Mitt Romney Says Obama's Energy Policies Are Outdated — WTF?

 

The thing about the Republican party today, Republican leaders at least, is that they say anything they want, even if it’s completely divorced from reality, to try to win over voters. Heck, they even make claims completely divorced from their own policies and votes.

The latest (I think.., though, perhaps there’s an even more recent one out there now) is Romney talking about Obama’s energy policies and saying they’re “old and outdated.”

Give me a break!

It’s common knowledge around the world that we are at the beginning of a huge energy transition, a transition to clean energy. In fact, the “clean energy race” is a common topic of discussion and analyses, and it is widely considered to be one of the key (if not the #1) driver of economic growth this century. China, Europe, and the U.S. are the top contenders in that race. The U.S. is currently considered the #1 country in the world for solar energy investment attractiveness (and #2 for clean energy investment attractiveness as a whole) by Ernst & Young. But its shaky policies and volatile political system is often mentioned as a concern or wild card in this all. And that is because of the outdated policies of a political party intent on making fossil fuel companies richer no matter what it costs the nation or the world (hint: that’s not Obama’s party).

Now, Obama has very limited options for how to advance the U.S. in this clean energy race, given Congress’ total gridlock thanks to the Tea Party and filibuster-happy Republicans. And, to be quite frank, he’s done pretty darn good at keeping U.S. clean energy industries as world leaders despite the above.

But, there’s no point in even bringing up the specific policies the president is using to advance clean energy when the opposing party isn’t even interested in helping this key growth area along any more! Romney has the gall to call Obama’s policies “old and outdated” when he wants to keep billions of dollars of subsidies to fossil fuels flowing while cutting funding for nascent, emerging growth industries like solar energy, wind energy, and electric vehicles?

Seriously, this Romney claim is so ridiculous that it sounds like an Onion article, but it’s not. This is the GOP’s candidate for president! Can the party get any more detached from reality? I can’t even imagine the things we’ll start hearing as the election heats up later this year. I don’t know what to do about it — laugh or cry.

Image: Mitt Romney via Shutterstock

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