2012
No mentions.
2008: FIRST MCCAIN-OBAMA DEBATE
MCCAIN: Nuclear power is not only important as
far as eliminating our dependence on foreign oil but it’s also
responsibility as far as climate change is concerned. An issue I have
been involved in for many, many years and I’m proud of the work of the
work that I’ve done there along with Senator Clinton.
OBAMA: Over 26 years, Senator McCain voted 23
times against alternative energy, like solar, and wind, and biodiesel.
And so we — we — we’ve got to walk the walk and not just talk the talk
when it comes to energy independence, because this is probably going to
be just as vital for our economy and the pain that people are feeling at
the pump — and, you know, winter’s coming and home heating oil — as it
is our national security and the issue of climate change that’s so
important.
SECOND MCCAIN-OBAMA DEBATE
QUESTION: Senator McCain, I want to know, we
saw that Congress moved pretty fast in the face of an economic crisis. I
want to know what you would do within the first two years to make sure
that Congress moves fast as far as environmental issues, like climate
change and green jobs?
MCCAIN: Well, thank you. Look, we are in tough
economic times; we all know that. And let’s keep — never forget the
struggle that Americans are in today. But when we can — when we have an
issue that we may hand our children and our grandchildren a damaged
planet, I have disagreed strongly with the Bush administration on this
issue. I traveled all over the world looking at the effects of
greenhouse gas emissions, Joe Lieberman and I. And I introduced the
first legislation, and we forced votes on it. That’s the good news, my
friends. The bad news is we lost. But we kept the debate going, and we
kept this issue to — to posing to Americans the danger that climate
change opposes. Now, how — what’s — what’s the best way of fixing it?
Nuclear power. Senator Obama says that it has to be safe or disposable
or something like that. Look, I — I was on Navy ships that had nuclear
power plants. Nuclear power is safe, and it’s clean, and it creates
hundreds of thousands of jobs. And — and I know that we can reprocess
the spent nuclear fuel. The Japanese, the British, the French do it. And
we can do it, too. Senator Obama has opposed that. We can move forward,
and clean up our climate, and develop green technologies, and alternate
— alternative energies for — for hybrid, for hydrogen, for
battery-powered cars, so that we can clean up our environment and at the
same time get our economy going by creating millions of jobs. We can do
that, we as Americans, because we’re the best innovators, we’re the best
producers, and 95 percent of the people who are our market live outside
of the United States of America.
BROKAW: Senator Obama?
OBAMA: This is one of the biggest challenges
of our times.
OBAMA: And it is absolutely critical that we
understand this is not just a challenge, it’s an opportunity, because if
we create a new energy economy, we can create five million new jobs,
easily, here in the United States. It can be an engine that drives us
into the future the same way the computer was the engine for economic
growth over the last couple of decades. And we can do it, but we’re
going to have to make an investment. The same way the computer was
originally invented by a bunch of government scientists who were trying
to figure out, for defense purposes, how to communicate, we’ve got to
understand that this is a national security issue, as well. And that’s
why we’ve got to make some investments and I’ve called for investments
in solar, wind, geothermal. Contrary to what Senator McCain keeps on
saying, I favor nuclear power as one component of our overall energy
mix. But this is another example where I think it is important to look
at the record. Senator McCain and I actually agree on something. He said
a while back that the big problem with energy is that for 30 years,
politicians in Washington haven’t done anything. What Senator McCain
doesn’t mention is he’s been there 26 of them. And during that time, he
voted 23 times against alternative fuels, 23 times. So it’s easy to talk
about this stuff during a campaign, but it’s important for us to
understand that it requires a sustained effort from the next president.
One last point I want to make on energy. Senator McCain talks a lot
about drilling, and that’s important, but we have three percent of the
world’s oil reserves and we use 25 percent of the world’s oil. So what
that means is that we can’t simply drill our way out of the problem. And
we’re not going to be able to deal with the climate crisis if our only
solution is to use more fossil fuels that create global warming. We’re
going to have to come up with alternatives, and that means that the
United States government is working with the private sector to fund the
kind of innovation that we can then export to countries like China that
also need energy and are setting up one coal power plant a week. We’ve
got to make sure that we’re giving them the energy that they need or
helping them to create the energy that they need.
THIRD MCCAIN-OBAMA DEBATE
SCHIEFFER: Let’s go to — let’s go to a new
topic. We’re running a little behind. Let’s talk about energy and
climate control. Every president since Nixon has said what both of you…
MCCAIN: Climate change.
SCHIEFFER: Climate change, yes — has said what
both of you have said, and, that is, we must reduce our dependence on
foreign oil. When Nixon said it, we imported from 17 to 34 percent of
our foreign oil. Now, we’re importing more than 60 percent. Would each
of you give us a number, a specific number of how much you believe we
can reduce our foreign oil imports during your first term? And I believe
the first question goes to you, Senator McCain.
