US Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, is riding a platform of energy independence by 2020 with promises to increase oil and natural gas production, but what he isn’t discussing is disconcerting.
Romney’s proposal outlines drilling for hydrocarbons on federal property and offshore while curbing financial assistance for the renewable energy sector. The candidate hopes to reverse incumbent Barack Obama and his administration’s federal regulations that suspended more drilling as a result of the Deepwater Horizon spill off the Gulf of Mexico. And in doing so, Romney also hopes to create more jobs to reach his goal of 12 million jobs during presidency should he be elected. However, these promised as a result of more drilling sound appealing despite the fact that the industry worldwide has a shortage of qualified personnel to fill those exact positions Romney is campaigning.
He said: “I’m going to take advantage of our energy resources: oil, coal, gas, nuclear, renewables, wind, solar. North America will be energy independent by the last year of my second term.” The Huffington Post reported that Romney policy adviser Oren Cass said the presidential contender supports green energy and government spending on energy research, but opposes loan guarantees for green companies.
The US continues to reel from the solar fall-out of companies, but Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, a retired Navy officer and chief executive of the American Council on Renewable Energy, said: "The fact is that we have real companies making real profits and making investments in renewable energy for all the right reasons." Even the US military is investing more in renewable energy touting that it would consider up to 16 million acres of military land to be dedicated to renewable energy projects with the US Army Corps of Engineers issuing a request for proposals to cover up to $7 billion in contracts for “reliable, locally generated, renewable, and alternative energy.” Obama has been criticized for backing Solyndra, but is Romney also just feeling the burn from his own backing of the failed US solar company Konarka Technologies? Regardless, why not push for both: more drilling in the US as well as increasing the renewable energy sector?
If refusing to grant loan guarantees for renewable energy programs, will Romney continue to provide enormous subsidies to fossil fuels? Between 2002-2008, the US government provided approximately $72 billion for fossil fuel subsidies as opposed to the renewable energy industry that received $29 billion over the same period. And now a wind industry tax credit is set to expire at the end of the year with Obama in favor of renewal and Romney opposing the tax credit. Cass said, "Gov. Romney is focused on actually setting the wind industry up to be a competitive, innovative industry that can succeed on its own two feet, like so many other successful and profitable industries in the country." If this were true, why is there still such a need for fuel subsidies?
If the tax credit that has powered the wind industry to record levels (the US is currently the world’s largest wind energy producer) is shelved, the American Wind Energy Association estimates that 37,000 jobs could be lost overall. Other Republicans have requested that Romney consider mooting his anti-green rhetoric.
The major problem with Romney’s rhetoric is not that he seeks to have more drilling, but that he is negating the most reliable solution to achieving energy independence: diversification. Many Americans are pro-drilling for more hydrocarbons and it would help decrease the US’ reliance upon unstable countries like those suffering from the Arab Spring and also places like Nigeria. However, leaving the renewable energy sector out in the cold is not a great strategy. About 37,409 clean energy jobs were expected as a result of 70 major green energy projects announced across the US in Q2 2012, according to a study from Environmental Entrepreneurs. There will always be a need for conventional energy, but there is a place for renewable energy and the best way is to incorporate the two.
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