PA Road to Change: Town Hall Meeting in Scranton
After his town hall meeting in Wilkes-Barre, Barack headed to Scranton to hold a town hall meeting there.
One person asked Barack how he would restore our image in the international community and build alliances with other nations. He said:
When you don’t have allies, it’s a lot harder to get stuff done. U.S. interests are not met. That’s why it’s so important to build alliances. Building alliances means listening to other countries. A lot of our European allies are concerned about climate change. We should be too, but for the first seven years that Bush was in office, he said it was a hoax.
…There’s no magic formula for creating allies. It’s like dealing with anyone else. We’re going to listen to their concerns, show them respect and dignity. That’s what I’m going to do as President of the United States.
Another person asked Barack how he will protect the environment and reduce pollution. He responded:
I’m going to set up a cap and trade system on the emission of gases. If you pollute, then you’ve got a pay a price. If you stop polluting or you reduce your pollution, you can make money. It’s worthwhile from an investment perspective to be environmentally sound.
We put a cap and trade system in for sulfuric acid and basically ended acid rain. American ingenuity is always up to the challenge. I’m going to make sure that natural gas companies should not be able to simply pollute when the rest of us bear the costs of it.
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