Pawlenty knocks Obama's energy plan

8/05/08

Barack Obama is returning to the Twin Cities for a fundraiser Wednesday, and Gov. Pawlenty is welcoming him here -- in an I'm-still-in-the-running-to-be-John-McCain's-VP-candidate kind of way.

"We of course welcome him back to Minnesota," Pawlenty said Tuesday in a conference call set up by the Republican National Committee.

"It's an opportunity for our citizens not only to hear and see from him, potentially, if he makes himself available to the press (note: we're told he will), but also to discuss some of the issues of the week, or of the campaign, that are important to our citizens."

Namely, energy.

A day after Obama unveiled a new energy plan -- tapping into oil from the nation's strategic reserves, energy rebates for families, a windfall-profits tax on oil companies, developing alternative sources of energy -- Pawlenty accused the Illinois senator of being late to the game.

"We have a situation where, I think, Sen. Obama is now scrambling to try to make up for his, I think, lack of judgment and lack of experience in seeing and dealing with this crisis in a timely and bold fashion," the governor said.

Pawlenty reiterated his support for John McCain's energy plan which, primarily, consists of drilling for more oil, using more nuclear power, and giving Americans a gas-tax "holiday," as the governor described it.

There's been plenty of talk of flip-flopping on energy, whether it's McCain's shift on offshore drilling, which he once opposed, or Obama now seeming open to some offshore drilling as a compromise in a larger energy package. It raised the question (in my mind, anyway) if Pawlenty is doing some shifting of his own.

As the head of the National Governor's Association, Pawlenty made "Securing a Clean Energy Future" his top initiative.

In the conference call, I asked the governor if that clean-energy initiative actually was more in line with Obama's energy plan than Sen. McCain's.

"No," he said. "If you look at the materials we've published as part of that initiative, it really spoke to the need for a comprehensive policy, including maximizing the traditional energy supplies that we have immediately available, but in a responsible way, and also transitioning as quickly as possible to supplement what we have now with next-generation energy sources."

To read a summary of those materials he mentioned, click here.

The NGA clean-energy initiative doesn't mention drilling for more oil or using more nuclear power. The four main bullet points are:

* Use our energy resources better through efficiency and conservation

* Accelerate research and development of advanced, clean energy technologies.

Pawlenty reconciled his initiative with McCain's energy plan by saying McCain "has taken a comprehensive approach on both ends of that continuum, which is, maximize use of traditional energy sources," i.e., more drilling and more nuclear, "and then simultaneously try to transition as quickly as you can to these supplemental or additional next generation energy sources."

That's a little more nuanced than drill here, drill now.

That said, if the results of last month's Qunnipiac Poll are accurate, more swing voters are beginning to like the idea of more drilling as a more immediate approach to solving the energy crisis.

By Scott Goldberg, KARE 11 News Read other posts in Scott's Blog

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