Jon Huntsman addresses Republicans for Environmental Protection

"Conservation is conservative," according to Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman.

The former Utah Governor and U.S. Ambassador to China focused on energy and the environment during a speech to members of Republicans for Environmental Protection in Washington yesterday.

More quotes from Huntsman's speech:

"I also believe science should be driving our discussion on climate change." - LA Times

"We have a heroin like addiction to imported oil." - Politico

Jon Huntsman on energy in New Hampshire:

Jon Huntsman talks energy independence at Dartmouth College - July 2011 in Hanover, NH

Jon Huntsman on gas prices, natural gas - May 2011 in Windham, NH

Brookings Institute Report: Green jobs growth in New Hampshire

New Hampshire added 3,915 "clean jobs" from 2003 to 2010, bringing the total number of clean economy jobs in the state to 12,886. The statistic comes from a new Brookings Institute report titled Sizing the Clean Economy: A National and Regional Green Jobs Assessment.

Fact Sheet: The Clean Economy in New Hampshire

Jon Huntsman talks energy independence at Dartmouth College

2012 Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman embraced natural gas as a cheap, clean transitional fuel during his appearance at Darmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire yesterday:

The lowest of low hanging fruit, that I think would be an immediate engine of growth in this country - energy independence.

We’ve talked about it for eight presidents. And yet today here we sit on an abundance of resources.

If somebody told you today that the United States had as much natural gas as Saudi Arabia has crude oil, that would be the story of the century. And that’s reality. And yet we don’t be any attention to it. It’s almost like it doesn’t exist.

Everyone wants to draw from the sun and everyone wants to draw from the wind. And I do to. We tried to make that happen in the State of Utah, but we need more time.

We need a transitional product for transportation, for power, for manufacturing that will get us from where we are today to where we want to be in the future.

Natural gas. It’s cheap. It’s clean. It’s ours. And it carries profound national security implications in a part of the world that is dangerous and unpredictable.

 Watch the full video of Jon Huntsman's speech at Dartmouth College. His energy comments start at 14:03

Newt Gingrich Nancy Pelosi global warming ad revisited

Former House Speaker and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich discussed his decision to appear alongside Nancy Pelosi in a 2008 “We Can Solve It” campaign TV ad during an interview with Paul Wescott of New Hampshire’s News Radio WGIR AM 610. The ad was produced by Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection. 

Paul Wescott: Mr. Speaker, we’ve got time for one more question. We’ve got about 10 seconds left and I just want to ask you a question from our Facebook fan page. Do you regret doing that global warming commercial with Nancy Pelosi?

Newt Gingrich: Oh sure. Look I was trying to make the point that we shouldn’t be afraid to debate the left, even on the environment. But obviously it was misconstrued. That is probably one of those things I wouldn’t do again. 

Gary Johnson talks global warming in Dover, NH

Foster's Daily Democrat reports that 2012 Republican presidential candidate Gary Johnson discussed global warming during a recent campaign stop at La Festa, a local pizza restaurant in Dover, NH.

"There is global warming," Johnson reportedly told voters. "It's man-caused."

He also expressed support for clean energy, but warned the U.S. should not abandon coal or oil.

Click here to read the full article.

Tim Pawlenty supports Keystone pipeline, importing Canadian oil

In this video posted to YouTube by Iowa Energy Forum, 2012 Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty expresses support for the Keystone XL oil pipeline and importing Canadian tar sands oil.

Transcript of Tim Pawlenty's comments on energy:

Now as to your question specifically, we talk a lot about importation of foreign oil and we should.

I don’t want to have our country and this much of our future economically or from a security standpoint hooked to people and places and organizations that don’t like us, want to hurt us. And the oil markets can fluctuate depending on what some leader in the Middle East had for breakfast in a given week.

Now the good news is a lot of that foreign oil doesn’t come from the Middle East. It comes from Canada and Mexico. In Canada a lot of the oil is what’s called tar sands oil. It’s a heavier, thicker form of oil and you’ve got to have special refining capacity to process it.

 Fortunately, most of the Mid-West has that capacity. Refineries in Minnesota for example, have that capacity. So we get a lot of our oil, most of our oil from Canada. And that’s a good thing. They’re friendly. It’s nearby. And it’s pretty reliable and dependable.

