RE Grades for US Presidential Candidates

[Rob Beckers]

US Presidential Candidates Green Grades

(see below for the full story)

Democrats

Barack Obama - B


Republicans

John McCain - D


With the upcoming US presidential elections it seems a good time to start a thread that 'grades' the candidates for their renewable energy, or maybe more in general their 'green', perspectives. With the US being the economic powerhouse that it is, and its influence on the (RE) world, I believe it's good to keep tabs on 'm. Who knows, it may even help a few voters decide!

While I've spent almost 12 years in the US (including several elections), and therefore claim to know a fair bit about US politics, it has also been two years since I left and moved to Canada. So, I expect y'all to help me out by posting pros and cons in this thread about the candidates. I'll then use the info to assign a grade to the candidate(s), going by the consensus as I read it from your replies. As more information is posted or becomes available, I'll review and update their grades. This first post will always have the list of current grades at the top.

Now, I know politics tends to stir up strong feeling in some of us. Please keep the conversation respectful, even if you disagree with statements made by others.

Let's get started...

-Rob-

[Mark Parsons]

Hi Rob,

What is your 'grading' criteria?

Mark

[Robert Ruszkowski]

First thing - Dennis is a Vegan!

The rest is from an article at www.dennisisright.com

Green is the big thing right now, have you noticed? Since Al Gore came out with “An Inconvenient Truth,” everyone’s been jumping on the green bandwagon. Hybrid cars, energy efficient lightbulbs, reducing our use of aerosols, the list goes on. I’m thrilled - I’m a greeny through and through.

You know what I’m going to say next. By now you should know my song by heart: Dennis Kucinich has been green for years. He’s been living, preaching and teaching green since before Leonardo DiCaprio put solar panels on his home and before Julia Roberts donned a wood nymph outfit for the cover of Vanity Fair’s recent “green issue.”

All the presidential candidates talk about the environment. Once again, it’s critical to not just listen to what they’re saying, but to look back at what they’ve been doing all along. It’s one thing to say what the voters want to hear when you’re running for office. It’s another thing altogether if you don’t have to make a big platform out of it because you’ve been saying it - and living it - all along.

Dennis Kucinich has a long and consistent record of working to protecting the environment.

Thirty (count ‘em) years ago, as a member of the Cleveland City Council, Dennis helped draft the first environmental law to preserve air quality.

He was at the forefront when Ohio declared nuclear power as unsafe, unreliable, and unsustainable. He is still leading that challenge, now on a national level.

Dennis has worked tirelessly on a plan for a Global Green Deal that would focus on solar projects around the world. He says it will be “a major initiative to use our country’s leadership in sustainable energy production to provide jobs to Americans, to reduce energy use here at home, and to partner with developing nations to provide their people with inexpensive, local renewable-energy technologies.”

Dennis also wants to launch a major renewables effort to reduce our dependence on oil from the Middle East. All the candidates are saying something similar to that - but only Dennis has a concrete goal: we need a renewable energy portfolio of 20% by 2010.

Dennis Kucinich cares about the environment. Read up on it for yourself and you’ll see: it’s not a simple campaign catchphrase designed to get votes, it’s something he’s been doing for thirty years.

I’d say the man’s serious about it.

[Rob Beckers]

Hi Rob,

What is your 'grading' criteria?

Mark

Hi Mark,

Since I'm 'out of the loop' as far as current events in the US are concerned, my grading will be based solely on the feedback received in this thread (or if I come across anything newsworthy myself I'll post it too and use that to update the grades). I'll go by consensus, so if multiple people agree that candidate X should get grade Y than that's what it'll be.

What I'm really after is to hear from people about the candidates' RE views. Collect their 'green' profiles all in one place, and maybe help a bit in painting a picture for our US members. Having said that, I'm sure there are more people in Canada besides me that are interested too. Our neighbor 'south of the border' has quite a bit of influence on life here 'up north'.

-Rob-

P.S. I'm currently traveling around the east coast of Canada by car. Business took me and my family to New Brunswick (talked to one of my customers there, with hopefully more to follow). From there we've traveled through Prince Edward Island (where I saw a solar powered outhouse), and right now I'm writing this from Nova Scotia. Place called Tatamagouche to be exact. So it may take a few days for me to answer or update the grades. I'll be back home by the middle or end of next week.

[Rob Beckers]

Seems our US members have little to add to this thread. I was hoping for a bit more.:confused: How about our other (Canadian) members? Anyone with knowledge of these candidates please feel free to add your 2 cents!

