Hill Heat

LOVETT: Trump seemed to think he had a kind of gotcha moment there at the end when you talked about transitioning away from oil and fossil fuels, even though ending subsidies for those industries is very popular. And he really wishes you’d say you’d ban fracking, even though you haven’t. At the same time, you’ve set these ambitious climate goals as part of your plan. And a lot of polling shows that climate change is the number one issue among young people, particularly among young people deciding whether or not to vote. What is your message to those young people who are passionate about this issue but skeptical that they can count on you, or really any politician, to actually deliver and take this issue with the urgency it demands?

BIDEN: It’s the number one issue facing humanity. And it’s the number one issue for me. And all the way back in the 80s—I’m the first person ever, ever to lay out the need for a, to deal with global warming. And back in those—and Politifact said, “Check it out, it was a game changer.” And, but, it’s just the way in which this campaign had been run from the beginning about me in the primaries that it just never got traction.

Look, climate change is the existential threat to humanity. The existential threat to humanity. Unchecked, it is going to actually bake this planet. Not—this is not hyperbole. It’s real. And we have a moral obligation. There’s not many things—Dan and I worked together a long time. You don’t hear me often invoke a moral obligation. We have a moral obligation, not just to young people, we have a moral obligation to everyone.

Look what’s happening right now. You just look around the United States of America. Forests are burning at a rate larger than Connecticut and Rhode Island combined being lost. People are losing their homes, their lives. In the middle of the country, we’re in a situation where you have 100-year floods occurring every several years wiping out entire, entire counties, and doing great damage.

And by the way, as Dan, you may remember, the first thing that Barack [Obama] and I were told about when we took, when we went over to, were taking to the, over to the Defense Department, they said the greatest threat facing, the greatest security threat America faces is climate change. Because what’s going to happen, you can see massive movements of populations fighting over land. Fighting over the ability to live. And it, it is an existential threat.

And so I just think—but also presents an enormous opportunity. It’s a bizarre. You know, we’re one of the few countries in the world that’s always been able to take things that are serious problems and turn them into opportunities. It’s also the vehicle by which we can not only save the planet, but we can generate such economic growth and lead the world. But we have two problems.

One, we have an internal problem in the United States. What are we going to do? We make up, we make up 15 of the problem but we’re in a position where the rest of the 85 percent of the world’s responsible for the rest. We can go, we can go net neutral in terms of carbon tomorrow, and we’re still going to have our shores flooded. We’re still going to have these terrific hurricanes. The polar caps are going to continue to melt. We’re going to have, we’re going to have hurricanes and storms that will, and they’re going to increase.

And so we have to do two things. We need a president who can lead the world. That’s why I was so deeply involved in setting up the existence of the Paris climate accord. As well as do the things we have to do and can do.

And the last point I’ll make—I’m happy any detail you’d like me to, but the last point I’d make is that, you know the way we have to do this is we—you know we cannot discount the concerns of people what it means to their well-being. And not only in the future. And now but what about how they make a living.

That’s why I’m the first person I’m aware of that went to every major labor union in the country and got them to sign on to my climate change plan, which is extensive.

We’re going to get to zero net emissions for the production of electricity by 2035. And it’s going to create millions of jobs. But we got to let people— we can’t be cavalier about the impact it’s going to have on how we’re going to transition to do all this. But I just think it’s a gigantic opportunity, a gigantic opportunity to create really good jobs.

LOVETT: What do you see as the relationship you’re going to have? So a lot of climate activists— You have said basically, “We have to do everything we can to get Joe Biden in office. It’s an existential threat.” And then their plan is they’re going to put a ton of pressure on you to make sure that you really deliver on solutions around climate change. What do you expect to do?

BIDEN: I’m going to put pressure on them. I’m going to put pressure on them to live up to what their, this cause they talk about. And it starts off with voting. It starts off with volunteering. It starts off with making sure that they’re organizing, and they’re taking care to make sure that people on the, on the, on the fence-line communities get taken care of. Make sure the priorities are set. So we end up in a situation where people who are hurt the most could help the quickest.

You know, it’s—this is, uh you know I, I understand the sense. But the fact is that, look, the first thing we’re gonna do is make sure that we use the ability we have now, and I will as president, to do away with a hundred changes in, in, in executive orders he’s, and he’s put forward to do everything from allow more methane to seep into the, into the atmosphere, allow to pollute rivers, a whole range of things. We can do that very very quickly.

But it’s also going to require us to make sure that we deal with what we have to do now. For example, we should—you know, as you guys know, because you both worked in administrations, that the President of the United States has control over 600 billion dollars in signing federal contracts. Everything from one of the largest auto fleets and trucking fleets in the world to infrastructure.

When as, as—Daniel remember when the president asked me to handle, make sure we got the Recovery Act and 800 billion dollars was going to be distributed to keep us from going into a depression, he gave me the authority to run that from beginning to end. And what we did was we were able to invest in bringing down the cost of renewable energy to compete with coal, gas, and oil.

And so now you see what’s happening. It’s becoming a fait accompli. No one’s going to build another oil or gas-fired electric plant. They’re going to build one that is fired by renewable energy.

We have to invest billions of dollars in making sure that we’re able to transmit over our lines. You may remember, Dan, when we sat in that of those office buildings in the between, the interregnum period there, and we thought we could just make sure we could transfer this through, this renewable energy across the country at all? Remember we had that big map up, and we showed all the, all the high tension wires were going to go? Well—

PFEIFFER: Smart grid.

BIDEN: That’s right. Exactly right. But what happened? What happened was Not-In-My-Neighborhood people didn’t want to have high-tension wires in their neighborhood. So what we’re going to do, and what’s happening now—and working on this for three years you have a lot of folks in Silicon Valley and other places doing research on battery technology. So now we’re going to be able to store—for example, they can have a battery about as wide as my, the, the width of my arms and about this thick—that if you have solar power in your home, you—and the sun doesn’t shine for a week, that battery will store it. You’re going to be able to have all the energy you need in the meantime.