But many of the other refineries in the country don’t have that, either access to the oil because of an infrastructure problem or a refining problem. So there’s a proposal to run a pipeline basically from Western Canada down to either Louisiana or Texas. I forget the name of it, but it has to be approved by the federal government because it runs across international boundaries.

And Hillary Clinton’s saying, “Eh, maybe. I’ll let you know later.”

Approve it! It’s a good idea. We need all the energy we can get. And if Canada is willing to sell it on a stable, dependable basis let’s bring it here. And Hillary Clinton should approve that and we should get on with it.

By the way, more broadly Canada is a good partner. We have some differences with them obviously, but it terms of energy supply they’re a good partner. We should leverage that up. 

Herman Cain talks energy independence in Dover, NH

Herman Cain talked about energy independence and gas prices at a Republican State Committee Fundraiser held in Dover, NH on Thursday. Granite Grok caught Herman's entire speech on video. His energy comments start at 15:25.

Transcript of Herman Cain's comments on energy and gas prices:  

President Obama went to Brazil recently.

(Booing)

You all heard about that?

Loaned them $2 billion. Somebody told me it was more like three or four. Doesn’t matter, it was still a lot of money. And then announced to the Brazilians, “America’s going to be the best customer for the oil that you get out of the ground.”

(Booing)

I’m just the messenger.

Let me tell you what the Cain doctrine is going to be. America is going to be its own best customer.

We’re going to drill here. We’re going to get all that natural gas, coal. We have enough natural resources to become energy secure and energy independent.

I don’t mean independent from countries that are our friends. I mean energy independent from countries that don’t like us. Or countries that are playing us like a fiddle. Like Saudi Arabia. They’re playing us like a fiddle.

King Abdullah is the king of Saudi Arabia. One his sons was quoted… I don’t remember which one of them it was. He’s got too many for me to remember all of them. One of King Abdullah’s sons actually made the statement prior to an OPEC meeting. And I quote, “We must increase the supply of oil such that America and Europe will not be tempted to develop their own oil resources. 

Playing us like a fiddle.

So when he made that statement, as oil was near $4 a gallon. I mean oil was at $100 a gallon. It was over $100 a gallon. Gasoline was $4 a gallon. They increased the supply and the price came back down.

So some people go, “Phew, we dodged the bullet.” No we didn’t.

I don’t like being at the mercy of foreign countries when it comes to this economy. But if we don’t become energy independent it will also be a national security threat. So it’s economic and national security that we have on the line.

Herman Cain's energy policy

Iowa Energy Forum has posted a new video of 2012 Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain outlining his energy policy in response to a question from a voter.

Transcript of Herman Cain discussing his energy policy:

Question: What do you envision as the energy policy for this country?

Herman Cain: I believe that the federal government with this administration, as well as to some extent the previous administration – the Bush administration to some extent, because I believe that Bush could have pushed harder on some of these things…

My energy strategy is:

#1 Remove some of the barriers that are preventing oil companies from maximizing the oil that we have right here in this country.

Start with the EPA. The biggest complaint I here from people in the oil business is how tough it is to get approvals and permits through the EPA and the Interior Department.

So the way we remove that barrier is I’m going to appoint a Regulatory Reduction Commission for every federal agency to take a look at all the regulations and hoops that people have to jump through.

And for the EPA commission, the members of that commission will all be people from the oil business, the energy business, the coal business, the natural gas business who have been previously abused by the EPA.

Those will be the people on that committee. They will tell me how to fix it.

Secondly, a lot of the lands out west that the federal government confiscated when they found these deposits of shale oil. Let’s issue 99-year leases to entrepreneurs to go out and develop that. In some instances, let’s sell these public lands. 

So this is how you remove these barriers. 

Let a business organization go out there to develop it and create a private-public partnership. As a federal government, we shouldn’t try to do it. So if the government technically and legally owns the land, I would work with an oil company or a natural gas company and say, “Okay, make us a proposal where the government will get some revenue off of this, you get revenue off of this. So it’s a win-win.”

Get the government out of the way.

