2011 CNN Tea Party GOP Debate: Energy Roundup

Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney all sounded off on energy issues during the September 12, 2011 CNN Tea Party Republican Presidential Debate in Tampa, Florida.

Herman Cain on the EPA

Question: The United States has an abundance of coal, oil, natural gas and uranium. The American people have been told for decades that energy independence is a top priority. What will you do in your first 100 days in office to assure the American people that energy independence will finally become reality.

Herman Cain: The first thing that I would do in order to assure that we get on the road to energy independence, and I do believe that we can because we do have the natural resources to do so, we've got to remove some of those barriers out of the way that are being created by the federal government. I would start with an EPA that's gone wild. That's where we start.

I would put together a regulatory reduction commission for every agency starting with the EPA. This regulatory reduction commission -- one of my guiding principles is if you want to solve a problem go to the source closest to the problem. So the people that I would appoint to that commission will be people who have been abused by the EPA. That would be the commission that would straighten out the regulatory burden.

Newt Gingrich on tax breaks for oil companies

Wolf Bitzer: Speaker Gingrich, some of the biggest companies in the United States, the oil companies, they got -- I guess some would call government handouts in the form of tax breaks, tax exemptions, loopholes. They're making billions and billions of dollars. Is that fair? 


Newt Gingrich: You know, I thought for a second, you were going to refer to General Electric, which has paid no taxes.

You know, I… I was… I was astonished the other night to have the president there in the joint session with the head of G.E. sitting up there and the president talking about taking care of loopholes. And I thought to myself, doesn't he realize that every green tax credit is a loophole...


... that everything he wants… everything General Electric is doing is a loophole? Now, why did we get to breaks for ethanol, breaks for oil and gas, et cetera? We got to them because of this idea, which the young man just represented. If we make you… if we make it possible for you to keep more of your own money, you will do more of it. 



We have a simple choice. We can depend on Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, or we can encourage development in the United States of manufacturing, as Rick said. We can encourage development of oil and gas. We can do it by saying we're going to let you keep more of your money if you create more of what we want. I'm for an energy- independent America, and that means I favor people who create energy.

Ron Paul on the DOE:

What we need to do is cut the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, and all these departments, and get rid of them.

Jon Huntsman on energy independence:

... this country needs to wean itself from its heroin-like addiction to foreign oil. We need energy independence desperately in this country.

Mitt Romney on energy security

We're an energy rich nation. We're living like an energy poor nation.

And if we're going to get this economy going, we've got to… have energy security in this country by developing our energy resources.

Visit CNN.com for rush transcripts of tonight's debate:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/2011.09.12.html