Schwarzenegger Discusses BART Funding, Military Affairs Advisor & Prescription Drugs

Schwarzenegger Discusses BART Funding, Military Affairs Advisor & Prescription Drugs

Date: Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Event: Press Conference, Room 1190, State Capitol, Sacramento, CA.

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER:

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being here. I always like to share a little bit of the action that's going on here at the Capitol, and so let me just share some of the things with you.

First, I want to let you know that we are distributing 2.9 million dollars of Homeland Security grant money to BART, the Bay Area's mass transit system. The San Francisco mayor, Gavin Newsome, and also Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, have requested that money. This funding will improve our security and safety for more than 326,000 people who ride BART every day. With the five-year anniversary of 9/11 coming up, and additional terrorist attacks on some of the cities around the world and also on trains, we thought that it was very important to be vigilant, and also to protect some of the potential targets here in California. Public safety has always been a very important issue, and it is my priority, and so this is why we are very happy the State could provide this extra funding.

And second, I had a meeting today with my Advisory Council on Military Affairs. And this is a council that we have created around a month ago, and this was my first meeting, actually, with that council. This council was created to develop more partnerships and programs for California men and women in uniform, partnerships like Helmets to Hardhats, or Troops to College and so on.

And during the meeting I signed also an executive order that does even more to increase California's support for our men and women in uniform. This executive order creates the position of Advisor of Military Affairs right here in my Office. This person will work closely with us and with the Armed Forces on issues affecting the 160,000 active duty men and women in the military that are stationed here, and also live in California. We will also make sure that our state does everything it possibly can to help our men and women in uniform.

And the third thing I want to talk to you about is that we are very close to an agreement on the new prescription drug plan to offer discounts on medicines to more than 5 million Californians, the uninsured Californians who need this help the most. People with moderate incomes would save up to 40 percent on brand-name drugs and 60 percent on generic medicines.

But under the agreement we are working on, the drug companies will have three years—three years to negotiate discounts with the state. If they would not kick in their program, they will not be allowed to do business then with the Medi-Cal program in this state.

I think it is very important that we help our vulnerable citizens, that we help our poor citizens, our elderly, with this program, and we are looking forward to having the bill come down to my desk within the next day or two.

If you have any questions about any of this, please feel free to ask.

QUESTIONS/ANSWERS

Q: (IA) about this bill for giving discounts for the drugs? Because two years ago you didn't support this.

GOVERNOR: As I was saying yesterday, that we negotiated that already two years ago. As you remember, there was a bill with Senator Ortiz which gave this kind of discount, but there was no hammer. Since then, we had two initiatives; one was Proposition 78, and one was 79, and both of them failed. And so what I said was, "Let's try now to negotiate somewhere in between proposition 78 and 79, a 78½." And so I think that this is what this reflects, and everyone agreed to that.

And so, again, it was one of those things that when Democrats and Republicans come together, great things happen in this building. So I'm very happy about that, because it's very important that we help our vulnerable citizens. There are so many people out there that cannot afford the prescription drugs, that are old and need it, and I think it will help them.

Q: Governor, but is it safe to say, as a follow-up, that you weren't interested in negotiating 78½ last year, in which case some people could say we spent a year with these people not getting closer to getting prescription drugs because you were embroiled in a special election last year?

GOVERNOR: We were very happy that we can come to an agreement this year. And that's something that we worked on two years ago, and two years ago the only thing that was on the table was an immediate hammer. And that, of course, failed in the initiative, it was one of the initiatives.

And so we knew that that's not where the people want to go. So this is why I think that it was fleshed out, and now we knew exactly where we could land and where we could come to a compromised agreement, and that's exactly what we have done. So we're very happy about that, that we have come to that agreement.

Q: Was that not a deal you could get last year?

GOVERNOR: No, no.

Q: You could not get it?

GOVERNOR: Well, as you know, it's the same thing as with the Solar Roof Initiative. Last year we negotiated and negotiated, and we could not get it done, and this year we could get it done. So sometimes you have to try—as I have said many times, there are people that have been working on bills for six years, and then finally after six years got it done. So I think that you just have to have patience. I tried last year to get a lot of things done without the patience, and it failed. So I think the more we have patience, and the more we work together, the better it is.

And we see this also with AB 32. People work on it, they work on it from morning to night, even late at night they work on it to make sure to iron out the differences and to make sure that we can fine tune it and make it a memorable kind of law that will be the example for the rest of the world. Because if we do it right, it can be an example for the rest of the world, but if it fails, then the rest of the world looks at it and says, "You see? This is why we shouldn't do this, because it's not wise to do it. It failed in California."

So I think that the environment is extremely important to me, global warming I take very seriously, and this is why we have to do everything we can to make that work, to make AB 32 work.

Yes, please.

Q: On the global warming, though, would you veto a bill then that doesn't include a market mechanism?

GOVERNOR: You know, I don't want to talk about what I'd veto. I just can tell you what I will sign. If it has the cap and trade mechanism on it and if it is very clear that we are going for both, for the market-based system to incentivize people to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—that is a very important component, because it inspires people. It incentivizes them to go quicker, because that makes money for them, because they now can trade that on the market. And that's what we want to do, we want to incentivize people with the market-based system.

