The Mark UP

Clean Energy To Be A Winning Issue in November

Posted by: Heather Taylor-Miesle -

Many political commentators declared President Obama’s State of the Union address to be the start of the 2012 campaign for his reelection.  They said it was a speech designed to stir the enthusiasm of the base and draw sharp contrasts with his Republican opponents.  If that’s true, what lessons can we draw from the President’s discussion of clean energy?

Democracy Corps conducted real-time polling of the speech.  Here’s what they found:

President Obama generated a strong response when discussing energy.  This section received the highest sustained ratings of the speech from Democrats and independents, but it was also one of the few polarizing sections as Republicans reacted negatively to the President’s call for more support of clean energy (independents, like Democrats, responded very favorably).   Overall, Obama gained 22 points on the issue, one of his biggest gains on the evening, as these voters endorsed his appeal to end subsidies for oil companies and instead focus those resources on expanding clean energy in America.

The President seems to understand what Grist’s Dave Roberts points out: that clean energy is a wedge issue.  While the Tea Party Republicans who live in a reality-free world may not support clean energy, pretty much everyone else does.  Not just Democrats.  Those crucial, swinging independent voters who are likely to decide the election in November just happen to like clean energy jobs for hardworking Americans…and to oppose tax breaks for bazillionaire oil company CEOs. That puts those independent voters squarely at odds with the “drill, baby, drill” ranks of the Republican presidential candidates.

So, here’s a tip for all the candidates who will be on the ballot in November.  Whether you are running for city council or running for Congress, whether Democrat or Republican, it’s time to get on the clean energy train.  It is headed for victory.

Transportation Infrastructure is Important to Voters

Posted by: Rob Perks -

As the election season heats up, candidates would do well to bear in mind that voters are in to infrastructure. According to a new nationwide nonpartisan poll, a solid 65% of the national electorate would be more inclined to vote for a presidential candidate with a strong position on rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure.

“Creating manufacturing jobs and rebuilding infrastructure are both very important issues for voters,” said Dr. Ron Faucheux, president of Clarus Research Group, which conducted the poll for the Association of Equipment Manufacturers. “Based on these poll results, presidential candidates would be wise to focus much more attention on them.”

The poll, which primarily focused on manufacturing, asked this specific question related to transportation infrastructure:

If a presidential candidate has a very strong position on rebuilding America’s infrastructure––including roads, bridges, flood control, drainage and water systems would that make you much more inclined to vote for that candidate, somewhat more inclined to vote for that candidate, somewhat less inclined to vote for that candidate, much less inclined to vote for that candidate, or would it not affect your vote?

·          Much more inclined                     31%
·          Somewhat more inclined           34%
·          Somewhat less inclined              5%
·          Much less inclined                        3%
·          Wouldn’t affect vote                       23%
·          Don’t know/no answer                 4%

So there you have it. If a candidate wants to build support for his or her campaign this year, then it’s a good idea to have a strong position on — and talk about — getting Americans back to work by rebuilding the nation’s aging infrastructure.

 

GOP Responses to State of the Union Lack Vision for Energy Future

Posted by: Heather Taylor-Miesle -

President Obama reaffirmed his commitment to a clean energy future for America last night in his State of the Union Address. The Republican responses, on the other hand, underscored just how stuck in the past the leaders of the GOP remain.

From Indiana Governor Mitch Daniel’s official response to the statements of the Party’s Presidential candidates, not one Republican leaders offered any vision or plan for how America can innovate, create technological breakthroughs, or lead the global clean energy market. One would think they live in some perverse, parallel universe.

President Obama offered a detailed blueprint for how a national clean energy standard, energy efficiency programs, tax credits for wind and solar projects, government support of advanced research, and other measures could create jobs and make America more energy independent.

Frances Beinecke, President of the NRDC Action Fund, states, “More than 100,000 people currently work in the solar industry, according to the National Solar Jobs Census. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the wind industry employs 85,000 Americans. And more than 150,000 Americans currently have jobs making parts for and assembling clean cars — hybrids, electric cars, and other advanced vehicles that hardly existed 10 years ago.”

Neither Daniels nor Romney mentioned these enormous opportunities. Instead, they stuck to the same old call for more drilling. That’s their default button.

Funny thing was President Obama already beat them to it. Much to our concern, energy companies drilled almost 21,000 oil wells in the first eight months of 2011 — the highest number in almost 30 years. That’s nearly double the amount drilling the same period in 2010, and nearly triple the number drilled in 2009.

Yet all that drilling hasn’t shielded us from price spikes. In 2011, the United States produced more oil than at any time since 2003, and yet gas prices still hit record highs. Oil prices are set on an international market and shaped by global forces beyond our control. We can’t rely on fossil fuels alone to power our economy. We need to develop additional homegrown resources like better performing cars, sustainable biofuels, and wind and solar power.