We’re going to provide 550,000 charging stations—for real!—on the new infrastructure, green infrastructure we’re going to be building. We’re going to own the electric automobile market. We’re going to create a million jobs in doing that.

These aren’t—this is not hyperbole—these are things that have been run through by economists and Wall Street and, and also by people who are in, in, in, in the thought community, the people who are running these major institutions.

And so there’s so much we can do. And we can create a clean environment. We can also grow the economy and get people good wages. The fastest growing industries are solar and wind. Solar and wind. And they’re not paying 15 bucks an hour, they’re paying prevailing wage. Every single contract the president gave me the authority to let when we were running the Recovery Act, every single one, paid prevailing wage. That’s 45 to 50 bucks an hour, plus benefits. And so that’s how we’re going to grow this economy.

I know this feeling of dread and anxiety extends beyond just the fires. We’ve seen a record hurricane season costing billions of dollars. Last month, Hurricane Laura intensified at a near-record rate just before its landfall along Louisiana and the Gulf Coast.

It’s a troubling marker not just for an increased frequency of hurricanes, but more powerful and destructive storms. They’re causing record damage after record damage to people’s homes and livelihoods.

And before it intensified and hit the Gulf Coast, Laura ravaged Puerto Rico — where, three years after Hurricane Maria — our fellow Americans are still recovering from its damage and devastation.

Think about that reality.

Our fellow Americans are still putting things back together from the last big storm as they face the next one.

We’ve also seen historic flooding in the Midwest — often compounding the damages delivered by last year’s floods that cost billions dollars in damage.

This past spring Midland, Michigan experienced a flood so devastating — with deadly flash flooding, overrunning dams and roadways, and the displacement of 10,000 residents — that it was considered a once-in-500-year weather event.

But those once-in-many-generations events? They happen every year now.

The past ten years were the hottest decade ever recorded. The Arctic is literally melting. Parts are on fire.

What we’re seeing in America — in our communities — is connected to that.

With every bout with nature’s fury, caused by our own inaction on climate change, more Americans see and feel the devastation in big cities, small towns, on coastlines and farmlands.

It is happening everywhere. It is happening now. It affects us all.

Nearly two hundred cities are experiencing the longest stretches of deadly heat waves in fifty years. It requires them to help their poor and elderly residents adapt to extreme heat to simply stay alive, especially in homes without air conditioning.

Our family farmers in the Midwest are facing historic droughts.

These follow record floods and hurricane-speed windstorms all this year.

It’s ravaged millions of acres of corn, soybeans, and other crops. Their very livelihood which sustained their families and our economy for generations is now in jeopardy.

How will they pay their bills this year? What will be left to pass on to their kids?

And none of this happens in a vacuum.

A recent study showed air pollution is linked with an increased risk of death from COVID-19.

Our economy can’t recover if we don’t build back with more resiliency to withstand extreme weather — extreme weather that will only come with more frequency.

The unrelenting impact of climate change affects every single one of us. But too often the brunt falls disproportionately on communities of color, exacerbating the need for environmental justice.

These are the interlocking crises of our time.

It requires action, not denial.

It requires leadership, not scapegoating.

It requires a president to meet the threshold duty of the office — to care for everyone. To defend us from every attack – seen and unseen. Always and without exception. Every time.

Because here’s the deal.

Hurricanes don’t swerve to avoid “blue states.” Wildfires don’t skip towns that voted a certain way.

The impacts of climate change don’t pick and choose. That’s because it’s not a partisan phenomenon.

It’s science.

And our response should be the same. Grounded in science. Acting together. All of us.

But like with our federal response to COVID-19, the lack of a national strategy on climate change leaves us with patchwork solutions.

I’m speaking from Delaware, the lowest-lying state in the nation, where just last week the state’s Attorney General sued 31 big fossil fuel companies alleging that they knowingly wreaked damage on the climate.

Damage that is plain to everyone but the president.

As he flies to California today, we know he has no interest in meeting this moment.

We know he won’t listen to the experts or treat this disaster with the urgency it demands, as any president should do during a national emergency.

He’s already said he wanted to withhold aid to California — to punish the people of California — because they didn’t vote for him.

This is yet another crisis he won’t take responsibility for.

The West is literally on fire and he blames the people whose homes and communities are burning.

He says, “You gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your forests.”

This is the same president who threw paper towels to the people of Puerto Rico instead of truly helping them recover and rebuild.

We know his disdain for his own military leaders and our veterans.

Just last year, the Defense Department reported that climate change is a direct threat to more than two-thirds of our military’s operationally critical installations. And this could well be a conservative estimate.

Donald Trump’s climate denial may not have caused the record fires, record floods, and record hurricanes.

But if he gets a second term, these hellish events will become more common, more devastating, and more deadly.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump warns that integration is threatening our suburbs. That’s ridiculous.

But you know what’s actually threatening our suburbs?

Wildfires are burning the suburbs in the West. Floods are wiping out suburban neighborhoods in the Midwest. And hurricanes are imperiling suburban life along our coasts.

If we have four more years of Trump’s climate denial, how many suburbs will be burned in wildfires? How many suburbs will have been flooded out? How many suburbs will have been blown away in superstorms?

If you give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised if more of America is ablaze?

If you give a climate denier four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised when more of America is under water?

We need a president who respects science, who understands that the damage from climate change is already here, and, unless we take urgent action, will soon be more catastrophic.

A president who recognizes, understands, and cares that Americans are dying.

Which makes President Trump’s climate denialism — his disdain of science and facts — all the more unconscionable.

Once again, he fails the most basic duty to this nation.

He fails to protect us.

And from the pandemic, the economic freefall, the racial unrest, and the ravages of climate change, it’s clear that we are not safe in Donald Trump’s America.

What he doesn’t get is that even in crisis, there is nothing beyond our capacity as a country.

And while so many of you are hurting right now, I want you to know that if you give me the honor of serving as your President, we can, and we will, meet this moment with urgency and purpose.

We can and we will solve the climate crisis, and build back better than we were before.

