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Paul Ryan’s plan: Screw clean energy

Paul Ryan is the new face of the Grand Old Party (GOP) these days; so Gas2 felt it would be helpful to see where Vice Presidential nominee Ryan stands on alternative fuels. As it turns out, this new face has some old ideas about American energy.

In March of 2012 Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan, acting as the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, passed a budgetary plan that would, “immediately terminate all programs that allow government to play venture capitalist with taxpayers’ money”. This was a clear shot across the bow of the Obama administration’s goal of supporting the green technology field. The Ryan budget also backed opening up new lands and waters to oil and gas drilling and eliminating Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations.

Additionally, the 2013 budget resolution retained a decade’s worth of oil tax breaks worth close to $40 billion, while cutting funding for investments in clean energy research, development, deployment, and commercialization. The plan called for a $3 billion cut in energy programs in fiscal year 2013 alone. [CAP, 3/20/12]

Paul Ryan currently holds a 0% rating by The Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) with CAF citing his resistance to American energy independence. As for the alternative fuels in the auto industry, well Ryan’s view is that the automaker bailout was an abused process to force new fuel standards on the industry. (Apr 2012)

And there are plenty more votes where Ryan has made is stance on alternative fuels clear:

¦ Ryan voted in favor of H.R. 910, introduced in 2011 by Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) to block the U.S. EPA from regulating greenhouse gas pollution. [Roll Call 249, 4/7/11]

¦ Ryan voted in favor of Scalise (R-LA) Amendment 204 to the 2011 Continuing Resolution, to eliminate the assistant to the president for energy and climate change, the special envoy for climate change (Todd Stern), and the special adviser for green jobs, enterprise and innovation. [Roll Call 87, 2/17/11]

¦ Ryan voted in favor of Biggert (R-IL) Amendment 192 to the 2011 Continuing Resolution, to eliminate the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency. [Roll Call 55, 2/17/11]

¦ In 2011, Ryan voted to roll back light bulb efficiency standards that significantly reduce energy waste and carbon pollution. [Roll Call 563, 7/12/11] http://redgreenandblue.org/2012/08/20/paul-ryans-plan-screw-clean-ener
gy/ big new energy plan: Drill, baby, drill (and kill renewables)

Well, Romney has finally come up with some specifics on energy. Sort of.

His big bold new plan for Energy Independence, announced today, is a vague mish-mash of same-old: lots more goodies for oil and coal, plus cuts for renewable energy that could cost 37,000 jobs and turn the global energy future over to the Chinese.

¦ $2.3 to $4 billion a year in subsidies for oil, the most profitable industry in the history of profits.

¦ Less regulation of oil and coal (because dead miners is an acceptable price to be paid for cheap electricity high coal company profits).

¦ New and creative ways to ram fossil fuels down our throats, like turning federal lands over to the states when it comes to oil, gas and coal decisions (states tend to be industry-friendly, and care less when their spills cross state lines) while fast-tracking nuclear plants at the Federal level (the locals tend to block nukes in their own backyards). Yes, that means Jan Brewer of Arizona could decide to drill, baby, drill in the Grand Canyon.

¦ Doubling oil production in seven years. Which will be tricky, since under Obama oil production is already way up. They’ll basically have to drill everywhere, from the Arctic Wildlife Refuge to the Virginia Coast to the National Mall.

¦ Keep ethanol in gasoline (because he wants votes from the corn states!).

¦ Approving the Keystone XL pipeline – because nothing says “energy independence” like re-routing oil from the American heartland to Gulf Coast refineries so it can be exported to South America. (Note: Philip Bump at Grist points out that Romney is calling for “North American” – not “American” – energy independence. So actual US energy independence is a pipe dream, and Canada’s tar sands oil will be a big part of this…)

¦ Ending national subsidies for renewables – because nothing says “energy independence” like turning the future over to the Chinese.

And as for climate? The word “climate” does not appear in this 21-page plan. http://redgreenandblue.org/2012/08/23/romneys-big-new-energy-plan-dril
l-baby-drill-and-kill-renewables/]
I can't believe these guys are so bent on taking us BACKWARDS, especially given the harm it would do to the country. To me it illustrates just how much they're bought off by Big Oil and the other monied interests who just want to "keep on keeping on" despite the obvious consequences! This is REALLY what you righties want???

