Green Energy Jobs vs. An Energy Jobs Plan that Makes Opponents Green with Envy

Governor Palin recently highlighted the crony capitalism surrounding the Solyndra solar panel company. This solar panel company with ties to Obama fundraisers has received more than half a billion dollars in stimulus money devoted to green energy projects. In spite of this, the company declared bankruptcy in August and laid off more than a thousand employees. As Governor Palin noted on Hannity on Tuesday, Solyndra received more stimulus money than 35 states received for infrastructure and roads. Governor Palin has been at the forefront of the discussion of crony capitalism, such as that of Solyndra’s, on both sides of the aisle, especially in recent weeks. However, considering Solyndra went bankrupt despite receiving hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars and despite spending more than a million dollars on lobbying since 2008, it is important also to remember Governor Palin’s words of warning on the economic futility of green energy projects.

In her speech at the India Today Conclave in March, Governor Palin warned of the economic woes of countries who emphasized green energy, noting the effects such policies had on the United Kingdom and Spain, and also referred to such policies as “social engineering” :

This push for 'green' at the expense of 'conventional, reliable' sources is not a credible energy policy or economic policy. It's "Social Engineering" by Central Government Planners. And it leads to nothing but more debt & more job loss. And taxpayers will be stuck subsidizing the failure and paying more for energy.

Later, in her speech at the Madison Tea Party in April, Governor Palin noted solar panels specifically (emphasis added):

Less than 90 days after the election, in his State of the Union address, President Obama told us, nah, the era of big government is here to stay, and we’re going to pay for it whether we want to or not. Instead of reducing spending, they’re going to “Win The Future” by “investing” more of your hard-earned money in some cockamamie harebrained ideas like more solar shingles, more really fast trains – some things that venture capitalists will tell you are non-starters. We’re flat broke, but he thinks these solar shingles and really fast trains will magically save us. So now he’s shouting “all aboard” his bullet train to bankruptcy. “Win The Future”? W.T.F. is about right.

In both speeches, Governor Palin was right. Taxpayers have been stuck subsidizing failure, and companies like Solyndra have indeed been non-starters. That is part of the reason Governor Palin emphasized energy development as part of the plan she laid out in Iowa earlier this month:

Fourth, it is time for America to become the energy superpower. The real stimulus that we’ve been waiting for is robust and responsible domestic energy production. We have the resources. Affordable and secure energy is the key to any thriving economy, and it must be our foundation. So, I would do the opposite of Obama’s manipulation of U.S. supplies of energy. Drill here, drill now. Let the refineries and the pipelines be built. Stop kowtowing to foreign countries and dictators asking them to ramp up production and industry for us, promising them that we’ll be their greatest customer. No, not when we have the resources here. We need to move on tapping our own God-given natural resources. I promise you that this will bring real job growth, not the politicians’ phony “green jobs” fairy dust sprinkled with wishes and glitter… No, a hardcore all-of-the-above energy policy that builds this indestructible link between made-in-America energy and our prosperity and our security. You know, there are enough large conventional natural resource development projects waiting for government approval that could potentially create more than a million high-paying jobs all across the country. And this is true stimulus. It wouldn’t cost government a dime to allow the private sector to do these. In fact, these projects will generate billions of dollars in revenue. Can you imagine that: a stimulus project that actually helps dig us out of debt instead of digging us further into it! And these are good-paying jobs, and I know that from experience. For years my own family was supported (as Todd worked up on the North Slope) by a good energy sector job. America’s economic revival starts with America’s energy revival.

Rather than emphasizing green energy projects funded by taxpayer “stimulus” dollars, Governor Palin noted that America needs to become the energy power by developing God given resources. To be sure, energy has been one of Governor Palin’s signature issues for years, so this is not a new statement. However, Governor Palin’s record of fighting against crony capitalism and for domestic energy development uniquely positions her above other potential presidential rivals. A report released last week by the Department of Energy’s National Petroleum Council notes that America has more oil and gas resources than previously thought and has the potential to be the world’s largest producer of oil by 2017 if regulations were appropriately lifted. Also, as Governor Palin noted in her speech, more than a million jobs could be created if government got out of the way.

While Governor Romney and Governor Perry are quibbling over whose administration has a better job creation record, Governor Palin is noting that government cannot create jobs, but they can certainly do a lot to destroy them through overregulation. That isn’t to say that there isn’t job growth or destruction on a politician’s watch, but that Governor Palin’s small government rhetoric matches her ideology. At the same time, Governor Palin's removal of the cronyism of the Murkowski administration’s oil tax structure helped double the number of oil companies investing in drilling in Alaska and brought a record number of oil jobs in each year from 2007-2009. Natural resource and logging jobs increased 13.7% during her tenure according to Alaska Department of Labor and Resource Development data. During that same timeframe, Perry’s Texas, another energy rich state, had a 0.5% decrease in energy development jobs (from mining, logging, and oil and gas production) according to calculation of Texas Workforce Commission data. Governor Palin never has claimed that government can create jobs, noting in one of her State of the state speeches that government can only “provide the tools” for jobs to be created. Governor Perry tried to claim that his administration actually “created jobs” while sparring with Governor Romney earlier this month. Meanwhile, as with many policy issues, Governor Romney’s record likewise does not match his current rhetoric. As Governor of Massachusetts, Romney created a $15 billion Green Energy Fund that went to subsidize solar panel companies, yet his recently released jobs plan states that such initiatives make “little sense”.