When Donald Trump thinks about climate change he thinks: “hoax.”

I think: “jobs.”

Good-paying, union jobs that put Americans to work building a stronger, more climate resilient nation.

A nation with modernized water, transportation and energy infrastructure to withstand the impacts of extreme weather and a changing climate.

When Donald Trump thinks about renewable energy, he sees windmills somehow causing cancer.

I see American manufacturing — and American workers — racing to lead the global market. I also see farmers making American agriculture first in the world to achieve net-zero emissions, and gaining new sources of income in the process.

When Donald Trump thinks about LED bulbs, he says he doesn’t like them because: “the light’s no good. I always look orange.”

I see the small businesses and master electricians designing and installing award-winning energy conservation measures.

This will reduce the electricity consumption and save businesses hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in energy costs.

While he turns us against our allies, I will bring us back into the Paris Agreement. I will put us back in the business of leading the world on climate change. And I will challenge everyone to up the ante on their climate commitments.

Where he reverses the Obama-Biden fuel-efficiency standards, he picks Big Oil companies over the American workers.

I will not only bring the standards back, I will set new, ambitious ones — that our workers are ready to meet.

And I also see American workers building and installing 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations across the country and American consumers switching to electric vehicles through rebates and incentives.

Not only that, the United States owns and maintains an enormous fleet of vehicles — and we’re going to harness the purchasing power of our federal government to make sure we are buying electric vehicles that are made and sourced by union workers right here in the United States of America.

All together, this will mean one million new jobs in the American auto industry.

And we’ll do another big thing: put us on a path of achieving a carbon-pollution free electricity sector by 2035 that no future president can turn back.

Transforming the American electricity sector to produce power without carbon pollution will be the greatest spur to job creation and economic competitiveness in the 21st Century. Not to mention the positive benefits to our health and our environment.

We need to get to work right away.

We’ll need scientists at national labs and land-grant universities and Historically Black Colleges and Universities to improve and innovate the technologies needed to generate, store, and transmit this clean electricity.

We’ll need engineers to design them and workers to manufacture them. We’ll need iron workers and welders to install them.

And we’ll become the world’s largest exporter of these technologies, creating even more jobs.

We know how to do this.

The Obama-Biden Administration rescued the auto industry and helped them retool.

We made solar energy cost-competitive with traditional energy, and weatherized more than a million homes.

We will do it again — bigger and faster and better than before.

We’ll also build 1.5 million new energy-efficient homes and public housing units that will benefit our communities three-times over — by alleviating the affordable housing crisis, by increasing energy efficiency, and by reducing the racial wealth gap linked to home ownership.

There are thousands of oil and natural gas wells that the oil and gas companies have just abandoned, many of which are leaking toxins.

We can create 250,000 jobs plugging those wells right away — good union jobs for energy workers. This will help sustain communities and protect the environment as well.

We’ll also create new markets for our family farmers and ranchers.

We’ll launch a new, modern day Civilian Climate Corps to heal our public lands and make us less vulnerable to wildfires and floods.

I believe that every American has a fundamental right to breathe clean air and drink clean water. But I know that we haven’t fulfilled that right.

That’s true of the millions of families struggling with the smoke created by these devastating wildfires right now.

But it’s also been true for a generation or more in places — like Cancer Alley in Louisiana or along the Route 9 corridor right here in Delaware.

Fulfilling this basic obligation to all Americans — especially Black, Brown, and Native American communities, who too often don’t have clean air and clean water — is not going to be easy.

But it is necessary. And I am committed to doing it.

These aren’t pie-in-the-sky dreams. These are concrete, actionable policies that create jobs, mitigate climate change, and put our nation on the road to net-zero emissions by no later than 2050.

Some say that we can’t afford to fix this.

But here’s the thing.

Look around at the crushing consequences of the extreme weather events I’ve been describing. We’ve already been paying for it. So we have a choice.

We can invest in our infrastructure to make it stronger and more resilient, while at the same time tackling the root causes of climate change.

Or, we can continue down the path of Donald Trump’s indifference, costing tens of billions of dollars to rebuild, and where the human costs — the lives and livelihoods and homes and communities destroyed — are immeasurable.

We have a choice.

We can commit to doing this together because we know that climate change is the existential challenge that will define our future as a country, for our children, grandchildren, and great-children.

Or, there’s Donald Trump’s way — to ignore the facts, to deny reality that amounts to full surrender and a failure to lead.

It’s backward-looking politics that will harm the environment, make communities less healthy, and hold back economic progress while other countries race ahead.

And it’s a mindset that doesn’t have any faith in the capacity of the American people to compete, to innovate, and to win.

Like the pandemic, dealing with climate change is a global crisis that requires American leadership.

It requires a president for all Americans.

So as the fires rage out West on this day, our prayers remain with everyone under the ash.

I know it’s hard to see the sun rise and believe today will be better than yesterday when America faces this historic inflection point.

A time of real peril, but also a time of extraordinary possibilities.

I want you to know that we can do this.

We will do this.

We are America.

We see the light through the dark smoke.

We never give up.

Always.

Without exception.

Every time.

May God bless our firefighters and first responders.

May God protect our troops.

Q: “Should we have a climate change debate?”

BIDEN: “Yeah we should have a climate change debate. We should. That’s what we should be doing.”

Q: “One debate?”

BIDEN: “Yeah.”

Q: “Dedicated to climate change?”

BIDEN: “Yeah, I’m all in. I’m all in, man. Take a look at what I’m talking about. By the way, first climate change plan ever introduced in the United States Congress: Biden.”

Q: “You’re the man. All right.”

OCTOBER 2, 2008 BIDEN-PALIN VP DEBATE

IFILL: Governor, I’m happy to talk to you in this next section about energy issues. Let’s talk about climate change. What is true and what is false about what we have heard, read, discussed, debated about the causes of climate change?

