The most expensive plan that has been proposed is Donald Trump’s. It is several factors more expensive than any other plan proposed by any of the other candidates. Because his plan proposes to spend trillions and trillions of dollars in health care costs that are rising because of climate change, and trying to replace the damage from the increasing forest fires that are literally burning down whole towns, and trying to help the agricultural community that was flooded and will be more frequently in the Midwest, and try to respond to the increasing damage of the hurricanes, one of which we’re seeing right now off the coast of North Carolina.

That is the plan that just costs too much. It will bankrupt America. It is expected that it would cause twice as much damage and expense to the American economy than the last recession, in the decades to come. We simply cannot afford the Trump disaster plan to expose us to those disastrous economic costs. That’s the thing that’s too expensive.

The investments that we’re making are the kind of things we know that pay off. When people buy an electric car, they’re getting a good deal. You’re getting a car that costs 80% less to run in energy. When you get a home that’s more energy efficient, you save energy costs, so that you don’t have to pay the utility company—they pay you actually. You’re generating electricity from your solar panels.

When you avoid a child having asthma, you’re making money, so to speak. So, this is clearly the economically wisest route. It’s the least expensive route, and it’s the one that Americans now understand is a good deal. Americans like good deals. We’re offering a good deal, which is to avoid the unnecessary cost that Trump wants: to transfer profits right into the pockets of the fossil fuel special-interest lobbyists, and take it out of the pockets of Americans whose homes are burning down.

The climate change plan you proposed really hinges upon the elimination of the Senate filibuster.

We have to mobilize the entire United States economy to do this, and it’s virtually impossible if the filibuster exists. There’s a lot of executive actions that the president can take, but some of this is going to require action to go through the U.S. Senate. That’s impossible when you have Mitch McConnell, who’s called himself the Grim Reaper, holds the filibuster. Because if a small minority of senators can block action on meaningful climate change legislation, which they can do in the filibuster, you simply cannot do this to reconciliation. It requires regulatory approaches, which you cannot do through just reconciliation, and you shouldn’t have to do that.

I’m pleased I was the first candidate to say we had to get rid of the filibuster…. It’s really hard to understand how you’re serious about climate change legislation, if you want to allow Mitch McConnell to have the filibuster to stop anything in its tracks. So, I think you’re going to see more candidates embrace this position as time goes on, because people are starting to figure this out. Voters are starting to figure this out. I just don’t understand how other senators aren’t embracing this position.

During the CNN climate change town hall, Senator Warren said that fossil fuel companies want us to be bickering about plastic straws and hamburgers. What do you make of the tone of the debate? Is the left focusing on the right things?

What I know is, that the fossil fuel industry is trying to play the same movie that the tobacco industry used so successfully, to falsify scientific information and distract people from the real recognition of what we have to do. We had to get off addiction to nicotine in the ’70s and ’80s, and we need to get off an addiction to fossil fuels. That requires a wholesale mobilization of U.S. economy, to give Americans cleaner sources of energy.