Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Mitt Romney's well-reasoned views on energy and development morphed into a lovefest for fossil fuels as he set his sights on the White House. Photo courtesy of Romney for President

If Mitt Romney the President reverts back to the positions of Mitt Romney the Governor, transportation policy in America could see significant steps forward. Better-maintained roads. Smarter growth. Cleaner air.

But if Mitt Romney the President follows through on the rhetoric of Mitt Romney the Campaigner, it will be a different story.

Not that candidate Romney has talked much about transportation. But he’s made it clear he’s casting his lot with the fossil fuel industry. He’s brought billionaire oil man Harold Hamm into his inner circle as an energy advisor, pushing for more drilling. Romney has raised $11.4 million directly from the energy sector, and far more than that has been poured into anti-Obama, pro-drilling TV ads by oil companies.

What did the oil industry get for their generosity? For starters, Romney’s energy plan reads like a parody of desperate political pandering to Texas oil barons. Maximum drilling is paramount. Reducing oil consumption is a quaint little notion for liberals and sweater-wearers. To candidate Romney, the idea of reversing climate change and slowing the rise of the oceans is a laugh line – a joke that suddenly doesn’t seem so funny to people living by the New Jersey and New York coastline.

Romney is now the standard-bearer for a Republican Party whose platform accuses President Obama of engaging in “social engineering” in pursuit of “an exclusively urban vision of dense housing and government transit.” The GOP platform indulges in Agenda 21 paranoia and doesn’t talk much about renewable energy or fuel efficiency. It brags about the worst parts of the recently-passed transportation bill, revives old calls for the privatization of Amtrak services, and cheers on highway-builders.

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If you want to hear the President say "transit" on the national stage, you have to put the words in his mouth. Image: AP

At last night’s presidential debate in Nassau County, the best opening for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to talk about transportation policy came when undecided voter Phillip Tricolla asked the following question of the President:

QUESTION: Your energy secretary, Steven Chu, has now been on record three times stating it’s not policy of his department to help lower gas prices. Do you agree with Secretary Chu that this is not the job of the Energy Department?

Let’s imagine the contours of the straightforward, leveling-with-America response that never came:

OBAMA: Yes, I do agree with Secretary Chu that it is not the job of the Energy Department to lower gas prices, any more than it’s the job of the Commerce Department to lower the price of tin or cotton.

But there’s a lot we can do to become more resilient in the face of oil price shocks. We can give people real transportation choices — invest more in transit, and in making our streets safer – so you aren’t forced to burn a gallon of gas every time you need to pick up some groceries.

My administration has started us down a smarter path with the Sustainable Communities Initiative and the Department of Transportation’s TIGER program. These programs are laying the groundwork for a 21st Century transportation system that makes our communities more productive and efficient while reducing our addiction to oil. If we make these investments, not only will we free ourselves from constantly worrying about prices at the pump, we’ll also stave off the disaster of climate change and prevent the kind of droughts and other extreme weather events that are battering America.

Feel free to add your own embellishments in the comments.

Maybe in an electoral system where the most valuable votes aren’t highly concentrated in the suburbs of swing states, you would see at least some part of that answer aired in a national debate. But here’s what the candidates actually said — apart from a few references to efficiency and the global oil market from Obama, it was basically a contest to see who could convince America that he would open up more land for fossil fuel extraction:

OBAMA: The most important thing we can do is to make sure we control our own energy. So here’s what I’ve done since I’ve been president. We have increased oil production to the highest levels in 16 years.

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Last month, Mitt Romney held a $50,000 a plate lunch with major donors in Houston. What does a $50,000 lunch buy you besides steak and shrimp? Well, according to a new report from the New York Times, it’ll buy you the presidential contender’s ear. And a lot of folks from the energy industry are eager for that opportunity.

Romney netted $6 million during a lunch with oil tycoons in Houston last month, the Houston Chronicle reports. Photo: Houston Chronicle

During the event, “Mr. Romney solicited advice on energy policy from scores of oil and gas executives,” according to the paper. Romney shared the spotlight with billionaire Oklahoma City oil driller Harold Hamm, who is advising the presidential campaign on energy issues, according to the Houston Chronicle. Romney committed to “opening up [fossil fuel] markets in a much more aggressive way,” if elected.

