Unfortunately, the lunacy of the concept of energy independence has gone far beyond the belief that foreign oil is bad. The vilification of energy has become a unique talking point. In early December, during an interview with Katie Couric of CBS News, Mike Huckabee declared that the U.S. should be “oil free of energy consumption in this country within a decade.” What that means is anyone’s guess. Back in February 2007, when Barack Obama announced his plan to run for the White House, he said the U.S. needed to break free of the “tyranny of oil.” Never mind that there are probably 4 billion people on this planet who would love to be tyrannized by oil in the same way as the average American.

Bill Richardson, the former secretary of energy, wants 30 percent of all the electricity in America to come from renewable sources by 2020. Of course, Richardson doesn’t offer any ideas as to how that goal might actually be achieved. Mitt Romney told Couric that he wants to be “free from foreign oil” and that more efficiency, nuclear power, and “clean-burning coal” will “get us energy independent.”

There is a predictable split among the candidates on two key issues. The Republicans generally favor more nuclear power and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, while the Democrats generally oppose those moves. What was not predictable is just how few of them are interested in talking about how the free market might work. Indeed, only Ron Paul, a Republican who is considered little more than a fringe candidate (and not least because he is closely aligned with libertarian ideology), has dared to discuss the free market. “My answer to energy is to let the market work. Let supply and demand make the decision. Let prices make the decision.”

Wow. A presidential candidate who thinks the free market might have a role when it comes to energy issues. What a concept.

We’re not endorsing Ron Paul or any other candidate. Instead, we thought Energy Tribune readers should have a chance to look closely at the ideas being put forward by them. So peruse the following article at your leisure, and regardless of your political stance, remember to vote in your state’s primary.

Joe Biden
Democrat

"I would announce an executive order that the federal government would not purchase one single automobile for its fleet that gets less than 40 miles to the gallon. And I would not build a single solitary federal project without it being a green project. That would have the effect of getting states to do the same thing, and that would create a pot of somewhere between a third and a half a trillion dollars that would be a lure to every major business in America to go green."

Energy Platform & Plan for Global Warming
Raise CAFE standards to 40 mpg by 2017; reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil; require carmakers to produce more vehicles that use biodiesel or 85 percent ethanol; cap carbon emissions at 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 and set a national Renewable Portfolio Standard of 20 percent; change the White House fleets to 40 mpg standards; keep nuclear on the table; oppose ANWR drilling; leave a caveat about solutions for nuclear waste; launch U.N. round of international climate negotiations; increase renewables to 10 percent of the U.S. electricity supply by 2010, and later to 20 percent (no target date); support clean coal and liquefied coal technology for export, not for domestic consumption; impose U.S. moratorium on old-style coal plants; require every U.S. vehicle to get one mile per year additional fuel economy, based on the class and size of the automobile (not CAFE); support use of ethanol, specifically cellulosics; require major gas stations to add biofuel pumps; spend $100 million a year on research and development of lithium-ion batteries.

Experience
Voted against EPA Clean Air Mercury Rule; chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; sponsored bill to provide $50 million in grants to states to distribute compact fluorescent light bulbs; co-sponsored Fuel Economy Reform Act; sponsored American Automobile Industry Promotion Act of 2007; voted against the 2005 Energy Policy Act; co-sponsored Clean Power Act of 2005; voted in 2003 against amendment to increase fuel-economy standards for passenger cars to 40 mpg by 2014; voted in 2002 against storing nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain repository.

Rudy Giuliani
Republican

"Ethanol, biodiesel, clean coal, nuclear power, more refineries, conservation: There’s no one single solution. But each one of these has to be expanded 10 percent, 15 percent, 20 percent."

Energy Platform & Plan for Global Warming
Oppose mandatory limits on emissions; expand nuclear power; wean the U.S. off foreign oil in 10-15 years by diversifying the country's energy portfolio; open ANWR to drilling; expand offshore drilling in domestic waters; rely more on coal and commercialize clean technologies, including carbon sequestration and CTL; oppose Kyoto Protocol; increase use of biofuels and support a 51-cent-per-gallon credit for ethanol producers; support renewables, but not wind; open Strategic Petroleum Reserve; track key energy indicators to measure U.S. progress toward energy independence.

Experience
Partner at Bracewell & Giuliani, a Texas-based law firm known for representing and lobbying for coal-fired power plants and energy companies.

Hillary Clinton
Democrat

"For this generation, climate change is our space race. The climate crisis is also one of the greatest economic opportunities in the history of our country. It will unleash a wave of innovation, create millions of new jobs, enhance our security and lead the world to a revolution in how we produce and use energy."

