On the Issues - Energy

Greetings again! This blog series promises to be quite lenghty so please bear with me. I will create a seperate entry for each of the issues we will cover. The issues are The Economy, Energy Policy, National Security/Immigration, Foreign policy/Iraq, Healthcare, Education, Ethics/Civil Rights.The following information in bold is take directly from the candidates web pages. I have elected not to name the candidates until a seperate blog to be presented after all of the others, not that the enlightened among us won't be able to figure it out. All that said lets begin with the issues, Energy Policy:

Candidate 1:Government intervention, whether through more regulations or more subsidies (or both), hurts consumers in the end. The free market, driven by consumer choice and reflecting the real cost of resources, should be the foundation of America's energy policy. The federal government should eliminate restrictions that inhibit energy production, as well as all special privileges for the production of politically-favored fuels, such as ethanol.

Candidate 2: A leader in pushing for a comprehensive national energy policy and has introduced a number of bills to get us closer to the goal of energy independence. By putting aside partisan battles, he has found common ground on CAFE, renewable fuels, and clean coal.

Candidate 3:Our nation's future security and prosperity depends on the next President making the hard choices that will break our nation's strategic dependence on foreign sources of energy and will ensure our economic prosperity by meeting tomorrow's demands for a clean portfolio.

My Take: Candidate one again comes out swinging against the government. He must be a terribly unpatriotic fellow, no? He claims again that the government needs to remove its hands from things it was not granted control over in the constitution. He then makes the bold claim that a free economy would solve the energy problem by allowing consumers to pay what it cost a producer to produce (which includes profit of course). Sound crazy?

Candidate two is impressed with himself and he keeps using his name so I keep having to delete it. He takes the opportunity here to toot his own horn about his great accomplishments and uses hot words like "energy independance" and "renewable energy" whatever it is that those things mean. He doesn't provide much of an idea of a solution, other than his previous invest invest invest strategy.

Candidate three follows his previous suit that America is the rawkest in the world and that we need to maintain our spot as the big dawg on the block. He makes the claim that the president needs to make the "hard choices" to get rid of foreign dependance on energy, and I think I agree with part of that. Lets look again at what the constituion says the President (executives) job is.

Article II Section 2 and 3 of the Constitution of the United States of America

Section 2. The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.


He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.


The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session.


Section 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States.

END Article

Ok so from I can see the President in the Commander of the military, and he can grant pardons. Everything else he does requires the consent of the legislature. His only job then is to recommend to the legislature a course of action. In this light candidate 3's plan to "make the hard decisions" doesn't make much sense, as those are not his decisions to be making.

The Bottom Line: Candidate 2 and 3 sound very similar here, they both want energy independance somehow and promise lots of new technology and development. Candidate 3 on the other hand says he wants to change the way American government works and pass all of the development and innovation to private citizens without restriction from the government.

Candidate 1: The government needs to step back and let the free economy figure this out.
Candidate 2: I'm at the forefront of legislation and bi-partisanship.
Candidate 3: America is awesome and we need to stay that way.

Candidate 1 wins again, and i'm actualy surprised as he wasn't my horse coming into these blogs...lets see where this goes. National security and Immigration are up next!