According to the New York Times special investigation, the fossil fuel industry is having an outsized influence on this presidential campaign season.

More than $153 million has already been poured into ads criticizing President Obama’s energy policies and advocating for increased oil and gas drilling, mostly in swing states like Ohio, Virginia and Pennsylvania. That is four times the number of ads produced by entities promoting clean energy solutions.  The American Petroleum Institute alone has spent $37 million on television ads, according to the paper.

“These are companies and industries that clearly feel threatened,” Ken Goldstein, president of Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, told the New York Times. “And when companies and industries with resources feel threatened, they air advertisements.”

Meanwhile, the imbalance carries over to campaign contributions as well. NYT reports the Romney campaign has benefited from some $13 million in campaign cash from the fossil fuel industry, while Obama has received less than $950,000. Clean energy sources have donated just $78,000 to the Obama campaign, the paper reports.

Out of thin air, House Speaker John Boehner sent an email yesterday with the subject line, “Labor Day Pain: Gas Prices Have Doubled on President Obama’s Watch.” As evidence of the “doubling” charge, Boehner links to his own website, where he claims, “The average price for a gallon of gasoline was $1.85 when President Obama took office.”

Technically, he’s right. There was a sudden and temporary drop in gas prices just at the end of President Bush’s term — probably because there was a massive global recession at the end of President Bush’s term.

Gas prices are actually just about where they were Labor Day 2008, when George W. Bush was president. Source: Gas Buddy

You know who really gets this? Mitt Romney, that’s who. Don’t expect any reality-based commentary like this out of him these days, but back when he was governor of Massachusetts, Romney “responded to price spikes by describing them as the natural result of global market pressures and by calling for increases in fuel efficiency,” according to Alec MacGillis, writing in The New Republic this spring. Under pressure to call for a gas tax holiday when prices were high in 2006, Romney thought better of it. MacGillis quotes Romney:

“I don’t think that now is the time, and I’m not sure there will be the right time, for us to encourage the use of more gasoline,” Romney said, according to the Quincy Patriot Ledger’s report at the time. “I’m very much in favor of people recognizing that these high gasoline prices are probably here to stay.”

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Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick got wild applause last night when he told the Democratic Convention audience:

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick slammed Romney's infrastructure record at the Democratic Convention last night. But should he be throwing stones? Photo: Tannen Maury / European Pressphoto Agency

In Massachusetts, we know Mitt Romney. By the time he left office, Massachusetts was 47th in the nation in job creation—during better economic times—and household income in our state was declining. He cut education deeper than anywhere else in America. Roads and bridges were crumbling… Mitt Romney talks a lot about all the things he’s fixed. I can tell you that Massachusetts wasn’t one of them.

Fact-checking has been a booming business in this election cycle, and the Washington Post was all over Patrick’s speech. It labeled the “crumbling” claim “debatable,” noting that it’s a subjective area. The Post referenced Matt Dellinger’s analysis of Romney’s time as governor of Massachusetts for Transportation Nation:

In 2005, mid-term, he unveiled a twenty-year, $31-billion state transportation plan that re-emphasized his “fix-it-first” convictions, directing “seventy-five percent of all new capital spending toward maintaining and improving the Commonwealth’s existing transportation network.” Hailing the “post-Big-Dig world,” Romney’s plan was modally balanced. Twelve billion went to “reconstructing, decongesting and expanding roadways across the Commonwealth, including all major choke points,” while nine billion went to “achieving a state of good repair on the MBTA’s aging assets.”

Those are funding priorities the federal government would do well to emulate.

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Big oil makes $374 million a day in profits -- which gives them ample resources to pump into presidential politics. Source: Center for American Progress

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney unveiled his energy plan today [PDF]. The idea is to break our addiction to foreign oil — by increasing our addiction to domestic oil. If by “domestic” we mean Canada, Mexico, and the U.S.

