Speaking at the White House Clean Energy Investment Summit on Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden said individuals who deny climate change “deny gravity” and that “we bombed the wrong steel mills" during World War I.
During the speech, Biden lamented over the lack of investment in clean energy. While talking about Republican cuts to spending on clean energy investment, Biden remarked,
"And as hard as it is to believe, many of these same people continue to deny the reality of climate change. They also deny gravity, but they deny that there's any such thing as climate change. The point is, it undermines the safety and security - the safety and security - of the United States of America and every community across the country."
In his speech, Biden also assured the audience he was being “not unusually Biden controversial” when he told United Steelworkers his thoughts on the American steel industry back in 1973:
Biden said,
"You know it reminds me, I remember back in 1973, I came from Pennsylvania and steel and coal were a big deal, but particularly steel. And I remember making a speech to the United Steelworkers sponsored by US Steel. And there were three thousand people there and I was a young Senator. Come out and I say, 'You know, in World War I, we made a mistake,' and I was being not unusually Biden controversial, and I said, 'We made a mistake, we bombed the wrong steel mills.' And I went on to point out that there'd been virtually no innovation and improvement in American steel mills and that they were investing more money in pantyhose factories - pantyhose factories - than they were in steel, in, in advances in steel technology."