2020 Democratic front-runner Joe Biden said miners need to find "jobs of the future" when talking about transitioning the economy away from fossil fuels.

"Anybody who can go down 300 to 3,000 feet in a mine can sure as hell learn to program as well," Biden said Monday during a campaign event in New Hampshire. "Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program, for god's sake!"





On Sunday, Biden also said he wanted to throw fossil fuel executives in prison for damaging the environment.

"Put them in jail," he said. "I'm not joking about this."



.@JoeBiden on fossil fuel execs: “We should put them in jail” for pollution pic.twitter.com/OLqZMwi4E5 — Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) December 29, 2019



The comment came after the former vice president said that there would not be a single new coal plant made in the U.S. earlier this month. During the December Democratic debate, Biden said he was willing to end hundreds of thousands of jobs in the fossil fuel industry.



Joe Biden has launched a new war on coal.



“No one is going to build another coal plant in America.”



Thousands of Pennsylvanian coal miners would be put out of work.



Joe’s chance of winning Pennsylvania and the White House just flew out the window! pic.twitter.com/Iv7hggp8Le — Daniel Turner (@DanielTurnerPTF) December 11, 2019



Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton similarly vowed during the 2016 election, "We're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business" with her plan to replace fossil fuel-based energy production with renewable systems. After backlash, she later said the remark was her biggest mistake on the campaign trail.