Sanders Remarks to Sunrise Movement's Road to Green New Deal Tour
Bernie Sanders
May 13
Excerpt:
If we are going to be honest about combating climate change it is necessary for us to understand that we have an economy that is rigged and a political system that is profoundly corrupt. In other words we have small number of incredibly powerful billionaires who exercise enormous influence over the economic and political life of the country.
That is why the President and Congress voted to provide a trillion and a half dollars in tax breaks to the top one percent and large profitable corporations while refusing to make public colleges and universities tuition free and substantially reduce student debt in this county.
And it is exactly the same thing with the fossil fuel industry. Like the tobacco industry of 50 years ago, who denied that cigarette smoking causes cancer and other diseases, the fossil fuel industry, making billions every year, denies what carbon emissions are doing to our planet. They lie, lie and lie, and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to buy politicians who echo their lies.
In the last decade alone, the oil/gas industry has pumped more than $700 million worth of campaign contributions into federal, state and local elections. In that same time, they spent more than $1.5 billion lobbying in Washington, D.C.
These companies lied to the American people about the very existence of climate change and committed one of the greatest frauds in the history of our country.
https://medium.com/SenSanders/sanders-remarks-to-sunrise-movements-road-to-green-new-deal-tour-7aa183f7a1e0