MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript: Energy Industry

Interview

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Democrats are trying to make a positive impact on climate change, it is serious. Two senators who have very different perspectives on the climate issue are working together to learn more. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and also Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island are visiting each other states to discuss the reasons for their differing policy positions. This is good. Most senators ultimately want to find some common ground moving forward.

They join us tonight here on the Ed Show, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and also Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, gentlemen, great to have you with us tonight.

Senator Whitehouse, you first.

What`s -- there are absolutes in climate change. There is no question about it. So what is the mission between you and Senator Manchin here are you see it. What can be gained here?

SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, (D) RHODE ISLAND: Well, one of the absolutes is one is right behind me and that`s what`s happening to the oceans as a result of climate change. You never see the deniers talking about the oceans. They`re always talking about some complicated computer module of the atmosphere.

In the oceans, you know, you measure at fact that they`re getting warmer with the thermometer. You measure the fact that they`re getting higher with the virtually the equivalent of a yard stick. You measure that they`re getting more acidic litmus paper.

So, Senator Manchin has kindly come here to Rhode Island to take a look. We`ve been out on the ocean. We`ve been along the coast line. We`ve been seeing where house has been washed into the seas. And he`s now on a position to go back and say to colleagues from Fossil Fuel States. "You know what? I`ve been up to visit Shelton. He`s not making the stuff up. This is really happening in his state."

This is real people with real problems. Municipalities that need to redo their water work. There`s a lot going on. We`ve got to work on this. And Joe is not a denier. He understands that there`re some real issues that we need to support the coal industry at transitions but that makes him a very important person as we move this conversation into a more practical legislative level.

SCHULTZ: No doubt. Senator Manchin, what you have seen in the Northeastern portion of the United States? Will that work in West Virginia? Can it work?

MANCHIN: Well Ed, here is the thing, basically -- I`m not a denier and I don`t think people in West Virginia or other energy producing states are deniers. We know that there`s a climate problem. And you know what? 7 billion people on planet earth are responsible. We need to do something but also in the United States of America, we want to be energy secured.

We don`t want to be -- have to depend on foreign oil and fight wars in different parts of the world. That`s not been very good for us. Let`s put it that way. So many lives have been lost and so much treasures have been spent, it should be right here. With that being said, we need all an (ph) energy policy.

As Shelton said, I`m not denier nor is he a denier. He understands and we hope the other environmental community understands and we`re going to be using fossil for sometime, for sometime in the future.

Can`t we work together and find better technology to use it much cleaner? The United States government, the Department of Energy has been sitting on $8 billion that we could be investing in a clean coal technology. And then, they`re able to clean up the global climate if you will by having the technology that other countries should be using in a much cleaner fashion. That`s what we`re trying to find that compromise in that balance.

SCHULTZ: Senator, do you believe it.

(INAUDIBLE)

SCHULTZ: Yeah. There`s no doubt.

SHELTON: No. I don`t think that there`s clean coal but I do believe that there`re things that we can do with the carbon dioxide that gets emitted. We were this morning at Rhode Island Company that grows algae, eats the carbon dioxide as it`s omitted from plants and turns it into valuable product. If that can be brought to scale, technologies like that can make a difference and we want to work together on those.

MANCHIN: Let me tell you this, even the President said in his last state of the union that we have clean up -- in America, we have cleaned up the environment more than 80 percent in the last 20 years, more so that ever in the history.

So with that being said, we`ve done socks and knots (ph) in mercury, we can do these things. We need to be able and now be able to take off the CO2, clear stream CO2 and as Sheldon showed me, an algae growth that you can use this CO2 to create more added value products, where than trying to sequester it into the ground. We`re trying to find that next -- the next technology and you can use coal cleaner. You can use it in a cleaner fashion and that`s what we`re trying to do because we`re going to be using...

SCHULTZ: There`s no doubt.

MANCHIN: . the rest of the world is going to use it.

SCHULTZ: No, I understand that -- coal, having worked in the Dakotas and Minnesota, the coal-fired plants up here turn the lights on in 16 states all throughout the Midwest. But the fact is, it is dirty technology and they have spent a lot of money in scrubber technology. I get all of that. But as we move forward, especially your state Senator Manchin, you cannot look at coal and not look at jobs. Any reduction in coal could mean a reduction in a work force. How does that balance out with your constituents in West Virginia?

MANCHIN: Well, jobs is the driving force for all of us (ph). You know,
there`s -- I keep believing Ed, there`s a balance between the economy and
the environment, can`t we work together? There`s -- you have people that
basically -- it`s one or the other, and I don`t believe that whatsoever.

With that being said, we`ve been blessed with Utica and Marcellus shale. We have the shell gas which has been a tremendous boom for our state. And basically, the coal is still going to be needed to provide 30 percent of the energy up to 2040.

What we`re asking for is the government, the EPA to work with us to make sure that we can provide that versus basically trying to eliminate something that`s going to be needed, that doesn`t make any sense.

SCHULTZ: OK.

MACNHIN: And we`ll accept the new technology. We want new technology.

WHITEHOUSE: And Ed, Rhode Island has no interest in hurting a West Virginia coal minor. Our interest in seeing lower carbon levels so our own coast don`t get beaten away by red seas (ph). And there are fishermen, can continue to catch the kind of fish that their fathers caught before them

SCHULTZ: Can we afford, Senator Whitehouse to continue to the used coal all the way to 2040? I mean do we have to move faster than that?

WHITEHOUSE: I think we`ve got to move with real urgency with every technology we have in our disposal and where Joe`s agreement with me is strongest is that there is technology that can help reduce the carbon pollution the coal provides. And that is a common goal that we ought to be getting behind. And there`s money we should spend doing that and there are technology we should accelerate to do that. Some of them are.

SCHULTZ: Yes.

WHITEHOUSE: Right here in my state. Some of them have been tried in Jones state but this is something that we need to go very hard on.

MANCHIN: But Ed, you can`t jeopardize the reliability the grade system. People they are depending on electricity to keep their lives on, keep their read (ph) on. The most vulnerable are going to be the elderly and the poor and what we`re trying to do is keep the system as basically are going to be up and running, affordable, dependable, and reliable and we`re working in balance between the economy and the environment and I`m telling you we can do it.

SCHULTZ: So when is the trip to West Virginia for the both of you gentlemen?

WHITEHOUSE: We`ve got that about three weeks from now.

MANCHIN: We got a good tour for him. We have more wind farm, east of the Mississippi the most any other state.

SCHULTZ: I want to go.

WHITEHOUSE: I took this mountaineer...

SCHULTZ: I want to go.

WHITEHOUSE: . out on a fishing boat.

MANCHIN: Come with us.

(CROSSTALK)

WHITEHOUSE: And we went trolling. We pulled the fish up with the troll and he was just like a real sailor out there. For a mountaineer from West Virginia, he did great on the ocean.

MANCHIN: And we want you to come. We`ll take you to the coal mine. We`ll take you to the coal plant, a wind farm, a hydro. We`ll do it all.

SCHULTZ: I appreciate it. Senators thanks for working together on this. It`s a much needed discussion in our country. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse,
Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, gentlemen, thanks so much.

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