The other thing I would do is, in addition to reducing the regulations, in order to maximize our oil, maximize our coal, our natural gas and our shale. If we do that and maximize what we have here, you would be amazed at how quickly the world market will respond to the fact that we’re serious about energy security. So I will look and find ways to speed up the process.

This doesn’t mean that we’re not going to have responsible regulations. But you and I know there are a lot of regulations that are useless and all they do is to serve to be a barrier to us moving forward. 

Mitt Romney on renewable energy, electric cars and fracking

Mitt Romney responded to a question about energy while appearing on WMUR's Conversation With the Candidate.

Question: Given the most recent increase in fuel costs and the effects it has had on the average American worker and family, what plans do you have to pursue more natural and renewable energy sources?

Mitt Romney: Well, the natural resources we have in this country are gas, oil, coal, as well as nuclear. And we are not developing those resources as well as we ought to.

This administration, from what I can tell, has basically put the breaks on developing the resources we have in abundance and that represent by far the biggest portion of our energy mix.

Yeah, I’m all for solar and wind. But you don’t drive cars with a windmill. You have to have fossil fuels. Ultimately we’ll have electric cars, but we’re not going to have the country covered in Chevy Volts. Most people have gasoline combustion engines.

And so we’ve got to develop our oil resources and be drilling for more oil and searching our land to find out where that oil is. We’ve got to be developing our gas resources.

There was this great breakthrough and I’m not sure if you’re familiar with it. We used to only drill vertically to get oil and gas out of the ground. Someone discovered a way to go down vertically and then go horizontally. And by the way, by going horizontally you can tap into these gas pockets and then if you use water or a fluid to push the gas out… We’ve now through that technology to yield some 100 years of natural gas. 

So we have sources of energy right here that can power our power plants and that can power our transportation system. Let’s develop those resources.

And yeah, solar and wind and ethanol and biodiesels and so forth. Yeah, we like those too. But they will be a part of the mix. They are not the entire solution to our energy needs.

So I want to develop all of those resources. 

Mitt Romney on EPA, carbon

Mitt Romney came out in opposition to EPA regulation of carbon emissions at a Town Hall Meeting in Derry, New Hampshire last Thursday. Romney's latest comments on climate change were first reported by Think Progress.

I believe we should keep our air and our water clean. And that we don’t want to have pollutants that are interfering with our health and damaging the ability of our children to enjoy good health. So no question we have to have standards that improve the quality of our air. And I support reasonable standards. … Do I support the EPA? In much of its mission yes, but in some of its mission no. 

The EPA getting into carbon footprints, and... I think we may have made a mistake, we have made a mistake is what I believe, in saying that the EPA should regulate carbon emissions. I don’t think that was the intent of the original legislation, and I don’t think carbon is a pollutant in the sense of harming our bodies.

We can agree to disagree … My view is that the EPA getting into carbon and regulating carbon has gone beyond the original intent of the legislation. I do believe we should reduce the pollutants that harm our health.

Jon Huntsman answers question about ethanol (Video)

GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman reiterated his opposition to ethanol subsidies during a campaign stop in Sarasota, Florida over the weekend. The former Utah Governor and U.S. Ambassador to China also expressed his opposition to subsidies of all kinds.

Video of Jon Huntsman's ethanol comments:

Transcript of Jon Huntsman's comments on ethanol and subsidies:

Question: Governor, I have to put ethanol in my car. It fowls up my boat. It fowls up my car. It costs a lot more to make that ethanol. What’s your feeling about ethanol in today’s day and age?

Jon Huntsman: Well, there is probably a reason why the governor of Iowa is a little upset with me right now.

I don’t like subsidies that go into ethanol. In fact, I don’t like subsidies at all. And I think it is a budget issue in this country. And at some point, whether it’s through tax reforms, loopholes, biases or deductions. Whether it’s subsidies that get to the tens of billions of dollars. We’ve got to address that. And we’ve got to create a level playing field for people in this country and we’re not there today.

So, just look at the subsidy per gallon. You know, we already talked to ratching up to $13 when you factor in what I’ve already run through in the Middle East. We’ve got a similar situation in our subsidies for ethanol. I think it is something that needs to be addressed. 