-Rob-

[Rob Beckers]

The February/March issue of Home Power Magazine (http://www.homepower.com/) has an article by Michael Welch about the how green the 2008 US presidential candidates are. Since there's little feedback so far in this thread, and the 2008 presidential race is definitely heating up, I'm taking a few excerpts from Michael's article, plus what I've found from the various campaign sites. Only the main candidates that stand a chance of making it to the primaries are mentioned:

Barack Obama
Calling for a GHG emissions cut to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 through cap-and-trade auctions. Wants to invest $150 billion over ten years in technology to make daily life (energy) greener. Barack will require 25 Percent of renewable electricity by 2025. On the other side, he wants to develop clean coal technology (ed. somewhat of an oxymoron). Believes in nuclear power as a solution, but is against storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. He wants all new buildings to be carbon neutral by 2030. On the international front Barack wants to create a forum of the wold's largest greenhouse gas emitters.

Hillary Clinton
Plans to reduce GHG emissions and reliance on oil through 100% auction of pollutions credits through cap-and-trade. She calls for an 80% cut below 1990 levels by 2050 for GHG emissions. Plans to invest $50 billion in clean energy development, with a total of 150 billion over 10 years in 'new energy'. Wants to set a 55 mpg fuel standard for vehicles by 2030, and give away 20 billion to the auto industry to make this happen. A new loan program to help low and middle income families buy/build more energy efficient housing. She is against storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. Hillary also calls for a requirement that all federal buildings designed after January 20, 2009 will be zero emissions buildings.

John McCain
He is just about the only republican to acknowledge there is such a thing as climate change caused by humans. John is a strong believer in nuclear power. Wants to leave the fix to global warming to market forces. Has a record of voting against increasing fuel economy for vehicles. Unfortunately the McCain campaign web site has very little information on energy policy, or climate/GHG policy. Just some broad statements with little or no detail.

Mike Huckabee
This candidate believes that humans should be good stewards of the environment. Mike wants to make the US energy independent by the end of his second term. Mike calls nuclear energy a form of alternative energy, just like wind, solar, biodiesel, hydrogen, and clean coal is in that list too. The free market will sort out all the energy issues according to Mike. Little substance on his Web site.

Mitt Romney
He wants to err on the side of caution when it comes to global warming, and the role of humans in this. However, he only wants to cap GHG emissions if the rest of the world also follows. Just so there is no unfair competition. Mitt is all about energy independence, though clean coal, nuclear, and drilling the ANWR reserves. He wants to invest in research of 'promising' technologies for energy independence. Mitt talks about a 'Manhattan project' to make the US energy independent.

I have updated the grades at the top of this thread accordingly.
As always, your views are welcome and encouraged!

-RoB-

[Alex Bennett]

Hi, I'm your American involvement. (and I'm politically unaffiliated)

I agree that Kuccinich would score highest (out of people who wanted to be president) if rated. McCain will just say whatever he's told to say, so I can't put much faith in any of his claims. All there is as far as that goes is a Republican record of revoking environmental policy to make a quick buck. The only way I could imagine positive environmental policy coming from that political party is if there was serious $$$ to be made. Even then its so heavily interwoven with oil business that I'm fairly sure they'd fight off any competition to oil for quite awhile before conceding to any form of renewable energy.

Obama? Who knows... I honestly quite surprised (and glad) to see his pitch so widely appreciated. If he's selling hope and plans to stick with it, then his environmental policies should be quite favorable.

I'm a tough judge for such things, but i'd give the following grades:
McCain F- (likely lower, but not lower than Bush)
Obama C+ (maybe B-)

[Rob Beckers]

Thanks Alex!
It's been a while since anyone last posted to this thread. I've updated the candidate's grades with your input taken into account. It is striking that both candidates are now much more catering to Big Oil than they used to. Domestic (if offshore) drilling is now high on the agenda on both sides. I'm happy to see that Obama still notes that the domestic oil reserves, even if all tapped, are just a drop in the consumption bucket. It is, of course, just catering to the 'undecided' group on both sides, that want to hear about America's greatness, harking back to its past, and making it energy independent, even if that is a pipe-dream at current consumption levels.

For the democratic side, I'm hearing a much greater willingness to add nuclear to the mix. Reasons seem similar to the above. Any 'benefit' (a dubious term in this case) would still be 20 years away, so this is much more rhetorical than practical given the term limits of presidents.

