Romney energy plan: pro-drilling, anti-regulation, and mum on climate change
Page 2 of 2
In 2008 Citigroup became one of the biggest recipients of the Obama administration’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP bailout money, with the Obama administration injecting $45 billion into Citigroup to help stabilize the embattled lender, leading Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit to say that his firm owed American taxpayers "a debt of gratitude.”(David Ellis, “Citigroup strikes deal to repay TARP,” CNN Money, 14 December 2009 @http://money.cnn.com/2009/12/14/news/companies/citigroup_tarp/index.htm.)
Raymond James Financial, a diversified holding company describes itself on its website as having “total client assets exceed(ing) $370 billion,” and has three references in the Romney energy document. In November 2008 the firm applied for TARP funding. On 20 November, 16 days after President Barack Obama won the presidency, Raymond James CEO Thomas James saw his company’s fiscal future as sufficiently grim that he said in a statement that if his firm was accepted and decided to participate in the program, the funds would be used “as a replacement for our previous and current unsecured credit lines and as a means of obtaining additional capital.”(Dan Jamieson, “Raymond James applies for TARP funds,” Investment News, 21 November 2008 @Investmentnews.com. Raymond James eventually decided against applying for TARP fiscal relief.
Renewable energy gets short shrift in the Romney white paper, being referred to three times, the first being “(To) ensure that policies for expanding energy development apply broadly to energy sources, from oil and gas exploration, to coal mining, to the siting of wind, solar, hydroelectric, and other renewable energy facilities…”. The other two references are encompassed in the “Did You Know?” reference, “Environmentalists Block Wind And Solar Projects Just As They Do Fossil Fuel Projects…”
Another topic notable by its absence is fuel efficiency. On 29 July 2011 the White house announced new federal requirements for improving fuel efficiency for America’s fleet of automobiles and trucks. The new standards, covering cars and light trucks for model years 2017-2025, will require performance equivalent to 54.5 miles per gallon in 2025. By 2025, the new mpg standards will reduce oil consumption by an estimated 2.2 million barrels a day.
Did You Know?
The oil and natural gas industries, by the week before the Romney white paper’s release, saw industry employees and their families had contributed $4 million to the Republican National Committee, its sixth-largest source of donations, according to the Washington D.C. Center for Responsive Politics, while industry political action committees represented the 10th-biggest donors to the Romney campaign.(Jim Snyder and Kasia Klimasinska, “Bloomberg News - Oil Donors Fete Romney Days Before Unveiling Energy Plan,” 24 August 2012 @http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-08-24/oil-donors-fete-romney-days-before-unveiling-energy-plan).
In the 2012 election cycle thus far, the U.S. oil and natural gas industry has given 87 percent of its $8.74 million in contributions to Republican candidates, with the remaining 13 percent going to Democratic candidates.(Ed Crooks, “Oil industry presses Obama on regulation,” Financial Times, 2 September 2012 @ http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a10000b8-f50e-11e1-b120-00144feabdc0.html).
Parts 2 and 3 will discuss the six specific Romney recommendations in detail.
Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Romney-Energy-Plan-Good-or-Bad-for-America-Part-One.html
