Debating each other head-to-head for the first time Monday night, presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump served up more of their respective usual on issues of climate and energy.
Clinton, the Democratic nominee, took an early jab at Republican candidate Trump while answering a question related to job creation. Her energy plan, Clinton said, would make the United States a clean energy champion. “Some country is going to be the clean-energy superpower of the 21st century. Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I think it’s real. I think science is real,” she said, to which Trump responded “I did not. I did not. I do not say that. I do not say that.”
In a tweet on Nov. 6, 2012, the date President Barack Obama won re-election, Trump did suggest that climates change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive,” he wrote.
He also referred to global warming as a hoax in a series of January 2014 tweets: “NBC News just called it the great freeze – coldest weather in years. Is our country still spending money on the GLOBAL WARMING HOAX?”; “Snowing in Texas and Louisiana, record setting freezing temperatures throughout the country and beyond. Global warming is an expensive hoax!”; and, “Give me clean, beautiful and healthy air – not the same old climate change (global warming) bullshit! I am tired of hearing this nonsense.”
Clinton went on to tout her energy plan, which includes installation of 500 million solar panels across the country, and enough renewable energy generation to “power every home.”
Trump was less than impressed with Clinton’s solar panel idea, noting the Solyndra scandal, which left the government liable for $535 million in federal loan guarantees after the Silicon Valley solar startup went under. “She talks about solar panels. We invested in a solar company, our country. That was a disaster. They lost plenty of money on that one,” he said.
The real estate mogul went on to state that he is “a great believer in all forms of energy, but we’re putting a lot of people out of work. Our energy policies are a disaster,” he said.
Trump has been a vocal opponent of the current administration’s energy policy, which he says imposes too many burdensome regulations on industry. That overregulation is just one reason that businesses have been leaving the country, Trump said. “You are going to drive business out. Your regulations are a disaster, and you’re going to increase regulations all over the place … you are going to regulate these businesses out of existence,” Trump said. “You have regulations on top of regulations, and new companies cannot form and old companies are going out of business. And you want to increase the regulations and make them even worse. I’m going to cut regulations.”
On Trump’s regulatory chopping block is the Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of Obama’s climate legacy. The rule regulates carbon emissions from existing coal-fired power plants by requiring states to develop action plans to meet federally set emissions reduction goals. Clinton has said she would expand on the regulation while Trump has made it clear that he would scrap it immediately.
Trump got one last jab in at Clinton on climate late in the debate when she said nuclear weapons are the “No. 1 threat” that America faces in the world. “I agree with her on one thing. The single greatest problem the world has is nuclear armament, nuclear weapons, not global warming like you think and your president thinks,” he said.