9.5.2008 2:25 PM

The GOP Energy and Environment Platform: Summary and Analysis

More Drilling, Nuclear Power and the Acknowledgment, Though Tepid, That Global Warming Threatens the Environment

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Photo: GOP

By Dan Shapley

By all accounts, John McCain's stance on global warming — that it is real, that humans contribute to it and that we have to do something about it — changed the GOP's 2008 platform.

But the platform remains a rather tepid acknowledgment of the risks. The real demons in the document are foreign oil and high energy prices or regulation — including regulation to combat climate change — that might change American lifestyles or do other than increase economic growth.

"Our current dependence on foreign fossil fuels threatens both our national security and our economy and could also force drastic changes in the way we live," the GOP energy platform reads, mentioning only later that the environment, too, is at risk, and never mentioning that global warming, too, carries those same risks.

About global warming, the platform doesn't recognize health risks and only glancingly recognizes national security risks. It primarily frames climate change as a potential threat to the environment.

"While the scope and longterm consequences of this are the subject of ongoing scientific research, common sense dictates that the United States should take measured and reasonable steps today to reduce any impact on the environment."

And the platform heaps plenty of skepticism on global warming and those who argue for aggressive action to counteract it:

"Republicans caution against the doomsday climate change scenarios peddled by the aficionados of centralized command-and-control government. We can — and should — address the risk of climate change based on sound science without succumbing to the no-growth radicalism that treats climate questions as dogma rather than as situations to be managed responsibly."

As such, the GOP's energy platform calls for increasing domestic oil drilling, continuing to rely on coal, building new nuclear power plants, as well as investing in renewable energy sources. The same basic strategy — decreasing dependence on foreign energy — is seen by the GOP as a way to make gains against global warming, despite the party's support for oil and coal.

The GOP Energy and Environment Platform at a Glance

drill for oil offshore in the U.S., develop unconventional sources of oil, like oil shale in the western U.S., and oppose any permanent restrictions on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
expand or build new gasoline refineries
build new nuclear plants
create permanent tax incentives for renewable energy technologies like wind, solar, geothermal and hydro- power.
improve the electric power grid
develop new technology to burn coal and liquefy it for use in power plants and vehicles that don't pollute.
build new coal-fired power plants
expand use of natural gas
increase energy efficiency
develop alternative fuels, particularly cellulosic ethanol, and vehicles that run on biofuels and electricity
require India and China to participate in international climate agreements before the U.S. will do so
enact a "Climate Prize" for scientists who identify solutions to global warming
protect private property owners first, before expanding national protections for U.S. lands

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