PALIN: Yes. Well, as the nation’s only Arctic state and being the governor of that state, Alaska feels and sees impacts of climate change more so than any other state. And we know that it’s real. I’m not one to attribute every man — activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man’s activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet. But there are real changes going on in our climate. And I don’t want to argue about the causes. What I want to argue about is, how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts? We have got to clean up this planet. We have got to encourage other nations also to come along with us with the impacts of climate change, what we can do about that. As governor, I was the first governor to form a climate change sub-cabinet to start dealing with the impacts. We’ve got to reduce emissions. John McCain is right there with an “all of the above” approach to deal with climate change impacts. We’ve got to become energy independent for that reason. Also as we rely more and more on other countries that don’t care as much about the climate as we do, we’re allowing them to produce and to emit and even pollute more than America would ever stand for. So even in dealing with climate change, it’s all the more reason that we have an “all of the above” approach, tapping into alternative sources of energy and conserving fuel, conserving our petroleum products and our hydrocarbons so that we can clean up this planet and deal with climate change.

IFILL: Senator, what is true and what is false about the causes?

BIDEN: Well, I think it is manmade. I think it’s clearly manmade. And, look, this probably explains the biggest fundamental difference between John McCain and Barack Obama and Sarah Palin and Joe Biden — Governor Palin and Joe Biden. If you don’t understand what the cause is, it’s virtually impossible to come up with a solution. We know what the cause is. The cause is manmade. That’s the cause. That’s why the polar icecap is melting. Now, let’s look at the facts. We have 3 percent of the world’s oil reserves. We consume 25 percent of the oil in the world. John McCain has voted 20 times in the last decade-and-a-half against funding alternative energy sources, clean energy sources, wind, solar, biofuels. The way in which we can stop the greenhouse gases from emitting. We believe — Barack Obama believes by investing in clean coal and safe nuclear, we can not only create jobs in wind and solar here in the United States, we can export it. China is building one to three new coal-fired plants burning dirty coal per week. It’s polluting not only the atmosphere but the West Coast of the United States. We should export the technology by investing in clean coal technology. We should be creating jobs. John McCain has voted 20 times against funding alternative energy sources and thinks, I guess, the only answer is drill, drill, drill. Drill we must, but it will take 10 years for one drop of oil to come out of any of the wells that are going to begun to be drilled. In the meantime, we’re all going to be in real trouble.

IFILL: Let me clear something up, Senator McCain has said he supports caps on carbon emissions. Senator Obama has said he supports clean coal technology, which I don’t believe you’ve always supported.

BIDEN: I have always supported it. That’s a fact.

IFILL: Well, clear it up for us, both of you, and start with Governor Palin.

PALIN: Yes, Senator McCain does support this. The chant is “drill, baby, drill.” And that’s what we hear all across this country in our rallies because people are so hungry for those domestic sources of energy to be tapped into. They know that even in my own energy-producing state we have billions of barrels of oil and hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of clean, green natural gas. And we’re building a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline which is North America’s largest and most you expensive infrastructure project ever to flow those sources of energy into hungry markets. Barack Obama and Senator Biden, you’ve said no to everything in trying to find a domestic solution to the energy crisis that we’re in. You even called drilling — safe, environmentally-friendly drilling offshore as raping the outer continental shelf. There — with new technology, with tiny footprints even on land, it is safe to drill and we need to do more of that. But also in that “all of the above” approach that Senator McCain supports, the alternative fuels will be tapped into: the nuclear, the clean coal. I was surprised to hear you mention that because you had said that there isn’t anything — such a thing as clean coal. And I think you said it in a rope line, too, at one of your rallies.

IFILL: We do need to keep within our two minutes. But I just wanted to ask you, do you support capping carbon emissions?

PALIN: I do. I do.

IFILL: OK. And on the clean coal issue?

BIDEN: Absolutely. Absolutely we do. We call for setting hard targets, number one…

IFILL: Clean coal.

BIDEN: Oh, I’m sorry.

IFILL: On clean coal.

BIDEN: Oh, on clean coal. My record, just take a look at the record. My record for 25 years has supported clean coal technology. A comment made in a rope line was taken out of context. I was talking about exporting that technology to China so when they burn their dirty coal, it won’t be as dirty, it will be clean. But here’s the bottom line, Gwen: How do we deal with global warming with continued addition to carbon emissions? And if the only answer you have is oil, and John — and the governor says John is for everything. Well, why did John vote 20 times? Maybe he’s for everything as long as it’s not helped forward by the government. Maybe he’s for everything if the free market takes care of it. I don’t know. But he voted 20 times against funding alternative energy sources.

OCTOBER 8, 2004 KERRY-BUSH SECOND PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE – TOWNHALL STYLE

HUBB: Mr. President, how would you rate yourself as an environmentalist? What specifically has your administration done to improve the condition of our nation’s air and water supply?

BUSH: Off-road diesel engines — we have reached an agreement to reduce pollution from off-road diesel engines by 90 percent. I’ve got a plan to increase the wetlands by 3 million. We’ve got an aggressive brown field program to refurbish inner-city sore spots to useful pieces of property. I proposed to the United States Congress a Clear Skies Initiative to reduce sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury by 70 percent. I have — was fought for a very strong title in the farm bill for the conservation reserve program to set aside millions of acres of land to help improve wildlife and the habitat. We proposed and passed a healthy forest bill which was essential to working with — particularly in Western states — to make sure that our forests were protected. What happens in those forests, because of lousy federal policy, is they grow to be — they are not — they’re not harvested. They’re not taken care of. And as a result, they’re like tinderboxes. And over the last summers I’ve flown over there. And so, this is a reasonable policy to protect old stands of trees and at the same time make sure our forests aren’t vulnerable to the forest fires that have destroyed acres after acres in the West. We’ve got a good, common-sense policy. Now, I’m going to tell you what I really think is going to happen over time is technology is going to change the way we live for the good for the environment. That’s why I proposed a hydrogen automobile — hydrogen-generated automobile. We’re spending $1 billion to come up with the technologies to do that. That’s why I’m a big proponent of clean coal technology, to make sure we can use coal but in a clean way. I guess you’d say I’m a good steward of the land. The quality of the air’s cleaner since I’ve been the president. Fewer water complaints since I’ve been the president. More land being restored since I’ve been the president. Thank you for your question.

