CNN "State of the Union" interviews during 2019: on Energy & Oil

Amy Klobuchar: Carbon neutral is goal; nuclear/coal during transition

A: We have to go to carbon neutral by no later than 2050. With nuclear I would look at all the plants we have right now. It is about 20% of our energy and it doesn't emit carbon. I would look at those plants and make sure they're safe and figure out what upgrades we have to make, but I wouldn't expand nuclear unless we can find safe storage. I wouldn't allow for building of new coal plants. What we're as we phase out coal plants is how we can make them better for the environment.

Q: How do we get to carbon neutrality?

A: Being part of the international climate change agreement again, to have some clout and leverage with our allies will make a big difference. The thing which is really exciting is putting incentives out there for farmers to do things that will reduce CO2 in the atmosphere. That's things like planting winter cover crops. As president I would expand it greatly.

Amy Klobuchar: Energy efficiency is low-hanging fruit

KLOBUCHAR: The former Energy Secretary always referred to energy efficiency as a low-hanging fruit. Putting really strict building standards in place to make these buildings as energy efficient as possible to reduce our carbon. Moving to electric cars and trucks. To do that of course, we need the grid and that's why my infrastructure plan is so focused on green infrastructure. There are numerous examples of what we can be doing to make energy efficiency, which I agree is this low-hanging fruit. You know why it's popular with the public? Whether it's increasing the gas mileage standards and then eventually moving to electric cars, or the building standards, or the appliance standards--it's popular because if people save money they really like

Andrew Yang: Energy companies only operate on the bottom line

YANG: We need to have a carbon tax because we need to have polluters internalize the cost of their pollution. You start at $40 a ton and then you ramp up to $100 a ton to give them time to adjust. But these companies only operate on the bottom line. You can't say do the right thing and then have all the executives get paid for making tons of money at the expense of the earth. We have to tie people's incentives to doing the r then you'll actually see their behavior change very quickly.

Q: Would you ban all fossil fuel exports from the United States?

YANG: I think we have to stop subsidizing the industry, but I don't think that includes banning exports. Because if our fossil fuel industry, which is going to be around for some period of time, is competitive and cost competitive enough to export to another country, I wouldn't stand in the way of that.

Andrew Yang: Convert to all-electric cars, via "Clunker" buy-backs

YANG: We are all going to love driving our electric cars. There will still be some legacy gas guzzlers on the road for quite some time, because this is not a country where you're going to, like, take someone's clunker away from them. But you are going to offer to buy the clunker back and help the

Andrew Yang: Nuclear needs to be on table; new reactors use thorium

Bernie Sanders: Would reinstate LED lightbulb rule, encourage use

SANDERS: Duh! Actually, I follow this issue of LED lightbulbs. We use much less electricity, these lightbulbs last a lot longer, and it is a major, major breakthrough. It's not just moving to sustainable energies. It is also being much more efficient in terms of the energy that we use. If you can get lightbulb that utilizes one-tenth of the power an old inca lightbulb used, of course you're going to encourage that technology.

Q: How do you get people to relinquish the car they love for an electric car that may be less powerful and more expensive?

SANDERS: You do it with financial incentives. You make it worth people's while by heavily subsidizing the industry. We can create a whole lot of jobs by moving away from internal combustion engine cars to electric cars. Every day, these cars are developing a longer range and they're more power

Bernie Sanders: Government loans to help people erect solar panels

Beto O`Rourke: Use cap and trade revenue to underwrite transition economy

O'ROURKE: I was talking about cap and trade. That revenue is used to help Americans meet the costs of a transitioning economy by making sure that all of us can meet our obligations when it comes to climate change. So that's investment in those communities that are on the front lines, that's investment in making sure that you can afford solar panels or an electric vehicle. That's an investment in communities to make sure that we have housing that is closer to where people work.

Q: Would you bring back the Obama-era environmental regulations that Trump canceled?

O'ROURKE: Absolutely. Higher vehicle emissions standards, a clean power plan so that the electricity that we're generating is clean, and we completely electrify our transportation sector. So yes, let's not only reverse the damage that Donald Trump has done, and he's done a lot. Let's go much further than any administration before his has gone.

Beto O`Rourke: Pay carbon cost, so we don't have to change what we eat

Cory Booker: Incentivize farmers that help them enrich environment

BOOKER: Climate is not a separate issue. It is an everyday mission. That means every one of my departments, every one of my agencies, every one of my cabinet members has to be coming up with an aggressive climate plan. Making sure that we're setting standards to put ourselves on a mission to have zero emission electricity by 2030 and a carbon neutral country by 2045. We can do these things.

Q: How will your plan support the domestic agriculture industr BOOKER: My plan is going to have farmers be incentivized through hundreds of billions of dollars. Whether that's cover crops that are going to pull carbon out of the air or ranching practices that help to preserve the soil and minimize the carbon footprint, we can do this and farmers don't get hurt by that. Family farmers will create new sources of revenue by doing practices that preserve our heritage, enrich our environment, and help deal with this larger crisis.

Elizabeth Warren: No more nuclear plants; get off nuclear energy by 2035

WARREN: If you're going to be spewing carbon into the air, it's your responsibility to clean it up. But I actually have a more aggressive plan: By 2028, we don't have any more new building that has any carbon footprint. By 2030, we do the same thing on vehicles, on our cars and light-duty trucks. And by 2035, we do the same thing on electric generation. That will cut 70% of the carbon that we are curren into the air.

