Bush and Kerry: Competing Visions for U.S. Energy Policy

Georgetown International Environmental Law Review, Fall 2004 by Hayes, David, Garman, David

Ira Flatow: Rebuttal, David Carman.

DAVID GARMAN: REBUTTAL

David Carman: As I said, there is not a whole lot to rebut because there is a lot to agree on, and I look forward to the day when we can work together to solve some of these very significant problems that confront us. But I do want to point out two things, because in a forum such as this, it's very easy to think the answer to this problem is, "let's just spend more money on it." We would love to spend more money on energy efficiency, renewable energy of course, but in the real world those are public dollars that compete against other public dollars that are vying for trying to cure cancer, providing for homeland defense, national security, and in the real budget debates, these trade-offs have to be made. We don't have to make those trade-offs here in this room today, and it's easy to say, "well, we're just going to spend more money." As you hear candidates claim they are going to spend more money on certain problems, think about letting the past guide your thinking.

In the energy efficiency budget, I'll just make two points. Number one, in the last three years of the Bush administration, more money has been both requested and appropriated for energy efficiency activities than was requested and appropriated in the last three years of the prior administration. So there is a record of performance that you can use to evaluate these claims that more money will be spent. Number two, our current spending pathway is, we believe, forward looking. More money is spent in the Department of Energy on energy efficiency and renewable energy than is spent on fossil energy and nuclear energy combined. Now, yes, we do talk about adding to supply, and that's the pragmatism and realism that we think we have to keep in mind. The new technologies we're developing are not going to be here tomorrow, so we have to think about how do we keep the bridge technologies-the energy supply-moving until we can reach these new technologies that we all talk about. Thank you.

Ira Flatow: Okay. Now I'm going to move to our panelist discussion, our journalists on my left, I've already introduced two out of three of those panelists. I want to introduce our last panelist, Juliet Eilperin of The Washington Post. She's a native Washingtonian and a graduate magna cum laude from Princeton in 1992 with a degree in Politics and Latin American Studies. She's spent a year covering politics and economics as a Luce Scholar in Seoul, Korea. In March 1998, she joined the Post as its House of Representatives reporter, delving into impeachment as well as conflicts between the GOP House leadership and President Clinton. This spring, she shifted to the environment, covering air pollution, the Endangered Species Act and natural gas exploration. So we're going to questioning from each panelist, and you can begin, Juliet, with your first question.

JULIET EILPERIN: QUESTION - MERCURY STANDARD

Juliet Eilperin: There's been a lot of attention and public comment generated by the mercury standards that the Bush administration is considering. And one thing, obviously for Mr. Garman, I would be interested if you could talk about, first of all, the impact of that public comment on the administration, which has been extended by three months and has more public comments than any other EPA rule-making, I understand, and why you think it makes sense to take the Bush administration approach, which obviously has been countered by Democrats and environmental groups, who have pushed for more stringent mercury control earlier in the process.