Elizabeth Warren in 2019 Town Hall

On Budget & Economy: Utility profit is OK if they don't externalize costs

WARREN: Gosh, you know, I'm not sure that that's what gets you to the solution. I'm perfectly willing to take on giant corporations. I think I've been known to do that once or twice. But for me, I think the way we get there is we just say, "Sorry, guys, but by 2035, you're done. You're not going to be using anymore carbon-based fuels," that that gets us to the right place. And if somebody wants to make a profit from building better solar panels and generating better battery storage, I'm not opposed to that. What I'm opposed to is when they do it in a way that hurts everybody else. You shouldn't be able to externalize these costs. That's the problem with fossil fuels right now. I think that the best way we go forward here is we invest in the pieces that let us build a future together going forward.

On Environment: Help Native Americans continue stewardship of their lands

WARREN: It's got to be hard to watch your homelands disappear. [In my climate plan] I want to work on this with the communities that are affected--making sure that this money goes down to the community level, that it doesn't go, I'll be blunt, to governors. [In all my policy plans], it's not going to be a one and done that's all confined. So, for example, on the policies about our federal government's relationship with our native tribes, it's about respecting the tribe's ability to take care of their own land, to be good stewards of the land. I will not approve any plans for the use of federal lands that can affect what happens on tribal lands--I will not do that without the prior informed consent of the neighboring tribes. I think that's how we help tribes be the stewards of the land that they have been for generations and I know they will be for generations to come.

On Environment: We need a Blue New Deal to protect our oceans and fisheries

WARREN: I like that. We need a Blue New Deal, as well [a Green New Deal]. I just want to say on this one about the oceans. The rising acidification and the fact that now, in Boston, the lobsters move to Maine because it's too warm in the waters. I talk to folks who fish commercially off our shores [in Massachusetts]. They keep pulling stuff up that they don't even know what it is--[because those species used to get caught] off the coast of Florida. Here's what really scares me. This isn't slowing down. It's speeding up. We count on our oceans for life, not just for food, but what it means in our entire climate. So you want to call it a Blue New Deal, count me in. But part of getting the carbon out of the air, out of the water, out of the soil is also about the change in what's happening in our oceans.

On Jobs: Require green technology be built by American union jobs

WARREN: This is one of the best parts about the Green New Deal. It's not only about setting the targets on green so that we save this planet. It's about a new deal for people who work. It's about worker justice. I have a green manufacturing plan. There is an estimated $17 trillion market for green around the world--what can we do? And I've got a three-part answer to that.

1. Make the big investment in science and research and development, the things we do best here in America.
2. We say to the world, "you can produce whatever we come up with, you can apply it, but whatever is manufactured from it, you have to manufacture right here in the U.S. That will produce an estimated 1.2 million new union manufacturing jobs.
3. There are places where we're going to need to harden our infrastructure. The oceans are rising. We need our workers to have the good, well-paying jobs as part of that.