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Loading...Romney Blowing Smoke About Wind Power: Now He’s For It, Now He’s Not
Mitt Romney has a penchant for bending whichever way the wind blows, and he did so again on Wednesday. While in Iowa, Romney trumpeted the importance of wind power — an important part of the economy in that state. This is a rather different position than he took last week, when he called for the end of subsidies for wind power. It’s a huge change from March, when Romney declared that only someone who lived in an “imaginary world” could support it.
“We have got to take advantage of America’s extraordinary energy resources: coal, oil, gas, nuclear, renewables, wind, solar, ethanol, you name it.We’ve gotta take advantage of all of them,” said Romney, as he campaigned in the Hawkeye State.
Last week, Shawn McCoy, spokesperson for Romney’s campaign in Iowa, told the Des Moines Register that Romney would “allow the wind credit to expire, end the stimulus boondoggles, and create a level playing field on which all sources of energy can compete on their merits.”
In March, Romney disparaged President Barack Obama’s support for renewable energy, and specifically wind power.
Romney told supporters in Ohio, “you can’t drive a car with a windmill on it.” He also said Obama was living in an “imaginary world” of renewables, instead of supporting oil, coal and natural gas exploration.
Romney’s about-face — at least for today — is no doubt driven by strong criticism from Iowa’s GOP Gov. Terry Branstad, as well as polling that shows Iowans are less likely to vote for anti-wind power candidates.
Romney will no doubt change his tune on wind power again, because he goes whichever way the wind blows on the issue. The one certainty is that Romney will say and do whatever he thinks will get people to back him in November.
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Read more: 2012 presidential election, energy policy, iowa, mitt romney, renewable energy, wind power, Windmills
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Recent Comments from Causes
Sad news.
Thanks!
Sometime I think that the conservative group knee-jerk reflex will make us destroy the wheel and abandon…
122 comments
+ add your ownRomney has been for and against the same things at the same time.
Whichever way the polls go, Romney will blow in that direction (sort of like wind power). To name him a flip-flopper is too mild. He seems to have grown up with no deeply held beliefs about things in this world. He is a devout Mormon evidently, and he follows its precepts, like having a lot of children, and he knows how to manufacture money to his greatest advantage. But where is the curiosity about the world, other than what he's been told in the past? I consider curiosity one of the most important human traits -- it links with high intelligence and means you are a seeker of truth.
Continued
If Obama wanted to get this country out of its recession and put people back to work he should have immediately started drilling for more oil as soon after the 25008 election as possible. He should have instructed the EPA to speed up the process for new gas refineries and nuclear plants. He should never have cut off all the wells in the gulf, and he should have had the keystone pipeline pumping oil within a year of its conception.
As he proceeded allow private industry to start the money flowing again, there should have been a 2-5 percent tax placed on all the new sources of oil and electricity to be held in a trust to be used only for development of new sources of energy.
America runs on energy, it does not make any difference if it is food, housing, military, or infrastructure, we need low cost fuel so America can once again make enough revenue to help other counties keep their head above water.
We cannot help others if we continue to drive the price UP on all of our products while driving down the paycheck.
Obama is so stupid to think that all we have to do is mandate new green energy and it will happen without consequences overnight.
So far most of the stimulus moneys put into solar and wind has failed within a year of it being granted to his friends running those companies.
It is not the Carbon dioxide that kills trees it is the sulfur gases. The high grade coal does not have high concentrations of Sulfur.
We do not have Global warming and please quite trying to manufacture it as several scientist from England tried to do and were caught. I never heard what they had to gain, but it was a major story in England and the rest of Europe.
We are not polluting our rivers by using coal for electric generation. That is like saying nuclear energy pollutes our streams and rivers when all it is used for is cooling not washing.
We do not have to sell coal to china they will buy it from any one of a dozen countries, so we should kill our employment by restricting the export of our US Coal. Yeah we really do not need job besides we are giving amnesty to enough illegal's to handle any of those coal jobs anyway.
to be continued
@Paula writes A government-mandated shift to green energy at our present level of technology will dramatically increase energy costs, as will President Obama’s war on coal.
Paula you are absolutely correct.
So let's bury our head in the sand.
Let's continue polluting the air with carbon
Let's kill more trees with other pollutants you know the ones that turn carbon dioxide into oxygen?
Let's poison our people with mercury and sulphur
Let's add to global warming
Let's pollute our rivers
Let's lie and say we can burn coal cleanly
Let's increase production and sell it to China so that when we track the pollution it causes we can see it is taken by the jet stream to land on the forests of the Amazon and kill more trees that might have added oxygen to our atmosphere
I could go on . . .
Hi, Dorothy N.,
You again quote the President’s spokesperson, who tries to put a positive spin the President’s remarks (again with regard to bankrupting coal, not his admission that energy prices would skyrocket under his policies). The spokesperson suggests that Obama is only talking about stopping construction of new plants. But the interview indicates that the President is doing so by imposing a tax on all emissions. If it would be impractical to build modern coal plants, what is the likelihood that existing coal plants could long survive under the President’s proposed rules?