GIBSON: Senator Kerry, minute and a half.

KERRY: Boy, to listen to that — the president, I don’t think, is living in a world of reality with respect to the environment. Now, if you’re a Red Sox fan, that’s OK. But if you’re a president, it’s not. Let me just say to you, number one, don’t throw the labels around. Labels don’t mean anything. I supported welfare reform. I led the fight to put 100,000 cops on the streets of America. I’ve been for faith-based initiatives helping to intervene in the lives of young children for years. I was — broke with my party in 1985, one of the first three Democrats to fight for a balanced budget when it was heresy. Labels don’t fit, ladies and gentlemen. Now, when it comes to the issue of the environment, this is one of the worst administrations in modern history. The Clear Skies bill that he just talked about, it’s one of those Orwellian names you pull out of the sky, slap it onto something, like “No Child Left Behind” but you leave millions of children behind. Here they’re leaving the skies and the environment behind. If they just left the Clean Air Act all alone the way it is today, no change, the air would be cleaner than it is if you pass the Clear Skies act. We’re going backwards. In fact, his environmental enforcement chief air-quality person at the EPA resigned in protest over what they’re doing to what they are calling the new source performance standards for air quality. They’re going backwards on the definition for wetlands. They’re going backwards on the water quality. They pulled out of the global warming, declared it dead, didn’t even accept the science. I’m going to be a president who believes in science.

GIBSON: Mr. President?

BUSH: Well, had we joined the Kyoto treaty, which I guess he’s referring to, it would have cost America a lot of jobs. It’s one of these deals where, in order to be popular in the halls of Europe, you sign a treaty. But I thought it would cost a lot — I think there’s a better way to do it. And I just told you the facts, sir. The quality of the air is cleaner since I’ve been the president of the United States. And we’ll continue to spend money on research and development, because I truly believe that’s the way to get from how we live today to being able to live a standard of living that we’re accustomed to and being able to protect our environment better, the use of technologies.

GIBSON: Senator Kerry, 30 seconds.

KERRY: The fact is that the Kyoto treaty was flawed. I was in Kyoto, and I was part of that. I know what happened. But this president didn’t try to fix it. He just declared it dead, ladies and gentlemen, and we walked away from the work of 160 nations over 10 years. You wonder, Nikki, why it is that people don’t like us in some parts of the world. You just say: Hey, we don’t agree with you. Goodbye. The president’s done nothing to try to fix it. I will.

SEPTEMBER 30, 2004 KERRY-BUSH DEBATE

KERRY: You don’t help yourself with other nations when you turn away from the global warming treaty, for instance, or when you refuse to deal at length with the United Nations. …. What I worry about with the president is that he’s not acknowledging what’s on the ground, he’s not acknowledging the realities of North Korea, he’s not acknowledging the truth of the science of stem-cell research or of global warming and other issues.

OCTOBER 11, 2000 BUSH-GORE SECOND PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

MODERATOR: New question, new subject. Vice President Gore, on the environment. In your 1992 book you said, quote, “We must make the rescue of our environment the central organizing principle for civilization and there must be a wrenching transformation to save the planet.” Do you still feel that way?

GORE: I do. I think that in this 21st century we will soon see the consequences of what’s called global warming. There was a study just a few weeks ago suggesting that in summertime the north polar ice cap will be completely gone in 50 years. Already many people see the strange weather conditions that the old timers say they’ve never seen before in their lifetimes. And what’s happening is the level of pollution is increasing significantly. Now, here is the good news, Jim. If we take the leadership role and build the new technologies, like the new kinds of cars and trucks that Detroit is itching to build, then we can create millions of good new jobs by being first into the market with these new kinds of cars and trucks and other kinds of technologies. You know the Japanese are breathing down our necks on this. They’re moving very rapidly because they know that it is a fast-growing world market. Some of these other countries, particularly in the developing world, their pollution is much worse than anywhere else and their people want higher standards of living. And so they’re looking for ways to satisfy their desire for a better life and still reduce pollution at the same time. I think that holding onto the old ways and the old argument that the environment and the economy are in conflict is really outdated. We have to be bold. We have to provide leadership. Now it’s true that we disagree on this. The governor said that he doesn’t think this problem is necessarily caused by people. He’s for letting the oil companies into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Houston has just become the smoggiest city in the country. And Texas is number one in industrial pollution. We have a very different outlook. And I’ll tell you this, I will fight for a clean environment in ways that strengthen our economy.

MODERATOR: Governor?

BUSH: Well, let me start with Texas. We are a big industrial state. We reduced our industrial waste by 11%. We cleaned up more brown fields than any other administration in my state’s history, 450 of them. Our water is cleaner now.

MODERATOR: Explain what a brown field is to those who don’t follow this.

BUSH: A brown field is an abandoned industrial site that just sits idle in some of our urban centers. And people are willing to invest capital in the brown fields don’t want to do so for fear of lawsuit. I think we ought to have federal liability protection, depending upon whether or not standards have been met. The book you mentioned that Vice President Gore wrote, he also called for taxing — big energy taxes in order to clean up the environment. And now that the energy prices are high, I guess he’s not advocating those big energy taxes right now. I believe we ought to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund to — with half the money going to states so states can make the right decisions for environmental quality. I think we need to have clean coal technologies. I propose $2 billion worth. By the way, I just found out the other day an interesting fact, that there is a national petroleum reserve right next to — in Prudhoe Bay that your administration opened up for exploration in that pristine area. And it was a smart move because there’s gas reserves up there. We need gas pipelines to bring the gas down. Gas is a clean fuel that we can burn to — we need to make sure that if we decontrol our plants that there’s mandatory — that the plants must conform to clean air standards, the grandfathered plants, that’s what we did in Texas. No excuses. You must conform. In other words, there are practical things we can do. But it starts with working in a collaborative effort with states and local folks. If you own the land, every day is Earth Day. People care a lot about their land and care about their environment. Not all wisdom is in Washington, D.C. on this issue.

