show us a little leg here, Democrats, on those -- on those spending cuts. And this is what he's talking about. Take a look at this.

The White House says they're willing to do $350 billion in health savings. And the Republicans are almost double that. What that includes from the Republican Party is increasing, for example, the eligibility age from Medicare. So say instead of it being 65, it might gradually go up to say the age of 67. Or changing the way we calculate the increase in Social Security benefits. These are things that the president has been willing to talk about in the past. The Republicans want him to talk about it first, right now, before they sign on to any rate increase. So we're back in the situation of who gives first, which is why these talks are going to have to come down to the president and John Boehner in a room with a closed door, OK, because that's really the only way they're going to get to do it.

MALVEAUX: And we'll see who gives a little leg.

All right, Gloria, thank you.

BORGER: Sure.

MALVEAUX: Good to see you.

Former President Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House when he was president. He is considered a leader in clean energy. Well, coming up, I sat down with the former president to talk about Iran's interests in using nuclear energy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY CARTER, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Well, I think that if nuclear power is treated as a very wonderful opportunity for a safe and free from pollution source of energy and is adequately managed like you do in a nuclear submarine, then I think it's a good place to have it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: OK. If you haven't checked off the bucket list, might want do so the next 10 days. That is if you believe the Mayan calendar, December 21st, the end of the world, falls on a Friday. Leave it to Jay Leno to tell us why that's important.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAY LENO, "THE TONIGHT SHOW": It's hard to believe, according to Mayans, in just 11 days we will all be dead. It's hard to believe. Why, as you know, the Mayans have predicted the world will come to an end on December 21st which is a Friday. How much does that suck, huh? The world's ending on a Friday? End it on a Monday. At least you got the weekend, right? Want to work all day and then Friday, now you're dead on Friday. That's, oh! Oh!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: That's pretty funny.

There's a different worldwide prediction that scientists -- has got them pretty excited. It has to do with global warming. The first forecast back in 1990. Well now, 22 years later, there's some interesting comparisons. And Chad Myers, he's going to join us with more.

Chad, what do we know?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, you know, I worked on weather models when I first started out doing weather back in '85 with the Weather Service and we could figure out whether our models were right the very next day. We would look, hey, how'd we do? Oh, we said 44 and it was 62. Let's change something.

Well, computer climate changes and models are so long, you can't just say, let's change something. After many, many years, maybe you can. So finally the first model that was run in 1990 is now 20 years old. It's run 20 years now. And it still has another 20 more to go. But what did it say and where is it now? They kind of did a little comparison. Predicted a two degree Fahrenheit increase by the year 2030. Well, so you kind of average that out by 2010, which was halfway down the model. That would be a one degree Fahrenheit change. What they found was 0.63. And you say, ah-hah, they were wrong. Yes, but they were wrong a little. They were maybe 35 percent wrong, but they had it in the right direction.

This is what the climate model is saying now. We didn't go down. The model was actually mostly right on the way back up. And here's how it happens. As we kind of take a look at what has changed over when the model started, let's just start the model right here and go up two degrees by the year 2030. What has happened in the meantime is that, well, we had Mt. Pinatubo erupt. We also had the collapse of the Soviet Union industrial period. We also had China going up significantly in their industrial evolution, we'll call it. And even though we're 30 or 37 percent lower than where we could have been, this whole thing changes and the climate's right, the models have been right. This is an exciting time now for the rest of the 20 years of that model and what it says for climate change.

And the climate modelers are obviously tweaking it. You have to understand now, that was 1990 model. You could probably run that same model on your Blackberry considering what the 1990 computers looked like. And now what we have now, we should considerably get more accurate as we (INAUDIBLE).

An d one more thing, by the way, just to go back to Jay Leno,

MALVEAUX: OK.

MYERS: I think Jay missed the story that we had here on CNN when they found the next 8,000 years of the Mayan calendar. So we're good for 8,000 years and 10 days. I think you're OK.

MALVEAUX: Good. Good.

MYERS: Yes, they found the rest.

MALVEAUX: I'm relieved. I'm relieved. I don't have to check things off the bucket list.

MYERS: That's right.

MALVEAUX: All right, Chad, thank you.

MYERS: You're welcome.

MALVEAUX: Former President Jimmy Carter weighing in on global warming.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY CARTER, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: We need to have consistency in America in committing ourselves to preserving the environment, protecting us from global warming, which is real, and we also need to have leadership coming from the White House every day saying we need to do something about global warming.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: His message to President Obama, up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Saving the planet. The night he won the election, President Obama made a promise to make sure that our children grow up unafraid of what he call destructive power of a warming planet. So, how did we get there? I recently asked that question to another president, Jimmy Carter. He was a guest at the Captain Planet Foundation Gala in Atlanta. That was Friday night. Mr. Carter was a champion of solar energy during his time at the White House, though the new technology didn't catch on as fast as he had hoped.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Back in 1979, you famously put solar panels on the White House. And you said, and I'm going to quote here, you said, either they would be a curiosity, a museum piece, or they would be a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people. I am sorry to say, the solar panels are at the Smithsonian. They are museum pieces. What does this say about our commitment, where we are today, in protecting the environment?

JIMMY CARTER, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Well, it says that the protection of the environment goes up and down in America basically because of the attitude of the president. And when President Reagan came in, he removed the solar panels, as you know, and sent them to a little college up in, I think, in Connecticut. And now we have one of the solar panels at the Carter Center, there's one in the museum, and the number one producer of solar panels in the world, which is in China, also bought one of the solar panels. So they have brought a lot of money in for that small college.

But I think what it says is that we need to have consistency in America in committing ourselves to preserving the environment, protecting us from global warming, which is real, and we also need to have leadership coming from the White House every day saying we need to do something about global warming. That hasn't happened yet. And my hope is that in President Obama's second term, he'll be the leader of the world and not lagging behind the other nations in doing something about global warming.

MALVEAUX: You were a nuclear engineer at one point, promoted nuclear energy. How do you make the distinction between nuclear energy for good use, good purposes, and for bad use, and Iran's argument that they are creating nuclear energy for power and not as a threat to the United States? Speak to the links between energy and national security.

CARTER: I was in charge of a development of the second atomic submarine, working at (INAUDIBLE). And I was an early nuclear physicist. I had -- that was my graduate work. And I have -- was convinced then and convinced now that there is a place for nuclear power for peaceful purposes. But it ought to be not for war, not for bombs, but for propelling ships and for producing power.

At the same time, in needs to be safe. We've never had anybody hurt in this country because of a nuclear accident. I was president when Three Mile Island took place and there was very dire concerns about the consequences of that, that many people would get killed. The next day my wife and I went to the control room in Three Mile Island to prove to people that it was safe. So I think that if nuclear power is treated as a very wonderful opportunity for safe and free from pollution source of energy, and is adequately managed like you do on a nuclear submarine, then I think