Amy Klobuchar in 2019 Town Hall

On Energy & Oil: Our mission: solve climate crisis, without harming economy

KLOBUCHAR: The timing is to make this our mission, like landing on the moon, or the Civil Rights movement where our country came together and said we're going to solve something. And when do you that, you get the new technology and the new results. I was being honest, I don't think we can phase it out in a few years. To me that's like 2 or 3 or 4 years. Right? You have to do it over a period of time, you have to be aware of where people are working and how are you going to do this in a way that keeps our economy going and keeps our economy strong. There is an old Ojibway saying that "great leaders should make decisions not for this generation but for seven generations from now." [We should] put that money into R&D and work with the private sector, perfect the storage for energy, the sooner we can do this, the better.

On Energy & Oil: No all-out ban on fracking; we need a transition

KLOBUCHAR: Because I see natural gas as a transitional fuel. It is better than oil, but it's not nearly as good as wind and solar. However, you have situations where you have dangerous fracking that shouldn't be happening. So as president in my first 100 days, I will review every fracking permit there is and decide which ones should be allowed to be continued and which ones are too dangerous. Then you go from there. And as you put a price on carbon, you will see less of this going on--because once you put rules of the road in place, it's going to become less economically feasible for that kind of fuel. I remember only a few years ago we were celebrating work of the Obama administration for natural gas-fueled buses. Why? It was better than the old kind of buses. So you have to see this as a transition as we move ahead to a better and cleaner environment.

On Environment: Environmental justice: impacted community gets what's needed

KLOBUCHAR: I do have a price on my plan. What I would do is first of all putting a price on carbon, and you can do this with cap-and-trade, or you can do it with simply a carbon tax, or you can do it with a combination with the renewable electricity standard. That alone will bring in trillions of dollars. And some of that can be used to help communities that are going to be affected by this, and make sure people have jobs coming out of this. Then the other part about it is environmental justice, right? And making sure that the communities that are most affected get the help that they need. Once you repeal parts of that Republican tax bill that were so regressive, using some of that money for infrastructure, you get the funding you need--the $2 trillion to $3 trillion range, part of it is with matching funds.

On Environment: Supports Endangered Species Act, but supports de-listing

KLOBUCHAR: Let me make very clear, I am strongly in favor of the Endangered Species Act. I have always supported the Endangered Species Act, and I would do anything to reverse some of the suggestions that the president has made recently to repeal it or to water it down. The wolf in Minnesota, what you are referring to, is a situation where they actually made the numbers in a big way to get off the endangered species list. President Obama's administration supported getting the wolves off of the list. If you follow the rules--once you're over the number of animals then you should allow them to be delisted--otherwise it doesn't really make sense. So that's where we are on that right now, and we'll see what happens if this time the plan will make it through the courts and obviously if they go below the levels they should be delisted.

On Families & Children: Do what science tells us on obesity: more info on labels

KLOBUCHAR: I would do what the science tells us. And I think we all know there's an issue with obesity in this country, we have to do more--I've been a huge supporter of putting calories on the menus, and--so people can be empowered to make decisions on their own. This administration has defied science every step of the way--we have to make sure we look at science and we make sure we do everything that's healthy, not just for individual Americans but also for our environment.

Q: As a senator from an agricultural state that produces large amounts of cheese and beef, can you to take on the beef and dairy industries?

KLOBUCHAR: I am hopeful that we're going to be able to do this in a way that we can continue to have hamburgers and cheese. But understand that there are many people that choose to eat vegan and that is great too.

On Jobs: Focus on rural & job aspects of green energy transition

KLOBUCHAR: I think that we have to make jobs and employment a major part of this. Let's look at the facts even in today's economy--wind & solar are some of the growing areas for new jobs. In today's economy 99% of the wind [energy generation] is going to be rural. So there's a lot of exciting things that can happen in rural America out of this. So there's a lot of new jobs. So for me, as you are transitioning out of coal--as you are replacing this oil with electric cars and other new technology--you make sure that people that are working in those fossil fuel industries have jobs. So we do worker training--to make sure that we're ready to find jobs that are suiting the skills that they've had that they've built over the years.