CNN "State of the Union" interviews during 2019: on Environment

Andrew Yang: Constitutional amendment to safeguard environment

We need to start reverse the damage we're doing to our environment. It's not enough to do less of the bad, we have to do some of the good.

Andrew Yang: Help farmers modernize in sustainable way

YANG: We need to help farmers modernize their land use in terms of the environmental impact. We have to try and help farmers modernize and rotate plant crops and try and actually measure the impact they're having on the environment. If you are farming in a responsible and sustainable way, that we can actually make family businesses possible by supporting a food ecosystem that includes more farm-to-table dining.

Beto O`Rourke: Even conservatives want to protect public lands

O'ROURKE: I'm thinking about Teddy Roosevelt, one of the great Republican leaders who was so instrumental in protecting our public lands. I campaigned across Texas. Every one of the counties that I went to, we talked about climate change. I found that this is more of a popular issue across party lines than I would have imagined. This is something that can unite us. We just have to speak boldly and confidently about a progressive ag allows us to get there.

Q: What about environmental disasters?

O'ROURKE: We should help people move when they need to move, when they've repaired their homes not once, not twice but three times just in the last five years. This is an issue of environmental justice. Let's invest in the people on the front lines of climate change, to rebuild where we can and to move where we must. It's not an inexpensive proposition but what is far more expensive is to continue to pay to rebui

Cory Booker: Get politics out of Federal aid for natural disasters

Julian Castro: Don't wait for natural disaster to move to sustainability

CASTRO: My plan calls for investing in national disaster resilience investment and also, very importantly, in pre-disaster mitigation. We don't want to wait until there's a natural disaster to actually make our communities more sustainable. I would invest in that. Most importantly, we have to tackle the issue of the climate crisis so that these storms are less likely to happen in the first place.

Q: Flood insurance rises in cost 18% every year. What about families who can't afford the insurance?

CASTRO: We need to make sure that more people are protected by our national flood insurance program. I would subsidize the cost for folks because I want to make sure that people are protected. And where, because of a natural disaster, they have to rebuild, that they're able to do that. Oftentimes the first folks to get flooded out are the poorest communities. They're often communities of color.

Julian Castro: Will appoint EPA administrator to crack down on polluters

We're also going to set a clean energy standard and ensure that we're able to get to net zero because we have a strong clean energy standard across the United States. And we're going to crack down on corporations that violate our laws. I'm going to appoint an EPA administrator that actually believes in environmental protection and then goes and enforces those laws in the next administrati

Julian Castro: Injustice that 70% of HUD housing is near Superfund site

Kamala Harris: Take on interests with profit motive to pollute