MODERATOR: Where do you see the basic difference in very simple terms in two or three sentences between you and the governor on the environment? If a voter wants to make a choice, what is it?

GORE: I’m really strongly committed to clean water and clean air, and cleaning up the new kinds of challenges like global warming. He is right that I’m not in favor of energy taxes. I am in favor of tax cuts to encourage and give incentives for the quicker development of these new kinds of technologies. And let me say again, Detroit is rearing to go on that. We differ on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as I have said. We differ on whether or not pollution controls ought to be voluntary. I don’t think you can — I don’t think you can get results that way. We differ on the kinds of appointments that we would make.

MODERATOR: Would you say it’s a fundamental difference?

GORE: I think it’s a fundamental difference. Let me give you an example.

MODERATOR: Hold on one second.

GORE: Okay, sure.

MODERATOR: We’ve talked about supply. I just want to know for somebody — we’re getting close to the end of our time here. If somebody wanted to vote on the environment, how would you draw the differences, Governor?

BUSH: Well, I don’t believe in command and control out of Washington, D.C. I believe Washington ought to set standards, but again I think we ought to be collaborative at the local levels and I think we ought to work with people at the local levels. And by the way, I just want to make sure — I can’t let him just say something and not correct it. The electric decontrol bill that I fought for and signed in Texas has mandatory emission standards, Mr. Vice President. That’s what we ought to do at the federal level when it comes to grandfathered plants for utilities. I think there’s a difference. I think, for example, take — when they took 40 million acres of land out of circulation without consulting local officials, I thought that was —

MODERATOR: That was out in the west?

BUSH: Out in the west, yeah. And so — on the logging issue. That’s not the way I would have done it. Perhaps some of that land needs to be set aside. But I certainly would have consulted with governors and elected officials before I would have acted unilaterally.

MODERATOR: Would you believe the federal government still has some new rules and new regulations and new laws to pass in the environmental area or do you think —

BUSH: Sure, absolutely, so long as they’re based upon science and they’re reasonable. So long as people have input.

MODERATOR: What about global warming?

BUSH: I think it’s an issue that we need to take very seriously. But I don’t think we know the solution to global warming yet. And I don’t think we’ve got all the facts before we make decisions. I tell you one thing I’m not going to do is I’m not going to let the United States carry the burden for cleaning up the world’s air. Like Kyoto Treaty would have done. China and India were exempted from that treaty. I think we need to be more even-handed, as evidently 99 senators — I think it was 99 senators supported that position.

MODERATOR: Global warming, the Senate did turn it down. I think —

BUSH: 99 to nothing.

GORE: Well, that vote wasn’t exactly — a lot of the supporters of the Kyoto Treaty actually ended up voting for that because the way it was worded. But there’s no doubt there’s a lot of opposition to it in the Senate. I’m not for command and control techniques either. I’m for working with the groups, not just with industry but also with the citizen groups and local communities to control sprawl in ways that the local communities themselves come up with. But I disagree that we don’t know the cause of global warming. I think that we do. It’s pollution, carbon dioxide, and other chemicals that are even more potent, but in smaller quantities, that cause this. Look, the world’s temperature is going up, weather patterns are changing, storms are getting more violent and unpredictable. What are we going to tell our children? I’m a grandfather now. I want to be able to tell my grandson when I’m in my later years that I didn’t turn away from the evidence that showed that we were doing some serious harm. In my faith tradition, it is — it’s written in the book of Matthew, “Where your heart is, there is your treasure also.” And I believe that — that we ought to recognize the value to our children and grandchildren of taking steps that preserve the environment in a way that’s good for them.

BUSH: Yeah, I agree. I just — I think there has been — some of the scientists, I believe, Mr. Vice President, haven’t they been changing their opinion a little bit on global warming? A profound scientist recently made a different —

MODERATOR: Both of you have now violated — excuse me. Both of you have now violated your own rules. Hold that thought.

GORE: I’ve been trying so hard not to.

MODERATOR: I know, I know. But under your alls rules you are not allowed to ask each other a question. I let you do it a moment ago.

BUSH: Twice.

MODERATOR: Now you just — twice, sorry. (LAUGHTER)

GORE: That’s an interruption, by the way.

MODERATOR: That’s an interruption, okay. But anyhow, you just did it so now —

BUSH: I’m sorry. I apologize, Mr. Vice President.

MODERATOR: You aren’t allowed to do that either, see? (LAUGHTER) I’m sorry, go ahead and finish your thought. People care about these things I’ve found out.

BUSH: Of course they care about them. Oh, you mean the rules.

MODERATOR: Yeah, right, exactly right. Go ahead.

BUSH: What the heck. I — of course there’s a lot — look, global warming needs to be taken very seriously, and I take it seriously. But science, there’s a lot — there’s differing opinions. And before we react, I think it’s best to have the full accounting, full understanding of what’s taking place. And I think to answer your question, I think both of us care a lot about the environment. We may have different approaches. We may have different approaches in terms of how we deal with local folks. I just cited an example of the administration just unilaterally acting without any input. And I remember you gave a very good answer to New Hampshire about the White Mountains, about how it was important to keep that collaborative effort in place. I feel very strongly the same place. It certainly wasn’t the attitude that took place out west, however.

OCTOBER 9, 1996 KEMP-GORE VP DEBATE

LEHRER: Mr. Vice President, some Democrats have charged that the environment would be in jeopardy if Mr. Kemp and Senator Dole are elected. Do you share that fear?

