2008 Vice Presidential debate, at WUSTL: on Energy & Oil

Joe Biden: I have supported clean coal for 25 years

BIDEN: Absolutely. Absolutely we do. We call for setting hard targets.

Q: On clean coal?

BIDEN: 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.

Joe Biden: Cause of global warming is clearly Man-made

PALIN: As governor of the nation’s only Arctic state, Alaska feels & 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 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?

BIDEN: Well, I think it is manmade. I think it’s clearly manmade. 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.

Joe Biden: Obama believes in investing in alternative energy

PALIN: 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. As we rely 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. 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

Sarah Palin: All-of-the-above approach to deal with climate change

BIDEN: We have 3% of the world’s oil reserves. We consume 25% of the oil. John has voted 20 times in the last decade-and-a-half against funding alternative energy sources, clean energy sources, wind, solar, biofuels. Obama believes by investing in clean coal and safe nuclear, we can not only create jobs in wind and solar here, we can export it.

Sarah Palin: Drill, baby, drill

PALIN: The chant is “drill, baby, drill.” That’s what we hear across this country in our rallies because people are 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. Barack Obama and Sen. Biden, you’ve said no to everything in trying to find a domestic solution to the energy crisis. You even called drilling -- safe, environmentally-friendly drilling offshore as raping the outer continental shelf.

Sarah Palin: I do support capping carbon emissions

PALIN: I do. I do.

BIDEN: Absolutely. Absolutely we do. We call for setting hard targets.

Q: On clean coal?

BIDEN: My record for 25 years has supported clean coal technology. A comment made in a rope line was taken out of context.

Sarah Palin: Exxon & Conoco are not my biggest fan

PALIN: Sen. Biden, you would remember that, in that energy plan that Obama voted for, that’s what gave those oil companies those big tax breaks. Your running mate voted for that. You know what I had to do in the state of Alaska? I had to take on those oil companies and tell them, “No,” you know, any of the greed there that has been kind of instrumental, I guess, in their mode of operation, that wasn’t going to happen in my state. And that’s why Exxon and ConocoPhillips, they’re not my biggest fans, because what I had to do up there in Alaska was to break up a monopoly up there and say, you know, the people are going to come first and we’re going to make sure that we have value given to the people of Alaska with those resources.

Sarah Palin: Nonsensical to leave domestic supply untapped

PALIN: When we talk about energy, we have to consider the need to do all that we can to allow this nation to become energy independent. It’s a nonsensical position that we are in when we have domestic supplies of energy all over this great land. And East Coast politicians who don’t allow energy-producing states like Alaska to produce these, to tap into them, & instead we’re relying on foreign countries to produce for us. We’re circulating about $700 billion a year into foreign countries, some who do not like America--they certainly don’t have our best interests at heart--instead of those dollars circulating here, creating thousands of jobs and allowing domestic supplies of energy to be tapped into and start flowing into these very, very hungry markets. Energy independence is the key to this nation’s future, to our economic future, and to our national security.

Sarah Palin: Cyclical temperature changes affect climate change

PALIN: As governor of the nation’s only Arctic state, Alaska feels & 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 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.

BIDEN: Well, I think it’s clearly manmade. 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.