Voters can expect to hear most of the Democratic presidential candidates push clean energy policies and reject projects that encourage fossil fuel use during Tuesday night’s debate.
Aside from former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, all of the declared Democratic presidential candidates list clean energy and climate change prevention among their top campaign issues.
Here’s a look at each of the five candidates’ campaign positions on climate change and energy policy:
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
The Democratic front-runner calls climate change one of the most urgent threats to mankind and is a proponent of drastically increasing clean energy production.
Clinton plans on releasing a more comprehensive energy plan later in the campaign, but she announced two major goals in Iowa in July: The installation of 500 million solar panels across the United States by the end of her first term and a 10-year plan to produce enough renewable energy to power each home in the country.
During that speech, Clinton hit out at climate change doubters using a variation of the famous “I’m not a scientist” line.
“I’m not a scientist either,” she said. “That’s why I listen to scientists.”
Among the policy ideas Clinton has batted around on the campaign trail is increasing government subsidies for renewable energy while ending subsidies for the oil industry. She plans to defend President Obama’s Clean Power Plan restricting carbon emissions from power plants and recently announced that she is opposed to the Keystone XL pipeline.
Clinton said she believes the United States needs to be seen as a leader in fighting climate change. That will happen only if the U.S. begins aggressively acting to reduce carbon emissions, which most climate scientists blame for driving manmade climate change through the burning of fossil fuels.
“America’s ability to lead the world on this issue hinges on our commitment to act ourselves,” she said. “No country will fall in line because we tell them to; they need to see us making significant steps on our own.”
Clinton also plans to issue a challenge to states, cities and rural communities to set emissions standards that are lower than federal standards. She says federal standards “should set the floor, not the ceiling,” on her campaign’s website.
Clinton has faced criticism from some climate activists on the trail who say she isn’t doing enough to combat climate change and continues to take donations from oil companies even while vilifying them in stump speeches.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders
The upstart socialist is known as a hawk on climate change in the Senate, but so far has said little about what he would do on energy and environmental policy if he became president.
Sanders routinely blasts climate change doubters and is fond of saying “the debate is over” about the science of climate change. He regularly points out that the overwhelming majority of scientists believe climate change is not only real, but is manmade and influenced by the burning of fossil fuels. He also has called for a debate solely on environmental issues.
He has announced he won’t take campaign contributions from oil companies or the fossil fuel industry and took part in the 2014 People’s Climate March in New York City. On the Senate floor and in committee hearings, he’s known for sparring with Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., about climate change and chastising Republicans for their reluctance to act.
“Climate change is threatening this planet in horrendous ways and we have to be aggressive in transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels and defeat the Keystone pipeline,” Sanders said in an interview with CNN in August.
However, he has yet to offer many specific policy proposals or goals for mitigating climate change during his campaign.
Sanders calls for the transformation of the energy system “away from polluting fossil fuels, and towards energy efficiency and sustainability.” He calls for the weatherization of millions of homes and buildings and the acceleration of wind and solar power production.
He also has called for a carbon tax to encourage the shift away from burning fossil fuels for energy.
Environmental groups say Sanders has a sterling record, and the senator usually points to his past in the Senate, including introducing climate change legislation with Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., opposing the Keystone XL pipeline, opposing drilling in the Arctic Ocean and working to grab $3.2 billion in grants to reduce greenhouse emissions in the stimulus package.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley
Clinton and Sanders have sucked up most of the media attention in the Democratic campaign and it’s likely O’Malley will try to impress voters Tuesday and get some headlines, particularly with his detailed energy proposals.
O’Malley’s plans for clean energy are easily the most lengthy and detailed among any of the Democratic candidates. According to his website, O’Malley would take a large amount of actions on his first day in office to combat climate change.
O’Malley says he would create the Clean Energy Jobs Corps, which would retrofit buildings to be more energy efficient, retrofit federal buildings to the highest efficiency standards, require the federal fleet have low- or zero-emissions purchasing agreements and have all federal infrastructure projects meet “climate resiliency standards.”
The former Maryland governor also would direct the Environmental Protection Agency to aggressively limit greenhouse gas emissions by expanding rules beyond power plants to other large emitters.
O’Malley’s laundry list of ideas reflect his belief that a “clean energy future” should be the top priority of the federal government. Within 35 years, he wants the country to be powered completely by clean energy.
He says the development of clean energy is not just an environmental concern but a potential job creator.
“This isn’t about the end of the world. This is about imagining a new beginning and realizing there are jobs to be created,” he said to a crowd in Iowa earlier this year.
“If we seize these investments, we create a new economy with new jobs and better opportunities for our kids.”
In that same speech, O’Malley said 2,000 jobs were created during his time as Maryland governor in clean energy production.
During his time in office, O’Malley helped pass new water quality standards to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, signed a law requiring a 25 percent cut in the state’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, created a state commission to respond to climate change and helped expand renewable energy development in Maryland.
The state also had some of the most stringent standards on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, during his time in office. The state has since passed a moratorium on fracking.
O’Malley also opposes the Keystone XL pipeline and drilling for oil off the Atlantic Coast and supports President Obama’s Clean Power Plan and increasing wind energy production.
Former Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee
Chafee says “climate change is a slow-motion disaster in the making,” according to his campaign’s website. Like Sanders, he has not offered many specific proposals at this point, instead preferring to look at past votes.
Chafee’s most significant proposals are to reduce greenhouse gases and not approve the Keystone XL pipeline.
Chafee’s record includes voting against oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, working against the rollback of clean air regulations and writing the Brownfields Act to clean up, redevelop and reuse many polluted sites throughout the U.S.
Former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb
Webb’s website doesn’t list climate change or energy policy among his top campaign positions. Instead, he focuses on economic fairness, foreign policy, national infrastructure, criminal justice reform and good governance.
Webb’s record includes advocating for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, voting for an amendment to block the EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions and being in favor of drilling off the coast of Virginia.
