Hurricane Sandy has many of my left-of-center friends talking about climate change and wondering how anyone concerned about it can consider voting for Mitt Romney for president. An answer, from a USA Today news article:
He pushed to make homes and businesses more energy efficient. He offered government incentives for renewable power and, early in his administration, tried to tackle climate change with fees on excessive corporate emitters of greenhouse gases.
President Obama? Well, it may sound like him, but it's GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts -- a blue state with a Democratic-led legislature -- from 2003 to 2007.
The two men have fairly similar governing records on energy and environmental issues....
"There's a lot of similarity" between Romney's record as governor and Obama's as president, says Kateri Callahan of the Alliance to Save Energy, a non-profit group that advocates energy efficiency. She applauds both men for the work they've done.
"He (Romney) really did drive energy efficiency into the Massachusetts economy," Callahan says, noting he backed tax credits -- up to $600 for individuals -- for homes and businesses to make efficiency upgrades. He also signed into law legislation to increase the efficiency of equipment such as boilers and furnaces as well as light bulbs.
She says he also supported efficiency and renewable energy projects, investing $15 million of state money into the Massachusetts Green Energy Fund LP, a venture-capital firm that helped finance about a dozen companies. Three of those companies have since gone under, including solar panel manufacturer Konarka which received $1.5 million. ...
Romney, who once stood in front of a coal plant and said it "kills people," launched a Climate Protection Plan in 2004 to reduce industrial greenhouse gas emissions as part of -- in his words -- a "no regrets" policy toward climate change.
His staff drafted the country's first interstate cap-and-trade system to cut emissions, known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative or RGGI.
As for Mr. Obama, the article says he "has a mixed record with environmentalists. He's been criticized for pulling back an EPA proposal to limit ozone emissions linked to smog, approving the southern half of the Keystone XL pipeline and failing to create new wilderness areas that would be protected from development."
Again, this is from a USA Today news article, not Environmentalists For Romney.
