Presidential paper
It is the belief of many scientists and policymakers that energy security and sustainability are among the major science issues facing the United States in the 21st century. In a debate held by ScienceDebate.org on September 4 2012, the leading US presidential candidates, Barrack Obama and Mitt Romney, gave their standing on this issue. Generally, their policies on energy and environment largely overlap in a number of ways but differ in how to achieve them (ScienceDebate.org, 2012, 1).
To larger extent the two candidates agree on the efficacy of implementing the “no regrets” climate policy and energy innovation. Governor Romney’s definition of this approach is “steps that will lead to lower emissions, but that will benefit America regardless of whether the risks of global warming materialize and regardless of whether other nations take effective action” (Stepp & Yin, 2012, 1). The governor approves at least some of Climate Pragmatism’s no-regret approaching by stating his support of economic growth and technological innovation as the answer to environmental protection in the long run. Similarly, President Obama categorically agrees to the need for energy innovation in the $90 set aside for clean energy under the Recovery Act, of which third was allocated to research and development (R&D). In this light, both Romney and Obama express support for more research in this area. In the same vein, both candidates have ARPA-E in their individual energy plans and demand for implementation of the ARPA management model elsewhere at DOE (ScienceDebate.org, 2012, 1).
Nonetheless, the plans of the two candidates take diverging routes when it comes to implementation. According to President Obama’s FY2013 budget proposal, he would increase funding in high-risk, high-reward research at ARPA-E, technology development at the National Laboratories, collaborative research via the Energy Innovation Hubs, together with significant investment in basic energy research. On the other hand, Governor Romney promises to make very basic energy research his top priority – which represents a significant shift in focus that the Climate Pragmatism Report indicated would be problematic because it overlooks the limiting factors for breakthrough technology development, such as developing new technologies and piloting new ideas through first-of-kind demonstration. Basically, President Obama is in support of all kinds of energy research while Governor Romney pledges to stay focused on purely on most basic projects.
The two presidential candidates also differ on later-stage technology deployment along with commercialization. President Obama favors the existing package of very limited, blunt deployment policies, such as tax credits for wind but subsidies for solar, which do not show a strong connection for emerging technologies to replicate and market. Conversely, Governor Romney promises to shift public investment from the current deployment incentives to financing energy research, which would in turn facilitate the development of cheaper, better and clean energy technologies as opposed to tapping into uncompetitive areas (ScienceDebate.org, 2012, 2). On this, the governor is yet to provide substantial solutions to the current problem of energy-related procurement & technology which is the problem area of the current national clean energy innovation ecosystem (Berck & Gloria, 2010, 52). In this regard, it remains uncertain how the Governor portends to translate the public investment in energy pilot-projects and demonstration into policy or the federal budget. The incumbent has outlined specific goals for the federal government energy use & greenhouse gas emissions reductions besides supporting an interdepartmental MOA on enabling technology transfer (ScienceDebate.org, 2012, 2). However, neither of the two has offered a policy alternative to facilitate the deployment and commercialization of emerging clean energy technologies. The citizen is thus left with a difficult choice to scale the limited smattering of subsidies and tax incentives on the one hand, or continue them on the other.
In summary, therefore, both Obama and Romney support the important role of the federal government investing in basic energy research but hold almost polar opinions on the funding and structure of energy innovation policy (ScienceDebate.org, 2012, 3).
References:
Berck, Peter, & Helfand, Gloria. 2010. The Economics of the Environment. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
ScienceDebate.org. 2012. The Top American Science Questions: 2012. Retrieved from: http://www.sciencedebate.org/debate12/
