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hatrack

(59,439 posts)
Wed Oct 21, 2015, 09:41 AM Oct 2015

Rubio's Big Energy Plan A Big Steaming Pile Of "Innovation" (Good!); "Regulation" (Bad!)

EDIT

But post–Tea Party Republicans have foresworn all energy policy that supports pollution reduction or alternative energy, with every candidate, including Rubio, promising to roll back Obama's EPA regulations and eliminate subsidies to renewable energy. So all attempts at balance, anything beyond a notional gesture at "all of the above" energy policy, have been stripped away. What remains is what every contemporary Republican candidate who has spoken on the issue has echoed in a single voice: more fossil fuels (and nuclear power).

Rubio does not mention climate change or pollution. Nor does he mention solar or wind power by name, only "renewables" — in the context of creating a "level playing field" by removing their tax subsidies.

Like Bush and Fiorina, Rubio says the word "innovation" a lot, especially as an alternative to the dread "regulation." But the innovation agenda, such as it is, turns out to be shutting down federal programs that invest in promising technologies (the policies that have spurred such innovation in renewable energy in recent years). Instead, he would unleash Department of Energy basic research on the world through removing unspecified "red tape." Freezing the status quo in place like this is framed as "promoting competition."

Anyway, it's all boilerplate conservatism. Like conservative tax policy, it hasn't changed in decades; it's only become more concentrated and less apologetic. Rubio's energy policy, like his tax policy, is raw and extreme, but that doesn't distinguish it, or him, from his competitors.

EDIT

http://www.vox.com/2015/10/20/9575001/rubio-energy-plan

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Rubio's Big Energy Plan A Big Steaming Pile Of "Innovation" (Good!); "Regulation" (Bad!) (Original Post) hatrack Oct 2015 OP
What is wrong with these people???? RiverLover Oct 2015 #1
Conservatives only have a couple tools in their mental toolbox: privatization and deregulation phantom power Oct 2015 #2

phantom power

(25,966 posts)
2. Conservatives only have a couple tools in their mental toolbox: privatization and deregulation
Wed Oct 21, 2015, 11:25 AM
Oct 2015

So, you know, when all you've got is a hammer....

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