Q: What about nuclear energy to help replace fossil fuels?

WARREN: It's not carbon-based, but the problem is it's got a lot of risks associated with it, particularly the risks associated with the spent fuel rods that nobody can figure out how we're going to store these things for the next bazillion years. In my administration, we're not going to build any new nuclear power plants and are going to start weaning ourselves off nuclear energy and replacing it with renewable

Joe Biden: Start on climate change now; do more as things change

BIDEN: Yes, I think it is aggressive enough. It has gotten good reviews from most of the environmental community. But science and technology are going to change. We learn more, we can do more. We have to start and do things we know can be done immedia keep moving. There's a lot we have to do by 2030 just to set in place a set of institutional structures that mean you can't turn it around, like this president has done. It is an existential threat. There is no doubt about that. We make up 15% of the problem. The rest of the world makes up 80%, 85% of the problem. We still have to get the rest of the world to come along. I have great experience in leading coalitions both at home and internationally. I think I can do that better than an

Joe Biden: Credits Green New Deal, but it lacks specifics

BIDEN: No, it's not. But it doesn't have a lot of specifics about exactly what we'll do with regard to greenhouse gases. It doesn't have specifics of what programs are you going to initiate to be able to deal with getting a net zero emission. I think the Green New Deal deserves an enormous amount of credit for bringing this to a head in a way that it hasn't been before.

Julian Castro: Carbon-free America by 2045, clean electricity by 2035

CASTRO: I am in favor of a carbon-free America. I believe that we can get to net zero by 2045 and that we can achieve, in our electricity sector, for instance, relying on clean, renewable and zero emissions energy by 2035.

Q: Would you end oil and gas drilling on public lands?

CASTRO: Yes, I would prohibit the permitting of oil and gas leasing on public lands. I don't believe that that should happen on our public lands. I think that that goes contrary to the purpose of preserving public lands, and this is consistent with moving to sources of clean renewable energy instead of dirty fossil fuel energy.

Kamala Harris: Shouldn't sell/lease public land for drilling

HARRIS: Ultimately, it's about empowering communities that are often ignored. All of those communities have been disproportionately impacted by the change that we are seeing in our climate, not to mention the kind of behaviors by the fossil fuel industry that have been about pollution, about dumping and all that. It should be our responsibility to make sure that we leverage the incredible power we have in a way that is about empowering the communities that have been long overlooked and ignored.

Q: What about public lands?

HARRIS: We should not be selling or leasing public land for the purposes of drilling. One of my greatest priorities on this subject will be about preservation of public lands.

Pete Buttigieg: Federal investment in renewable tech for farms

BUTTIGIEG: Uncertainty is one of the biggest enemies that a farmer has, and we're adding an awful lot of it with what's happening with climate change. Rural Americans can be a huge part of the solution. To me, the quest for the net zero emissions cattle farm is one of the most exciting things we might undertake as a country. It can be done right now, scientifically, but it's completely unaffordable. We need to change the eco And, yes, that means federal investment.

Q: You support a carbon tax?

BUTTIGIEG: We need balance in all of our consumption patterns and part of what a carbon tax and dividend does is it resets the price signals in the market to help make that happen without ordering Americans to abandon something. Instead we change the economic signals. We bring it into balance, which is what we have lost when it comes to our relationship with creation, with the earth that sustains our ability to live

Pete Buttigieg: Military can play huge role in solving climate change

BUTTIGIEG: The exciting thing is that the military can be a huge part of the solution. The military's got an amazing capacity to rally to achieve what is being asked of them. By making sure, for example, fleet and future uses of fuel are relying on biofuels, by making sure the installed base of the American military footprint is carbon neutral or negative. The purchasing power of the U.S. military and the resolve of our service members to get stuff done could help lead the way for the rest of society.

Mike Pence: Climate change is not an emergency

PENCE: What I will tell you is that we will always follow the science on that in this administration.

Q: The science says it is.

PENCE: What we won't do -- and the Clean Power Plan was all about that -- was hamstringing energy in this country, raising the cost of utility rates for working families across this country...

Q: But is it a threat?

PENCE: What we have said is that we're not going to raise utility rates. America has the cleanest air and water in the world.

Q: That is not true. We don't have the cleanest air and water in the world.

PENCE: We're making progress on reducing carbon emissions. The answer, though, is not to raise the utility rates of millions of utility rate payers across the country.

Mike Pence: Fighting climate change should not increase utility rates

Pence: We will always follow the science on that in this administration. What we won't do -- and the Clean Power Plan was all about that -- was hamstring energy in this country, raising the cost of utility rates for working families across this country while other nations like China and India absolutely do nothing or make illusory promises decades down the road to deal with it.

John Delaney: Bipartisan carbon tax bill, but not the Green New Deal

At the South-by-Southwest conference, he defended that position. "It is a time for bold solutions. But we also have to put our shoulder behind things that can actually get done," he said. "Because climate is not like other issues. We have an infrastructure issue in this country. But if we wait five years to deal with our infrastructure, it's a missed opportunity. But it doesn't get exponentially worse, so we have to deal with climate change right away."

Delaney said he would get a bipartisan carbon tax bill passed in his first year as president. "We have to have a goal around climate that's realistic," he said.

Pete Buttigieg: Green New Deal is a framework addressing climate & jobs