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Tag Archives: GOP candidates

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.

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.

GOP Candidates’ Energy Distortions Defy Basic Logic

Posted by: Heather Taylor-Miesle -

Mitt Romney has won the New Hampshire primary. That news doesn’t surprise many, since many pundits predicted it. What is more interesting is who landed in the second and third spots and the closeness???

Ron Paul came in second and beat out Santorum as the far-right candidate of choice. John Huntsman, meanwhile, had his long-awaited “surge” and came in third.  Now momentum shifts to South Carolina, with all candidates staying in the race until that primary is over.

No doubt we will be hearing more about the candidates’ positions on energy and the environment. While these issues haven’t dominated in the campaign, they’ve been a constant thread, featured in debates and talk shows. Sadly, few candidates have offered the energy solutions our country needs right now.

Over the weekend, my daughter and I were reading side-by-side. She looked over at my magazine article and saw a photo of a pelican drenched in oil, and said, “Mommy, you go and make that stop.” Even a four-year-old could see something was wrong with oil run amok.

The next day, I saw a photo from KCOY.com of the man whose job it is to measure California’s snowpack high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. He uses a giant ruler to assess how much water our thirsty state can look forward to in the spring. As of now, however, the guy has nothing to do. The picture showed him standing in a dry mountain meadow devoid of snow.

We are surrounded by shots like these — images that reveal something is profoundly wrong with our energy picture. In the face of intensifying climate change and rising gas prices, we leaders to offer smart policies based on the facts. Instead, GOP candidates are giving us more spin. All but John Huntsman continue to pretend climate change doesn’t exist — despite several of them acknowledging it in the past. Rhetoric trumps reality in their campaigns, and we can’t expect any climate solutions to come from their administrations.

But the distortion isn’t limited to climate. In the GOP debate on Sunday, Gingrich conjured a popular Tea Party boogey man: mythical dust regulations. To illustrate why he thought the Environmental Protection Agency was “incorrigible” he said, “In Iowa they had a dust regulation underway because they control particulate matter… They were worried that plowing on a corn field would leave dust to go to another farmer’s corn field. They were planning to issue a regulation.” That may whip up the anti-regulation crowd, but it is patently false.

As my colleague John Walke, the director of NRDC’s Clean Air Program, wrote on his blog: “Let’s be clear. There are no EPA farm dust regulations. There are no such proposed regulations. There are no EPA intentions for such regulations. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has specifically disavowed such intentions in Congressional testimony when quizzed by suspicious Congressmen.” That didn’t stop Gingrich from hawking bogus claims.

Gingrich’s environmental falsehoods didn’t stop there. He said, “The long term answer to $4 heating oil is to open up offshore development of oil and gas, open up federal lines to oil and gas, flood the market… Under Obama, 2011 was the highest price of gasoline in history. It is a direct result of his policies.”

It is true gas prices soared last year, but the spike was the result of growing demand from China and India, political instability in Libya, trouble with refineries in France, and a host of other global forces.

If Gingrich believes more drilling would have made a difference, then Obama proved that claim false as well. Under the Obama Administration, 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 last year, and nearly triple the number drilled in 2009. Yet none of this expanded drilling made a difference to the global price of oil.

Huntsman was the only candidate in Sunday’s debate to give a nuanced view of energy markets. He said America needs to diversify its energy resources if we want to attain energy independence. “One of the first things I would do as president is I would take a look at that one-product distribution bias that always favors one product.  And that’s oil… We have got to disrupt that one product monopoly that does not serve this country or its consumers.”

Now I may not agree with Huntsman on how to break up that monopoly or which energy resources we should expand, but at least he is looking at the problem head on. That is what America needs right now. You don’t have to have a PhD in economics and you don’t have to write a chapter on climate change for Gingrich’s book to recognize America’s energy future is not secure. My four-year-old can tell you that.

In the face of very real problems like global competition for oil and impacts of climate change, we need real solutions. Not leaders who peddle in false claims.

President Goes to EPA while Most of GOP Candidates’ Heads are in the Sand

Posted by: Heather Taylor-Miesle -

From Capitol Hill to the campaign trail, Republicans have spent the past year lambasting the Environmental Protection Agency and the work it does to safeguard our air, water, wildlife and lands.

Today, President Obama plans to present a clear contrast to the GOP’s misguided rhetoric.  He is scheduled to visit the EPA in a very visible sign of support for the staff and the standards that protect our air, water and environment.

The president’s much-needed trip to the EPA is a breath of fresh air amid the GOP smoke and mirrors surrounding the agency.

Mitt Romney calls the agency whose work annually saves hundreds of thousands of lives “out of control. Rick Santorum claims the EPA’s attempts to reduce mercury from coal-fired power plants is misguided, insinuating the science that proves mercury is dangerously toxic to small children and others is wrong or at least unimportant. Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul want to eliminate the agency. And for Rick Perry, the EPA is um, um, Public Enemy No. 1.

Over in Congress, Republicans have literally wasted more than a year wrongly blaming the sour economy on EPA, instead of addressing the real causes for our economic meltdown. The tally so far: 191 votes taken in the House to undermine environmental protections.

(Hint to House GOP: Keeping our air and water and lungs clean didn’t hurt our economy. Government standards didn’t either. The real cause of the worst recession since the Great Depression was an overheated real estate market, fueled by lax government oversight of lending and financial markets. That, in turn, prompted massive corporate layoffs and plummeting consumer confidence).

Politically, it would have been much easier for Obama to simply avoid the EPA amid all the Tea Party fueled rhetoric and flat-our lies we’ve been forced to hear about it in Congress and on the campaign trail.

But unlike the GOP candidates, the president is echoing not what short-sighted campaign pollsters and contributors want him to say, but what the majority of mainstream Americans say they want and need – clean water, clean air and protection from polluters.?While GOP candidates are busy trying to outdo one another doing the dirty work of Big Polluters, President Obama is showing he’s for defending public health and the agency charged with enforcing the bedrock environmental laws that helped make our country great.

His visit shows we don’t have to follow the GOP backward to a time when we didn’t have the agency and its protections; back to a time when our rivers were so polluted they caught on fire and our skies were so choked with smog we couldn’t breathe.

It shows the sort of leadership we need in this country.