Jon Huntsman: $13 a gallon real price of gasoline

Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman spoke at length about energy independence and natural gas during his weekend visit to Sarasota, Florida. 

Video of Jon Huntsman's comments on energy independence starts at 3:52

Transcript:

The lowest of low hanging fruit – and we’ve been talking about it forever, but not quite taking it seriously - is energy independence.

I’m here to tell you that for eight presidents, going all the way back to Richard Nixon, who stood up and said, “37% imported oil. This is a travesty. We can do better than that. We’re never going to let it get beyond 37%.”

Only to have President Carter stand up and say, “40% imported oil. I am going to create the Department of Energy to ensure that this never, never happens again.”

Here we sit today at 60% imported oil. And we are saying to ourselves, “Four bucks a gallon? Four bucks and fifty cents a gallon?”

And we that’s real?

Go take a look at what the Milken Institute in Los Angeles has to say about what it’s really costing all of us for a gallon of gas.

When you factor in deployments to the Middle East. When you factor in keeping the sea lanes open for the importation of imported oil. When you look at terminaling, storage, distribution costs, etc… It is $13 a gallon from what the analysts are saying.

And I say, “We ought to be outraged and we can do better in this country.”

You want to take a real cut at the trade imbalance? You want to do something that carries profoundly important national security implications? Get imported oil down. We can do it.

We’ve got a product in this country called natural gas. And I met an entrepreneur in the northern part of Utah as governor as I was tooling around visiting people in my Suburban. And he said, “I’d love to convert your Suburban to natural gas.”

I thought, “You can do that? You can drive a natural gas car?” I had no idea!

I paid out of pocket. I had it converted. And you know what? People would call in and say, “Gee, I’m really tired Mr. Governor of paying $4 a gallon for gasoline.” - as if the governor can somehow break up the cartel in the Middle East.

And I’d say, “Let me tell you what I paid this morning for gasoline. I paid the equivalent of $1. Natural gas.”

People started buying natural gas cars. It spawned a little revolution in our state and I saw the power of what alternative fuels and natural gas can do in this country. 

It is ours. It is clean. It is cheap. And it has profoundly important national security implications. This is low hanging fruit and we should be seizing it. 

Ron Paul on energy subsidies and tax credits (Video)

Texas Congressman and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul talked his reasons for opposing energy subsidies and supporting energy tax credits in his Weekly Update for June 27, 2011. Paul also reiterated his opposition to ethanol mandates, while calling for tax credits for vehicles that run on natural gas and deregulation of the offshore drilling industry.

Transcript of Ron Paul's comments on energy:

As the economy continues in its downward spiral and talks in Congress about reducing spending have only amounted to political theater, the subject of how the tax code treats energy has become a topic of controversy. Specifically, should we subsidize, enforce mandates, or give tax credits and deductions to industries like ethanol and natural gas? Having a thriving energy market domestically is a good thing and something the government should not hinder. Not only would decreasing our dependence on foreign oil simplify our foreign policy, but it would greatly enhance our anemic economy at home.

Of course, the government should neither inhibit nor subsidize any particular type of energy. While many people agree with that statement, there is much confusion over the difference between government subsidies and tax credits or deductions. The difference is night and day, yet so many times they are all lumped together as evil government handouts. A subsidy IS a government handout. It amounts to the government taking money from the people and giving it to a favored interest. It is the worst sort of market manipulation and it is something I can never support. This kind of government mischief is anathema to the Constitution and the principles of freedom and the free market.

By contrast, with tax credits and deductions, industries, business, and individuals simply get to keep more of the money they have earned. Ideally, the tax code should not be used for social engineering, but, until we have true tax reform, I will always support tax credits and deductions that keep more dollars in the private sector where they are spent, saved, or invested. This means I will support tax credits and deductions for energy producers, farmers, homeschoolers, family child care expenditures, expenses of evacuees from disaster areas, and even adoption expenses. I’ve almost never met a tax cut, deduction, or credit I didn’t like. Any measure that keeps money in the private sector to spend, save or invest, rather than allowing the government to waste or misallocate is a win for the economy.

Inequities in the tax code dealing with tax credits should be solved by giving all participants equal treatment.

