U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, Barack Obama’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election campaign, has a strong record on energy and environmental issues that should complement, and perhaps even strengthen, Obama’s energy and environmental policy positions.

During his 35 years representing Delaware in the U.S. Senate, Biden has earned a lifetime score of 83 percent from the League of Conservation Voters, only slightly lower than Obama’s lifetime score of 86 percent, but over a much longer term of service.

Throughout his Senate career, Biden has voted fairly consistently with environmentalists and along party lines on energy and environmental issues, but the strong positions he has taken on many of those issues show a deep commitment to the environment.

Solving the Energy Crisis a Top Biden Priority
While running for president in 2007, Biden named solving the energy crisis as one of his top priorities.

“If I could wave a wand, and the Lord said I could solve one problem, I would solve the energy crisis,” Biden said at a rally in Hartsville, South Carolina on March 3, 2007. “That's the single most consequential problem we can solve. It's what you have to do to get greenhouse gases under control.”

Biden is also big supporter of biofuels and renewable energy, opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), and takes a cautious approach to increasing U.S. reliance on nuclear energy.

Highlights of Joe Biden’s Environmental Record:

• Biden is a primary cosponsor of a “Sense of the Senate” resolution that calls on the United States to participate in United Nations climate negotiations. He teamed with Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana to introduce the measure in both the 2007 and 2008 sessions of Congress.

• Biden cosponsored the Boxer-Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, which would establish a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse-gas emissions and require the United States to reduce its emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and to reduce emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. The Boxer-Sanders bill is considered the most stringent climate legislation in the Senate.
• Biden says that 20 percent of U.S. electricity should come from renewable energy sources.
• Biden sees a role for nuclear energy in meeting U.S. energy needs, but says the problem of how to store nuclear waste must be solved. He would invest heavily in finding a safe storage solution and developing ways to reuse spent nuclear fuel.
• In 2002, Biden voted against storing nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain repository, which is currently under construction in southern Nevada.
• While running for president in 2007, Biden advocated raising fuel-economy standards for automobiles to an average of 40 miles per gallon by 2017. He said the goal could be achieved by increasing fuel-economy targets within various vehicle classes by about one mile per gallon every year. He also proposed that all cars sold in the United States be flex-fuel capable by 2017.
• Biden has called for increasing ethanol and biodiesel production by changing the national renewable-fuel standard to require the U.S. fuel supply to include 10 billion gallons of renewable fuel annually by 2010 and 60 billion gallons a year by 2030.
• Biden sponsored the American Automobile Industry Promotion Act of 2007, which would support research and development of electric car motors and batteries and would define the term biodiesel to include diesel fuel made from municipal solid waste, animal waste, sludge, and oil recovered from wastewater treatment.
• Biden has called for the United States to invest $100 million a year on research and development of lithium-ion batteries, which could be used in plug-in hybrid vehicles.
• Biden supports reinstating Superfund "polluter pays" fees, which is a tax on chemical and oil companies that helps pay to clean up toxic sites nationwide.
• Biden sponsored the FLIP-to-SAVE bill (officially known as the Fluorescent Lightbulb Implementation Program to Save Americans Value and Energy bill), which would provide $50 million in federal grants to states to help them distribute compact fluorescent lightbulbs and to educate people on the value of using them. The bill would give priority to low-income households.
• Biden cosponsored the Clean Power Act of 2005, which would have implemented a cap-and-trade system for carbon dioxide and other air pollutants.

Biden Advocates U.S. Leadership on Climate Change
Biden also believes the United States should assume a leadership role on climate change and the problem of global warming by getting serious about reducing its own greenhouse gas emissions.
“I personally believe that the single most important step we can take to resume a leadership role in international climate-change efforts would be to make real progress toward a domestic emissions-reduction regime,” Biden said in a statement he gave before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in January 2007. “For too long we have abdicated the responsibility to reduce our own emissions, the largest single source of the problem we face today. We have the world's largest economy, with the highest per-capita emissions. Rather than leading by example, we have retreated from international negotiations.”