The Political Climate: an ongoing commentary on the NH Primary and Climate Change

An interesting story ran on NHPR yesterday by Amy Quinton titled “Republican Presidential Candidates Tout Energy Independence.”  Her timely piece ran during a rare lull in candidate activity in New Hampshire.  The ‘lull’ is more like the calm before the storm with the barrage of candidates we are expecting this weekend and the Republican debate on Wednesday in Durham.  Quinton’s piece provides an important perspective on the environment and energy priorities of the Republican candidates from Republican opinion leaders in New Hampshire.

Her piece opened at New England Wood Pellet with Charlie Bass, former New Hampshire Republican Congressman and FOTPC.  “If I were a candidate,” said Bass, “I wouldn’t want to be talking about the war in Iraq right now, you don’t win on that issue, you don’t win on the social issues around here, or abortion, what you win on are the environmental issues, energy issues and the economy.”  Bass then added his opinion that Sen. John McCain was the only Republican candidate to have specific plan to address climate change, referencing his 65% reductions by 2050 legislation in the senate.  It may be true that McCain is the first to support specific legislation, and legislation is one piece of a comprehensive climate change action plan.

The radio story shifted to McCain’s competition, Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Gov. Mitt Romney, and their unspecific love for renewable energy.  Giuliani and Romney continually profess their support for renewable energy as a way to achieve energy independence and combat global warming.  Paul Sanders, a first time voter and soon to be registered Republican worried that he had not seen specifics, just “general platitudes like we need better energy policy.”  The radio story recognized that the republican candidates like to talk about energy independence when asked about global warming.  Achieving energy independence means increased development of renewables as well as increased drilling for oil according to Giuliani and Romney.  This all may sound familiar if you listen to the audio clips TPC has compiled from around New Hampshire.

New Hampshire Carbon Coalition Co-Chair Ted Leach offered the report’s concluding remarks that articulating climate change action ”will become more and more important because Republican candidates, Democratic candidates are very cognizant of the fact that 162 towns in this state passed resolutions directly addressing the subject of global warming, and if you want New Hampshire’s votes, you need to pay attention to what those towns are saying because that’s the voice of NH right now.” 

Listen to Quinton’s radio piece now.