Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal today is having one of those pre-presidential-campaign events, at the Heritage Foundation at 11 a.m. Ahead of that, Jindal’s mini-think-tank, “America Next,” released an energy plan this morning.
It’s 48 pages and has 146 footnotes. It mostly calls for more oil and gas exploration and less regulation. In the paper, Jindal knocks the “radical left” energy policies of President Obama, and calls for “simple, tangible steps to address the possible risks of climate change.”
Jindal lays out 6 “principles.” Some of the principles are desired outcomes, others are general guidelines for shaping energy policy.
Jindal’s 6 principles: Promote domestic oil, gas, coal, and nuclear; encouraging renewables; “Unlock the Economic Potential of the Manufacturing Renaissance by Putting America’s Energy Resources to Work”; cut unneeded regulations; bolster national security; and take careful action on climate.
Some notes:
The paper is heavy in criticism of Obama
“The Obama Administration policies are based on radical leftist ideology,” Jindal writes. There are 13 references to “radical left” or “radical environmentalists,” or “radical NGOs.”
Jindal mostly focuses on fossil fuels
Jindal’s fossil fuel section is 10 pages — more than twice as long as his other sections. Keystone is a major theme — the word appears 22 times.
Jindal has good things to say about renewables
Sounding a bit like Obama, Jindal writes about the jobs created by renewable energy. With the caveat that “some of these jobs are subsidized,” he extols the job creation of wind and solar, even echoing one of Obama’s favorite lines, that many green-energy jobs “cannot be outsourced,” because they are service jobs.
He brings up ‘crony capitalism’ in the context of Solyndra
While vaguely calling for U.S. leadership on renewable energy, Jindal warns:
While Jindal critiques “explicit taxpayer subsidies for specific sectors and industries” he still advocates “incentivizing the development” of renewables.
Jindal would phase out the ethanol mandate, not kill it immediately
Jindal advocates “a gradual phase-out of the Renewable Fuel Standard.” Ethanol should stand on its own in a competitive fuels market, he writes. But he warns “the government should not turn specific sectors from “winners” to “losers” overnight. Instead, federal policy should provide a gradual transition away” from subsidies like the ethanol mandate.
He also calls for “federal funding of R&D into new forms of biodiesel.”
Jindal seems to position himself as a climate moderate
He curses the “politicized nature of this debate,” and writes that “global warming has become a religion for many on the Left.”
Jindal is open to a global climate deal that would also curb China’s emissions, but most of the climate sections is on what not to do — withdraw from Kyoto, avoid unilateral steps, et cetera. His most concrete recommendation on climate is to “focus on technology development and R&D as the key to addressing possible risks of climate change.”
Plenty more
As I wrote, it’s a 48-page document. There’s plenty more in there.
