Pelosi Hits Back

I'm talking more about the level of a Donald Rumsfeld — people who authorized torture and greenlighted the kidnapping and rendition of innocent people.
I didn't like their policies, which is why we needed to win the election — to get them out of power. But I don't know what the evidence is against them on any specific charge. When you have a truth-and-reconciliation commission . . . look, I'm still fighting the bombing of Cambodia. I still have my gripes with the administration that bombed Cambodia before you were born, so I think it's important to bring these things out. If you have a case against someone, you bring a case.

With all due respect, we've had elections before that tossed people out, but then the same people returned to power later just as Dick Cheney did after leaving the Nixon administration. If we turn the page without full examination and prosecution, aren't we in danger of seeing this again?
We should have full examination, I'm not denying that. You asked me a specific question: "Should they be charged?" I think that further information might take us to that place, but what we want to do is unify the American people. The American people do not want wrongdoing to go unaddressed. We don't want any Democratic or Republican administration to abuse power, and that's what they tried to do with wiretapping, that's what they did with politicizing the Justice Department, that's what they did in many more ways that we could see almost on a daily basis. And yes, that should be stopped.

What Mr. Leahy is putting forward, in terms of a truth-and-reconciliation committee, has always been helpful. It was helpful in South Africa, it was helpful in Rwanda, and they were talking about doing it in places like Lebanon. Ultimately, only the Congress can be responsible for preserving our constitutional prerogatives — that we get information from the executive branch when we ask for it, that members of the administration appear before us when they are called to the Congress.

Let's talk about global warming. What is the single biggest obstacle to getting a major climate bill through Congress?
Rep. Waxman has said he will have a bill out of his committee by the end of May. We have to unify people around the fact that unless we address global warming, we're not really going to solve the climate crisis, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and improve the quality of our air. I don't think there's any question that we need to proceed. The question is how do we do this in a way that grows the economy rather than have fearmongers describe it as something where we will lose jobs.

Does the current economic climate make it harder to do that?
Everyone says this to me, "The current economic climate and the price of oil, hasn't that changed the debate?" No, I think it argues for climate change. I think it argues for an aggressive energy policy, and we will have one. This is a very important issue to the president, it was important in the campaign, and you don't walk away from that because the price of oil is lower or because the economy is down. In fact, all of the research tells us that energy can be a force to turn the economy around. Nicholas Stern, who studied the effect of climate-change legislation for the British government, said, "Not only does this not harm the economy, unless you do it, you will harm the economy."