Energy Platform & Plan for Global Warming
Use cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050; cut foreign oil imports to the U.S. by two-thirds by 2030; create energy research agency modeled on Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; increase fuel efficiency standards to 55 mpg by 2030, and help U.S. car manufacturers retool production plants with $20 billion in “green vehicle bonds”; support CTL technology; impose strict environmental standards on the use of coal; create a $50 billion “Strategic Energy Fund” for research and development of energy efficiency technologies (financed by royalties from drilling on public lands and by repealing tax credits for oil companies); oppose ANWR drilling and support Kyoto Protocol; support carbon sequestration; oppose nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain; require U.S. to get 25 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030; create 5 million clean-energy jobs in the next decade; make 60 billion gallons of homegrown biofuels available for use in vehicles by 2030.

Experience
Serves on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee; co-sponsored the Boxer-Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act in the Senate; endorsed the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act of 2007; introduced Senate legislation to establish an environmental health tracking network; voted in 2007 for an amendment to provide loans for coal projects, including liquefied coal; sponsored the Zero-Emissions Building Act; voted against the 2005 Energy Policy Act; voted in 2003 to increase fuel-economy standards for passenger cars to 40 mpg by 2014.

Mike Huckabee
Republican

"We need to get to the place so that within a decade we can tell the Saudi royal family that we're no longer going to continue to make them obscenely wealthy with our purchase of their oil. Frankly, much of that wealth ends up coming back to finance terrorism."

Energy Platform & Plan for Global Warming
Pursue all avenues of alternative energy, including nuclear, wind, solar, hydrogen, clean coal and biofuels; set aside federal research and development monies (matched by the private sector) for alternative fuels (no specifics); support clean-coal technology; work to make the storage of nuclear waste economically viable; support ANWR drilling, as well as the exploration of other untapped areas; support a mandatory, economy-wide cap-and-trade system; raise fuel-economy standards for automobiles to 35 mpg by 2020; require 15 percent of U.S. electricity to be generated from renewables by 2020.

Experience
Served as Arkansas governor from 1996-07; former chairman of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission; campaigned for Amendment 75 of the Arkansas constitution, which dedicates for conservation an eighth of a percent of sales tax for everything purchased in the state; supported National Governors Association's 2006 policy position on climate change, which recommends research of emissions-reducing technology; signed Arkansas Renewable Energy Development Act into law in 2001.

Chris Dodd
Democrat

"When you consume less, your lifestyle improves. This is not going to be a hair shirt you've got to wear. The hair shirt is the one you're wearing today where you place your children in jeopardy, your climate, your planet. We're destroying our lifestyle as a result of continued dependency on these polluting technologies and fuels, and what I'm offering is a way for us to escape. We can leave the coming generation the greatest gift – a clear path of clean technology, improving the quality of our environment, a world at peace."

Energy Platform & Plan for Global Warming
Employ a corporate carbon tax and put the money into a Corporate Carbon Tax Trust Fund to pay for research and development of renewables; require new cars and trucks to get 50 mpg by 2017; oppose ANWR drilling; reduce C02 pollutants by 80 percent by 2050; support Kyoto Protocol; allow nuclear power but invest in new methods of waste disposal; oppose CTL technology; require all new coal plants to capture and sequester CO2; require that 20 percent of the U.S. electricity supply come from renewables by 2020; support cellulosics and other biofuels; aim for using 8.5 billion gallons of biofuels in U.S. cars and homes by 2008 and 36 billion by 2022; freeze U.S. electricity consumption by 2010; impose high energy-efficiency standards on all new federal government buildings, and retrofit others with the latest efficiency technologies; subsidize purchases of energy-efficient vehicles; require that all new federal government vehicles be either hybrid or electric, run on E85 or other biofuels, or use other clean technologies; bolster mass transit; grant a tax credit for clean energy producers.

Experience
Opposed drilling in ANWR; co-sponsored the Boxer-Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act in the Senate; co-sponsored bills to make government buildings more energy-efficient; co-sponsored the Clean Air Planning Act of 2007, the 2006 Vehicle and Fuel Choices for American Security Act, and the Windfall Profits Rebate Act of 2005; opposed the Energy Policy Act of 2005; voted in 2003 to increase fuel-economy standards for passenger cars to 40 mpg by 2014; voted in 2002 against storing nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain repository.

John McCain
Republican

"I don’t know what it is going to be like the rest of my life on this planet. But I can tell you this: I have had enough experience and enough knowledge to believe that unless we reverse what is happening on this planet, my dear friends, we are going to hand our children a planet that is badly damaged."

