53-39 on it. the keystone would allow congress to prevent transcanada corporation's project to link canada's oil sand to refineries on the gulf coast. stephen, you are next. caller: thank you for c-span. a lot of people are calling up and saying either is -- you know, a lot of them say it is either black and white, you know, either good or as bad. in my opinion, it's extremely great -- gray. as long as we can keep trade in the right conditions, it's good. but we have trade with countries like china, who are just manipulating everything in their favor and switching so they can make money. i manage a toy store here in redmond. we get products from china. it's almost unavoidable, just because of the profit we can make from it. but at the same time, one of our best-selling toys right now are the -- host: let's hear from madeleine in washington, d.c. you are next. caller: good morning. i'm a senior. i have disability problems. everything that comes here, you have to put it together. you have a choice. if i'm going to pay more money and it's put together, that is kudos for me. thank you.

send a delegation to alberta. i understand ted cruz had parents who work for transcanada. i don't understand why they can't send a delegation to look at the pits of their. this is my request. do not collect oil. -- call it oil. guest: tonight, i doubt we will hear the words keystone pipeline come out of the president's mouth. i think it should of been passed along time ago. i don't understand why it has taken five years for the state department to be involved in this. it should be passed right away. the unions are in favor of it. the congress is in favor of it. former presidents are in favor of it. i don't understand the problem is. guest: i think he will talk about energy. america is the leading producer of oil and gas in the world which is a remarkable achievement. the keystone pipeline is not as easy as it seems. the oil is heavier. it burns dirtier than other oil. the number of temporary jobs it creates is 4000, but the permanent jobs are 50. it's a real debate for people that live in places like nebraska and other places if they want to pipeline that is delivering oil to the

exemption to transcanada __ a foreign company. it makes it so that they do not have to pay into an environmental cleanup fund. how in the world we have a special exception for this foreign company? secondly, climate change is real. tar sands oil provides about 20% to 40% more carbon emissions. finally, the oil will go through our country but not to our country. it will go down to the gulf coast and be refined for export. host: james, welcome to the conversation. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. first a comment than a question __ i remember back when nafta was passed. my father called me up. he told me about it. he said, say goodbye to the united states as we know it. he was right. it went from __ free trade to exporting jobs to other countries to importing immigrants for cheap labor. that is the whole effort __ to bring back manufacturing jobs. job creation __ i do not know where that comes from. we stayed job creation like, let's re_invent the wheel. we did job creation, and we gave it away. that's what i do not understand. guest: i share your concerns about naf

requirements that the company transcanada agreed to impose on the pipeline. when you talk about a deal __ i think this comes more in the realm of what is good for the united states. we are seeing and american energy renaissance that we've never seen. it is an opportunity for us to become energy secure. we are the world's number one natural gas producer. we are close to becoming the world's number one oil producer, passing saudia arabia. we will hopefully continue to benefit consumers __ as we see today with the drop in a gasoline prices. host: you say this will bring us one step closer to energy independence __ guest: energy security. host: explain a bit more. guest: if you look at energy history of our country __ let's go back three or four decades. our resources in the united states are limited. we need to act accordingly with public policy. what we've seen recently, in the past five or six years, is increased innovation. we're rich in abundance with oil and natural gas here in our own country. we have the opportunity to rely a lot less on outside sources just last week, the trade nu

going to fight for that, too. i agree with that 100%. but i'm not sure the transcanada idea of building a route through the united states is the right thing. what about the spills? is transcanada going to pay for the spills? these are all very serious questions, and i'm going to keep asking. host: employment numbers are up for december. the unemployment rate dropped to 5.6%. the economy added 252,000 jobs in december. what does the president have to do to keep that number growing or shrinking in the case of unemployment? guest: i want to apply the numbers. it is good news. i think we need to make sure we seek increases in wages. people are working more, but what are they making? in many cases, they are not making more. we did see some slight upticks in wages late last year, but this remains a concern of mine. i think this labor market has tightened. we will see wages go up. this is not going to be inflationary, because american workers are more productive than ever. if we have higher productivity we can increase wages and not have inflation. i think we need to do infrastructure