MCCAIN: I believe we can, for all intents and
purposes, eliminate our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and Venezuelan
oil. Canadian oil is fine. By the way, when Senator Obama said he would
unilaterally renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, the
Canadians said, “Yes, and we’ll sell our oil to China.” You don’t tell
countries you’re going to unilaterally renegotiate agreements with them.
We can eliminate our dependence on foreign oil by building 45 new
nuclear plants, power plants, right away. We can store and we can
reprocess. Senator Obama will tell you, in the — as the extreme
environmentalists do, it has to be safe. Look, we’ve sailed Navy ships
around the world for 60 years with nuclear power plants on them. We can
store and reprocess spent nuclear fuel, Senator Obama, no problem. So
the point is with nuclear power, with wind, tide, solar, natural gas,
with development of flex fuel, hybrid, clean coal technology, clean coal
technology is key in the heartland of America that’s hurting rather
badly. So I think we can easily, within seven, eight, ten years, if we
put our minds to it, we can eliminate our dependence on the places in
the world that harm our national security if we don’t achieve our
independence.
SCHIEFFER: All right. Can we reduce our
dependence on foreign oil and by how much in the first term, in four
years?
OBAMA: I think that in ten years, we can
reduce our dependence so that we no longer have to import oil from the
Middle East or Venezuela. I think that’s about a realistic timeframe.
And this is the most important issue that our future economy is going to
face. Obviously, we’ve got an immediate crisis right now. But nothing is
more important than us no longer borrowing $700 billion or more from
China and sending it to Saudi Arabia. It’s mortgaging our children’s
future. Now, from the start of this campaign, I’ve identified this as
one of my top priorities and here is what I think we have to do. Number
one, we do need to expand domestic production and that means, for
example, telling the oil companies the 68 million acres that they
currently have leased that they’re not drilling, use them or lose them.
And I think that we should look at offshore drilling and implement it in
a way that allows us to get some additional oil. But understand, we only
have three to four percent of the world’s oil reserves and we use 25
percent of the world’s oil, which means that we can’t drill our way out
of the problem. That’s why I’ve focused on putting resources into solar,
wind, biodiesel, geothermal. These have been priorities of mine since I
got to the Senate, and it is absolutely critical that we develop a high
fuel efficient car that’s built not in Japan and not in South Korea, but
built here in the United States of America. We invented the auto
industry and the fact that we have fallen so far behind is something
that we have to work on.
OBAMA: Now I just want to make one last point
because Senator McCain mentioned NAFTA and the
issue of trade and that actually bears on this issue. I believe in free
trade. But I also believe that for far too long, certainly during the
course of the Bush administration with the support of Senator McCain,
the attitude has been that any trade agreement is a good trade
agreement. And NAFTA doesn’t have — did not
have enforceable labor agreements and environmental agreements. And what
I said was we should include those and make them enforceable. In the
same way that we should enforce rules against China manipulating its
currency to make our exports more expensive and their exports to us
cheaper. And when it comes to South Korea, we’ve got a trade agreement
up right now, they are sending hundreds of thousands of South Korean
cars into the United States. That’s all good. We can only get 4,000 to
5,000 into South Korea. That is not free trade. We’ve got to have a
president who is going to be advocating on behalf of American businesses
and American workers and I make no apology for that.
The youth-led
Sunrise Movement and progressive political group Justice Democrats have
teamed up for the Climate Mandate
campaign to push President-elect Biden to assemble a progressive
governing team. Their message:
Speaking
on the Pod Save America show, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden
explained that acting on climate change is his top priority and why he
doesn’t expect another fossil-fueled electricity plant to be built in
the United States.
The
youth climate activist group Sunrise Movement has published a 
On Thursday,
the Democratic National Committee’s resolutions committee voted down a
resolution that would have established a climate debate for the
presidential candidates, reflecting the wishes of frontrunner Joe Biden.
However, the committee did open the door to candidates participating in
a non-DNC-sanctioned climate debate, a significant victory for the
Today, Joe Biden
[became](https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/breaking-biden-endorses-climate-debate-fossil-fuel-phaseout-at-iowa-campaign-stop/)
the 15th [Democratic candidate for president to call for a climate
debate](http://www.hillheat.com/articles/2019/06/10/spurred-by-youth-climate-activists-over-a-dozen-democratic-candidates-call-for-climate-debate-nixed-by-dnc),
making a mockery of Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez’s
[claim](https://medium.com/@TomPerezforDNC/on-debates-3f6956696e7e) such
a debate would be “at the request of one candidate.”