Energy Platform & Plan for Global Warming
Use cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; cap emissions at 2004 levels by 2012 and 65 percent by 2050; fund nuclear power; give power plants credits for reducing pollution, which they can then sell to others; oppose ANWR drilling and the Kyoto Protocol; provide incentives for use of alternative energies, including ethanol and nuclear power; demand sharply higher fuel standards from the automobile industry; develop an automobile battery that can travel 150-200 miles without a charge (government-financed research); oppose measured carbon tax; oppose subsidies for domestic oil and ethanol producers; increase fuel economy of vehicles.

Experience
One of the Senate’s earliest and most consistent champions of climate change action; sponsored the first major Senate legislation to reduce greenhouse gases in 2003; abstained from vote on EPA Clean Air Mercury Rule; held a Senate hearing on climate change in 2001; introduced legislation in the last three congressional sessions to establish a cap-and-trade system aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions 65 percent by 2050 (latest version: McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act).

John Edwards
Democrat

"Our generation must be the one that says, 'We must halt global warming.' If we don't act now, it will be too late. Our generation must be the one that says 'yes' to alternative, renewable fuels and ends forever our dependence on foreign oil. Our generation must be the one that accepts responsibility for conserving natural resources and demands the tools to do it. And our generation must be the one that builds the New Energy Economy. It won't be easy, but it is time to ask the American people to be patriotic about something other than war."

Energy Platform & Plan for Global Warming
Reduce greenhouse gases by 80 percent by 2050; require industry to pay for quotas to emit greenhouse gases; oppose ANWR drilling; launch a cap-and-trade program in 2010 to reduce emissions by 15 percent by 2020; oppose CTL technology; employ a $13-billion-per-year New Energy Economy Fund to invest in renewables, funded by auctioning off emissions permits and repealing some oil industry tax breaks; ban any new coal plants that do not comply with carbon-capture and -storage technology; oppose nuclear power; create at least 1 million jobs by investing in clean energy technology; raise fuel-economy standards for automobiles to 40 mpg by 2016; mandate that 25 percent of the U.S. electricity supply come from renewables by 2025; produce 65 billion gallons of ethanol per year by 2025; require oil companies to install ethanol pumps at 25 percent of their gas stations; require all new cars sold after 2010 to be flex-fuel; get rid of subsidies for oil companies; reduce oil imports by 7.5 million barrels per day by 2025; cut federal government energy use by 20 percent.

Experience
Introduced an amendment in 2003 to block the Bush administration from changing the "new-source review" program under the Clean Air Act; co-sponsored the Clean Power Act of 2003; voted in 1999 to allow mountaintop-removal mining practices; voted in 2003 to increase fuel-economy standards for passenger cars to 40 mpg by 2014; has voted both to store nuclear waste at Yucca and against the proposal (changed his position to match John Kerry's for the 2004 election); voted in 2002 to exempt pickup trucks from higher CAFE standards.

Ron Paul
Republican

"My answer to energy is to let the market work. Let supply and demand make the decision. Let prices make the decision. That is completely different than the bureaucratic and cronyism approach."

Energy Platform & Plan for Global Warming
Reduce overall government restrictions addressing global warming/the environment; end "all subsidies and special benefits to energy companies"; expand nuclear power; support ANWR drilling; oppose Kyoto Protocol; oppose cap-and-trade system; lessen the power of or possibly dissolve EPA; support only "economically competitive" fuels; emphasize respect for private property rights and encourage the prosecution of polluters in courts on a case-by-case basis, which will force the market to increase the price of pollution; oppose pre-emptive regulations and pay-to-pollute schemes.

Experience
Voted against raising vehicle fuel standards to 33 mpg by 2015; voted against a bill in 2001 to continue prohibition of drilling in ANWR; sponsored the Affordable Gas Price Act; co-sponsored legislation to streamline federal approval of oil refinery construction and expansion; co-sponsored legislation to provide tax deductions for public transit and bicycle users; co-sponsored the Buildings for the 21st Century Act; co-sponsor of many bills giving or extending tax credits to various forms of renewable energy; opposed 2005 Energy Policy Act; opposed legislation enabling the storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain and against raising fuel-economy standards for cars and light trucks to 27.5 mpg.

Barack Obama
Democrat

"On the front end at least, when you set up a cap, that is going to increase the costs, the production costs of electricity, for these companies. What will they do? They are going to pass them on to you. And so, I hope everybody understands, if we are serious about dealing with global warming, there is going to be a spike in the unit costs of electricity."