Later in your comments you welcome the bankruptcy of the coal industry as a consequence of the policies Obama supports. In doing so you contradict the President’s spokesperson’s spin. You have a right to this position, as does the President, but it is dishonest to seek this result while publicly denying that he is doing so.
You suggest that it would be more cost-effective for energy companies to instead invest in green power. But that is Romney’s point. With a few exceptions (hydroelectric is the only one that comes immediately to mind) currently available green energy is significantly more expensive than coal. A government-mandated shift to green energy at our present level of technology will dramatically increase energy costs, as will President Obama’s war on coal.
(continued0
Jay Cooperson, chairman of the Delaware Chapter of the Sierra Club environmental group, said he can’t understand why public health officials won’t follow the attorney general’s advice and release the information. ...
... It’s not just the pollution from the Indian River plant that is causing worry across Delaware.
In Claymont, emissions for the steel plant include dioxins and mercury. In Delaware City, drinking-water wells have been contaminated with an industrial chemical suspected of causing cancer.
The most recent report on pollution within the state found that releases to the environment from the state’s 15 largest facilities rose to nearly 11.2 million pounds, up from 8.4 million pounds in 2005.
Austin said public access to the state’s information about cancer is critical to understanding possible health effects.
“Unless it’s in the public hands, the areas of the state with high disease incidence remains hidden and state officials have no reason to take action to solve the health problems throughout the state.” ...
THIS is part of what Obama is trying to tackle in a manner that won't paralyze the country through power shortages, while virtually all officials are merely trying to cover it over - and he can't even come out and mention this devastating toll,
But you have to see enough of this stuff to understand, and we nearly always see PR in the media...
(continued)
Like every other state, Delaware collects information on every cancer patient in the state, including the type of cancer, stage of diagnosis, treatments received and whether the patient is alive or dead. ...
... Despite the research that led to the creation of the Cancer Consortium, Silverman and Dr. Jaime Rivera, public health director, are now saying they will no longer release the data, arguing that it could lead to a patient’s identification. The state might have erred by releasing detailed information to the newspaper in 2001 and 2003, Silverman said.
“We recognize we have two missions and they are at conflict with each other,” Silverman said. “One is to give the public information they need to make health decisions and the other is to protect privacy. This is a difficult balance to reach and we’re doing the best we can.”
When the newspaper’s series on high cancer mortality, late diagnosis and subpar treatment in Delaware was published in 2004, no patients or their families contacted state officials to complain that their identities were revealed. Patients identified in the newspaper stories were referred voluntarily to reporters by doctors, advocates and other victims.
The newspaper’s investigation spurred the General Assembly to spend millions of extra dollars on programs to detect and treat cancer.
Jay Cooperson, chairman of the Delaware Chapter of the Sierra Club environmental group, said he can
(continued)
State officials conducted a statistical study of the Indian River area in southeastern Sussex County last summer after years of complaints by local residents that too many neighbors were getting cancer. The state found that from 2000-2004, lung cancer incidence in six ZIP codes around the power plant — the state’s worst polluter — was 10.5 percent higher than Delaware’s average and 17 percent higher than the nation’s.
The Division of Public Health is following up with a survey of residents to determine whether the high cancer rate is explained by a high rate of smokers or some other environmental factor.
The state also is conducting a study to see whether there are any other such clusters in Delaware, said Paul R. Silverman, deputy associate director for health information. Results should be available later this month, Silverman said.
But the state will no longer let reporters, hospitals or other nongovernmental agencies conduct cancer research using more detailed cancer information, contending that a victim’s privacy could be compromised. The newspaper sought the number of cancers for areas smaller than Delaware’s three counties — the smallest areas for which the agency normally reports cases.
Individual records are contained in the state’s cancer registry, which includes details of nearly 45,000 cases diagnosed in Delaware since 1980. Like every other state, Delaware collects information on every cancer
(continued - and do note the strange response following, in an apparent continuation of the century-long effort to absolve industrial carcinogens of causing cancer while transferring attribution to victims, lol.)
“By no means does this let industries off the hook, chemical companies off the hook,” Rivera said.
He also cautioned residents and activists to be aware that like pollution, behaviors can increase cancer risk.
“We’re seeing an increase in lung cancer, which is overwhelmingly the result of tobacco exposure. Delawareans need to avoid tobacco,” Rivera said.
Minner, who leaves office in January, said she will continue to battle the disease over the remaining months of her tenure.
“This report is just part of what we really need to know,” she said. “We’ll continue to work on this.”
March 16, 2008
State keeps wraps on cancer information
By CRIS BARRISH
The News Journal
... 11-worst death rate
For Delaware, understanding cancer and devising a strategy against the disease is critical.
From 2000 through 2004, the latest period for which government statistics are available, Delaware cancer incidence and mortality were 6 percent higher than the national average. Overall, Delaware’s death rate was 11th-worst in the nation.
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