Howie Hawkins for Congress - Oil-Free Energy Policies

Oil-Free Energy Policies

Howie Hawkins for Congress
25th District, New York
www.howiehawkins.org

Media Release

For Immediate Release: July 9, 2008
For More Information: Howie Hawkins, 315-425-1019, hhawkins@igc.org

Hawkins Pushes for Renewable and Clean Energy in Response to MoveOn.org’s National Day of Action for an Oil-Free President

Both Obama and McCain Promote Continued Investment in Fossil Fuels and Nukes

Maffei and Sweetland Echo Obama and McCain on Energy Policy, Says Hawkins

(Syracuse, NY) - Howie Hawkins, the Green Populist candidate for Congress (25th District), said today that while he agreed with MoveOn.org’s call for July 9th National Day of Action for an Oil-Free President, merely opposing Bush-McCain is not the solution to the energy crisis.

"MoveOn's Oil-Free President day rightly criticizes McCain's vacuous tax cuts and offshore and Alaskan oil drilling proposals, but provides uncritical cover for Obama's plan which is wrong about the scale of investment in renewables needed, the policies needed to encourage investment in renewables, and about nukes and so-called clean coal. Obama claims to advocate for change but he ends up providing more subsidies for the big centralized energy corporations. MoveOn should be promoting real oil-free presidential candidates like Cynthia McKinney, the presumptive Green Party nominee, and Ralph Nader, the independent presidential candidate," noted Hawkins, a longtime opponent of nuclear power.

During the Democratic presidential primary, the Clinton team pointed out Obama was "the only candidate who voted for the Bush-Cheney energy bill that was written by energy lobbyists and has been called the best energy bill corporations could buy." According to Opensecrets.org, Obama has raised $345,510 from oil and gas executives, while McCain has raised $1,001,668.

Hawkins said that his major party opponents, Republican Dale Sweetland and Democrat Dan Maffei, have presented nothing more in their energy policy statements than general positions that "echo the energy positions taken by their parties’ oil-drenched standard bearers."

"Instead of the wars for oil that both parties continue to fund in Congress, the energy crisis we face requires the moral equivalent of war. We need an immediate mobilization on the scale of World War II to deal with the urgent and interrelated crises of global warming, peak oil and gas, and a downwardly spiraling economic contraction made even worse by financial speculation in energy futures and escalating global oil trade imbalances," Hawkins added.

Hawkins is promoting a five-point Clean Energy Transition plan:

Switch federal energy subsides from nukes and fossil fuels to energy efficiency and renewables (about $25 billion annually),

A $300 billion-a-year Clean Energy Fund for technology transfers of efficiencies and renewables across the US and to developing countries, with the funds raised from cuts in US military spending,

A fossil-fuel efficiency standard that would rise by five percent a year,

A Carbon Tax graduating yearly with revenues rebated as equal monthly dividends to all US citizens, and

A Workers Superfund to provide all workers with jobs endangered by the Clean Energy Transition, such as the 50,000 coal miners in the US, with full income and benefits as they make the transition to alternative work.

Hawkins took exception to many of Obama’s energy proposals.

"Obama's plan of $150 billion for renewables over 10 years is woefully inadequate. It should be twenty times larger," Hawkins noted. Hawkins cited the program advocated by Ross Gelbspan, the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and former editor of the Boston Globe and authority on global warming. Gelbspan convened a group of scientists, economists, and former oil company CEOs at Harvard Medical School in 1998. Their conclusion was that we must spend at least $300 billion a year on renewables to avert unstoppable global warming. Gelbspan’s plan, upon which Hawkins bases much of his proposal, was presented in Gelbspan’s 2004 book, Boiling Point. An updated version of his "Global Solution" can be found at http://www.heatisonline.org/

Hawkins said a carbon tax would be far more effective in reducing greenhouse emissions than the carbon cap-and-trade approach advocated by McCain and Obama. "Europe’s experience with carbon cap-and-trade shows how difficult it is to set up this market and how easily it can be gamed by big business. Carbon trading markets are volatile, which discourages investments in renewables by raising risks. A steadily graduating carbon tax with rebates to consumers sends stable market signals that encourage investors to plan renewable energy projects because carbon prices are predictable," Hawkins noted.