With elections just weeks away it is now at the point where both candidates will basically say anything that draws voters to their side, making it hard to distinguish core beliefs from populist prose. How much of that will actually be realized by the winner is therefore hard to tell.

So far my 2 cents... :confused:

-RoB-

[Joe Blake]

Speaking as a "way outsider", one of the disheartening things is that whatever happens in this election affects the rest of the world - but the rest of the world doesn't have a say in the election.

And even sadder, on our TV news we see interviews with (a) voters who it appears vote for their "man" regardless of the policies they espouse (b) voters who seem to have the own personal views decided by that of a particular candidate and (c) saddest of all, those citizens who say "I'm protesting by NOT voting." We very seldom see the people who take the issue(s) seriously enough to "get onto" the candidates (not just their own, but all of them) and say "This is what I want from you ..." We DO see them, just not very many.

In Australia, we have compulsory registration on the electoral rolls (but NOT, as some people would have it, compulsory "voting" - you only have to get your name ticked off at the polling station. Once you get your ballot paper, you're free to do with it as you please).

The upside of this system is that it protects everybody's right to vote, and attempting to coerce a voter to vote in a particular way, or not at all, is a criminal offence.

In most democracies, citizens care enough to offer their lives to defend the right to vote, and sadly, in many cases, the offer is accepted.

For those who reject this sacrifice, you're doing yourself (and the rest of the world) no favours at all.

Whilst the people who inhabit this board are those who DO rather than talk, we are few in number, but hopefully, we can make a difference, regardless of where we live.

And I'm happy to be in this number.

(Off my soapbox).

Joe

[Alex Bennett]

Well if we (Americans) keep on our current path then that pesky problem of "affecting the rest of the world" will diminish along with our economy and foreign influence. If the corporations and politicians that run this country are unfit to be world powers then I have no problem seeing them lose their power. I consider myself a global citizen, perhaps its time for the US to pass the torch [to China likely, which I doubt would be any better]. I hope that whoever is next to rise power adopts aggressive environmental policies. Maybe it'll be the USA still, after a post-election renaissance, maybe it'll be another nation.

Regarding the media interviews.. yea they're pretty laughable. The media is just entertainment here. I'd be all for compulsory voting except that I understand that there are many powerful people here that stand to lose in such a scenario, so I don't think it'll ever happen.

I still hold "the people" responsible in a very generic sense. Its not because the people elect the leaders (that's been shown to be false in the USA) but its because the people make the corporations, and the corporations elect the leaders. If there was a widespread interest for good environmental policy, if it were unprofitable to be anything but green, then change would happen. This is where I'm going to focus my efforts.

[Rob Beckers]

CNN has an article today (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/10/19/eco.palingreenrecord.ap/index.html) that evaluates Sarah Palin's green credentials. She's getting slammed in there.:smash: Given the age and health of McCain it is not all that improbably for Palin to become president if the republicans win the election. Food for thought...

-RoB-

[Brian McGowan]

Here is my take on the issue of green and the US election. Please don’t take this as anything besides my own view.
My Beliefs: I believe oil is already not able to supply the amount of energy we use and will continue to decline. I believe the human race is not capable of handling this stuff with out making big messes whether in transportation or use. Any capital spent on oil infrastructure is like putting a $4000.00 paint job on a vehicle that will fail inspection due to unrepairable frame rot next month. It is a diversion of resources away from renewable energy, which we will require in the end anyway. I believe Nuclear is much worse. If you count everything from mining to storage of spent fuel and decommissioning of retired plants, it is a very toxic, dirty and environmentally damaging business. I have read articles stating the nuclear energy industry would never make a profit without subsidies but I cannot confirm this. We are currently installing wind at a faster pace than we could install nuclear and I think that pace will only continue to increase. Also, as above, if we are not capable of handling oil we are even less capable of handling nuclear material. Basically, if you have to dig it out of the ground and react it or burn it you are releasing sequestered heat and toxins into the environment. This cannot be good. I believe we need to work on clean green renewable energy as rapidly as possible. Renewable energy is the single biggest issue I am voting on this time around since it affects so many aspects of our lives and our survival.
That being said, I agree with the two main candidate’s grades as you have them listed. I will not be voting for the guy who’s mantra is “drill baby drill”. This ideology keeps us mired in the past and delays the future. I believe the other guy could and should do more than he claims he will do but he at least recognizes the future is coming.

Joe,
If you could vote….
http://iftheworldcouldvote.com/

Brian

[Stellar Gellar]

i'm glad obama won. :D