I oppose ethanol mandates because I do not think anyone should be forced to use or buy ethanol. Ethanol mandates often serve as corporate welfare for big agriculture ethanol producers. The marketplace should decide whether or not to use ethanol, and producers of ethanol have to discover if they can produce it at a price that makes good business sense. No industry should be allowed to use legislation to create a “market” for its products. The real reason ethanol mandates continue to surface in federal legislation is that agribusiness continues to have one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington.

Furthermore, while I do not support providing federal grants to any industry, I do support the tax credits contained in the NAT Gas Act, HR 1380. These credits reduce taxes for the production or purchase of vehicles that run on American-made natural gas. These credits are not subsidies. Of course, we should repeal federal barriers to energy production and reduce taxes on all forms of energy. Therefore, I have also introduced the Affordable Gas Price Act HR 1102 which would remove governmental barriers to offshore drilling, encourage private investment in new refineries and suspend taxes on gasoline when the price at the pump reaches a certain threshold. Lowering taxes to encourage the domestic production of energy and getting government out of the way of the American energy market is not a government giveaway; it is the way it should be in a free country.

Andy Martin: Birther king turned environmentalist?

Republican presidential candidate Andy Martin returns to New Hampshire on Friday, July 8, 2011. He plans to campaign against the Northern Pass project in Keene.

Martin, who once promised to nail NH GOP Chairman Jack Kimball’s scalp to the table (or wall), appears to have found a soft spot in his heart for the environment. He’s launched a new blog and TV ad opposing the Northern Pass, although keener eyes will notice the blog – StopNothernPass.blogspot.com – is full of thinly veiled requests for donations. 

The self-described “King of the Birthers” took fellow GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann to task after last month’s CNN debate, defending the EPA as the creation of a Republican president (Richard Nixon):

Then there is Bachmann’s war against the environment. Here Bachmann is completely unhinged. I do not doubt that EPA bureaucrats exceed their authority and their mandate from time to time. But the Republican Party has historically been the party of the environment. The EPA was created by a Republican president. Bachmann wants to wage war on the EPA.

Out in the boondocks where Bachmann grew up and lived, environmental problems may not have been as obvious when she was a child (although excessive pig and chicken production are a just a couple of the constant threats to the environment of Iowa today, Bachmann’s home state).

Let me speak directly to Michele: “Michele, I have lived in big cites. I remember when you would have dirty linens, full of soot, if you opened your windows in Chicago or New York. I remember when GE was dumping PCB’s in the Hudson River, and contaminated that great waterway. I remember when the air was not fit to breathe in many of our cities. No, cleaning up the environment is never easy. It has taken decades to undo the damage of decades. And, yes, occasionally the EPA oversteps.

But I am not willing to pander to your base, Michele, and tell them we should do away with the EPA and let big business start polluting all over again. No thank you. I support the EPA when it’s right, and as president would correct its abuses when the agency is wrong.”

In fact, the “abolish the EPA” mentality is a large part of what’s wrong with both political parties. Both Democratic and Republican candidates are funded by large law firms and lobbyists, big business and Wall Street crooks and polluters. That’s why the American people despise Washington and despise the Congress. Voters are not stupid.

My observations on the deficiencies in my opponents may irritate some Republicans. But my campaign is grounded in reality not fantasy. Americans want to remove Obama not because he is a Democrat but because he is a socialist and radical. (I was the first person to call Obama a “socialist” on national TV which is one of the reasons he despises me.) Ordinary Americans identify “conservatism” with conservative ideas, conserving what we have, not gambling on untested theories and self-defeating and simplistic solutions to solving the problems of a complex world.

Thaddeus McCotter on climate change

Republican Congressman Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan will visit Dover and Manchester, New Hampshire on Saturday, just one week after announcing his candidacy for president at the WAAM Freedom Festival in Whitmore Lake, Michigan. 

In his announcement speech, McCotter talked briefly about climate change and cap and trade:

We have seen a government that has bought into the myth of cap and trade and climate change. And it too will fail. 

http://www.boston.com/Boston/politicalintelligence/2011/07/mccotter-seeks-votes-and-name/zpuJkCgbMhxYawgSXvWfML/index.html