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:

Rick Santorum talks coal power in Iowa

Rick Santorum talked briefly about energy policy at the November 4, 2011 Iowa Republican Party's Ronald Reagan Dinner in Des Moines.

The former Pennsylvania Senator and 2012 Republican presidential candidate focused his remarks on coal power and oil drilling:

And I’ve saw a lot of folks in green shirts in a lot of rural places in Iowa. Folks that represent the rural electric co-ops. And their concerned because they’re seeing their energy prices going up. And they’re going to go up a lot more if the Obama administration has its way of shutting down 60 coal fired power plants.

We’ll make sure that that regulation doesn’t go into affect. And we will open up energy in America, whether it’s ANWR, whether it’s coal mining, whether it’s drilling. We will have a free market of energy production. And we will lead the world and we will have stable long term energy prices.

  

Rick Santorum made no mention of renewable energy in his speech, an odd choice in a state known for its biofuel and wind power production. 

Earlier in the evening, a video celebrating Iowa's "First in the Nation" status noted, "Iowa is the nation's leader in the production of renewable energy, leading the way on lowering our dependence on foreign oil."

2011 Iowa Republican Presidential Debate: Energy Roundup

Eight of the Republican candidates for President met in Ames, Iowa on February 12, 2011 for a Fox News debate that set the stage for the Ames Straw Poll, an event that spelled victory for Michele Bachmann and led Tim Pawlenty to drop out of the race.

Bachmann and Pawlenty were joined on stage by Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. The candidates sounded off on a number of key issues, including energy policy.

Knowing what the GOP presidential candidates chose not to talk about may be as important to the energy debate as they issues they did choose to focus upon. 

Word count: 

Number of times each of the following energy related terms were used during the first Iowa Republican Presidential Debate of the 2012 election cycle. 

Energy: 13

Cap and trade: 4

Oil: 3

Gasoline: 1

Coal, natural gas: 0

Solar, wind: 0

Climate change, global warming: 0

Now, here's a deeper look at what they had to say.

Michele Bachmann on cap and trade, light bulbs

I would say governor (Tim Pawlenty), when you were governor in Minnesota you implemented cap and trade in our state and you praised the unconstitutional individual mandates and called for requiring all people in our state to purchase health insurance that the government would mandate. 

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The policies that the governor (Tim Pawlenty) advocated for were cap and trade. He praised and wanted to require Minnesotans to purchase the unconstitutional individual mandate in health care. And he said the era of small government is over. I have a very consistent record of fighting very hard against Barack Obama and his unconstitutional measures in congress. I’m very proud of that record. That is what qualifies me, as a fighter and representative of the people, to go to Washington, D.C. and to the White House. 

People are looking for a champion. They want someone who has been fighting. When it came to health care, I brought tens of thousands of Americans to Washington to fight the unconstitutional individual mandates. I didn’t praise it. When it came to cap and trade, I fought it with everything that was in me, including I introduced the Lightbulb Freedom of Choice Act so people could all purchase the lightbulb of their choice.

I also believe in big government is hurting the United States. We need to have small government.

Herman Cain on energy independence, Iran and nuclear weapons

I believe that our energy strategy is directly related to national security, as well as stopping Iran in their efforts. The head of Iran, Ahmadinejad, has said that he wants to wipe Israel off of the face of the Earth. I take that seriously. He has also said — he has also said that he’s not going to listen to the United States, Britain, or anybody else in their attempts to do what they want to do.

That being said, there’s more to foreign policy than bombs and bullets. There’s bombs and bullets and economics. 

If we go serious about maximizing all of our energy resources in this country, we can become a player on the world market. As the price of oil goes down, it puts an economic squeeze on Iran. This is why I believe we should have a serious energy-independent strategy in order to be able to be a player on the world market. That’s what I meant by using our energy resources, not just oil, but all of our resources to become energy independent.

Mitt Romney on what needs to be done to fix the economy

What needs to be done — there are really seven things that come to mind. One is to make sure our corporate tax rates are competitive with other nations. Number two is to make sure that our regulations and bureaucracy works not just for the bureaucrats in Washington, but for the businesses that are trying to grow. Number three is to have trade policies that work for us, not just for our opponents. Number four is to have an energy policy that gets us energy secure. Number five is to have the rule of law. Six, great institutions that build human capital, because capitalism is also about people, not just capital and physical goods. And number seven is to have a government that doesn’t spend more money than it takes in. And I’ll do it.

Rick Santorum on energy, jobs and manufacturing

When I grew up in Butler, Pennsylvania, a little steel town, 21 percent of the people of this country worked in manufacturing. It is now nine. If you want to know where the middle of America went, it went to China, it went to Malaysia, it went to Indonesia. We need to bring it back.

I put together a four-point plan to do it, including energy — producing more energy, because of course manufacturers use more energy than just about everybody else in the business world. But the big thing I proposed is to take the corporate rate which makes us uncompetitive, particularly in exporting goods, take the corporate rate and cut it to zero for manufacturers.

You want to create opportunity for businesses in manufacturing to grow, cut that tax to zero. Our jobs will come back.

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We need to get the economy growing. That doesn’t mean taking more money out of it, that means — making — that means creating energy jobs, creating manufacturing jobs. And my plan will do that.

A complete transcript of the 2011 Iowa Republican Presidential Debate is available on FoxNewsInsider.com