WATCH: Lamenting Helene tragedy, Walz pushes for climate solutions that create jobs

In answering a question about Hurricane Helene, Gov. Tim Walz opened by saying his “heart goes out” to all who are affected by the “horrific tragedy” before returning to discuss the importance of battling climate change.

In response to Sen. JD Vance’s claims that Kamala Harris’ climate change policies led to increased overseas energy production, Walz countered that the Biden-Harris administration has made the “biggest” domestic investments “in global history” with the Inflation Reduction Act. He pointed to the legislation creating 200,000 jobs “all across the country” in clean energy production.

He also added that Vance previously has acknowledged “there’s a climate problem."

Walz concluded by hammering home the necessity of mitigating the impact of climate change, which he said can be done while creating jobs for Americans.

“The solution for us is to continue to move forward, that climate change is real. Reducing our impact is absolutely critical, but this is not a false choice,” Walz said. “You can do that at the same time you're creating the jobs that we're seeing all across the country. That's exactly what this administration has done.”

With just more than a month to go before Election Day, Vance and Walz met for their first and only vice presidential debate on Oct. 1, hosted by CBS in New York.

For more context, our partner PolitiFact is live factchecking the debate

Newsletters

PBS News podcasts

Stream your PBS favorites with the PBS app

Find more from PBS News at

Subscribe to our YouTube channel

Follow usTikTok

X (formerly know as Twitter)