Dr. Conca opines that Party Platforms are generally tools to appease the faithful, and the Democratic and Republican Party 2016 Platforms do just that. However, in different ways, both of these platforms would do irreparable harm to our National environmental health and energy infrastructure. Unfortunately, this has become a normal state of affairs in the new ideology-over-science era that America has entered over the past few years. Kiona Davis and Tammy Adereti compared the Democratic and Republican platforms with respect to energy issues, and they found the parties even further apart than normal.
There does not seem to be any centrism remaining in either platform. When Bernie Sanders donned the Democratic mantle last year, he performed so well in the primaries that he got to change the Democratic Party Platform on many things. But his fervent anti-fracking and anti-nuclear stands have killed the Democratic Party rational all-of-the-above energy strategy. All-of-the-above is the only way to quickly decrease coal, reduce emissions, maintain reliability and retain a diverse energy mix in time to avert the worst of climate change. Fortunately, Hillary Clinton has already laid out her energy policy and it is the rational all-of-the-above strategy. She has a goal of achieving 33% of U.S. electricity from non-carbon-emitting sources by 2027, particularly by installing a half-billion rooftop solar panels by 2020. She is also committed to maintaining our nuclear energy fleet since it produces most of our carbon-free power in case the rush-to-solar and wind dissolve because of increasing costs. The new Democratic Platform is unlikely to change her thinking, or her actions as President, on energy.
Energy is one of those areas that is critical to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is very dependent on our scientific understanding about what is real. Extreme partisanship in this area can do grave damage.
Original URL: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/09/01/election-2016-both-party-platforms-fail-america-on-energy/#b6fda04286a6
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