Mitt Romney ability be the country’s No. 1 brownwasher. While accumulated America tries to acrylic itself as greener than it absolutely is, accumulated America’s presumptive applicant tries to acrylic himself as browner than he absolutely is — or at atomic was.
We aren’t fooled. Sure, he mocks able cars, extols the virtues of coal, and argues that we should be drill-baby-drilling our way to lower gas prices. Yes, he bashes the EPA and has arranged his agents with EPA haters. OK, he wants to accumulate handing out billions to Big Oil and accede the Keystone XL pipeline.
But if you dent abroad at that amber paint, there’s a band of blooming underneath. (As for what’s beneath that layer, and again the one beneath that, who knows?) When he was governor of Massachusetts, Romney was about as blooming as Republicans get (if you don’t calculation the now-disgraced Governator, and abounding Republicans don’t). Check out these eco-friendly stances from Romney’s past:
Coal: While Romney was in the governor’s mansion, Massachusetts absurd bottomward on abuse from coal-fired ability plants. In a angry accent in advanced of one decidedly begrimed bulb in 2003, Romney said he would not abutment coal-plant jobs “that annihilate people.”
Now he says, “In my administration, atramentous will not be a four-letter word.” He wants to “utilize” our atramentous affluence “to the fullest extent,” akin if the consistent abuse is lethal.
Gas prices: In 2006, during a amount spike, Romney swatted abroad calls to append a accompaniment gas tax, saying, “I don’t anticipate that now is the time, and I’m not abiding there will be the appropriate time, for us to animate the use of added gasoline.”
Now he says, “The best affair we can do to get the amount of gas to be added abstinent and not accept to be abased aloft the bunch is: assignment in the Gulf, assignment in the alien abstemious shelf, assignment in ANWR, assignment in North Dakota, South Dakota, assignment in Oklahoma and Texas” — never apperception that his own bread-and-butter aggregation disagrees.
Cleantech investment: In 2003, Romney created a taxpayer-financed Blooming Action Fund to advice renewable-energy companies get off the ground.
Now he bashes Obama for accomplishing the aforementioned affair at the federal level.
Fuel economy: In 2007, Romney alleged for autos to get 50 afar per gallon, and lamented that CAFE standards hadn’t been activated to trucks.
Now he argues CAFE rules accept been “disadvantageous for calm manufacturers” and says, “We charge to get the government out of these companies’ hair.”
Plug-in cars: In 2007, Romney alleged for added constituent electric cars as a way of abbreviation carbon dioxide emissions.
Now he ridicules the Chevy Volt, an American-made constituent amalgam electric, and pours contemptuousness on apple-pie action and blooming cars akin by saying, “you can’t drive a car with a windmill on top.”
Climate change: As governor, Romney alien the Massachusetts Altitude Protection Plan, and helped advance and appearance a carbon cap-and-trade affairs for Northeastern states, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (though he pulled his accompaniment out at the aftermost minute — coincidentally, aloof as he started angling to run for president). In his 2010 book, he wrote, “I accept that altitude change is occurring — the abridgement in the admeasurement of all-around ice caps is adamantine to ignore. I additionally accept that animal action is a accidental factor.” In 2011, he said that we charge to abate emissions of greenhouse gases, a animadversion that won him acclaim from Al Gore.
That nod from the Goracle ability accept been what goaded him into brownwashing his record, as he’s been steadily abetment abroad from akin bashful altitude affair anytime since. A few months ago, he went so far as to say, “we don’t apperceive what’s causing altitude change on this planet.”
Careful with your close there — you could get whiplash aggravating to accumulate clue of all this.
So which of these angle represent the absolute Romney? Some of his big-money backers anticipate he’s got a blooming amount and would action altitude change already in office. Don’t bet on it. A Admiral Romney would be bound to bourgeois donors, amidst by bourgeois advisors, and anxious of bourgeois voters — at atomic until he won a additional term.
On Earth Day, April 22, Romney is appointed to appointment Greencastle, Penn., and accomplish a accent at the Blooming Grove Gardens accident center. The old Romney ability accept acclimatized on that blooming theme. The fresh Romney ability appetite to move his accent to Brownsville, Penn., instead.
