Saturday, May 14, 2011

Newt Gingrich On Energy & Environment

All Candidates


Former House Speaker Newt Gingrinch believes global warming is man-caused and needs solutions to directly address the problem.  This position is giving him trouble as a presidential candidate seeking the Republican nomination.  An ad with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is already being used against him.


The 2008 ad was cut for Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection

Newt Gingrich, in a South Carolina Rotary Club speech, said and "all out" approach to energy policy should include natural-gas drilling off that state’s coast, and development of oil shale in Western states.


“We have natural gas off South Carolina which will create jobs in South Carolina and an export product for America. New jobs will grow in the Port of Charleston around natural gas just as new jobs will grow in an offshore industry – high paying, high value jobs.”
Newt Gingrinch at CPAC 2011:

"We should end the Environmental Protection Agency's war against American oil and gas."

"We should also stop the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to cripple the development of gas found in shale."

"We need to develop effective clean coal pilot projects that prove the concept we can use coal because we have more energy in coal than Saudi Arabia has energy in oil and it is utterly, totally foolish to say to say that the United States is not going to aggressively develop clean coal."

"They should also streamline the nuclear regulatory process to enable us to build nuclear power plants."

 "We should also insist on flex-fuel cars and blender pumps." [Gingrich supports ethonal development]

"Now in order to have an American Energy policy, we need to replace the Environmental Protection Agency with a new fundamentally different Environmental Solutions Agency. For my friends in the media, I would like to emphasize replace. This is not about tear down, destroy, eliminate, walk away, let the environment be destroyed, sell out to corporate interest, and all that bologna."

" I believe that incentives, innovators, and entrepreneurs will solve environmental problems, and improve the environment better than the bureaucrats, regulators and litigators."

"On The Issues" provides more informtion on Gingrich's energy positions:

- 2008 petition drive: Drill here, Drill now, Pay less. (Feb 2011)

- New nuclear plants would reduce 2 billion tons of CO2 a year. (Feb 2011)
- Kyoto treaty is bad for the environment and bad for America. (Dec 2006)
- Focus on incentives for conservation & renewable resources. (Dec 2006)
- Stop scare tactics about drilling in Alaska. (Dec 2006)
- Gas tax sounds OK in DC, but not outside Beltway. (Jul 1998)
- Cap-and-trade has no impact on global temperatures. (Jul 2010)
- Explore proven energy reserves & keep energy prices low. (Jul 2010)

Full Quotes

And environmental positions:

- Replace EPA with new Environmental Solutions Agency. (Feb 2011)

- Greatest enviro dangers are poverty & command bureaucracy. (Sep 2007)
- Combine healthy environment and a healthy economy. (Dec 2006)
- Early 1980s: co-sponsored Endangered Species Act. (Jun 1995)
- Regulating 15 more contaminants under Clean Water Act. (Oct 1993)

Full Quotes


Gingrinch's American Solutions group, a nonprofit organization that champions conservative principles,  received a combined $1,550,000 in donations in 2010 from Peabody Energy, American Electric Power, Devon Energy, and Arch Coal, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

(Yahoo News, 5/11/2011)

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