A transcript from Monday night’s Republican debate:
MR. FAHEY: Mayor Giuliani, sea levels around the world are rising. Average temperatures are increasing. A U.N. report written by scientists from 113 countries recently said that climate change is very likely man-made and may affect us for centuries to come.
Is science wrong on global warming? And what, if any, steps would you take as president to address the issue of climate change?
MR. GIULIANI: I think we have to accept the view that scientists have that there is global warming and that human operation, human condition, contributes to that. And the fact is that there is a way to deal with it and to address it in a way that we can also accomplish energy independence, which we need as a matter of national security.
It’s frustrating and really dangerous for us to see money going to our enemies because we have to buy oil from certain countries. We should be supporting all the alternatives. We need a project similar to putting a man on the moon. That project started with Eisenhower. It was carried out by Kennedy and then Johnson and then Nixon. And that was two Democrats and two Republicans working - (audio difficulties) - working in the national interest.
MR. BLITZER: Thank you, Mayor.
I want Governor Romney to weigh in as well. There’s a perception, at least among some, that Republicans are - at least the Republican Party - very close to big oil. A lot of Americans are suffering now from the price of gasoline, the high price of gasoline.
What do you say to that - the audience out there who believes that there’s too much of an alliance, if you will, between the big oil companies and Republicans?
MR. ROMNEY: Well, first of all, Rudy Giuliani is right in terms of an Apollo project to get us energy independent, and the effects of that on global warming are positive. It’s a no-regrets policy. It’s a great idea.
Secondly, with regards to big oil, big oil is making a lot of money right now, and I’d like to see them using that money to invest in refineries. Don’t forget that when companies earn profit, that money is supposed to be reinvested in growth. And our refineries are old. Someone said to me - Matt Simons, an investment banker down in Houston, he said our refineries today are rust with paint holding them up. And we need to see these companies, if they’re making that kind of money, reinvest in capital equipment.
But let’s not forget, where the money is being made this year is not just - throughout these years is not just in Exxon and Shell and the major oil companies, it’s in the countries that own this oil. Russia last year took in $500 billion by selling oil. Ahmadinejad, Putin, Chavez - these people are getting rich off of people buying too much
oil. And that’s why we have to pursue, as a strategic imperative, energy independence for America. And it takes that Apollo project. It also takes biodiesel, biofuel, ethanol -
MR. BLITZER: Thank you.
MR. ROMNEY: - cellulosic ethanol, nuclear power, more drilling in ANWR. We have to be serious also about efficiency -
MR. BLITZER: Thank you, Governor.
MR. ROMNEY: - and that’s going to allow us to become energy independent.
MR. BLITZER: Senator McCain, do you have a problem at this time with these oil companies making these huge profits?
SEN. MCCAIN: Sure, I think we all do. And they ought to be reinvesting it. And one of the areas that they ought to be involved in is nuclear power. Nuclear power is safe, nuclear power is green - does not green - emit greenhouse gases. Nuclear power is used on Navy ships which have sailed around the world for 60 years without an accident. And of course we ought to be investing in alternate energy sources.
Recently there was a group of retired military officers who said that climate change an energy independence is a national security issue. It is. We’ve got to reduce our dependence on imported oil. We can do it through a wide variety of alternative fuels. But we have to be serious about it, and we’re going to have to go places where we have never gone before. And nuclear power is one of the major issues, but also all kinds of ethanol as well, so.
MR. BLITZER: Thank you. Thank you, Senator.
Let me bring Congressman Paul back into this conversation. In 2005, President Bush signed an energy bill that provided billions of dollars in tax breaks, subsidies to the oil companies with the goal of boosting domestic production at a time of these record profits.
Do you believe these companies need a helping hand from the federal government?
REP. PAUL: I don’t think the profits is the issue. The profits are okay if they’re legitimately earned in a free market.
What I object to are subsidies to big corporations when we subsidize them and give them R&D money. I don’t think that should be that way. They should take it out of the funds that they earn.
But I’m also - you can’t discuss energy without discussing our foreign policy. Why - why do we go to the Middle East? You know that oil is very important about the Middle East and why we’re there. Why did we, our government, help overthrow Mossadeq in 1953? It had to do with oil. So our foreign policy is designed to protect our oil interests. The profits - that’s not the problem. It’s the problem that we succumb to the temptation to protect oil interests by literally going out and fighting wars over oil.
MR. BLITZER: Governor Gilmore, you agree?
MR. GILMORE: I agree that if you make profits in the open marketplace that that’s an appropriate thing to do. I also believe that they should be going in, putting this additional money into additional drilling, into additional exploration, but it’s going to have to be bigger than that. We’re going to have to in fact look to all sources: ethanol, biomass, all coal, clean coal, the opportunities for natural gas, and nuclear power. And by the way, nuclear power will help this whole issue of global warming.
And one more point in direct answer to your question, the Kyoto Treaty was in fact fatally flawed. That was a treaty that in fact was going to basically just transfer money directly to Russia for nothing because they were going to get credits because simply that their economy had declined. The truth is, we’re going to have to get a program in place, an international diplomatic answer that is going to include every nation of the world in this entire project, and that includes China and India.
(Applause.)
MR. BLITZER: Thank you, Governor.
