RSSUse all energy sources, Ryan tells Colo. crowd
Republican Vice Presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. waves to supporters as he enters during a campaign rally in Lakewood Tuesday.
LAKEWOOD — Colorado Republicans got their first look at their party’s likely vice presidential candidate Tuesday.
That man, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, played to that Colorado crowd, calling for an allof- the-above push on energy development and a promise that states, and not the federal government, would set their own rules on issues such as hydraulic fracturing.
Ryan’s appearance in Colorado was the second stop of his first solo campaigning since presumed GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney named him Saturday as his running mate.
“We have our own oil and gas, we have nuclear, we have all of the above: wind, solar, coal. Let’s use it,” Ryan told about 2,000 cheering supporters at Lakewood High School. “We have the technology here, the wherewithal here, the oil and gas here. We should be tapping our resources, which we know we can in an environmentally sensitive way. We want to get the government out of the way.” Ryan also extended that theme to fracking, a controversial process of pumping fluids into the ground to loosen natural gas deposits.
He said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency shouldn’t be in the business of regulating fracking, and its regulations on other energy development should be curtailed.
He said President Barack Obama and his administration have been trying to delay or slow certain types of energy production.
“President Obama has done all that he can to make it harder for us to use our own energy,” Ryan said. “His cap-and-trade agenda is designed to make energy more expensive. His EPA has given us an unprecedented barrage of burdensome regulations. He has 10 different agencies in four executive offices regulating hydraulic fracturing. We think Colorado knows how to take care of this themselves.”
Democrats immediately jumped on Ryan and Romney on their energy policies, saying the two would allow a federal tax credit on wind energy to expire, jeopardizing 5,000 Colorado jobs as a result.
At a Tuesday news conference, Anna Giovinetto, vice president of corporate affairs of RES America, a Broomfield- based renewable energy company, said Romney’s plan not to renew that credit has already resulted in job losses in the state.
She said that happened on Monday when Vestas, a Danish based windmill manufacturer, laid off 90 workers at its Pueblo plant. Company officials cited an expectation that not renewing the tax credit would further restrict an already tight wind energy market.
“For thousands of Coloradans, myself included, the wind energy (credit) means jobs, it means food on the table and it means boosting the local economy,” Giovinetto said. “The (credit) works. It’s made wind energy one of the fastest growing sources of clean, new electrical generation.”
Ryan also talked about the economy and the need to help businesses create more jobs.
Like Romney in recent weeks, he also said Obama hasn’t lived up to promises to lower unemployment and help the nation recover from the recession.
COMMENTS
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.I’m glad to see something slowing down the development of wind farms. Think of all the eagles and other bird and bat kills that will be minimized by fewer windfarms.
Todd, You can certainly be depended upon to quote the latest oil and gas industry talking points. Here are a couple of facts for you—newer wind turbines are a lot more friendly to birds, and the oil and gas industry kills more birds than do wind turbines.
Real all about it here: http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/05/25/myths-amp-facts-about-wind-power/183968
...media matters? now there’s a fact based source… ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha oh, sorry but that is just too funny. GO Romney/Ryan!!!
Good to see you again, Joyce. Media matters does fact checking on the media. But if you want another source to show that wind power is not as bad for birds as the oil and gas industry is, try this one http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/wind-turbine-kill-birds.htm
The only thing I found lacking in Ashby’s story was mention of the protests against Ryan because of his radical positions on women’s rights. They even had an airplane fly over with a message.
Interesting that we went from wind farms to women’s rights…. but that is a predictable liberal spin. Anyway to stay on the comments topic, by all means, folks read the howstuffworks site CK posted, also read the comments following the article… Enlightening. I invite you to Visit this site with an opposing view, after all there are two sides to every idea. http://www.aweo.org/problemwithwind.html
Google wind turbine controversy to see many views on the subject.
Interesting.
August 15, 2012
Grand Junction Daily Sentinel
P.O. Box 668
Grand Junction, CO 81502
Dear Editors:
The Daily Sentinel deserves kudos for timely chronicling the proliferating objective evidence of the Republican Romney-Ryan ticket’s pervasive hypocrisy.
As Charles Ashby reported – “Use all energy sources, Ryan tells Colo. crowd” – Paul Ryan now espouses an “all of the above” energy strategy. President Obama has been promoting this strategy for four years, with Republicans deriding him as a socialist and shouting “Drill, baby, drill”. Obviously, President Obama was and remains a leader toward energy independence, while Romney-Ryan are abjectly opportunistic followers.
While Romney-Ryan advocate a “level playing field” for various energy sources, they oppose elimination of subsidies for profitable oil companies and extension of the Wind Energy Tax Credit – thereby “jeopardizing 5000 Colorado jobs”, as well as thousands more in Iowa and Wyoming.
Ryan piously preached that fossil fuel resources can be developed in “an environmentally sensitive way”, but wants to eliminate the very regulations necessitated by that industry’s habitual disregard for environmental protections.
Quoting the New York Times—“A battle over plans for Medicare savings” – the Daily Sentinel confirmed that: “Ryan’s budget blueprint assumes the same amount of Medicare savings as President Obama’s health care law, even though Mitt Romney and Ryan . . . have said those cuts would be devastating to millions of older Americans on Medicare”.
“Obamacare” applies those savings to provide more preventive care services to women, but Ryan would use them to fund more tax cuts for the wealthy while cutting Medicare benefits and converting it to a “voucher” program costing seniors $6500 annually.
Ryan also disparaged President Obama’s purported “cap and trade agenda”, but avoided mentioning that “cap and trade” was the Republicans’ market-based alternative to EPA regulations to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by pricing them – legislation that its own Republican sponsors immediately abandoned when President Obama endorsed it.
Thank you, Sentinel.
Bill Hugenberg
543 Rim Drive
Grand Junction, CO 81507
Word Count = 300 257-1998