Newt Gingrich’s green conservatism

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich used the term “green conservatism” to describe his 2007 book A Contract With the Earth at a May 27, 2011 house party in Manchester, NH. On Tuesday, the term popped up again during Gingrich's interview with conservative talk show host Glenn Beck.

  

Beck played an audio clip from the 2007 debate on climate change that pitted the former House Speaker against John Kerry, the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts.

“I think there has to be a, if you will, a green conservatism,” Gingrich said at the time.

This gem of a quote was dug up a few days before by Factcheck.org, which recently ran an excellent piece examining Newt’s rather complicated record on climate change.

  

What followed was an exchange that revealed what types of policies President Gingrich might be willing to embrace to address climate change:

Glenn Beck: Help me out. This is a multiyear stance. It’s not a moment in your life.

Newt Gingrich: Well, first of all, I fought in those (inaudible) and I believe in the environment in general and I think ‑‑

Glenn Beck: So do I.

Newt Gingrich: Okay. Second, I think that there is evidence on both sides of the climate change argument, and the point I was making was in a situation where, for example, having a larger nuclear program reduces carbon in the atmosphere, it’s a prudent thing to look at nuclear as one of the actions.

Glenn Beck: But you ‑‑

Newt Gingrich: It’s a prudent thing to develop a green coal plant that takes the carbon and puts it into carbon sequestration to use it to develop oil fields more deeply and can be actually economically done. We do it right now in West Texas…

Glenn Beck: Do you ‑‑ do you still believe in the, you know, the Inconvenient Truth as outlined by global climate change advocates?

Newt Gingrich: Well, I never believed in Al Gore’s fantasies and, in fact, if you look at the record, the day that Al Gore testified at the Energy and Commerce Committee in favor of cap and trade, I was the next witness and I testified against cap and trade. And in the Senate, I worked through American solutions to help beat the cap and trade bill. Cap and trade was an effort by the left to use the environment as an excuse to get total control over the American economy, centralizing a Washington bureaucracy. In the end it had nothing to do with the environment. It had everything to do with their desire to control our lives.

As a presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich has generally shied away from using terms like “green coal”. His 21^st Century Contract with America calls for expanded development of coal, but says nothing about it being clean.

Photo by Gage Skidmore

Yucca Mountain a focus of Republican Presidential Debate in Las Vegas, NV

The question of what to do with the nation’s nuclear waste popped up at the October 18, 2011 CNN Western Republican Presidential Debate in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“My question for you is, do you support opening the national nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain?” asked a member of the audience.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich provided a vague, non-answer, despite the best efforts of moderator Anderson Cooper:

Gingrich: Look, we -- we worked on this when I was speaker. I think that it has to be looked at scientifically. But I think at some point we have to find a safe method of taking care of nuclear waste. And today, because this has been caught up in a political fight, we have small units of nuclear waste all over this country in a way that is vastly more dangerous to the United States than finding a method of keeping it in a very, very deep place that would be able to sustain 10,000 or 20,000 and 30,000 years of geological safety. 



Cooper: Is Yucca Mountain that place? 



Gingrich: I'm not a scientist. I mean, Yucca Mountain certainly was picked by the scientific community as one of the safest places in the United States. It has always had very deep opposition here in Nevada. And, frankly...


Cooper: You were for opening it in Congress, right? 



Gingrich: Huh?



Cooper: When you were in the Congress, you were... 


Gingrich: When I was in Congress, frankly, I worked with the Nevada delegation to make sure that there was time for scientific studies. But we have to find some method of finding a very geologically stable place, and most geologists believe that, in fact, Yucca Mountain is that.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul delivered a straightforward response, opposing the idea of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain:

Paul: Yes. Yes, I've -- I've opposed this. We've had votes in the Congress. There was a time when I voted with two other individuals, the two congressmen from Nevada. And I approach it from a state's rights position. What right does 49 states have to punish one state and say, "We're going to put our garbage in your state"? I think that's wrong. 



