2024 Vice Presidential debate: Gov. Tim Walz vs. Sen. JD Vance: on Energy & Oil

JD Vance: We should produce as much energy as possible in the USA

TW: Senator Vance has said that there's a climate problem in the past, Donald Trump called it a hoax and then joked that these things would make more beachfront property to be able to invest in. So the solution for us is to continue to move forward. Reducing our impact is absolutely critical. But this is not a false choice. You can do that at the same time you're creating the jobs that we're seeing all across the country.

JD Vance: Build more clean energy, like nukes and natural gas

VANCE: What the President has said is that if Kamala Harris believes that climate change is serious, they would be doing more manufacturing and more energy production in the US, and that's not what they're doing. The real issue is that if you're spending billions of dollars of American taxpayer money on solar panels that are made in China, you're going to make the economy dirtier. We should be making more of those solar panels here in the US. p>WALZ: We are. In Minnesota.

VANCE: Some of them are, Tim, but a lot of them are being made overseas in China, especially the components that go into those solar panels. So if you really want to make the environment cleaner, you've got to invest in more energy production. We built [only one] nuclear facility in the past 40 years. Natural gas--invest more in it. Kamala Harris has done the opposite.

WALZ: We are producing more natural gas and more oil at any time than we ever have. We're also producing more clean energy.

Tim Walz: Let's harvest wind and produce more clean energy

WALZ: Donald Trump called it a hoax, [but Minnesota] farmers know climate change is real. They've seen 500 year droughts, 500 year floods, back to back. But what they're doing is adapting, telling me, "Look, I harvest corn, I harvest soybean, and I harvest wind." We are producing more natural gas and more oil at any time than we ever have. We're also producing more clean energy.

VANCE: The real issue is that if you're spending billions on solar panels that are made in China, you're going to make the economy dirtier. We should be making more of those solar panels here in the United States.

WALZ: We are. In Minnesota.

VANCE: Some of them are, Tim, but a lot of them are being made overseas in China, especially the components that go into those solar panels. So if you really want to make the environment cleaner, you've got to invest in more energy production.

Tim Walz: Reducing our impact is absolutely critical on climate change

JDV: This idea that carbon emissions drives all the climate change. Well, let's just say that's true, just for the sake of argument, so we're not arguing about weird science. Let's just say that's true. Well, if you believe that, what would you, what would you want to do? The answer is that you'd want to reshore as much American manufacturing as possible and you'd want to produce as much energy as possible in the United States of America because we're the cleanest economy in the entire world.