A carbon tax is a tax on the carbon content of fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas). Currently, the prices of gasoline, electricity and fuels in general include none of the costs associated with devastating climate change. This omission suppresses incentives to develop and deploy carbon-reducing measures such as energy efficiency (e.g., insulation and passive solar heating in buildings, high-efficiency heaters and air conditioners), renewable energy (e.g., wind turbines, solar panels), and overall reduction in energy consumption, according to Charles Komanoff of the Carbon Tax Center (http://www.carbontax.org/).

Hawkins also noted that Obama supports "clean" coal development, even though cost-effective carbon sequestration technology is at least a decade away. So-called clean coal is far more expensive than the wind, solar, and other renewables that are ready now.

"Obama supports nuclear power, but the nuclear industry has not solved the four major problems that have plagued it for 60 years," said Hawkins. The four key problems with nuclear, Hawkins said, are safety (chronic radiation leaks, catastrophic accidents, targets for terrorists), waste (still no safe repository), weapons proliferation (nuclear power plants put countries a step away from weaponization), and cost (never economical without massive public subsidies).

"Nuclear is such a bad investment that Wall Street won’t invest without 100% loan guarantees and the Price-Anderson Act limiting liability for accidents. Nuclear development just diverts hundreds of billions of dollars away from clean solar-based renewables," Hawkins added.

"Obama wants to patch up the system of fossil-fueled roads instead of building more efficient solar-powered rails commuter mass transit, high-speed intercity passenger rails, and freight rails. Obama's support for car fuel-efficiency standards and corn-based ethanol only reinforce the inefficient cars, trucks, and roads system. Fuel-efficiency for cars is fine, but it is not the centerpiece of a real solution at this late date. The transportation emphasis now should be on solar-electrified rails," Hawkins said.

Corn-based ethanol barely yields a net energy gain from the petroleum invested in fertilizers, pesticides, and farm machinery to grow the corn. The diversion of food to fuel is raising prices and causing starvation in poor countries. Electrified trains use one-twentieth the energy of diesel trucks to move freight and one-tenth the energy of gasoline cars to move people. Solar and wind electricity can provide carbon-free power for the trains as well as the supplementary electric vehicles for the final delivery of freight, packages, and people, Hawkins said.

Hawkins also pointed out that two years ago during his campaign for the US Senate, he had urged President Bush to accept Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s offer to sell oil to the US for a long term guaranteed price of $50 a barrel of oil. The US rejected the offer because it would have made Venezuela the de facto leader of OPEC rather than US-allied Saudi Arabia.

"Both Democrats and Republicans plan to continue our addiction to oil. They talk about independence from foreign oil, not independence from oil, period. They don’t want to alienate their campaign contributors from Big Oil and Big Coal. That’s why Obama’s windfall profits tax allows Big Oil exemption from the proposed tax if it invests those profits in corn ethanol or coal gasification. Both Obama and McCain have demonized Venezuela’s Chavez instead proposing to take Chavez up on his offer to stabilize gas prices in the US at $2 a gallon for the next couple of decades as we make the transition from fossil fuels to solar power," Hawkins pointed out.

Hawkins said his Clean Energy Transition would:

Ignite a global engine of job creation and sustainable economic development as collapsing housing and financial bubbles send economy spinning downward.

Enhance US national security and world peace by spreading good will instead of resentment toward the United States over wars for oil.

Secure sustainable supplies of energy as oil and gas become scarce and expensive.

Stabilize energy costs at affordable levels.

Reduce US trade deficits by cutting oil imports.

Reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

Create thousands of new jobs in the 25th District retrofitting our buildings, industries, and infrastructure for the efficient use of renewable energy.