But I think it's very serious. I think it's very serious. But quite frankly, the government shouldn't be in the business of subsidizing any form of energy. And nuclear energy, I think, is a good source of energy, but they still get subsidies. Then they assume this responsibility. Then we as politicians and the bureaucrats get involved in this. And then we get involved with which state's going to get stuck with the garbage. 


So I would say, the more the free market handles this and the more you deal with property rights and no subsidies to any form of energy, the easier this problem would be solved. 



Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney concurred with Ron Paul:

Romney: Congressman Paul was right on that. 



I don't always agree with him, but I do on that. The -- the idea that 49 states can tell Nevada, "We want to give you our nuclear waste," doesn't make a lot of sense. I think the people of Nevada ought to have the final say as to whether they want that, and my guess is that for them to say yes to something like that, someone's going to have to offer them a pretty good deal, as opposed to having the federal government jam it down their throat.

And by the way, if -- if Nevada says, "Look, we don't want it," then let other states make bids and say, hey, look, we'll take it. Here's a geological site that we've evaluated. Here's the compensation we want for taking it. We want you electric companies around the country that are using nuclear fuel to compensate us a certain amount per kilowatt hour, a certain amount per ton of this stuff that comes. 


Let -- let the free market work. And on that basis, the places that are geologically safe, according to science, and where the people say the deal's a good one will decide where we put this stuff. That's the right course for America.

Rick Perry also opposed the idea of storing the nation's nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain:

Perry: You know, from time to time, Mitt and I don't agree. But on this one, he's hit it, the nail, right on the head. And I'll just add that when you think about France, who gets over 70 percent of their energy from nuclear power, the idea that they deal with this issue, that their glassification, and that the innovation -- and, Congressman Paul, you're correct when it comes to allowing the states to compete with each other. That is the answer to this. 



We need to have a -- a -- a discussion in -- in this country about our 10th Amendment and the appropriateness of it, as it's been eroded by Washington, D.C., for all these many years, whether it's health care, whether it's education, or whether it's dealing with energy. We don't need to be subsidizing energy in any form or fashion, allow the states to make the decision. And some state out there will see the economic issue, and they will have it in their state.

Federal government photo of Yucca Mountain

A transcript of the October 18, 2011 CNN Western Republican Presidential Debate in Las Vegas, Nevada is now available online:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1110/18/se.05.html

Newt Gingrich's new Contract With America on Energy

Newt Gingrich released his 21st Century Contract with America this week, complete with an entire section on energy. Learn about the former House Speaker and 2012 presidential candidate's plan for America's energy future below:

Unleash America’s full energy production potential in oil, natural gas, coal, biofuels, wind, nuclear oil shale and more, creating jobs, stimulating a sustainable manufacturing boom, lowering gasoline and other energy prices, increasing government revenues, strengthening the dollar, and bolstering national security.

The United States has more energy resources than any other country in the world – more than Russia, Saudi Arabia, Canada, or Brazil. Expanding the development of these resources could create up to 1.1 million new jobs and deliver $127 billion in new government revenues by 2020, according to a recent Wood Mackenzie study. With the right regulatory policies, the United States could be the largest oil producer in the world by 2017.

Yet we pay nearly $4 per gallon for gasoline and continue to import nearly half of our oil from foreign countries, many of which have governments hostile to the United States.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans in energy-rich regions of the country remain unemployed.

It is time to harness the immense natural energy resources our country has, get Americans back to work, and lower gas, diesel, and other energy prices for every American.

My administration will pursue an “all of the above” American Energy Policy that allows expanded development of oil, natural gas, coal, biofuels, wind, and nuclear sources of energy. 

An effective pro-American energy bill will lead to a boom in American jobs, a dramatic increase in the value of the dollar as we spend less on energy from overseas, and more revenue for state and federal government from royalties and increased economic activity.

As President, I will immediately reset our energy policy by removing bureaucratic and legal obstacles to responsible oil and natural gas development in the United States. 

