Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
And Then There Was One
Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times
As we emerge from Labor Day, college students are gathering back on campuses not only to start the fall semester, but also, in some cases, to vote for the first time in a presidential election. There is no bigger issue on campuses these days than environment/energy. Going into this election, I thought that – for the first time – we would have a choice between two “green” candidates. That view is no longer operative – and college students (and everyone else) need to understand that.
With his choice of Sarah Palin – the Alaska governor who has advocated drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and does not believe mankind is playing any role in climate change – for vice president, John McCain has completed his makeover from the greenest Republican to run for president to just another representative of big oil.
Given the fact that Senator McCain deliberately avoided voting on all eight attempts to pass a bill extending the vital tax credits and production subsidies to expand our wind and solar industries, and given his support for lowering the gasoline tax in a reckless giveaway that would only promote more gasoline consumption and intensify our addiction to oil, and given his desire to make more oil-drilling, not innovation around renewable energy, the centerpiece of his energy policy – in an effort to mislead voters that support for drilling today would translate into lower prices at the pump today – McCain has forfeited any claim to be a green candidate.
… I am not against a limited expansion of off-shore drilling now. But it is a complete sideshow. By constantly pounding into voters that his energy focus is to “drill, drill, drill,” McCain is diverting attention from what should be one of the central issues in this election: who has the better plan to promote massive innovation around clean power technologies and energy efficiency.
(2 September 2008)
The Unusual Challenges Palin Faced in Alaska
Kirk Johnson, New York Times
Like so many other distinctions about Alaska – the biggest, wildest, coldest state not even half a century removed from its territorial days – being governor here is just flat different.
“Alaska is its own world,” said Tony Knowles, a Democrat who served as governor from 1994 to 2002.
Sarah Palin’s experience as Alaska’s governor since taking office in late 2006 has been a keystone argument by Republicans that she is fit to serve as vice president.
… Many Americans in other states, though, might not recognize the job she holds or the unusual challenges she has faced
… At a time when most other state governments are cutting back, Alaska is now distributing $1,200-per-resident oil-bounty bonus checks.
That said, by other measures, Alaska is harder to govern than a smaller, more settled realm in the Lower 48. With vast distances, large numbers of indigenous peoples and a narrowly based extraction economy – with a handful of giant multinational oil corporations dominating the game – some economists say a country like Nigeria might be an apter comparison.
“Alaska really is a colonial place,” said Stephen Haycox, a professor of history at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. “One third of the economic base is oil; another third is federal spending. The economy is extremely narrow and highly dependent. It’s not to say that Alaska is a beggar state, but it certainly is true that Alaska is dependent on decisions made outside it, and over which Alaskans don’t have great control.”
(3 September 2008)
Palin’s connection to ‘big oil’
Rob Winder, Al Jazeera
Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska who has shot to prominence as John McCain’s choice as running-mate, is best known as a passionate believer in new oil and gas exploration, including in Alaska’s National Widelife Reserve – something McCain himself rejects.
But campaigners say she has a mixed record on her dealings with the oil corporations to which the Republican party has so many historic ties.
“There is no question that Palin’s appointment as the Republican vice-presidential candidate cements the fact that John McCain is the candidate of big oil,” Dan Weiss, a senior fellow at the Centre for American Progress, a Washington-based think-tank, told Al Jazeera.
“She supports the agenda of big oil – of more drilling – and she opposes investments in clean and renewable energy,” he said.
Palin has presented herself as a challenger to corporate interests in Alaska, although that is because she believes the major energy companies have not acted swiftly enough in carrying out drilling and pipeline projects in the state.
The Alaskan governor also sees more drilling of US oil reserves as a way of ending US dependence on oil imports from the Middle East and elsewhere.
(4 September 2008)
Dem greens
Where climate/energy issues stand in the Democratic Party
David Roberts, Gristmill
… I want to take a step back, now that the Democratic convention is over, and consider where environmental and energy issues stand in the Democratic party.