Additionally, Governor Palin rightfully notes that energy development and subsequent job growth is more than just expanding drilling. It also involves taking forward-focused action such as encouraging the building of refineries. Governor Romney makes no mention of the need to build refineries even in the 16-page energy policy component of his 160-page economic plan, and Governor Perry has yet to lay out a plan of any specificity. However, if America has the potential to become the largest energy producer in the world, should not America be prepared to refine these resources? America has not built any new refineries since 1976. Over the last 35 years, oil refineries have become more modern and more efficient in their refining capacity enabling them to refine more oil, but they have also decreased in number. If energy development is going to increase, would not it behoove a president to promote increased refineries to keep pace with the increased production? Drilling in ANWR alone has the potential to increase production by 1.5 million barrels per day, which would require the work of about 12 refineries working at the current capacity of about 123,627.9 barrels per day (the rate of the current operating refineries per calendar day). If energy development is no longer handcuffed by over-regulation, expanding refining capabilities to meet the increased development would be needed.

Governor Palin is the only declared or potential candidate whose record truly matches their rhetoric. Investing in socially-engineered green energy projects is not good economics, especially when it is simply a trade of political favors. Instead, energy development that unshackles the private sector and provides forward-focused objectives is what America needs for her national, economic and energy security. She is uniquely positioned to address the issue of energy, leaving her political opponents green with envy.

Crossposted here and here.

Governor Palin's Free Market Populism Bests the Boys' Crony Capitalism

Under the false premise that the government can create jobs, the Obama administration is proposing yet another stimulus/jobs bill that would use nearly half a trillion in taxpayer dollars as another supposed attempt to help the American economy. This new jobs bill is considered by some, however, to primarily be a bailout for blue states. This comes on the heels of the Solyndra scandal where President Obama’s hybrid of crony capitalism and corporatism meant taxpayer dollars went to funding a failed solar panel company with strong ties to his campaign donors. Solyndra is not the only company to fall under the Obama administration’s “too green to fail” mentality when it comes to stimulus funding, as four other “green” companies who received stimulus funding also have gone bankrupt. This loan guarantee program for green companies that was a key component of the 2009 stimulus bill has cost American taxpayers $38.6 billion, but has yielded fewer than 4,000 of the promised 65,000 jobs from the loan program. The stimulus bill as a whole was supposed to prevent unemployment from going above 8%, but instead it has been above 8% since February of 2009.

Additionally, although Governor Romney’s healthcare reform bill was not specifically intended to spur job creation, it's big government action has impacted jobs-- for the worse. A report published this week estimates that Romneycare has cost Massachusetts more than 18,000 jobs. Beyond their similar approaches to healthcare reform, Governor Romney’s policies and stances are similar to President Obama’s in that he feels that subsidies and corporatism are part of a “pro business/big government” mindset, as his administration offered special technology loans to lure business from other states. As a presidential candidate for 2008 and 2012, Romney has supported both energy subsidies and insurance subsidies, and he still supports TARP—all means of government funneling taxpayer dollars towards business.

Governor Perry, who is touted by many as the “jobs” candidate, may have had a lot of jobs come to Texas during his tenure, but he also implemented “pro business” loans like both President Obama and Governor Romney. Like President Obama, he scratched the back of his political donors at the expense of taxpayers. His Emerging Technology Fund also proved to be a mechanism of reciprocity to his political donors to the tune of 200 million in taxpayer dollars. The Wall Street Journal reports that one such donor invested more in Perry’s campaign than the company for which they were seeking a grant. Interestingly, the grant was initially denied by a regional committee, but was later approved by a Perry appointed committee:

In 2009, when Mr. Nance submitted his application for a $4.5 million Emerging Technology Fund grant for Convergen, he and his partners had invested only $1,000 of their own money into their new company, according to documentation prepared by the governor's office in February 2010. But over the years, Mr. Nance managed to invest a lot more than $1,000 in Mr. Perry. Texas Ethics Commission records show that Mr. Nance donated $75,000 to Mr. Perry's campaigns between 2001 and 2006.

