Ben Carson presidential campaign, 2016/Natural resources

	; ; Presidential candidate; Ben Carson
	Profession: ; Retired Pediatric Neurosurgeon;
	Carson on the issues:
	Taxes • Banking policy • Government regulations • Budgets • Agricultural subsidies • Federal assistance programs • Foreign affairs • Federalism • Natural resources • Healthcare • Immigration • Education • Abortion • Gay rights
	Republican candidate:
	Donald Trump
	Ballotpedia's presidential election coverage; 2028 • 2024 • 2020 • 2016

Ben Carson announced his presidential run on May 3, 2015.^[1]

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This page was current as of the 2016 election.

In a statement to The Huffington Post on January 19, 2016, Ben Carson criticized the Environmental Protection Agency and local government for its actions handling the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. He said, “Unfortunately, the leaders of Flint have failed to place the well-being of their residents as a top priority. The people deserve better from their local elected officials, but the federal bureaucracy is not innocent in this as well. Reports show that the Environmental Protection Agency knew well-beforehand about the lack of corrosion controls in the city’s water supply, but was either unwilling or unable to address the issue."^[2]

After visiting the site of a toxic mine spill in Colorado on August 18, 2015, Carson said he would not be willing to drink water from the affected river as the state’s governor had. “I certainly wouldn’t tell anyone to drink it. We don’t understand the long-term environmental impacts,” Carson said.^[3]

In July 2015, Carson posted on his Facebook that he would change the way the EPA operates. Carson wrote, “My EPA would be much more like NASA and much less like the FBI. I believe we all understand that we want to leave our planet better than we found it. However, I believe the EPA should be a research and technology coordinator, not an armed police force. Find ways we can all pitch in and stop the regulatory mandates. Lead us, not leash us.”^[4]

In his op-ed in the Reno Gazette-Journal on March 29, 2014, Carson wrote, "Many advocates of common sense are also concerned about the environment, but are reasonable enough to realize that rather than using Environmental Protection Agency regulations to stifle abundant energy production, we can use the EPA in conjunction with the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship to produce and export a vast amount of clean energy. This could significantly improve our bargaining position throughout the world."^[5]

In an interview with Sky News published on December 14, 2015, Ben Carson said climate change should be treated with “the significance it deserves” but not as “the overarching driver of [his] policies.” He added that he would have attended the U.N. Climate Change Conference if he were president, but rejected the idea that climate change was the “premier issue in the world, and the cause of terrorism and everything.”^[6]

On September 30, 2015, Ben Carson said climate change existed but disputed that it was a negative phenomenon. "Is there climate change? Of course there's climate change. Any point in time, temperatures are going up or temperatures are going down. Of course that's happening. When that stops happening, that's when we're in big trouble,” said Carson.^[7]

Carson discussed climate change in his op-ed in the Reno Gazette-Journal on March 29, 2014. He wrote, "Whether we are experiencing global warming or a coming ice age, which was predicted in the 1970s, we as responsible human beings must be concerned about our surroundings and what we will pass on to future generations. However, to use climate change as an excuse not to develop our God-given resources makes little sense. Expanding our wealth of energy resources, as well as encouraging the development of new renewable energy sources, would provide an enormous economic lift with obvious benefits, but it also would bolster our role as a formidable player in the struggle for world leadership."^[5]

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