GORE: I certainly do. Let me first say that. In citing John F. Kennedy’s tax cut in the 1960s, I want to also remind you that Mr. Kemp has pointed out in the past, Bob Dole was in the Congress then. He was one of those who voted against John F. Kennedy’s tax cut. The environment faces dire threats from the kind of legislation that Senator Dole and Speaker Newt Gingrich tried to pass by shutting down the government and attempting to force President Clinton to accept it. They invited the lobbyists for the biggest polluters in America to come into the Congress and literally rewrite the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. President Clinton stopped them dead in their tracks. We have a positive agenda on the environment because we believe very deeply that it’s about our children and our future. Clean air and clean water, cleaning up toxic waste sites, when millions of children live within one mile of them. That’s important. We have a plan to clean up two-thirds of the toxic waste sites in America over the next four years. We’ve already cleaned up more in the last three years than the previous two administrations did in 12. The President just set aside the Utah National Monument. He is protecting the Everglades here in Florida. Bob Dole is opposed to that plan. President Bill Clinton will protect our environment and prevent the kind of attacks on it that we saw in the last Congress and are included in the Republican platform.

KEMP: And so will Bob Dole. I mean, Al, get real. Franklin Roosevelt said in 1932 that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. The only thing, Jim, they have to offer is fear. Fear of the environment, fear of the climate, fear of Medicare, fear of Newt, fear of Republicans, fear of Bob, and probably fear of cutting tax rates. They ain’t seen nothing yet. Look, we recognize that this country has to live in balance with our environment. Every one of us who have children and grandchildren recognize how we have to reach a balance. It is not jobs versus our environment. Both are important. This is the most overregulated, overly litigated economy in our nation’s history. And to call a businessman or woman who sits down and has a chance to express his or her interest in how to make these laws work and call them a polluter is just outrageous. It is typical of the anti-capitalistic mentality of this administration. That will change, because we believe in democratic capitalism for everybody.

GORE: There are lots of jobs to be created in cleaning up the environment. All around the world we’re seeing problems that people want to solve because they love their children. They want them to be able to drink clean water and breathe clean air. They don’t want them to live next to toxic waste sites. When the United States of America takes the lead in protecting the environment, we do right by our children, and we also create new business opportunities, new jobs, new sources of prosperity for the United States of America, and we’re going about it in a common sense way.

OCTOBER 13, 1992 GORE-QUAYLE-STOCKDALE VP DEBATE

BRUNO: Okay, I’m not pointing any fingers. Let’s talk about the environment — we’ll get away from controversy. (Laughter) Everyone wants a safe and clean environment, but there’s an ongoing conflict between environmental protection and the need for economic growth and jobs. So the point I throw out on the table is, how do you resolve this conflict between protection of the environment and growth in jobs, and why has it taken so long to deal with basic problems, such as toxic waste dumps, clean air and clean water? And, Vice President Quayle, it’s your turn to start first.

QUAYLE: Hal, that’s a false choice. You don’t have to have a choice between the environment and jobs — you can have both. Look at the president’s record: clean air legislation passed the Democratic Congress because of the leadership of George Bush. It is the most comprehensive clean air act in our history. We are firmly behind preserving our environment, and we have a good record with which to stand. The question comes about: What is going to be their position when it comes to the environment? I say it’s a false choice. You ought to ask somebody in Michigan, a UAW worker in Michigan, if they think increasing the CAFE standards, the fuel economy standards, to 45 miles a gallon is a good idea — 300,000 people out of work. You ought to talk to the timber people in the Northwest where they say that, well, we can only save the owl, forget about jobs. You ought to talk to the coal miners. They’re talking about putting a coal tax on. They’re talking about a tax on utilities, a tax on gasoline and home heating oil — all sorts of taxes. No, Hal, the choice isn’t the environment and jobs. With the right policies — prudent policies — we can have both.

(APPLAUSE)

BRUNO: Admiral Stockdale.

STOCKDALE: I read Senator Gore’s book about the environment and I don’t see how he could possibly pay for his proposals in today’s economic climate.

(APPLAUSE) You know, the Marshall Plan of the environment, and so forth. And also, I’m told by some experts that the things that he fears most might not be all that dangerous, according to some scientists. You know, you can overdo, I’m told, environmental cleaning up. If you purify the pond, the water lilies die. You know, I love this planet and I want it to stay here, but I don’t like to have it the private property of fanatics that want to overdo this thing.

(APPLAUSE)

BRUNO: Senator Gore.

GORE: Bill Clinton and I believe we can create millions of new jobs by leading the environmental revolution instead of dragging our feet and bringing up the rear. You know, Japan and Germany are both opening proclaiming to the world now that the biggest new market in the history of world business is the market for the new products and technologies that foster economic progress without environmental destruction. Why is the Japanese business organization — the largest one they have, the Ki Den Ren (phonetic), arguing for tougher environmental standards than those embodied in US law? Why is MITI — their trade organization — calling on all Japanese corporations everywhere in the world to exceed by as much as possible the environmental standards of every country in which they’re operating? Well, maybe they’re just dumb about business competition. But maybe they know something that George Bush and Dan Quayle don’t know — that the future will call for greater efficiency and greater environmental efficiency. This is a value an issue that touches my basic values. I’m taught in my religious tradition that we are given dominion over the Earth, but we’re required to be good stewards of the Earth, and that means to take care of it. We’re not doing that now under the Bush-Quayle policies. They have gutted the Clean Air Act. They have broken his pledge to be the environmental president. Bill Clinton and I will change that.

(APPLAUSE)

BRUNO: Okay. Discussion period now. Again, leave time for each other, please. Vice President Quayle, go ahead.

QUAYLE: Well, I’m tempted to yield to Admiral Stockdale on this. But I — you know, the fact of the matter is that one of the proposals that Senator Gore has suggested is to have the taxpayers of America spend $100 billion a year on environmental projects in foreign countries —

GORE: That’s not true —

QUAYLE: Foreign aid — well, Senator, it’s in your book. On page 304 —

GORE: No, it’s not.

QUAYLE: It is there.

(APPLAUSE) It is in your book. You know, Hal, I wanted to bring the Gore book tonight, because I figured he was going to pull a Bill Clinton on me and he has. Because he’s going to disavow what’s in his book. It’s in your book —

GORE: No.

QUAYLE: It comes out to $100 billion of foreign aid for environmental projects.

BRUNO: All right. Let’s give him a chance to answer.

QUAYLE: Now, how are we going to pay for it? How are we going to pay for an extra $100 billion of the taxpayers’ money for this?