The regional panel that reviewed Convergen's application turned down the company's $4.5 million request when it presented its proposal on Oct. 7, 2009. But Mr. Nance appealed that decision directly to a statewide advisory committee (of which Mr. Nance was once a member) appointed by Mr. Perry. Just eight days later, on Oct. 15, a subcommittee unanimously recommended approval by the full statewide committee. On Oct. 29, the full advisory committee unanimously recommended the approval of Convergen's application. When asked why the advisory committee felt comfortable recommending Convergen's grant, Lucy Nashed, a spokesperson for Mr. Perry, said that the committee "thoroughly vetted the company."

This was only one example of the reciprocity between Perry donors and grant recipients. The Dallas Morning News shares this graphic depicting hundreds of thousands of campaign donations from companies who would later receive grant funding from Governor Perry’s initiative:

Governor Palin, on the other hand, realizes that government neither creates jobs, nor is supposed to be a channel to funnel taxpayer dollars back to political donors. She recognizes that government’s role is not to be pro business, but pro market, where through billions of transactions the American public determines the success and failure of business by what they choose to buy, not by what government chooses to subsidize. In her Tea Party speech earlier this month, she spoke of the need for less federal government intervention, not only in less regulation and more federalism, but also in removing subsidies, loopholes, and bailouts—the very things her potential political opponents engage in-- from the economic equation (emphasis added):

But here’s the best part: To balance out any loss of federal revenue from this tax cut, we eliminate corporate welfare and all the loopholes and we eliminate bailouts. This is how we break the back of crony capitalism because it feeds off corporate welfare, which is just socialism for the very rich. We can change all of that. The message then to job-creating corporations is: We’ll unshackle you from the world’s highest federal corporate income tax rate, but you will stand or fall on your own, just like all the rest of us out on main street.

Governor Palin knows better than anyone else the need to remove crony capitalism from politics. As she noted on Greta van Susteren’s show earlier this week she has the “bumps and bruises to prove it”. ACES, her oil tax plan, reformed Governor Murkowski’s crony corruption tainted plan that was written to favor certain oil companies and ultimately also led to the arrest of oil company personnel, gubernatorial staff, and state legislators. ACES was not a behind closed doors deal. In fact, Governor Palin did not allow lobbyists in her office at all. Instead, it was a plan written and passed in a transparent manner, was presented to the people of Alaska more than two weeks before it was presented to the legislature, and did not involve undue influence from the oil companies. Following the passage of ACES, Alaska saw a record number of oil jobs during Governor Palin’s tenure. Not only were the number of jobs increasing, the legislation made development more attractive for other companies beyond the “Big Oil” companies favored by Governor Palin’s predecessor. Since the passage of ACES, the number of companies filing with the state of Alaska has doubled.

Even though a third of Alaskan jobs are tied to the oil industry, Governor Palin’s stellar jobs record extends behind solely that industry. Critics may argue that in an energy rich state, jobs naturally increase during a time when oil prices are high (as was the case during Governor Palin’s tenure) as more energy industry jobs are created. When Governor Palin took office in December of 2006, Alaska was pulling up the rear when it came to jobs, ranking 49^th out of the 50 states and Washington D.C. In her first year in office, Alaska was 6^th best in improvement in unemployment. By the end of the final year of her tenure, Alaska was ranked 21^st in the country. This kind of impressive record on jobs is how Alaska was 2^nd best in job growth during her tenure. Data from the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, showed that in addition to a 13.7% increase in resource development jobs, Alaska saw a nearly 5% increase in business service jobs and a 6.4% increase in education and health related jobs during Governor Palin's time in office.

Governor Palin’s record reinforces her rhetoric. Instead of giving companies millions or billions in taxpayer dollars in an attempt to create jobs or giving preferential treatment to favored companies or campaign donors, Governor Palin sought to remove the ties of cronyism and truly create a level playing field where businesses are neither too influential to fail, nor too small to succeed. This is what separates Governor Palin from all of her potential political opponents who have gained for themselves the moniker of crony capitalist or corporatist. Instead, she is, in the words Jim Pethokoukis of CNBC, a free market populist. This doesn’t make her William Jennings Bryan in skirt railing against big business, but instead a conservative warrior fighting against entangled web of business, political donors, and big government.

Crossposted here and here.

Governor Romney's "Women Problem" and Political Expediency

(From Draw for Truth)

An article by Steve Koranacki at Salon.com (H/T Tammy Bruce) highlights that recent disparaging remarks by anonymous Romney staffers are not the first time that Governor Romney has taken issue with female political cohorts:

Oh boy, here we go again. Mitt Romney has his eyes on a major political office -- if only that damned woman would get out of the way!

Romney, of course, is running for president in 2012, and has been from the moment he used a comically red meat-laden CPAC speech to depart from the 2008 GOP race. And his prospects, at least for the Republican nomination, aren't bad: He's the next-in-line guy, he'll have plenty of cash, and there just aren't that many other options.

