Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said that the only reason that GOP candidates don’t accept climate change is that they are afraid of losing money from high-profile donors.
“There is something special about this issue and it speaks to the corruption of our campaign finance system,” the Vermont senator said while speaking on the Capitol lawn on Wednesday. “But here is the political reality, if a Republican today were to say, ‘You know I listened to the science, I’ve read the reports and climate change is real and we’ve got to do something about it.’ You know what happens to them the next day? Their funding from the Koch brothers and other donors will be cut.”
Money in politics and climate change are two of Sanders’ biggest issues on the campaign trail.
“You know what I have to say to my Republican friends?” Sanders added. “Spend less about your campaign contributions and worry more about your children and your grandchildren.”
Sanders’ remarks came while he unveiled new legislation to tackle climate change by regulating the extraction of oil, gas and coal on federal public lands.
The “Keep in the Ground Act” was introduced by Sanders along with Sen. Jeff Merkley, Sierra Club President Aaron Mair, Trobal Rights Attorney Tara Houska a co-founder of 250.org Bill McKibben. It aims to ends new leases and stop new production for offshore drilling and the Gulf of Mexico as well as prohibiting offshore drilling in the Arctic and the Atlantic.
“We do not have the moral responsibility to leave our kids a planet that is unhealthy and in some cases uninhabitable,” Sanders said. “This is a major major, major planetary crisis and we in the United States have got to lead the world, working with China working with Russia working with India to transform our energy system.”