Americans agree. Nine in ten Americans — including 82 percent of Republicans and 91 percent of Independents — say developing renewable energy should be a priority for the president and Congress. But Republican leaders haven’t caught on yet.

In his response to the State of the Union Address, Romney made no reference to renewable power, efficiency, or any other clean solution. Daniels didn’t either. In fact, most of the Republicans focused on President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline last week — repeatedly misstating that this decision cost “tens of thousands of jobs.” The truth is that Keystone XL would’ve created a few thousand jobs (only a few hundred permanent jobs) and the bulk of the oil would have been exported to other countries. But my bigger beef with this reasoning is — if Republicans are so concerned about jobs? Why are they fighting the very public safeguards that will create millions of new positions? Frances Beinecke once again points out that, “public health and environmental standards create jobs at the same time they protect our families from polluters… The number of Americans working as boilermakers grew by 35 percent between 1999 and 2001 because of updates in Clean Air Act standards. Taken together, the environmental technology sector has generated more than 1.7 million American jobs as of 2008.” Why are those few thousand temporary jobs more important to the GOP then millions of good-paying jobs that can never be outsourced and will bring energy right here to our backyard?

Daniels misjudged the public on another key issue when he inserted a dig about light bulbs into his speech. This was a reference to the efficiency standard for light bulbs that will save consumers $10 million a year and that Congress and President Bush supported four years ago. I welcome a little humor in political discourse, but when Daniels mocked this standard, he sounded remarkably out of step. These light bulbs help prevent the need for 30 large power plans and all the pollution they generate. This helps make our families healthier.

Further, at a time when so many families are struggling, Daniels decides to ridicule a measure that will lower monthly utility bills. Just one company in Ohio Florida – Lighting Science Group — has saved Americans more then $34 million in electricity costs each year. The new standards will result in a savings of more then $12 billion per year in the form of lower electric bills. My family members — most of them are conservative Republicans — would never make fun of saving money because they value their hard-earned dollars.

This just another example of how out-of-touch Republican leaders are when it comes to energy. Most Americans want to save money on electric bills, drive cars that go farther on a gallon of gas, and expand clean energy. Today’s crop of Republican leaders doesn’t have anything to offer them.

Most Americans want to save money on electric bills, drive cars that go farther on a gallon of gas, and expand clean energy. Last night, this current crop of Republican leaders demonstrated anew that they have nothing to offer but the same dog-eared roadmap for the race to the bottom.

Amended on 1/31/12 to correct the location of Lighting Science Group.

Gingrich and Romney Offer the Same Tired Energy Policies

Posted by: Heather Taylor-Miesle -

Newt Gingrich trounced Mitt Romney in South Carolina, ensuring that the race for the GOP nomination will likely continue for weeks to come. The Republican establishment may have settled on Romney, but voters keep throwing their support behind the anti-Romney — whichever candidate of the moment sounds as different from the supposedly “moderate” Massachusetts governor as possible.

Right now, Gingrich is the one generating all the passion. But if one goes by their campaign statements, Gingrich differs from Romney more in style (and personal life) than in substance. Gingrich has more spit and fire in him, but he and Romney share many views, including their similarly outdated approach to energy development.

We’ve heard the same tired ideas during the primaries, and we will hear them again in the Republican response to the State of the Union Address on Tuesday night: candidates offer plenty of attacks on Obama, but no new vision for America’s energy future.

Gingrich may be the man who wrote the book, Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less: A Handbook for Solving Our Energy Crisis, but Romney is just as eager to rely on the same fossil fuels we’ve been using for the past 100 years. Romney’s energy blueprint, included in his “Believe in America” economic plan, calls for flinging open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to energy companies, sinking wells into the deepwater, and expanding fracking in the Marcellus Shale, despite a long list of environmental and public health concerns (not to mention small earthquakes).

Neither Romney nor Gingrich has a fresh plan for an energy future built on innovation and cutting-edge technology. Neither one talks about how better-performing cars are putting 150,000 Americans to work right now and helping slash our oil addiction at the same time. Neither one trumpets the fact that American engineers are already making breakthroughs in the next generation of solar technology. And neither one of them urges America to lead what has been estimated as the $243 billion global clean energy market.

Instead, both Romney and Gingrich seem to view renewable technologies as a wasteful distraction. This despite the fact that the Department of Defense—the nation’s largest consumer of energy—has pledged to get 25 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2025 because of national security concerns.

The candidates like to demagogue about energy independence, but they have no plan to achieve it besides doing more of the same—an approach that hasn’t worked so far. We saw it in Gingrich’s acceptance speech in South Carolina. “I want America to become so energy independent that no American president ever again bows to a Saudi king.” That is a fine aspiration, but instead of encouraging Detroit to build more fuel-efficient engines or farmers to grow sustainable biofuels, he called for expanding offshore drilling and approving the Keystone XL pipeline.