But then there's Sarah Palin. She may ultimately decide not to run, but this past week brought fresh evidence -- in the form of her suddenly ramped-up and professionalized national political organization -- that she's serious about it.

The article later goes on to discuss Romney's races against Janet Jeghelian for the GOP Senate nod in the 1994 election, the GOP gubernatorial nod in the 2002 election, Jane Swift, and the 2002 general election against Democratic nominee, Shannon O' Brien. Koranacki discusses the race against Jeghelian:

Romney first went toe-to-toe with a woman in the spring of 1994, when, as an executive at Bain Capital, he jumped into the race for the Republican nomination to oppose Ted Kennedy. The early front-runner for the nod was a woman: Janet Jeghelian, a former Boston talk-radio host who entered the contest with far more name recognition than Romney. But at the state convention, Romney -- aided by the state GOP establishment -- helped ensure that she wouldn't even receive a spot on the primary ballot. (emphasis mine)

Koranacki later goes on to discuss the 2002 race against incumbent, Jane Swift:

But the Jeghelian incident had nothing on the events of March 2002. That's when Romney, his image boosted by the just-completed Winter Olympics (which he'd organized), returned from Utah to Massachusetts intent on running for governor. The only problem was that the job was already filled by a Republican -- a female Republican, Jane Swift, who had spent the last year swearing up and down that she planned to run in '02. Romney himself had publicly pledged fealty to Swift the previous year.

But Romney was done pretending to be her friend. Again aided by the state GOP establishment, he engineered a coup. One by one, prominent state Republicans stepped forward to call for Swift's exit -- and the anointment of Romney as her replacement on the fall ticket. He cut her legs out from under her, and within days Swift -- the state's first female governor and the first governor in the country to give birth while in office -- dropped out of the race, forced to pretend that "family obligations" would keep her from running. (emphasis mine)

You can read the rest of the article here.

Governor Romney, on multiple occasions, has used the GOP establishment for the the sake of his personal political expediency. The difference between the examples Koranacki presents and now? Governor Romney and Governor Palin are not currently political opponents. In fact, as 2010 is a prime opportunity for conservatives to make gains in both houses of Congress and in state houses across the country, Palin aides have suggested that Romney do what Governor Palin is doing--focus on those elections:

“It shocks me that anyone would try to do that,” the aide said. “You’d think we’d all be working together toward a common goal — that being 2010 — and that should be the focus right now. Those who try to claim the mantle of Reagan would be good to follow one of his most sacred tenets.”
...

“What she’s trying to do is turn the tide on the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda. …She’s stated publicly that her goal is to turn the tide on Obama’s agenda starting in 2010,” the aide added. “We need to all come together in what should be a great year for us in November.”

...

“She’s not a finger-in-the-wind kind of leader. She supporting candidates who share her common sense values,” the aide said. “When you have a team of consultants and strategists that big it’s hard to control.”

Governor Palin is not a finger-in-the wind kind of leader, but Governor Romney is a finger-in-the-wind kind of politician. Following the devastating oil spill in the Gulf, Governor Palin responded quickly and on multiple occasions, offering suggestions and constructive criticism to the Obama administration. What did Governor Romney do? He waited 50 days to make a statement about the spill.

Regarding the 2010 elections, more often than not, Governor Romney bases his endorsements on what is personally politically expedient. While Romney did endorse Nikki Haley in the South Carolina GOP gubernatorial primary before Governor Palin did, it was Governor Palin's endorsement who helped Haley surge into the lead, and it was Governor Palin who first offered her support for Nikki Haley against the barrage of sexist attacks against her campaign while Governor Romney responded later that he stood "four square" with Haley. Governor Palin endorsed the GOP nominee for governor of New Mexico, Susana Martinez, two weeks prior to the primary election while Romney waited to endorse Martinez until the day following her primary victory. Bold leadership on the part of Romney, huh?

Additionally, as a thinly veiled knock at Palin, a Romney spokesperson stated earlier in the 2010 primary election season, " [e]ndorsements are nice, but Governor Romney understands that money wins elections". It should be noted that Governor Romney also has set up a system of state based PACs that allow PACs associated with him to donated more than Governor Palin can with a single nationally based PAC. This spokesperson has obviously overlooked the fact that the power of a Palin endorsement often means that more Americans donate directly to these Palin endorsed candidates themselves, as has been recently touted by Michele Bachmann and Clint Didier.

The year is 2010, and very important Congressional and gubernatorial elections are on the horizon. Now is not the time for disparaging comments aimed at potential political opponents, as Governor Palin realizes and emphasizes. November is coming--November 2010, not November 2012. The political opponent are the progressives in Washington D.C., and as Governor Palin recognizes, the goal is to stop the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda. It's time to get serious, Governor Romney.

Cross posted here and here.