Maybe part of what you don't get is that even some in the GOP aren't fond of their intentions:

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Romney’s Energy Policy a Liability…Among Republicans!

Welcome to Bizarro-World.

Poor, poor Mitt. Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, that everything you say is red meat to your Republican base, that all your hard work courting the far right of your party has paid off, you end up on the wrong side of the fence.

We all know the typical Republican mantra: tax cuts are GOOD, and government spending is BAD, especially on that pipe dream of renewable energy. Well, it turns out there is a caveat: if a clean energy project is located in their home district/state…suddenly Republicans (except Vice Presidential candidates) start hugging trees.

Mitt Romney’s “drill everywhere/cut everything” (except oil subsidies) approach to an energy plan includes ending the wind energy producer tax credit, a 20-year old program that partially offsets the higher cost of generating electricity from wind power compared to coal.

But in a strange political twist, some Republicans are daring to suggest that supporting alternative energy might be just what the nation (or at least, their state) needs. Representative Scott Tipton (R-CO), when asked about the Romney plan for wind energy, told ThinkProgress “Do you want to cut it off when they’re on the cusp of being where we want them to be and to be able to create jobs and to be able to part of the energy solution? No, I don’t think we do.”

(Cue twilight zone theme)

I know…weird, right?

But Mr. Tipton isn’t an anamoly. Here’s Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA), commenting on Romney’s stance on the wind energy credit: “It’s the wrong decision. Wind energy represents one of the most innovative and exciting sectors of Iowa’s economy.” Then there’s Rep. Chuck (“pull the plug on grandma”) Grassley (R-IA), never one to mince words, on hearing about Romney’s plan: “It was like a knife in my back.” All of this could spell serious trouble for the Romney-Ryan ticket in Iowa, where the wind industry employs more than 6,000 workers.

These are not liberal politicians by any stretch of the imagination. These are Republican congressmen criticizing their nominee’s lack of support for renewable energy. http://redgreenandblue.org/2012/08/27/romneys-energy-policy-a-liabilit
yamong-republicans/ on Ryan:

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Panic! GOP operatives fear Paul Ryan will be a disaster…

We’ve had a few words this week about how bad Paul Ryan is for the environment and for infrastructure. We won’t get into a long discussion about Ryan’s plans to take a chainsaw to Medicare, since this is an environmental/politics blog. But there’s another Ryan disaster zone, and while GOP pundits are going on Fox News and making happy faces, in private they are rending their garments and gnashing their teeth. Because the Ryan choice has a good shot at nuking whatever hopes the Republicans had of taking the Senate this year, and maybe even holding the House.

Politico (which has been way more in bed with Republican insiders than is probably healthful) talks to some of the GOP movers and shakers… and they’re panicking.

Away from the cameras, and with all the usual assurances that people aren’t being quoted by name, there is an unmistakable consensus among Republican operatives in Washington: Romney has taken a risk with Ryan that has only a modest chance of going right — and a huge chance of going horribly wrong.

In more than three dozen interviews with Republican strategists and campaign operatives — old hands and rising next-generation conservatives alike — the most common reactions to Ryan ranged from gnawing apprehension to hair-on-fire anger that Romney has practically ceded the election.

¦ They worry this will turn the election from a pure referendum on Obama, to a choice election. There’s a reason Romney hasn’t been putting forward many specifics: When the public hears what the GOP actually plans to do, they HATE it.

¦… Like Ryan’s Medicare bait-and-switch: They worry it will be “a millstone” dragging down GOP House and Senate candidates.

¦ They worry “He’ll expose the fact that Romney doesn’t have a budget plan” – and voters will look to the actual GOP budget plan they’ve passed twice… the one written by Ryan.

¦ They worry that Ryan will prevent any hope of Romney’s reframing the election to more GOP-friendly narratives.

¦ They worry Ryan doesn’t come off as ready to be President. “A youthful man who looks even younger than his 42 years, Ryan could end up labeled as Sarah Palin with a PowerPoint presentation, several operatives said.”

¦ They worry “Romney was on track to lose anyway — and now that feels all but certain.”

“This is the day the music died,” one Republican operative told Poltico. http://redgreenandblue.org/2012/08/14/panic-gop-operatives-fear-paul-r
yan-will-be-a-disaster/

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