{"id":459,"date":"2011-10-14T14:42:22","date_gmt":"2011-10-14T19:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=459"},"modified":"2013-11-15T20:40:36","modified_gmt":"2013-11-16T02:40:36","slug":"perry-keeps-focus-on-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/10\/14\/perry-keeps-focus-on-energy\/","title":{"rendered":"Perry Keeps Focus on Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gov. Rick Perry is set to unveil his jobs plan Friday, and the campaign says it will be strongly tied to U.S. energy production.<\/p>\n\n

\"Governor<\/a>

Photo courtesy of KUT News<\/p>

Some observers see a little bit of Green under Rick Perry's Red State politics.<\/p><\/div>\n

Perry had energy at the front of his mind several times at the most recent GOP debate. In New Hampshire this week, talking about how he would get the U.S. economy back on track, he advocated \u201copening up a lot of the areas of our domestic energy area.\u201d<\/p>\n

Answering a question on political gridlock in Washington, he said, \u201cIt\u2019s time for energy independence.\u201d<\/p>\n

On how to insure uninsured Americans: \u201cThat\u2019s why I lay out, without having any congressional impact at all, how to get our energy industry back to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

And on dealing with Chinese currency manipulation: \u201cWe\u2019re sitting on this absolute treasure trove of energy in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no surprise that Perry sees domestic oil drilling and energy development as central to America\u2019s economic recovery. After all, says David Spence at the University of Texas\u2019 Energy Management and Innovation Center<\/a>, it\u2019s worked pretty well in Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the price of oil goes up, that increases employment in the industry, and as you know, a lot of oil and gas employment for the world is centered in Texas,\u201d Spence told KUT News.<\/p>\n

Spence says it\u2019s an open question how much credit Perry can claim for the booming oil and gas industry. But the governor\u2019s embrace of fossil fuels, his public battles with the Environmental Protection Agency and his vocal skepticism of climate change have made him a bogeyman to many environmental groups. The thing is Perry\u2019s history in Texas may be a little more complicated than his image implies.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah I suppose it depends on whether you focus on what he says or what he does.\u201d said Spence.\u00a0 \u201cThe rhetoric in the Presidential campaign has been very strong against EPA, against environmentalists and against environmental regulation. But there are some sort of environmentally responsible actions that you can point to, at least a few of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with the traditional support of the oil and gas, Perry has overseen record growth in some renewable energy sectors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019ve had the success over the last 10 years, and people blame the governor\u2019s office for failures, they also should generally credit the governor\u2019s office for some of the successes,\u201d said Russel Smith, director of the Texas Renewable Energy Industries Association<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Smith told KUT News that in those 10 years Texas has become a world leader in wind power<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a fact Perry\u2019s office doesn\u2019t want you forget either. The governor\u2019s office website<\/a> touts millions of dollars in investment from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund in renewable energy. It even features a video<\/a> of the governor announcing more than $8 million for wind power research at Texas Tech University and touting the expansion of wind power transmission into major cities.<\/p>\n

Spence says the state has managed to spread the cost of those transmission lines among ratepayers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the national level, the siting of new transmission lines has gotten bogged down in fights over whose going to pay for that,\u201d he said. \u201cHere we\u2019ve chosen a kind of regional approach; some call it socializing the cost of those transmission lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perry actually faced questions at the Bloomberg-Washington Post<\/em> GOP debate over his use of the emerging technology fund to finance renewable energy. And it might not be a surprise that while the governor\u2019s state website touts renewables, Perry\u2019s campaign website<\/a> is pretty silent on the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s put it this way, you can\u2019t accomplish your goals unless you get elected,\u201d said Smith of the renewable-energy group. \u201cI think we\u2019ve seen in Texas, as elsewhere, major politicians stepping back from positions they may have taken in the past that were more supportive of renewable in order to make it past the hurdles.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for everybody wondering aloud whether there may be a little green under Perry\u2019s red-state politics, there\u2019s little doubt that fossil fuels remains the focus of his energy policy in both the oil and electric industries.<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernor Perry has been very pro-coal-fired power plants,\u201d Ken Kramer, executive director of the Lone Star Sierra Club<\/a>, told KUT News. \u201cAs a matter of fact, in 2005 he issued an executive order to the state environmental agency to order them to fast-track the issuance of permits to coal-fired power plants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kramer points out that much of Texas\u2019 wind power infrastructure was mandated by electric deregulation that took place before Perry took office.<\/p>\n

He says if you want to know what kind of president Perry would be, all you have to do is look at who he appoints to regulate energy and the environment in Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey seem, in the main, to view their responsibility as one of issuing permits so that businesses that emit air pollution and water pollution can get to work,\u201d Kramer said.<\/p>\n

Getting to work will be the focus of Perry\u2019s speech today in Pennsylvania as he unveils his jobs plan. It\u2019s expected to have a strong domestic energy component.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Rick Perry is set to unveil his jobs plan Friday, and the campaign says it will be strongly tied to U.S. energy production. Perry had energy at the front of his mind several times at the most recent GOP debate. In New Hampshire this week, talking about how he would get the U.S. economy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[22,21,62,39,32,24],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459"}],"version-history":[{"count":45,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":486,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions\/486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}