Business Insider GOP primary debate: on Energy & Oil


Joe Walsh: Acknowledge the real problem of climate change

Q: More than half of Republicans believe human activity is affecting the world's climate. Younger Republicans are also increasingly concerned about the environment. Are you?

Joe Walsh: Yeah, the Republican Party had better get onboard or they're done. This is the issue that concerns most young Americans, and the party's got to acknowledge the facts that it exists. Acknowledge that it's real. Acknowledge that on this four and a half billion year old planet, the climate changes and we've been on this planet for how long, and clearly we're impacting this environment. If we don't do this, we won't even be at the table. I don't want a Green New Deal-- I don't want the Democrats coming in and just re-revolutionizing the whole American economy, to a heavy hand of the government--but if Republicans don't sit at the table and acknowledge it's a problem, that's going to happen.

Source: Business Insider 2019 GOP presidential primary debate Sep 24, 2019

Joe Walsh: All-of-the-above, while shifting from coal to renewables

Q: Protecting coal industry jobs was a major part of President Trump's 2016 campaign:

Trump: And we've ended the war on clean beautiful coal and we are putting our coal miners back to work. Clean coal.

Q: Under your administration would the future of America's energy be coal, green energy or something else entirely?

Joe Walsh: It would be all of the above. But it probably wouldn't be much coal. President Trump knows that the coal industry is dying in this country and it should be dying in this country because it's being replaced by cleaner forms of energy: natural gas and nuclear. We lost 15 percent of our total output two years ago under President Trump. We're we're on track to lose 20 percent of our coal output this year. It's a good thing. It should be replaced. It's dirty but it's an all-of-the-above thing: a balance with every issue. Balance our use of fossil fuels knowing that the future is renewables.

Source: Business Insider 2019 GOP presidential primary debate Sep 24, 2019

Joe Walsh: Past: climate science not definitive; now: it's a problem