Politics

Joe Biden says he does not back Green New Deal during presidential debate

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Democratic nominee Joe Biden denied he supported the Green New Deal being pushed by his own campaign’s climate change panel during Tuesday night’s first presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio.

“The Green New Deal is not my plan,” the Democratic nominee told Fox News moderator Chris Wallace of the sweeping agenda which calls for the US to meet 100 percent renewable energy while creating millions of high-paying jobs.

“Do you support the Green New Deal?” Wallace pressed the former veep during the chaotic match-up which frequently devolved into shouting matches between Biden and President Trump.

“No, I don’t support the Green New Deal,” Biden said.

Trump quickly cut in with, “Oh, you don’t? Well, that’s a big statement. That means you just lost the radical left. It’s gone.”

Biden then continued, “I support the Biden plan that I put forward,” Biden maintained, “which is different than what he calls the radical Green New Deal.”

The ambitious environmental legislation was introduced to Congress by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2019 before being roundly defeated in the senate.

Biden, 77, tried to distance himself from the agenda being pushed by climate change activists but failed to mention that AOC is the co-chair of his campaign’s climate change panel alongside former Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.

In July, Biden unveiled his $2 trillion energy plan Tuesday with a heavy focus on the climate change agenda being pushed by the far-left flank of his party, and promised a “clean energy revolution.”

The septuagenarian presidential candidates were quizzed Tuesday on whether their climate proposals would tank the US economy.

Trump ripped the plan, which he said would cost $100 trillion and unfairly punish the US as other nations including Russia and China spewed greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

When pushed on his own climate policies, including the rolling back of environmental standards set by predecessor Barack Obama, Trump said they were killing enterprise.

“I’m all for electric cars, I’ve given big incentives for electric cars, but what they’ve done in California is just crazy,” he said of his decision to fight the state’s auto emissions standards.

He also repeated claims that this year’s unprecedented wildfires in California, which have torched at least 46,560 acres were a result of poor forest management, not climate change.

“The forest floors are loaded up with trees, dead trees that are years old, and they’re like tinder,” he said.

“You’ve got to have forest management,” he continued, blaming the state’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, even though many of the affected forests are federal land.

“If that was cleaned, if you had forest management, good forest management, you wouldn’t be getting this,” he continued.