...Kennedyeque businessman, musician, skateboard artiste, and politician who represented Texas' 16th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 2013 to 2019. Betois a Latino nickname for people whose names end in "erto," like "Roberto" or "Alberto." He is seeking the Dem nomination for President in 2020 because he has nice hair and lots of teeth. He was born into a local political family in El Paso, Texas and is a graduate of Woodberry Forrest School and Columbia University. In 2005, he was elected to the El Paso City Council. He was elected to Congress in 2012 after defeating eight-term incumbent Silvestre Reyes in the Democratic primary. He declined to seek re-election in 2018, running for the Senate against Republican Ted Cruz, running a competitive campaign that drew national attention because of his skateboarding skills. A few months after he lost, he announced his campaign for President...
will fight climate change through executive action "when" he is elected by ending new leases for oil and gas production on federal lands.
O’Rourke made the remarks in an interview on Thursday with taxpayer-funded National Public Radio, which pushed the candidate on climate change policy and left out most of what he said about it in the published transcript on NPR’s website, only citing his comment that we need to "free ourselves from fossil fuel" and make the same kind of investments that took man to the moon.
Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep asked O’Rourke if he would ask Americans to make sacrifices.
Inskeep said:
When you talk to scientists about what would be necessary to get to zero carbon emissions, they often talk about people having to change their daily behaviors ‐ drive an electric car; that’s not such a bad change. Live in a smaller house. People might feel uncomfortable with that. Have fewer children. Eat less meat. Are you not going to demand any kind of sacrifice from anyone in order to get to zero carbon emissions?
"Yeah, we’re going to have to make an investment as a country," O’Rourke said. "It is not going to necessarily be easy."
"Here is the opportunity to meet a true existential threat of this moment, and I’m confident that it’s going to bring out the absolute best in us," O’Rourke said. "It’s nothing to be afraid of ‐ something to meet head on and to overcome and to do it together."