2012 Iowa Caucus: Rick Santorum talks energy, Keystone XL in Ottumwa - Video and Transcript

Rick Santorum discussed energy policy, the Keystone XL oil pipeline, and his views on the environmental movement at a December 31, 2011 New Years Eve rally in Ottumwa, held just days before the January 3, 2012 Iowa Caucus.

Transcript of Rick Santorum's remarks:

We need an energy policy that not only from a national security point of view, but for creating jobs and keeping energy prices down to help manufacturers and other businesses compete.

One regulation the Obama administration just put in place is a regulation that according to the utility industry will require 60 coal fired power plants to be shut down over the next few years.

Now I know they want to get to 20 percent green energy by 2020, I just didn’t think they’d get there by cutting out fossil fuel energy, but that’s what they’re doing.

So we'd repeal that regulation and try to have a program – we’ll put together a program that, again, eliminates subsidies for all energy and says we need a market place, but we need availability of places to get our energy, which means Alaska, offshore, deep water. That means building pipelines.

Alright, I get a kick out of this Keystone XL debate.

Oh, we have this critical aquifer that we have to worry about.

Has anyone looked at the number of pipelines that go through that aquifer now?

I mean, you can’t even see the aquifer if you look at a schematic of how many pipelines are there.

This is just, again, pandering to radical environmentalists who don’t want energy production, who don’t want us to burn more carbon.

It has nothing to do with a pipeline.

It has to do with an ideology.

A religion of its own that’s being pushed on the American public.

 Video of Rick Santorum's remarks: