VP Debate: Biden and Palin both support emission caps, Palin reiterates strong support for more drilling
The first and only vice presidential debate just concluded and similar to the presidential debate, there was fairly limited talk about energy and the environment. In fact, the word “environment” was only mentioned twice– once by Palin in describing offshore drilling as “safe” and “environmentally-friendly” and once by Biden, in noting that an energy policy should create jobs, in addition to energy independence and a “clean environment.”
However, there was some talk of energy policy, the following of which are the highlights:
Biden seemed to want to clear up a point that Obama may have regretted making in his debate that energy policy is, in fact, not a place where cuts should be made as a result of the current financial crisis, since that it is a place where new jobs will be created.
Palin and Biden both bickered over whether McCain or Obama had been for or against tax breaks for oil companies, with both of them seemingly fighting over populist issues rather than environmental or energy related ones.
Palin noted that America needs to become energy independent, which is a “key to our future.” However, throughout the debate she firmly put forward her and McCain’s belief that our energy independence should be accomplished with an “all of the above” approach, which would include increased drilling offshore and in ANWR (if she could convince McCain to not oppose drilling in the Arctic Refuge). Palin also made sure to correct Biden, who paraphrased the Republican mantra as “drill, drill, drill” with the proper “drill, baby, drill” formulation. Biden noted that this “all of the above” approach wouldn’t work since it would continue greenhouse gas emissions.
However, both candidates indicated their ticket’s support for a cap on carbon emissions.
Palin repeated a statement she made to Katie Couric, that it doesn’t matter whether climate change is manmade since we have to address it either way. While it is great that Palin recognizes the need to address climate change, what she keeps missing is that the type of response we take to climate change is, of course, dependant on whether we believe it is a result of human activity, or not. As Biden responded, “if you don’t understand what the cause is, it’s virtually impossible to come up with a solution.”
Biden did reiterate his and Obama’s support for “clean coal” and “safe nuclear,” both of which sound a little like jumbo shrimp to me.
Finally, Biden, taking a page out of the Tom Friedman playbook, advocated the development of a domestic clean technology industry, so that we can create new jobs and export clean tech to China, instead of importing their pollution to the West Coast of our country.
All in all, it was a fairly non-eventful debate, with neither candidate having very many impactful moments. Mostly there was just a lot of populism and folksy non-answer answers.
- Similar Posts:
- McCain/Palin ticket moves away from pro-environmental policies
- The first debate: McCain and Obama touch on the environment but fall short on details
- Third and final debate touches on environment and energy
Comments
One Comment on VP Debate: Biden and Palin both support emission caps, Palin reiterates strong support for more drilling
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john stephenson on
Thu, 2nd Oct 2008 9:18 pm
The real question is– when are we going to start drilling in ANWR? We will switch off of oil when it becomes economically feasible. Until then, we need to drill everywhere we can.
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