ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
09/07/12

PARTY PLATFORMS EXHIBIT DIVERGENT ATTITUDES ON CLIMATE CHANGE, COAL

As the 2012 election season enters its final stages, Democrats are looking to emphasize clean air regulations and environmental protections, approving a platform at their party convention in Charlotte, N.C this week that diverges sharply from the Republican Party, particularly surrounding the topic of climate change. The Democratic platform includes strong language towards mitigating climate change and sharply curtailing CO2 emissions. “We know that global climate change is one of the biggest threats of this generation—an economic, environmental and national security catastrophe in the making,” the blueprint says. “We affirm the science of climate change, commit to significantly reducing the pollution that causes climate change and know we have to meet this challenge by driving smart policies that lead to greater growth in clean energy generation and result in a range of economic and social benefits.”

The document touts President Barack Obama’s efforts to cut the emissions of CO2 and other pollutants like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide through new Environmental Protection Agency regulations. “Democrats will continue to stand up to polluters in the interest of environmental and public health,” the platform says. Democrats also pledged to “continue showing international leadership” on climate change and vowed to work towards an international emissions reduction scheme through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The party also vowed to reduce domestic emissions through regulations and market-based solutions.

Republicans Remove Climate Change From Platform

Meanwhile, in a showcase of the vast ideological rift between the major parties on many energy and the environmental matters, Republicans removed most references to addressing climate change in their platform approved at last week’s convention in Tampa, Fla., completely eliminating a section on addressing climate change responsibility. Instead, their outline says that the party opposes “any and all cap-and-trade legislation.” In terms of environmental regulations, the Republican platform vows to “reign in” the EPA, criticizing what they say is the agency’s recent “expansive” and “imposing” regulations that it says are hurting jobs and the economy. “Many of these new rules are creating regulatory uncertainty, preventing new projects from going forward, discouraging new investment and stifling job creation,” says the document, which largely mirrors an energy policy blueprint released by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his running mate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) last month.

In particular, the Republican platform calls on Congress to “take quick action” to bar EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. “The most powerful environmental policy is liberty, the central organizing principle of the American Republic and its people. Liberty alone fosters scientific inquiry, technological innovation, entrepreneurship and information exchange,” the platform says. “Liberty must remain the core energy behind America’s environmental improvement.” Supporters criticized the current Administration for taking a “job-killing punitive mentality” when thinking about environmental protection, and instead called for them to adopt “a spirit of cooperation with producers, landowners and the public” while also giving states more authority in environmental protection.

In their platform, though, Democrats criticized Republicans for denying the existence of climate change. “Our opponents have moved so far to the right as to doubt the science of climate change, advocate the selling of our federal lands and threaten to roll back environmental protections that safeguard public health,” the document argues. “Their leaders deny the benefits of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts—benefits like job creation, health, and the prevention of tens of thousands of premature deaths each year.”

Both Tout ‘All-of-the-Above’ Policy, but Coal Views Differ

In both party platforms, Republicans and Democrats tout their respective energy plans, which they say are each taking an ‘all-of-the-above’ approach to energy production. Both say they are supportive of the domestic production of natural gas, oil and renewables and argue that their respective plans will pave the way for energy independence. However, while the Democratic platform briefly mentions ‘clean’ coal once, Republicans devote a section to the source, calling for coal’s full development moving forward. “The current Administration—with a President who publicly threatened to bankrupt anyone who builds a coal-powered plant—seems determined to shut down coal production in the United States, even though there is no cost-effective substitute for it or for the hundreds of thousands of jobs that go with it as the nation’s largest source of electricity generation,” the Republican blueprint says. They vow to end the Obama Administration’s “war on coal” while also beefing up R&D funding for advanced coal technologies like coal gasification, coal-to-liquids and enhanced oil recovery-related technologies, but do not mention carbon capture and storage as an emissions mitigation technology. Meanwhile, Democrats criticized their political rivals for playing to interests of the Big Oil and other industry groups.