Q: Governor, is the BART money the beginning of perhaps a bigger flow of Homeland Security dollars? I know there's been trouble dispensing that to the appropriate places, I know the ports would like a lot more money. Is this the beginning of perhaps a more concerted effort to equip California against a terrorist attack?

GOVERNOR: Well, first of all, we will do anything and everything to make sure that our state is safe, because like I said, public safety is very important. But I'm very fortunate that I have Matt Bettenhausen here, who is our Homeland Security expert, who can answer all of the detailed questions. Here's Matt.

BETTENHAUSEN: Thank you, Governor. It is a part of a continuing process to make sure that California is safe and secure. As we talked about, this morning in the briefing call about this additional funding for BART. It's part of a broader, all-hazards approach, including seismic retrofitting there, including addressing specific security issues and continuing the great process that they have made in putting layers of security and in-depth defenses in place to make sure that it's safe, and that the riding public is secure.

Q: Was there any sort of intelligence behind -

BETTENHAUSEN: No, no, and that's what I wanted to make very clear this morning. There is not a specific threat information for BART. It's part of our ongoing efforts to better secure mass transit, particularly given the context of the recent aviation security threat and the history of the bombings in Madrid in 2004, London in 2005, India in 2006, and the recent arrests in Germany. But there was not, let me be very clear, any specific threat to the mass transit systems.

But this is part of the Governor's initiative to make sure the transportation sectors are safe, both aviation with the deployment of the National Guard and what we've been doing with mass transit, including the additional funds we provided to San Diego to protect the border station at San Isidro.

Q: How vulnerable do you view BART?

BETTENHAUSEN: I think BART has done a great job in terms of putting layers of security. But mass transit systems are inherently difficult to defend because they're intended to be open systems. So it's not something specific to BART, it's a vulnerability of all mass transit systems.

But they have shown great leadership, and have made vast improvements in the overall security efforts there. This year, just for example, we deployed—they had a number of teams that graduated from the TSA Explosive Canine Units that have been deployed there in San Francisco, along with San Diego and Los Angeles.

So we continue, each and every day, we continue to make California safer, and what we're announcing here today is a continuation of that process.

Q: Governor?

GOVERNOR: Yes? And I also want to just add that it was also a request, like I said, from both of the mayors, so that was one of the other reasons.

Go ahead. Yes?

Q: Why do we need an advisor to help develop legislation for the land use for the US Department of Defense?

GOVERNOR: Say again the question?

Q: Well, according to the press release, the Advisor for Military Affairs will help develop legislation for land use for the US Department of Defense. Why is that needed?

GOVERNOR: Well, I don't understand why you think we don't need it. I think the more --

Q: (IA) why we do need someone to develop legislation for land use?

GOVERNOR: I think that we have seen that the more we have a liaison in our Office, the more we are in direct contact and can help the various different, if it is with victims' rights groups, if it is with law enforcement, and now with the military. There is a very broad—there are a lot of issues that come up that are being addressed, and so we want to just make sure that we have someone in the office that can help with all of those issues.

Yes?

Q: Governor, the business community has expressed a lot of concern about AB 32, particularly the Chamber, who you've worked with on a lot of things in the past. I'm wondering if you're feeling pressure from the business community, particularly the Chamber, and if that's in any way affecting your feelings about the cap and trade system?

GOVERNOR: First of all, when you're in this job, when you're governor, you always feel a lot of pressure from a lot of different sides, and I think that the challenge always is to find the middle ground, and to find the fine line so you can protect both sides.

And with the environment and with businesses, I made it very clear three years ago when I was elected, I said that I will protect the economy and I will protect the environment at the same time.

And of course there are businesses that are saying "Don't go there, don't' sign this bill." And there are environmentalists that are saying "Don't sign this bill because we don't like the trade aspect of it." And again, we have to find a fine line. I think that we can protect businesses and also protect the environment if AB 32 is written the right way. That's what we want to accomplish. And that's always the challenge in my job, to find that fine line.

STAFF: Last question.

GOVERNOR: Please.

Q: Governor, Senator Perata says he's tabled some of the flood control bills this year. Are you disappointed? He says in part he did that because you've requested some last minute amendments that he said would weaken flood control.

GOVERNOR: We are very happy that we passed the bill, and I think we are very happy that it is now an initiative, and people will be voting on it. And it will be 4.1 billion dollars available for building the levees, fixing the levees, strengthening it.

And right now, as we speak, they are working on those 29 vulnerable sites of the levees that were really in danger. And so they started as soon as the water came down to a level where it's safe to work there, and they have been working on that, and will be continuing working all the way until the flood season begins again.

So I think that it is important that the people vote yes on this initiative so that we have the 4.1 billion dollars extra money available, so we can rebuild the whole levee system that is, as I said, in many cases 100 years old and built 100 years ago by farmers.

STAFF: Thank you very much, everyone.

GOVERNOR: Thank you very much. Thank you.

http://gov.ca.gov/index.php/press-release/3646/