Essentially, the plan is to go bananas on oil drilling. States would have the right to drill off their own shores, with merely a federal rubber stamp. Grist’s Philip Bump explains why oil drilling isn’t something that should be left to the states:

There’s a reason that the federal government has a legitimate role in monitoring extraction and resource development: Pollution and impacts don’t stop at state lines. It’s why the EPA is trying to figure out how to regulate cross-state air pollution. Air doesn’t care about borders.

And then there’s the obvious problem: Do residents of Florida want Georgia to build a series of unsafe oil derricks off its coast? Will any state still want to border Texas? Hard to see how this doesn’t result in a production boom — of complaints and lawsuits filed in federal courts.

There’s nothing in the document about reducing fossil fuel consumption. That just doesn’t figure in. No examination of how the nation uses energy and how it could use less. ”By 2025, [Obama's] increased CAFE standards are expected to reduce U.S. oil consumption by about 2.2 million barrels per day,” Brad Plumer writes in the Washington Post. “Without those rules, energy independence looks nearly impossible. And Romney, for his part, has pledged to overturn those fuel-economy rules.” To say nothing of Paul Ryan’s plan to continue outdated policies that enable sprawl and eliminate federal transportation programs that don’t involve highways.

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The Obama campaign has fired the opening salvo in a new presidential campaign front: transportation.

Mitt Romney may be President Obama's opponent in the race for the White House, but VP pick Paul Ryan is the real target of a new ad on transportation. Photo: ZUMA Press

The campaign released seven radio ads in key swing states, each playing to major concerns of voters in those states. The ad now on the airwaves in Virginia focuses on the differences between the two tickets on infrastructure spending. Here’s how Politico describes the ad:

The 60-second radio bit imitates a local traffic report and targets congested routes oft-cursed by northern Virginians: Interstates 395 and 66. The area is part of the sprawling D.C. region and consistently rated as having some of the nation’s worst traffic.

“Could things get any worse?” the faux anchor asks of another broadcaster, who replies, “Paul Ryan put forward a budget plan that slashes investments in road and infrastructure projects.” The two then agree that the Ryan’s “budget plan devastates infrastructure and roads projects.”

The ad also highlights the House Budget chairman’s opposition to “bridge repair and safety bills,” referring to votes against a bridge repair bill written in the aftermath of the 2007 I-35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis, the 2009 stimulus package and a 2011 appropriations bill written by Democrats.

The ad ends by saying that Romney’s pick of Ryan sends a message:

“Mitt Romney doesn’t understand northern Virginia.”

Given that nearly 40 percent of radio listeners are in their cars at any given time, this radio ad is likely to hit people at the time they can most relate to the message. But they should note – and the president’s policies do reflect this – that the cure for morning rush hour on 395 isn’t just a faster-moving road for them to drive on.

After all, parts of Northern Virginia are leaders in congestion mitigation solutions that don’t involve mindless road widening schemes. The region is served by the second-busiest rail transit system in the country, and even suburban areas have built high-density development around transit stations. Arlington, Virginia was a pioneering host of Capital Bikeshare, with Alexandria now deciding they want in on the action.

Support for these types of innovative programs is the real difference between President Obama and the Romney/Ryan ticket.

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When it comes to transportation and energy policy, it’s tough to tell exactly where Mitt Romney stands, but there’s a lot to be learned by watching whom he’s keeping close.

Billionaire oil driller Harold Hamm is serving as an advisor to the Romney campaign and believes that America can drill its way out of its energy problems. Photo: Washington Post

Yesterday we covered how his VP choice, Paul Ryan, looks to be a policy disaster for sustainable transportation. Ryan indicated in his attention-grabbing but largely symbolic 2012 budget proposal that he would eliminate “dozens of separate highway programs,” presumably TIGER, high-speed rail, safe routes to school and other “highway programs” that build other things besides highways.

Here’s another interesting figure in the Romney camp. The Washington Post reports that one of his big financial backers is the CEO of Continental Resources, an oil exploration company based in Oklahoma best known for its leading role in extracting fossil fuels from the Bakken formation, which stretches across parts of Montana, North Dakota, and Saskatchewan.