Energy Platform & Plan for Global Warming
Use economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050; support only CTL fuels that can be created using 20 percent less carbon dioxide than petroleum fuels; invest $150 billion over the next 10 years to develop and deploy climate friendly energy supplies; dramatically improve energy efficiency to reduce energy intensity of U.S. economy by 50 percent by 2030; reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and overall oil consumption by at least 35 percent (10 million barrels of oil) by 2030; oppose ANWR drilling; make the U.S. a leader in the global effort to combat climate change by heading up a new international global warming partnership; expand weatherization grants for low-income individuals to make homes more energy efficient; establish fund to assist low-income Americans in paying higher electricity and energy bills; raise fuel economy standards for automobiles to 40 miles per gallon by 2020.

Experience
Attached a provision to the 2005 energy bill that gave $85 million to test Illinois coal for transportation; co-sponsored the CTL Fuel Promotion Act of 2007; endorsed Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act of 2007; introduced Health Care for Hybrids Act.

Mitt Romney
Republican

"We're using too much oil. We have an answer. We can use alternative sources of energy – biodiesel, ethanol, nuclear power – and we can drill for more oil here. We can be more energy independent and we can be far more efficient in the use of that energy."

Energy Platform & Plan for Global Warming
Push for clean coal and other alternative energy sources; expand nuclear power; make U.S. independent from foreign oil; support ANWR and offshore drilling; oppose Kyoto Protocol; support coal-to-liquid and coal gasification technology; increase use of biofuels; increase fuel efficiency, though not by raising CAFE standards; oppose oil drilling in the Florida Everglades.

Experience
As Massachusetts governor, laid out a plan to require state buildings to increase energy efficiency and state vehicles to use more biofuels; pulled Massachusetts out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in 2005; introduced Massachusetts plan to fight climate change.

Bill Richardson
Democrat

"I believe very strongly in what John F. Kennedy asked all Americans to do and that's sacrifice a little bit for the collective good. We need, as a moral imperative, to reduce our consumption of fossil fuel because it's in our national interest that we do so as a nation. It's going to take a president to lead this dramatic shift and not just little energy bills. We need to energize every American to become green."

Energy Platform & Plan for Global Warming
Cut U.S. oil demand 50 percent by 2020; obtain 30 percent of all U.S. electricity from renewables by 2020 and half by 2040; double the CAFE standards for vehicles to 50 mpg by 2020; cap carbon emissions at 20 percent below 2006 levels by 2020, 80 percent by 2040, and 90 percent by 2050; increase plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles to 5 percent of annual automobile and light-duty truck sales by 2013 and 50 percent by 2020; support Kyoto Protocol; supoort clean-coal technologies; support stringent restrictions on new coal-fired power plants and upgrades; oppose ANWR drilling; rely partly on nuclear power in energy mix; advocate and fund a national recycling system; require a 20 percent improvement in energy productivity by 2020; oppose liquified coal; impose a life-cycle low-carbon fuel standard to reduce the carbon impact of liquid fuels 30 percent by 2020; promote national energy-efficient public transportation; support all biofuels.

Experience
As New Mexico governor, advocated for clean energy and action against climate change; led the state to become the first to join the Chicago Climate Exchange; served as energy secretary in Clinton administration; environmental legislation record from House (1983-97) reflects strong support for conservation; voted to direct $210 million to interior secretary for restoration in the Florida Everglades; voted against allowing Forest Service to up spending for new timber logging roads; helped create Western Regional Climate Action Initiative; fought against opening N.M. desert grassland to oil and gas drilling.

Fred Thompson
Republican

"Our dependence upon foreign oil, especially from trouble spots in the Middle East and elsewhere, endangers our national security as well as our economy. For 50 years nearly every recession has been associated with a spike in oil prices. What we need is another spike in American creativity and innovation...."

Energy Platform & Plan for Global Warming
Increase U.S. energy independence; invest in alternative energy sources; expand nuclear power; support ANWR drilling; temporarily subsidize ethanol and other renewables until they are strong enough to compete in the free market; reduce CO2 emissions without harming the economy; increase domestic supplies; reduce U.S. demand for oil and gas. [No stated energy program.]

Experience
Voted against eliminating authorization and funding for oil drilling in ANWR; voted to terminate CAFE standards within 15 months, though did not support ending discussion of CAFE fuel standards; voted in 1999 to defund renewables, including solar energy.

Publishers Note: Should any of the candidates reading this article wish to add to our coverage in an Oped, please feel free to contact us. We will publish any responses on the web, and may also do so in the magazine.