GORE: Dan, I appreciate you reading my book very much, but you’ve got it wrong.

QUAYLE: No, I’ve got it right.

GORE: There’s no such proposal.

QUAYLE: Okay, well, we’ll find —

BRUNO: Let him talk, Mr Vice President. Let the senator talk. Go ahead.

GORE: There is no such proposal. What I have called upon is a cooperative effort by the US and Europe and Asia to work together in opening up new markets throughout the world for the new technologies that are necessary in order to reconcile the imperatives of economic progress with the imperatives of environmental protection. Take Mexico City for an example. They are shutting down factories right now, not because of their economy, but because they’re choking to death on the air pollution. They’re banning automobiles some days of the week. Now what they want is not new laser-guided missile systems. What they want are new engines and new factories and new products that don’t pollute the air and the water, but nevertheless allow them to have a decent standard of living for their people. Last year 35 % of our exports went to developing countries, countries where the population is expanding worldwide by as much as one billion people every ten years. We cannot stick our heads in the sand and pretend that we don’t face a global environmental crisis, nor should we assume that it’s going to cost jobs. Quite the contrary. We are going to be able to create jobs as Japan and Germany are planning to do right now, if we have the guts to leave. Now earlier we heard about the auto industry and the timber industry. There have been 250,000 jobs lost in the automobile industry during the Reagan-Bush-Quayle years. There have been tens of thousands of jobs lost in the timber industry. What they like to do is point the finger of blame with one hand and hand out pink slips with the other hand. They’ve done a poor job both with the economy and the environment.

(APPLAUSE.) It’s time for a change.

(APPLAUSE.)

BRUNO: Admiral Stockdale, you had something you wanted to say here?

STOCKDALE: I know that — I read where Senator Gore’s mentor had disagree with some of the scientific data that is in his book. How do you respond to those criticisms of that sort? Do you —

QUAYLE: Deny it.

GORE: Well — (Laughter.)

STOCKDALE: Do you take this into account? (Laughter.)

GORE: No, I — let me respond. Thank you, Admiral, for saying that. You’re talking about Roger Revelle. His family wrote a lengthy letter saying how terribly he had been misquoted and had his remarks taken completely out of context just before he died. (Jeers.) He believed up until the day he died — no, it’s true, he died last year —

BRUNO: I’d ask the audience to stop, please.

GORE: — and just before he died, he co- authored an article which was — had statements taken completely out of context. In fact the vast majority of the world’s scientists — and they have worked on this extensively — believe that we must have an effort to face up to the problems we face with the environment. And if we just stick out heads in the sand and pretend that it’s not real, we’re not doing ourselves a favor. Even worse than that, we’re telling our children and all future generations that we weren’t willing to face up to this obligation.

QUAYLE: Hal, can I —

GORE: I believe that we have a mandate —

BRUNO: Sure. We’ve still got time.

GORE: — to try to solve this problem, particularly when we can do it while we create jobs in the process.

BRUNO: Go ahead, Mr. Vice President, there’s still time. Not much, though.

QUAYLE: I know it. We’ve got to have a little equal time here now, Hal. In the book you also suggest taxes on gasoline, taxes on utilities, taxes on carbon, taxes on timber. There’s a whole host of taxes. And I don’t just — I don’t believe raising taxes is the way to solve our environmental problems. And you talk about the bad situation in the auto industry. You seem to say that the answer is, well, I’ll just make it that much worse by increasing the CAFE standards. Yes, the auto industry is hurting, it’s been hurting for a long time, and increasing the CAFE standards to 45 miles per gallon, like you and Bill Clinton are suggesting, will put, as I said, 300,000 people out of work.

OCTOBER 5, 1988: BENTSEN-QUAYLE VP DEBATE

MARGOLIS: Senator, we’ve all just finished – most America has just finished one of the hottest summers it can remember. And apparently this year will be the fifth out of the last nine that are among the hottest on record. No one knows, but most scientists think, that something we’re doing, human beings are doing, are exacerbating this problem, and that this could, in a couple of generations, threaten our descendants comfort and health and perhaps even their existence. As Vice President what would you urge our government to do to deal with this problem? And specifically as a Texan, could you support a substantial reduction in the use of fossil fuels which might be necessary down the road?

BENTSEN: Well, I think what you can do in that one, and which would be very helpful, is to use a lot more natural gas, which burns a lot cleaner. And what Mike Dukakis has said is that he’ll try to break down those regulatory roadblocks that you have in the regulatory agency that denies much of the passage of that natural gas to the northeast, a way, in turn, can fight against acid rain which is another threat, because it’s sterilizing our lakes, it’s killing our fish. And it’s interesting to me to see in the resume of Senator Quayle that he brags on the fact that he’s been able to fight the acid rain legislation. I don’t think that that’s a proper objective in trying to clean up this environment. But the greenhouse effect is one that has to be a threat to all of us, and we have to look for alternative sources of fuel. And I’ve supported that very strongly. The Department of Energy is one that has cut back substantially on the study of those alternative sources of fuels. We can use other things that’ll help the farmer. We can convert corn to ethanol, and I would push for that very strong. So absolutely. I’ll do those things that are necessary to put the environment of our country number one. Because if we don’t protect that, we’ll destroy the future of our children. And we must be committed to trying – to clean up the water, clean up the air, and do everything we can, not only from a research standpoint, but also in the applied legislation to see that that’s carried out.

WOODRUFF: Senator Quayle?

QUAYLE: Vice President George Bush has said that he will take on the environmental problem. He has said further that he will deal with the acid rain legislation and reduce millions of tons of the S02 content. That legislation won’t get through the Congress this year. But it will get through in a George Bush Administration, a George Bush Administration that is committed to the environment. Now the greenhouse effect is an important environmental issue. It is important for us to get the data in, to see what alternatives we might have to the fossil fuels, and make sure we know what we’re doing. And there are some explorations and things that we can consider in this area. The drought highlighted the problem that we have, and therefore, we need to get on with it, and in a George Bush Administration, you can bet that we will.