Over the course of the week, I had occasion to see both the back end and the front end of the Democratic establishment’s thinking on energy. The back end was displayed in panels, roundtables, and informal receptions and conversations. The front end, of course, was in the speeches themselves.
The disconnect is somewhat striking. Behind the scenes, more and more people are developing a sophisticated conception of green that places it at the core of economic, national security, and jobs policy (see, for some examples, Kate’s video interviews here). And it’s not just the advocacy groups or the think tanks — politicians were among the more savvy speakers I saw. Rep. Ed Markey was on fire all week, delivering the smart commentary and snappy soundbites Dems have so often lacked on energy (I hope his riff on new wind vs. new nuclear ends up on YouTube somewhere). Rep. Ed Blumenauer is great; Pelosi is great. Colorado governor Bill Ritter is sharp. Our own Seattle mayor Greg Nichols had good stuff to say. And at least on paper, Obama gets it too. His green plan is part of his economic plan is part of his national security plan.
… There are just more and more people in the Democratic infrastructure who get it.
But what is the voter hearing? What’s in the big speeches? Unfortunately, at that level the green message remains disjointed and ineffective.
… This schizophrenic public posture arises because Dems haven’t figured out a way to publicly present green as they are beginning to see it: an overarching governing principle that makes sense of their other values and policies. They don’t know how to pitch the big picture: green is our way out of this mess. Addressing climate change by leaving behind fossil fuels is not a vaguely altruistic effort to make storms milder — it’s an economic engine, a job creator, a debt reducer, an energy security strategy, an international credibility builder, a healthcare cost-reduction effort, and a wilderness preservation imperative. It encompasses, but is not encompassed by, energy independence. Getting past fossil fuels doesn’t mean all of the above, it means getting past fossil fuels. It is the arc of history, not an item on the special interest list. America will lead or it will be left behind.
It’s possible that the holistic green enthusiasm of the Democratic back end will make its way to the front end eventually, and will heighten the contrast with the fossil establishment rather than blurring the boundaries. But the Obama Democrats are still cautious, and I suspect they’ll wait for circumstances to make obvious to the public what more and more of them believe: that green is the change we can believe in.
(2 September 2008)
U.N. Foundation’s Detchon talks conventions, prominence of energy and climate (video)
OnPoint, E&E TV
As the political conventions wrap up, what were the major energy and climate themes presented by the Democrats and Republicans? Where do the candidates differ on these issues? What do the vice presidential nominations indicate about the future of contentious issues like offshore drilling and climate legislation?
During today’s OnPoint, Reid Detchon, executive director of energy and climate at the United Nations Foundation and executive director of the Energy Future Coalition, talks about how energy and climate discussions played into both conventions. Detchon lays out a strategy for the next administration to address climate change within its first six months in office.
He also discusses Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) vice presidential pick and its potential impact on energy and climate discussions.
(3 September 2008)
Stepping Off the Gas
Editorial, Washington Post
When it comes to fuel prices and energy independence, the watchword is ‘no pain, no gain.’
—
… We are living through a very valuable lesson in applied economics. The United States can indeed change its energy habits for the better, and it can do so fairly rapidly. We are not quite helplessly addicted to oil. But change comes at a cost. We can pay that price directly through higher prices at the pump. Or we can pay it some other way — through government subsidies for alternative fuels, for example, or through the costs and risks associated with offshore drilling. When presidential candidates suggest otherwise, either by proposing a summer gasoline tax holiday, as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) did, or by brandishing a windfall oil profits tax, as Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) did, they should not be taken seriously.
Recent experience with higher gasoline prices and lower oil consumption confirms something we have long maintained: A serious national energy policy would include a higher federal per-gallon tax on gasoline. Just a 19-cent increase in the tax, which is currently 18.4 cents a gallon, would lock in the incentives to conserve that have been lost during the past month’s price decline. No one would like paying it, but at least Americans would be propping up their own government when they filled their tanks, instead of Saudi Arabia’s or Venezuela’s. The debate over energy has taken on a welcome new urgency in recent months; until gasoline taxes are a part of that debate, it still won’t be urgent enough.
(4 September 2008)
