Christian is Defend Our Future’s Conservative Outreach Director. He’s attending the GOP convention as a delegate, and is sharing his thoughts on the experience.
So I’ve been taking a pretty close look at the Republican Party platform, and I found a shocker in what some are calling “the most conservative platform ever.” It says the words “climate change”!
Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not exactly a rousing call to action. “Climate change” is followed by “is far from this nation’s most pressing national security issue.” I might be grasping at straws. But hey, I’m a Republican who is motivated by conservation, the environment and energy innovation, so I’ll take a few drops of water to quench my thirst.
A section entitled ‘A New Era in Energy’ proves to be anything but ‘new.’ It has a dominant focus on fossil fuels and coal specifically, numerous times with claims that it is ‘clean.’ It calls for the Environmental Protection Agency to be replaced by a bipartisan commission akin to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, itself a body with few powers to act quickly and often subject to partisan gridlock. It also says would be structured against ‘politicized science.’ So much for recognition of science as reality.
The legislation does point to opportunities for the construction of nuclear plants, but makes no reference to nuclear plants having lower carbon emissions, as carbon doesn’t seem to be a serious concern of this platform.
I guess I look for slivers of optimism, so take my analysis for what it’s worth.
The platform does respect states’ rights to regulate ‘the use of hydraulic fracturing, methane emissions, and horizontal drilling.’ Who knew there was going to be a supportive position in this platform when it comes to the word ‘regulation.’ On another positive note it does call for the elimination of subsidies for coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear power and hydropower, and goes on to say that ‘we encourage the cost-effective development of renewable energy sources – wind, solar, biomass, biofuel, geothermal and tidal energy – by private capital.’ That’s probably aimed as a slight at Department of Energy grants, which gained notoriety after the collapse of Solyndra. So, I guess new energy companies like Tesla won’t have the RNC platform coming at it, but there is hardly the call for a clean energy revolution to get America and the world to a cleaner and more prosperous future.
The remainder of the platform goes after the EPA as the GOP usually has, and makes digs at President Obama’s Clean Power Plan and the accord reached in Paris last Fall.
All in all, I was expecting worse out of this process, but I’m certainly not going to guess that it will be embraced by the environmental community (itself a punching bag in the process).
On the convention floor, I shouted a ‘no’ when the report was moved for consideration. I wasn’t the only one.
