Climate Excerpts from the CBS Democratic Primary Debate

The
CBS Democratic Democratic primary debate took place in Des Moines, Iowa on Saturday November 14th. Here are the climate related excerpts from that debate. The moderator for the debate was CBS News political director John Dickerson. Hilary Clinton summarized the field of Democratic candidates for President when she said, “All of us believe climate change is real.”

DICKERSON: Senator Sanders, you said you want to rid the planet of ISIS. In the previous debate you
said the greatest threat to national security was climate change. Do you
still believe that?

SANDERS: Absolutely. In fact, climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism. And if we do not get our act together and listen to what the scientists say, you’re going to see countries all over the world — this is what the CIA says — they’re going to be struggling over limited amounts of water, limited amounts of land to grow their crops ask you’re going to see all kinds of
international conflict.

CORDES: Governor O’Malley, you also want to make public college debt-free. You want…

OMALLEY: That’s right.

CORDES: … states to freeze tuition. You’ve got your own family leave plan. How would you pay for it? In Maryland, you raised the sales tax, you raised the gas tax and you raised taxes on families making over $150,000 a year. Is that the blueprint?

OMALLEY: Nancy, the blueprint in Maryland that we followed was yes, we did in fact raise the sales tax by a penny and we made our public schools the best public schools in America for five years in a row with that investment. And yes, we did ask everyone — the top 14 percent of earners in our state to pay more in their income tax
and we were the only state to go four years in a row without a penny’s
increase to college tuitions.

So while other candidates will talk about the things they would like to do, I actually got these things done in a state that defended not only a AAA bond rating, but the highest median income in America. I believe that we pay for many of the things that we need to do again as a nation, investing in the skills of our people, our infrastructure, and research and development and also climate change by the elimination of one big entitlement that we can no longer afford as a people, and that is the entitlement that many of our super wealthiest citizens feel they are entitled to pay — namely, a much lower income tax rate and a lower tax rate on capital gains.