When your home has 1.6 percent of the globe’s proven oil reserves and you consume 26 percent of the world’s supply, there is a limit to how much you can influence supply. That’s not politics; it’s geology.

And building a pipeline from a friendly ally won’t help much when the pipeline operators routinely say in the Canadian press that a primary goal of Keystone XL is to access Asian markets. The same operators have refused in Congressional testimony to commit to selling the majority of their oil to the United States. Instead, they are rerouting it out of the Midwest and into the “Foreign Trade Zone” in Port Arthur, Texas, where companies get incentives to export from of the United States.

Approving a pipeline to help dirty tar sands oil get to Asia is not a long-term plan for America’s energy system. Opening more ocean waters to drilling won’t position us to lead the next generation of energy breakthroughs. But that doesn’t stop Gingrich and Romney from singing the same old song again and again.

President Obama recognizes that America’s energy leadership will be built on clean technologies. Last week he kicked off his presidential campaign advertising with an ad devoted to the economic power of clean energy. I expect he will highlight it again in the State of the Union.

Here is how I expect the GOP candidates to respond: They will criticize Obama’s clean energy programs and sprinkle in fossil fuel buzzwords like Keystone and drilling. But their complaints can’t cover the fact that they have no fresh ideas, no innovation, and no groundbreaking vision for America’s energy future.

President Obama Doubles Down on Clean Energy

Posted by: Heather Taylor-Miesle -

I just finished watching the GOP primary debate in South Carolina. It was a pretty entertaining two hours which kicked off with Newt Gingrich admonishing CNN for daring ask a question about his personal question (um, didn’t he try to impeach a President over something personal?) and ended with all candidates agreeing that any of them would be better then the guy in office now. But what I found most interesting was not what they talked about – but what was missing. Where was energy?

Governor Romney made one attempt to talk energy when trying to deflect criticism for not releasing his taxes but besides that, there wasn’t a lot of talk about what will be a central part of our future.

President Obama demonstrated bold leadership this week when he rejected the Keystone XL pipeline. Some are trying to marginalize the Keystone decision by saying Obama made it to please wacko environmentalists. Newt Gingrich went so far as to say, “President Obama has made it clear once again that he is committed to Saul Alinksy radicalism at the expense of working Americans.”

The trouble is that the people lined up against the pipeline don’t fit into a radical box. Republican lawmakers in Nebraska, ranchers and farmers from the Heartland, security hawks in the Armed Forces, and religious leaders from across the country don’t count themselves among the extreme left. They are simply Americans who don’t think a dirty pipeline to export Canadian oil to Asia markets is in our national interest.

GOP leaders have also tried to turn the Keystone decision into a jobs issue, but they can’t even agree on the numbers. One industry-funded study being quoted was so far-reaching that it includes new jobs for dancers and choreographers in its tally. Here’s the number that matters most: the company behind the pipeline, TransCanada, said in sworn testimony the project will only generate “hundreds” of permanent jobs.

Since the jobs numbers turned out to be thin, some lawmakers have tried to claim the pipeline would lower gas prices. But by diverting Canadian oil that would otherwise go to the Midwest, TransCanada has admitted the pipeline would increase the price Americans pay for Canadian oil by $3.9 billion. The other interesting thing is that the price of gas – when DOWN after the Keystone XL pipeline was rejected this week.

Next GOP leaders tried to position the Keystone decision as a sign he can’t stand up to his base. But even some pipeline supporters view Obama’s choice as a matter of fair play. They dislike that Republicans in Congress wanted Obama to ignore the extensive review process required by law for major infrastructure projects and approve a pipeline whose route hasn’t yet been confirmed—all within 60 days.

Governor Schweitzer told MSNBC, “As chief executive of Montana, if they ask me to approve of a pipeline with an incomplete application, I would have to reject it and I am the biggest proponent of this pipeline in America. These jokers in Congress that are trying to force the president to approve an incomplete application are just making mischief.”

What has impressed me most was that even as the Republican leaders were trying every argument they could, Obama doubled down. The same day he announced the Keystone decision he released his first 2012 campaign ad, and the topic was clean energy. It lays out the administration’s energy achievements, but it also positions clean energy as the path to the future.

In the end, that’s why Republicans and Democrats are fighting to win the energy messaging war in this race. They know energy is represents the trifecta of campaign-friendly values: patriotism, independence, and jobs.

The current Republican field’s collective vision for energy adds the value of conservatism — more of the same fossil fuels we have used for the past 100 years. Obama’s vision for energy layers on the values of ingenuity, innovation, leadership, and dominance in global markets. The dirty Keystone XL pipeline doesn’t have a place in the vision, and by rejecting, Obama has not only confirmed his clean energy leadership, but he has laid claim to powerful American values.

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