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June 7th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
We at Connecticut Real Estate and Construction have not the time to waste while the G8 deliberate picayune details about what sorts and how much of greenhouse gasses are allowable, and who was going to conform or not.
One might ask, what is the hurry? The hurry is: we humans are in the process of destroying our planet. Global warming is the single most significant environmental crisis the world community has ever seen. The 2007 G8 Summit in Germany will focus on the reversal of global warming. President Bush, of course opposes this proposal. Like his strategy in the Middle East, he has a better idea, and he wants to convince the world of something they already know is untrue. This time it’s not that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but that global warming is not that dire an issue.
Our Nero-like President fiddles, but we cannot allow our Rome to go up in flames. This isn’t a city’s destruction we speak of. It is the end of all of us, of history, of every thought and feeling humankind ever produced. Our present federal government is not going to do anything about this crisis.
Connecticut Real Estate and Construction will do something about it, because Connecticut needs GREEN workforce housing in significant number for very important reasons. Suburban sprawl is killing the environment. When we continually clear off two acres per household to put up large houses, we cut down trees which produce oxygen, we deplete the filtering system for our water, and we make houses which leave a carbon footprint which further opens a hole in the ozone. If we instead build multiple units together and build them with solar photovoltaic cell panels and with geothermal heating and cooling, we leave virtually no carbon footprint, we leave sufficient greenery to filter water run-off, and we provide our workforce with housing that allows them to stay in the state and not flee to the South and Southwest as has been the recent trend. As a result, those businesses (and their tax revenues) which require those workers need not flee with the workforce, a trend we have seen throughout the Northeast region of the country.
Additionally, we will build elderly housing. The Boomer Generation is aging. They are retiring at record rates and require specific housing that does not exist in sufficient number. We will build it. We will build commercial buildings and office space to go along with the elderly and workforce housing. We need cooperation from local governments to achieve our goals, and we need that cooperation quickly. As we move forward, we will build with town tax rolls in mind. We are aware that the workforce housing will require significant services and expenses, most notably educational expenses. This is why mixing the elderly housing with the workforce balances the ledger, for the elderly pay taxes without sending children to schools. Further, the commercial and office buildings will bring in significant tax revenues without pulling out revenues from the local municipality. This formula is referred to as “Smart Growth” and is to be part of our plans
While proposing “caution” and “care” is rarely foolhardy advice, studies on these issues have already been done and “smart growth” is necessary throughout the state and the country. We cannot wait. The cost is too dear for all of us to sit idly by and fiddle away time as the planet goes up in flames.
June 8th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Let us clarify several points. First, President Bush is not opposed to global limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Rather, he is opposed to placing such global limits on the United States while exempting China and India from those same limits. There is a significant difference between the two. Any mandatory global cap on the US while excluding the others places economic handcuffs on American industry to the detriment of the American worker. Bring China and India back to the table as the President proposes and the US will gladly sign a global deal that does not unfairly tip the economic scales towards the third world.
Second, let’s make sure everyone understands that the climate has been changing since the end of the last ice age. While human activity may have played some role in recent years, the absolute truth is that the planet is warming - and will continue to warm - without our own contribution. There have been at least three similar warming periods in the past 250,000 years. Since man has been contributing greenhouse gases for less than 200 years, I think it reasonable to assume there is a natural process at place here that goes well beyond anything we have done.
I see a lot of myths listed in the previous reply. Let’s be clear that the bulk of the oxygen on our planet is produced by ocean plankton, not trees. Clear cutting to build houses is not making a single dent in the amount of CO2 converted to O2. There’s some evidence that oceanic pollution is having an impact on it, however cutting down trees has nothing to do with it. In fact, Rhode Island and Eastern Massachusetts are more forested today then they were in 1620 when the Mayflower arrived! At that time, virtually the entire eastern half of both states was clear cut and cultivated by the various Indian tribes that (until the great plague of 1617) maintained large populations throughout the region. So let’s not be spreading panic about clear cutting for housing and any impact on oxygen levels. It’s not true.
Next, greenhouse gas emissions has nothing at all to do with the ozone layer or any so-called holes in that layer. The largest greenhouse gas by volume is water vapor (despite popular belief.) Carbon Dioxide is another (albeit very minor) contributor. Neither of those vapors or gases have anything to do with a reduction in ozone. In fact, it could be argued that increased water vapor will indirectly increase the amount of ozone since lightening storms are a major generator of O3. Rather, the link to the ozone layer depletion is with fluorocarbons. Oddly enough, they are not a greenhouse gas.
If you want to do something constructive with regards to climate change, then start planning on how to respond to the inevitable continued increase in global temperatures. That’s a far better use of our time, money, and resources. Not only is there very little that we can do given current technology to reduce our own emissions, there is no evidence that doing so will stop the increase in temperatures that have been ongoing for the past 14,000 years. Remember, we weren’t around to cause the last three warming periods. What makes us arrogant enough to think we can prevent this one?
June 9th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
While congress fiddles Rome will burn. There was a great article in Government COmputer News about MIssouri and waht they are doing to save a huge amount of energy, with very little effort. This is the kind of stuff the Right should push: http://www.gcn.com/print/26_13/44402-1.html
June 11th, 2007 at 3:19 am
Hell, that’s the kind of stuff the Left should push.
-A left-wing babykiller