Toomey Reacts To Obama’s Energy Agenda

Scott Detrow / StateIm­pact Pennsylvania

Repub­li­can U.S. Sen­a­tor Pat Toomey, dur­ing an August 2011 town hall meet­ing in Tioga County

Pennsylvania’s Repub­li­can U.S. Sen­a­tor, Pat Toomey, said he was “dis­ap­pointed” by Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. That’s despite the rel­a­tively low expec­ta­tions Toomey said he car­ried into the speech.

Toomey spoke to reporters dur­ing a Tues­day night con­fer­ence call.

What about Obama’s call for expanded nat­ural gas drilling?

Toomey said he was “encour­aged” by Obama’s “appar­ent embrace of nat­ural gas,” but said the push for more domes­tic pro­duc­tion is negated by Obama’s recent deci­sion to reject an appli­ca­tion for the Key­stone XL Pipeline, which would have trans­ported oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

Toomey said he also con­tin­ues to oppose the president’s “insis­tence on con­tin­u­ing to sub­si­dize forms of energy.”

Dur­ing tonight’s speech, Pres­i­dent Obama announced the Navy will “make one of the largest com­mit­ments to clean energy in his­tory” by pur­chas­ing enough power gen­er­ated by alter­na­tive sources to “power a quar­ter of a mil­lion homes a year.”

It’s not clear where this energy will come from – NPR News said it’s a mix of solar and renew­able power —  but Toomey didn’t like the idea. The “expen­sive and inef­fi­cient energy is a waste of money,” Toomey said.