2019-2021 Town Halls: on Environment

Joe Biden: Green New Deal is in platform and it's not too much

BIDEN: Oh, I don't think it's too much. Now, I have my own deal. I've laid it out in great detail. [The Green New Deal] was the Democratic Party's adopted platform. It requires for us to move in a direction to fundamentally change the way in which we deal with environment. I'm the guy that ran the Recovery Act which invested over $90 billion in bringing down the cost of renewable energy. So it's now more competitive than it is for coal, or for oil, or for gas. And by the way, before I actually went through the whole thing. I sat down with every one of the major unions, they all endorsed me. And I said, "look, this is good. It's not only good for the environment, it's going to provide jobs and you're not going to lose your jobs. Not producing the same energy producing different kind of energy."

Joe Biden: WOTUS: clean water rules create rural jobs

BIDEN: On regulation that relates to fertilizer and water tables: In Delaware, we have a $4 billion poultry industry, and all the manure, a consequence of chickens, is polluting the Chesapeake Bay. We've invested a lot of money, and we found out you can pelletize this and take out the methane, so you can use that fertilizer without the damage that was being done before. The same way with horse manure and cow manure and pig manure. And we can create thousands of jobs in rural America as a consequence of setting up these small industries within communities. That's the way you'll be able to continue to farm without worrying about whether or not you're polluting, & be in a position where you're able to make money by what you do in the transition as well as be able to grow more.

Joe Biden: Pay to put farmland in land banks, for open space & carbon

BIDEN: Two ways. Number one, we should provide for your ability to make a lot more money, as farmers, by dealing with you being able to put land in land banks, and you get paid to do that to provide for more open space and provide for the ability of you to be able to be in a position that we are going to pay you for planting certain crops that in fact absorb carbon from the air. That's part of what my plan relates to, in terms of agriculture and the environment. But if you are talking about regulation that relates to fertilizer and water tables, that's a different thing [and requires regulation].

Marianne Williamson: Deal with factory farming by having environmentalists at EPA