Harold Hamm, the world’s 76th richest man, has some interesting thoughts, one might say, about energy policy. He makes no secret that he thinks more environmentally intensive oil drilling practices should be actively promoted and subsidized by the government. And he’s not a fan of the Obama administration’s policies to support renewable energy sources and reduced reliance on fossil fuels. On a website Hamm calls “CEO Insights,” the 66-year-old multi-billionaire has this to say:

Since President Obama’s election three and a half years ago, he and his administration have done everything in their power to stop fossil fuel usage, including a carbon tax, increased federal regulations, delays in federal permitting, infrastructure permitting denials for the Keystone XL Pipeline, capital starvation for drilling by the elimination of intangible drilling costs, and depletion allowance. All of these actions are designed to result in higher costs at the pump for the consumer. At the same time, there are billions of dollars in subsidies being given to solar, wind and all other alternative sources of energy.

In short, the President is opposed to drilling for oil and gas to supply America’s needs and future. I have been in this business for over 45 years and I can assure you there just isn’t any way to coax oil and gas from the rocks they are in to bring them to the surface for consumption without drilling a well! The President is faced with a situation today which even he doesn’t have the power to stop. I will just call it the modern-day American Energy Renaissance.

He goes on to explain how fracking and horizontal drilling technology could be used to drastically expand domestic fossil fuel production.

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Mitt Romney won Iowa by 8 votes a day after making a weak argument against federal funding of Amtrak. Photo: Getty Images

In a landslide (er, eight-vote) victory over former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum in the Iowa caucus last night, Mitt Romney solidified his lead over the rag-tag field of GOP nominees. He also took an opportunity, the day before the caucus, to make a tired old argument against public support of passenger rail service.

I gotta cap federal spending, and then I’ve got to balance the budget. Now how do you go about doing that?

[Brief heckling interlude]

My view is this: What you do to get our budget in line is you say this. You take all the programs the federal government has, and you say, “Which of these programs is so critical that we gotta have it?” And those things we keep.

But those programs that don’t pass the following test we gotta get rid of, and this is my test: Is this program so critical it’s worth borrowing money from China to pay for it? And on that basis we’ll get rid of some programs, even some we like.

[Takes an easy shot at "Obamacare".]

And there’s some other things — look, Amtrak ought to stand on its own feet or its own wheels or whatever you’d say. And I like the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities but I’m not willing to borrow money from China to pay for it.

(Hat tip to Transportation Nation for breaking the story and providing the audio.)

In this brief moment, Romney staked out several positions that distinguish him from the rest of the pack. First, he acknowledged the existence of federal programs worth keeping — not something many Republicans want to do in these slash-and-burn days. And second, he actually mentioned transportation, which most of the field has completely ignored.

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All eyes are on Texas Gov. Rick Perry these days, the faraway frontrunner in the Republican race. But as the primary goes on (and on and on) more Republicans might take note of the fact that in a matchup with President Obama, only one candidate stands a chance of winning: former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

As governor of Massachusetts, Romney had a mixed record on transit and smart growth. Photo: Daily Caller

According to the most recent polling data, Obama trounces Gov. Perry. He makes mincemeat of Bachmann and Gingrich. Only one poll shows a winning Republican candidate, and that’s Romney, with a two percent edge over the president in a recent USA Today poll.

We took a hard look at Rick Perry’s approach to transportation last fall, when he was running for re-election. As Texas governor, Perry championed a mega-highway plan that would make the Road Gang blush. He blocked metrorail extensions and vulnerable users legislation.

But what about Romney? His record as a red governor of the blue state of Massachusetts is a little more complex, and worth exploring.

In a recent Boston Globe story comparing current Democratic Governor Deval Patrick with his predecessor, Romney emerges as the more inspired candidate when it comes to smart growth. (It doesn’t help that Patrick was caught driving around in an SUV last week while telling his constituents to observe car-free week.)

According to the Globe, Patrick has done away with a program originated under Romney to encourage “mixed-use, walkable, downtown-centered, transit-oriented growth” and counter sprawl.

Under the Romney program, communities got credit for green building, saving energy, preserving open space, and zoning reform, among many other categories. Those that scored highest went to the front of the line to receive about $500 million per year in grants and revolving loan funds for infrastructure including water and sewer projects. The idea was to put state funding to municipalities through a filter, and reward innovation in sustainability at the local level; previously the money was just doled out.

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