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Mitt Romney's energy plan: 3 critical points

At least it looks like a coordinated effort. Unlike the disjointed, uneven effort we have seen from 3 administrations over the past 20 years.

Romneys position on ethanol is to be expected. While ethanol is environmentally a worse polluter than gasoline and a real world stupid move because it has driven a rise in food prices, at the same time it has become a political third rail because of the powerful states getting subsidies.

It needs to be kept in mind that US coal plants that do not meet the new EPA CO2 standard are still far cleaner burning than most of the coal plants in China and India. Lets pressure them to clean up proven pollution before we kill ourselves over CO2.

R&D is where the government has a legitimate role in renewable energy. Leave the venture capital funding to the private sector. So far the governments efforts to pick winners has been an abysmal failure because politics intervenes when business sense says to run away. As seen by the reversal of the original denial of Solyndras loan application.

It's "Drill baby drill". More of the same. The depredations of global warming will continue to become more and more obvious and I predict that we will be in an all out rush to eliminate CO2 emitting energy sources within 10 or 15 years. We could save money by encouraging getting out ahead of that wave. Science and reality are like that. They don't care what your political position is, they just are and you can only ignore them for so long before they force you to pay attention.

BTW, Arctic sea ice extent in on the verge of setting a new low for the recorded history in the next week or two, several weeks before the normal end of the melting season.

If Solyndra was a scandal, then so too is Exxon and the rest of big oil, once they get their continued R&D tax breaks and grants.

http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2012-08-21/romney-refining-texas-t-7-min/

Mitt's energy policy amounts to the continued building of the plutocracy.