While the ghost of Solyndra was alive and well at the Republican National Convention (it’s now a year after the company’s bankruptcy), one of the Democratic National Convention’s key speakers, Bill Clinton, only briefly touched on energy and climate policy in his prepared remarks. Clinton, usually a total energy nerd, only focused on energy and climate in the talk when he praised Obama’s new fuel efficiency standards and “all of the above” energy strategy.
Clinton said:
Now, the agreement the administration made with the management, labor and environmental groups to double car mileage, that was a good deal too . . . It will make us more energy independent. It will cut greenhouse gas emissions. And according to several analyses, over the next 20 years, it’ll bring us another half a million good new jobs into the American economy.
“All of the above,” energy has been the catch phrase for the preferred energy policy at both the DNC and RNC. Basically the consensus is: don’t push too much for the decline of the fossil fuel industry, as they are employing a lot of people and natural gas shale will provide a massive economic boom. Clinton says:
The president’s energy strategy, which he calls “all of the above,” is helping too. The boom in oil and gas production, combined with greater energy efficiency, has driven oil imports to a near-20- year low and natural gas production to an all-time high. And renewable energy production has doubled.
What do you think? Not enough on energy and climate? Or are you just happy he was still able to mention greenhouse gas emissions at least once?
Clinton is usually an energy and climate policy wonk, easily rattling off things like the details of international energy pricing, how carbon markets should be structured, and singing the praise of energy efficiency. He even visited the Ivanpah solar thermal farm near Las Vegas the day after a group of media did, and gushed about it during a speech for Harry Reid’s clean energy conference last month.