This means development of offshore oil and natural gas resources in places currently blocked by the federal government, such as the Atlantic and Pacific Outer Continental Shelves and the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

It also means ending the restrictions on oil shale development in the western U.S., where we potentially have three times more oil than Saudi Arabia. Unleash America’s full energy production potential in oil, natural gas, coal, biofuels, wind, nuclear oil shale and more, creating jobs, stimulating a sustainable manufacturing boom, lowering gasoline and other energy prices, increasing government revenues, strengthening the dollar, and bolstering national security.

The United States has more energy resources than any other country in the world – more than Russia, Saudi Arabia, Canada, or Brazil. Expanding the development of these resources could create up to 1.1 million new jobs and deliver $127 billion in new government revenues by 2020, according to a recent Wood Mackenzie study. With the right regulatory policies, the United States could be the largest oil producer in the world by 2017. 

Yet we pay nearly $4 per gallon for gasoline and continue to import nearly half of our oil from foreign countries, many of which have governments hostile to the United States.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans in energy-rich regions of the country remain unemployed.

It is time to harness the immense natural energy resources our country has, get American back to work, and lower gas, diesel, and other energy prices for every American. 

My administration will pursue an “all of the above” American Energy Policy that allows expanded development of oil, natural gas, coal, biofuels, wind, and nuclear sources of energy.

An effective pro-American energy bill will lead to a boom in American jobs, a dramatic increase in the value of the dollar as we spend less on energy from overseas, and more revenue for state and federal government from royalties and increased economic activity.

As President, I will immediately reset our energy policy by removing bureaucratic and legal obstacles to responsible oil and natural gas development in the United States. 

This means development of offshore oil and natural gas resources in places currently blocked by the federal government, such as the Atlantic and Pacific Outer Continental Shelves and the eastern Gulf of Mexico. 

It also means ending the restrictions on oil shale development in the western U.S., where we potentially have three times more oil than Saudi Arabia. 

Under this plan, coastal states will receive a share of the royalty revenues the federal government takes in – a benefit that states that drill on land already enjoy -- to give them an incentive to allow offshore development.

This plan will also ensure that federal agencies get out of the way in places where drilling is already allowed.

For example, even though companies have been cleared to drill in the western Gulf of Mexico for months, the Department of Interior has dragged its feet on reissuing permits – and Gulf Coast economies continue to languish. 

Through citizen action, we can liberate America’s energy resources. For example, in the spring of 2008, as gas prices were surging towards four dollars a gallon, a citizen-led petition called Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less called upon Congress to immediately address the energy crisis.

One and a half million signatures later, Congress voted to end its 25-year ban on offshore drilling. By the end of 2008, gas prices has plummeted to under $2 dollars a gallon.

A pro-American energy plan must also recognize the enormous natural gas potential in the United States, especially the development of vast shale gas resources across the country. America is a world leader in responsible shale gas production, and we must continue to promote this form of safe domestic energy production that is creating jobs and strengthening our economy, from Pennsylvania to Texas to Colorado.

This also means maintaining the strong and effective regulation of hydraulic fracturing at the state level and ending the federal government’s attempts to clamp down on this vital technology that has been used safely for more than 60 years.

We must also replace the EPA, which pursues an anti-jobs agenda the economy simply cannot sustain. A pro-growth Environmental Solutions Agency in its place will operate on the premise that most environmental problems can and should be solved by states and local communities. Rather than emphasizing centralization and regulation, it would emphasize coordination with states and local communities, the sharing of best practices, and focus on incentives for new solutions, research and technologies.

The imperative to unleash American energy is not just economic. It is also a basic question of national security. The more energy we can produce here, the less dependent we are on foreign countries, many of whom have interests hostile to our own. At the same time, we must strengthen our relationships with close allies that have vast natural resources, such as Canada. For example, we must immediately authorize the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which will bring 700,000 barrels of oil a day from Western Canada, Montana, Oklahoma, and the Dakotas to Gulf Coast refineries in Texas, reducing our dependence on Latin America and the Middle East and creating tens of thousands of new jobs.

I look forward to learning more about your ideas and solutions for a bill that will end our man-made energy crisis, and pursuing solutions that will create jobs, bring in more revenue, and lower prices for all Americans.

We have done this before, and we can do it again.